It's half-past midnight, and the streets near the River Thames are dimly-lit and largely deserted, save for the long-haul lorries and the odd taxicab out on the prowl for a late-night fare.
The first two drivers swerve and accelerate past the rabidly shrieking bloke with the limp bundle in his arms. A third indignantly sounds his horn and hollers hellfire into his rear-view mirror, offering Nosty an enraged two-fingered salute. London cabbies know far better than to tap their brake peddles near the Waterloo Bridge after sundown. Really, there's no telling what sort of radge waster might crawl into your bloody backseat and stick a switchblade to your neck.
"Fer fuck's sake—Jesus, somebody help us!"
Nosty gasps and wheezes, struggling to fill up his burning lungs with air and carry on shouting at the very same time. Belle is slack and silent in his arms, her ashen face pressed tight against his filthy, blood-stained t-shirt. Her eyes are partly-closed, and her visible cheek is smeared with vulgar red.
Nosty adjusts his grip, heaving his injured, feather-light bird up higher and closer to his pounding heart, pressing his wet fingers more securely to the open, weeping wound at her neck. For the first time since he was a frightened, wee muppet of four—stuffing his little shirts and skids and breeks and socks into yet another trash bag, climbing into yet another social worker's cluttered backseat, moving on to yetanother fucking 'placement,' another fucking 'forever home'—Nosty grits his teeth and begins to pray.
"Please, Belle….oh, please, Jesus…"
He can feel her chances tick-tick-ticking away with every pitilessly passing minute, slipping out between his curled fingers and spilling onto the asphalt beneath his boots.
Finally—fucking finally—the next set of yellow headlights appears, and Nosty spins around to face them, drawing in a jagged breath, preparing himself to run. He thinks it far better to die with his love in his arms than to watch helplessly while her body slowly shuts off the lights—so Nosty bellows like a goddamn madman and dashes out into the center of the A3211, blocking the path of the quickly approaching hackney carriage. There is a stomach-turning shriek of brake pads meeting metal….the stuck-pig squeal of tires skidding over wet pavement….the noxious, searing scent of burnt rubber….and then the hackney slides to an abrupt halt, its gleaming black bonnet less than a yard from where Nosty is standing, his eyes squeezed shut.
He wastes no time.
"Hey! Aye, bawheed! Open the fuck up—she's fucking dying here!" Nosty runs over and begins frantically kicking at the driver's side door, denting it. If only he could take his hand off of Belle's limp neck for a moment—well, then he'd put his fucking fist right through this hackney's window and haul this useless, goggle-eyed driver right out of his fucking leather car seat, wouldn't he?
Not that Nosty knows how to fucking drive.
The familiar, anxious litany begins, knocking things loose within his skull, relentlessly taunting: Fucking hopeless. Fucking friendless. Fucking worthless. Fucking hopeless. Fucking friendless. Fucking worthless. She'll die because you can't so much as drive a fucking car. She'll die just because she fucking met you.
Nosty grimaces and cracks his jaw and struggles away from his tyrannical inner undertow. Belle needs him. She needs him—now.
He may be shite, but he's all she's fucking got.
He sees the feart, elderly cabbie peering out through his sleet-spattered window, considering and reconsidering, his uncertain hand hovering over the metal door lock.
"Fucking please, man. She's a—she's a good person."
Nosty's voice cracks on the word 'good,' and he ducks his forehead, pressing it against Belle's cold temple, beginning to cry once more. There is a breathless moment of dark and quiet, with his long hair shielding them both from the lurid streetlights and the cruel winter wind. He kisses his beautiful bird's soft, blood-smeared cheek, telling her, "You're such a good person. Oh sweetheart, you're the bestfucking person. You're the only good person I've ever met."
There is a soft click, and then the hackney's passenger door swings open. The driver tells him gruffly, "Get in, lad. Come on."
Nosty lifts his head and exhales in disbelief. The white steam swirls upwards and disappears into the starless night sky.
He makes a mad dash around the hackney's bonnet for the open door, collapsing into the passenger seat and pressing backwards against the leather headrest so that the cabbie's hand can reach across his lap and pull the door firmly shut. Thank Jesus Belle is so fucking wee. With her head tucked into the slope of his shoulder and her bent knees pulled up high over his right arm, she fits easily into the narrow space between his chest and the glove compartment.
