The Doorkeepers Read Free Page A

but it was fastened to the window frame with thumbtacks. She lifted an edge of it and peeked out. It looked right over Chiswick High Road, still crowded with buses and cyclists and homegoing cars.
    â€œWant to see the bedroom?” asked Frank Mordant. “The bedroom’s nice. Only had it redecorated in September.”
    He opened the door that led to the bedroom. It was just large enough for a double bed covered with a pink candlewick bedspread, a wardrobe and a chair with a leatherette seat. The walls had been stippled with pale blue distemper. Over the bed hung a fan-shaped mirror with two picture postcards stuck in it, and on the pillow lay a defeated-looking golliwog.
    â€œWell …” said Julia. The flat wasn’t as seedy as she had expected it to be. Frank Mordant was right: one or two colorful pictures would make the whole place look much more welcoming, and she could cover that deadly black couch with the sunflower-patterned throw she had bought from Habitat. Living here would save her more than one pound a week on rent, and nearly as much as that again on bus fares.
    She came back into the living room. She found Frank Mordant tinkering with the video camera. He swiveled around like a floorwalker in a department store and wrung his hands together.
    â€œWhat do you think, then? It’s really quite cozy, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt doesn’t get too noisy, does it, with the pub downstairs?”
    Frank Mordant shook his head. “I won’t lie to you, there
is
a bit of a racket at closing time. Car doors slamming, everybody saying goodnight, things like that. But it doesn’t last for long. And here’s the secret ingredient.” He knelt down and lifted up one corner of the carpet. “Underfelt, double-thick, almost completely soundproof. I had it laid so that I could play my music as loud as I liked. You could scream your head off in here and nobody would hear you.”
    Julia took another look around. “It’s interesting … I’d like to think it over, if I may.”
    â€œOf course. Take as long as you like. Before you go, though, there is one thing you might like to consider.”
    He went to the kitchenette. She didn’t know whether she was supposed to follow him or not, so she waited. She lifted the edge of the blind again, and looked down into the street. The road was noisier here than her terrace in Lavender Hill, but she didn’t really mind the background jostle of traffic.
    â€œDo you know which bus—?” she began; and then she was suddenly aware that Frank Mordant was standing right behind her. She hadn’t heard him, hadn’t even sensed him approaching.
    Without a word he clamped a thick white cloth over her nose and mouth, as thick as a muslin diaper. It reeked with a pungent, chemical smell – a smell that seared her nostrils and burned her eyes. She gave a panicky snuffle and breathed it in. She staggered against him, tried to struggle, and managed to snatch at his wristwatch. But he kept the cloth pressed firmly against her face, and as she tried to pull away from him the room tilted on its end and the floor came toward her like a dark, silently slamming door.

Two
    Julia was woken up by a penetrating white light shining in her eyes. Gradually she opened her eyes a little wider, but the light dazzled her so much that she closed them again. Her head was throbbing and there was a biting, astringent taste in her mouth. She felt chilled, and weak, as if she had the ‘flu, and she was conscious of something harsh encircling her neck.
    â€œAh, coming round,” said Frank Mordant’s voice. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”
    She opened her eyes again. She was lying on a prickly woolen blanket on the floor and Frank Mordant was looking down at her with a grin. Somebody else was looking down at her, too – a suntanned man with very white hair.
    â€œGot us a beauty this time,