Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained
IX.
"-no, I'm fine! Please just be careful with him. I don't know how badly he's hurt-"
Englehorn breathed the clean air, closed his eyes and leant back against the wall. He needed to stop and rest his tired, aching body for just a moment. He let the sound of Mary's voice wash over him while he did so.
It wasn't the words that were important- just the sound of her voice. It had taken time to train his ear to her accent. It wasn't the clipped cold plumy tones of the English middle classes; it was broader and warmer, with a rolling R that gave his own surname a unique inflection that made it her own.
Most importantly, however, if she was close enough for him to hear then she was safe and he could relax.
"-and she wants me to help her."
Englehorn opened his eyes when he realised that Mary was now addressing him. She bit her lip and stared back at him with concern, undoubtedly believing that he wasn't paying attention. She tried again.
"Some of the porters have arrived to take people to hospital. Edith wants me to-" she broke off suddenly.
Englehorn didn't understand why, at least not until he realised that the floor was vibrating. He grabbed Mary's arm.
"Move!" he commanded, pulling her up the stairs that led to the theatre's foyer as the cataclysmic boom of the auditorium collapsing followed them.
They stopped in the middle of what was left of the little makeshift hospital. Safe. For the moment. Englehorn felt as though every muscle in his body was wound like a spring, but the extra adrenaline surge seemed to have had the opposite effect on Mary. She sagged weakly against his shoulder, as though finally defeated.
"I can't take much more of this," she confessed quietly. There was an unnerving wobble to her voice. He felt responsible for it.
"We need to finish evacuating this building now!" a man in uniform shouted.
One of the injured women screamed. "I'm not going outside with that monster on the loose!"
Englehorn could feel Mary's eyes on him. God help him, he couldn't resist their lure, but he wished he had when he saw the conflict in their troubled depths. She knew what he had brought back to New York now. She had suffered the consequences.
It was a hard cross to bear. It reminded him rather too keenly of the other people who had paid for his mistakes- in far too many cases, with their lives. Mary would never forgive him for the part that he had played in the deaths of the men that she had loved. But he had known that for weeks. Just as he knew he would never forgive himself.
"Come on," he said, as he propelled her forwards, out into the cold night air.
She would have stopped, if he had let her, she would have made sure that every one of those people left that theatre before she did, but there was only one life that Englehorn was concerned with that night, and he was in no mood to watch her risk it again.
Outside, Mary looked around the street nervously. It was eerily quiet and empty. She grew paler as she noted the fallen stonework, the overturned cars and the broken buildings.
"Where do you think it is?" she asked, eyes darting everywhere.
"I don't know."
He didn't want to have this conversation. He could feel that they were edging ever closer to a point of no return. He wanted to dig in his heels and slow that process for as long as possible.
Mary shivered, and not merely with fear, her torn dress was thin and her arms were bare. In a final act of chivalry, Englehorn shrugged off his coat. She was obviously too cold to refuse the offer of extra warmth as he draped it around her shoulders. It seemed as though her mind was only able to focus on one thing, however.
"Do you think they've caught it yet?"
"I don't know, Mary."
"You could have offered to help them," she said. He wasn't sure if she was being serious. "I'm sure they would have been interested in your particular brand of expertise."
"I doubt they care about capturing it alive now."
"No. I suppose not." She was quiet for a moment. "It killed them, didn't it? Mr Hayes and the others?"
"Yes and no."
"That's not a very good answer."
"Then ask me an easier question."
She tilted her head to one side slightly as she looked up at him. "I don't think I have many easy questions for you at the moment."
---
He followed her to the hospital and waited. It seemed the natural thing to do. Where else was he supposed to go?
At least the hours weren't exactly wasted. Englehorn spent them finding out what had happened to Kong. He picked up new information from the less serious casualties as they were admitted to the hospital. It was just after dawn when the news broke that the ape was dead.
Englehorn didn't know how to react. He supposed he felt a small measure of relief. No one else would be hurt. It might also bring Jimmy some closure, but he felt no satisfaction that things had come to an end this way. He felt only the needless waste of it all, but perhaps even more keenly, he felt his own position as a pawn on Carl Denham's chessboard.
