‘Look, we said if your belly’s still freaking you you’d go see the doctor, right? You get down there now and do our shopping on the way back. You can do it at the corner shops, you don’t need to go down the Broadway.’

Marty crawled off the mattress and into the kitchen where he ran water over his hands and slopped a little on to his face. The kitchen walls and floor were moving and slanting like in a crazy house at a fair. He took a swig of whisky to steady himself and managed to struggle into his clothes. It didn’t help that Joyce, sitting up on the sofa with the blanket cocooned around her, was watching him almost with compassion or as if she were genuinely afraid he might fall down dead any minute.

An icy mist, thick, white and still, greeted him when he opened the front door. It wasn’t far to Dr Miskin’s, not more than a couple of hundred yards, but it felt more like five miles to Marty who clung to lamp-posts as he staggered along and finally had to sit down on the stone steps of a chapel. There he was found by a policeman on the beat. Marty felt too ill to care about being spoken to by a policeman, and the policeman could see he was ill, not drunk.

‘You’re not fit to be out in this,’ said the policeman.

‘On my way to the doc,’ said Marty.

‘Best place for you. Here, I’ll give you a hand.’

So Marty Foster was conducted into Dr Miskin’s waiting room on the kindly arm of the law.

Nigel knew Marty would be quite a long time because he hadn’t made an appointment. That sort of morning surgery – he knew all about it from the giving if not the receiving end – could well go on till noon, so he didn’t get worried. Marty would be back by lunchtime with some food. He was hungry and Joyce kept whimpering that she was hungry, but so what? Nobody got malnutrition because they hadn’t eaten for twelve hours.

At one o’clock they shared the can of chicken soup, eating it cold because it was thicker and more filling that way. There was now no food left. Marty was fool enough, Nigel thought, to have taken his prescription to a chemist who closed for lunch. That would be it. He had gone to the chemist at five to one, and now he was having to wait till two when they opened again. Probably wouldn’t even have the sense to do the shopping in the meantime.

‘Suppose he doesn’t come back?’ said Joyce.

‘You missing him, are you? I didn’t know you cared.’

The mist had gone and it was a beautiful clear day, sunshine making the room quite warm. Soon they could stop using any heat, and when the fridge came and the TV . . . Nigel saw himself lounging on the sofa with a long glass of martini and crushed ice in his hand, watching a film in glorious colour, while Joyce washed his clothes and polished his shoes and grilled him a steak. Half-past two. Any time now and that little brain would be back. If he’d had the sense to take a couple of pills straight-away he might be fit enough to get down to the electrical discount shop before it closed.

Nigel told himself he was standing by the window because it was nice to feel a bit of sun for a change. He watched old Green coming back from the Broadway with shopping in a string bag. He saw a figure turning into the street from Chichele Road, and for a minute he thought it was Marty, the jeans, the leather jacket, the pinched bony face and the cropped hair. It wasn’t.

‘Watching for him won’t bring him,’ said Joyce who was forcing herself, rather feebly, to knit once more.

‘I’m not watching for him.’

‘He’s been gone nearly seven hours.’

‘So what?’ Nigel shouted at her. ‘Is it any goddamned business of yours? He’s got things to get, hasn’t he? Him and me, we can’t sit about on our arses all day.’

They both jumped at the sound of the phone. Nigel said, ‘You come down with me,’ pointing the gun, but by the time they were out on the landing the bell had stopped. No one had come up from the lower floors of the house. In the heavy warm silence, Nigel propelled Joyce back into the room and they sat down again. Past three and Marty hadn’t come.

‘I’m hungry,’ Joyce said.

‘Shut up.’

Nothing happened for an hour, two hours. Although Nigel had turned off the oven, the heat was growing oppressive, for the room faced west. If the police had got Marty, Nigel thought, they would have been here by now. But he couldn’t still be wandering about Cricklewood with a prescription, could he? The knitting fell from Joyce’s fingers, and her head went back and she dozed. With a jerk she came to herself again, and seeing that neither Nigel nor the gun were putting up any opposition, she dragged herself over to the mattress and lay down on it. She pulled the covers over her and buried her face.

Nigel stood at the window. It was half-past five and the sun was going down into a red mist. There were a lot of people about, but no Marty. Nigel felt hollow inside, and not just from hunger. He started to pace the room, looking sometimes at Joyce, hating her for sleeping, for not caring what happened. Presently he took advantage of her sleeping to go out to the lavatory.

The phone screamed at him.

He left the door wide open and ran down. Keeping the gun turned on that open door, he picked up the receiver. Pip-pip-pip, then the sound of money going in and, Christ, Marty’s voice.

‘What the hell goes?’ Nigel hissed.

‘Nige, I rung before but no one answered. Listen, I’m in the hospital.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Yeah, listen. I’m really sick, Nige. I got hepa-something, something with my liver. That’s why I’m all yellow.’

‘Hepatitis.’

‘That’s him, hepatitis. I passed out in the doc’s and they brought me here. God knows how I got it, the doctor don’t know, maybe from all that takeaway. They give me the phone trolley to phone you and they want my gear brought in. They want a razor, Nige, and a toothbrush and I don’t know what. I wouldn’t tell them who you was or where and . . .’

‘You’ve got to get out right now. You’ve got to split like this minute. Right?’

‘Are you kidding? I can’t bloody walk. I got to be in here a week, that’s what they say, and you’re to bring . . .’

‘Shut up! Will you for fuck’s sake shut up? You’ve got to get dressed and get a taxi and come right back here. Can’t you get it in your thick head we’ve got no food?’

Pip-pip-pip.

‘I haven’t got no more change, Nige.’

Nigel bellowed into the phone, ‘Get dressed and get a taxi and come home now. If you don’t, Christ, I’ll get you if it’s the last . . .’ The phone went dead and the dialling tone started. Nigel closed his eyes. He leant against the bathroom door. Then he trailed upstairs again. Joyce woke up, coming to herself at once as she always did.

‘What’s happening?’

‘Marty got held up. He’ll be here in an hour.’

But would he? He always did what he was told, but that was when he was here in this room. Would he when he was miles away in a hospital bed? Nigel realized he didn’t even know what hospital, he hadn’t asked. He heard the diesel throb of a taxi from the street below several times in the next hour. Joyce washed her face and hands and looked at the empty bookcase and drank some water.

‘What’s happened to him? He isn’t going to come, is he?’

‘He’ll come.’

Joyce said, ‘He was ill. He went to the doctor’s. I bet he’s in hospital.’

‘I told you, he’s coming back tonight.’

When it got to ten, Nigel knew for certain that Marty wouldn’t come. He came back from the window where he had been standing for an hour, and turning to look at Joyce, he found that her eyes were fixed on him. Her eyes were animal-like and full of panic. He and she were alone together now, each the prisoner of the other. He had never seen her look so frightened, but instead of gratifying him, her fear made him frightened too. He no longer wanted her as his slave, he wanted her dead, but he heard the red-haired girl on the phone and then Bridey coming in, and he only fingered the gun, keeping the safety catch on.