Before he could dwell too deeply, however, Mary appeared and found him in the corridor.
"You're still here?" she sounded surprised. He wondered how that was possible?
"So are you."
"Matron told me to go home."
Englehorn nodded, pleased that someone had made her see sense, even if it hadn't been him. He hoped the matron had also managed to examine Mary's head injury, not that he had allowed anyone to attend to his own cuts and bruises. He held out a hand to her, which she took without speaking and allowed him to guide her home.
She lived relatively close to the hospital, in a tiny little one-room apartment that she rented from some ogre of a landlady. Englehorn imagined that she was far too exhausted to do anything but stumble over her own feet and allow herself to be governed by him as he steered her down the streets. He imagined wrong.
"When did it seem like a good idea?"
He pretended he hadn't heard, and then he pretended he hadn't understood.
"To bring the ape back to New York?" Mary clarified, tugging him to a stop outside her front door.
How was he supposed to answer that question? He took his time. He was trying to determine the truth amid the lies that he had told himself.
"Thomas?"
The disarming sound of his name on her lips was a disaster. For a third time, it compelled him to act without thinking.
"Never. It never seemed like a good idea."
"Never?" She sounded both confused and appalled. "But then- I don't understand why."
"Don't you?"
"No!"
"I did it for the money."
"The money?" Mary looked sceptical, and then she looked shocked. "You led more than a dozen men to their deaths for the money?!"
"You don't understand."
"Of course I don't understand! Who would understand that?"
"You weren't there."
"No, I wasn't. I've been told as much before. I wasn't there, but I'm still capable of determining right from wrong! If you think I'll accept that as an excuse for your actions then you're sadly mistaken."
"I didn't realise I was accountable to you," he said coldly.
He took a step forwards, ashamed to admit that he was trying to intimate her into silence. It didn't work. She narrowed her eyes, guessing his intent, which only heightened his shame.
"Don't," she snapped. "I'm warning you-" Mary began. It was exactly the wrong thing to say given Englehorn's current frame of mind. She seemed to realise that the second she spoke because her voice broke off prematurely.
Those three little words had never failed to goad a reaction from him. He had been trying to fight it, but he felt his own anger reach the level of hers in a flash. He couldn't- wouldn't ever strike her, so he did the only other thing that he could do to silence her wounding mouth.
He kissed her. Hard. Swallowing the startled gasp that fled her lips. At every moment he expected her hand to slap his face. He could taste the anger on her tongue. It burned right through the core of his body, fuelling his desire to make her submit- or maybe it was just fuelling his desire.
She was so soft and pliant in his arms, and she had never allowed him this close before. Perhaps he wanted to punish her a little for that too.
"Mary…"
"No," she breathed, albeit shakily. She wrenched herself free. "I don't know what you're playing at but I need you to stop."
"You think I'm playing?"
"I don't know what to think anymore!"
"You wanted to know the truth."
"I wanted you to tell me the truth! There's a difference."
"The facts are the same."
"No!" she cried. Her voice cracked. "You treat me like a bloody fool. You tell me half-truths and part-stories and you still expect me to jump when you snap your fingers. You yell at me, you manhandle me, you- you kiss me! And I've had enough!" Her chest was heaving and her eyes were overly bright. She stared at him accusingly. He met her gaze without flinching. A muscle twitched in his clenched jaw.
"Have you finished?"
"Yes- no! I never thought you were a stupid man. I certainly never thought that you were so selfish that you'd risk the lives of your own crew on-"
"Enough!" he roared. "You've said enough." He couldn't listen to any more. "I understand."
"No, you don't understand! You just-" she stopped abruptly. He watched her falter. She lifted a shaky hand to her head and swayed dangerously.
"Mary?"
"You just think-" she tried a second time, but was forced to stop again.
He hesitated as she closed her eyes, all the colour had gone from her face. She cursed under her laboured breathing. He'd never heard her swear before but that was the second time she'd managed it in as many minutes. She pressed a hand against the cut on her forehead, biting her lip against the dizzy pain he could see she was feeling.
He was frozen, helpless, furious and afraid, but when her knees buckled he was still there to catch her.