"St. Thomas Hospital," Nosty gasps, "Ah, fuck—take York Road to Addington. Third exit—mind the roundabout." Thank Christ he's got a mental map of London tucked inside his head, along with the other fucking oddities rattling around in there.
"Nah, lad," the cabbie tells him, roughly throwing the hackney into 'drive' and eyeing the unconscious girl who is bleeding all over his tidy upholstery, "There's heavy construction over near the Shell Centre, all the way down to Plaza Street. St. Thomas will take us longer. Shite, let's see, ah—it'll have to be King's College."
The cabbie stomps hard on his gas peddle, promising Nosty, "With the alleys and side streets, I can get you there in twelve, maybe thirteen minutes tops. Still, faster than an ambulance, right?"
Nosty nods but doesn't reply aloud. He cradles his beautiful bird securely, tight and close to his chest, keeping her warm, brushing tangled, blood-matted strands of hair away from her lips with the tip of his nose, whispering fiercely, "Hold on, love. Hold on." The hackney carriage careens down the A301, swerving in and out of the sparse, late-night traffic.
"What happened to her?" the cabbie asks, making a sharp turn into an alley without so much as bothering with his blinker.
"She met the wrong bloke," Nosty says quietly, "Just drive."
To his credit, the cabbie keeps his yap zipped after that and speeds right past the King's College Hospital short-term parking ramp, accelerating towards the crowded ambulance bay, laying loudly and urgently on the hackney's horn. Nurses dressed in winter coats, sensible shoes, and cheery, robin's-egg-blue scrubs come running out of the automated glass doors, shouting at the reckless driver.
Everything that follows happens very, very fast.
A nurse yanks open the passenger side door, and Nosty stumbles out of the taxicab with Belle held aloft in his arms. Someone is shouting loudly at someone else to 'bring over a goddamn gurney,' and everyone is asking him questions all at once: "What caused the laceration?" "How deep is the puncture wound?" "How much blood has she lost?" "How long ago did this happen?" "How long has she been unconscious?" "What is her blood type?" "Is she on any medications?" "Does she have any allergies?" "Is she breathing?"
Overwhelmed, Nosty answers as best can: "It was, ah, fuck—it was a switchblade. It was a rusty switchblade that's been Christ-knows-where, and it went in deep. I don't know how much fucking blood she's lost. A lot of fucking blood. It happened maybe…ach, maybe twenty minutes ago? Probably more. Shite, I don't know her blood type…"
I don't know. I don't know. Sweet Jesus, I don't know.
A lanky paramedic with arms like saplings makes to lift Belle out of Nosty's protective clutch, and for a irrational moment he resists the help being offered him, clinging to the slight-sweet weight of her body, memorizing her lovely, unconscious face—but then his mind sputters back to life, and, wincing, he lets go of her. Belle is lowered onto a wheeled stretcher, and the nurses and paramedics all gather around, all yelling things he cannot begin to understand, cutting open Belle's expensive button-down shirt, covering her mouth with a clear, plastic air mask and pumping oxygen into her lungs.
"Do you know this woman?" someone shouts at him, "Are you a family member who can make medical decisions for her?"
"Yeah, I fucking know her. I'm her, ah…"
Well, he's her what, exactly? Her sweetheart, for a little while. And also her 'only love.' Her treasure. Her sweet baby. Her beautiful boy.
"I'm her friend. I'm coming with her."
"Sorry, son, family only," a middle-aged nurse informs him, flicking her short fingernails against some plastic tubing, starting an IV.
"I'm coming with her," Nosty tells the nurses and paramedics, following Belle through the automated glass doors, keeping his hand on the rattling stretcher, brushing his fingertips through her hair.
"Family only past here, lad," a tall, broad-chested hospital attendant repeats at the elevators, placing a firm hand on Nosty's shoulder. "There might be some difficult decisions that lie ahead. See if you can find someone who can help make them for her."
"What do you mean, 'difficult decisions?'" Nosty snarls furiously, knocking the attendant's condescending hand aside, "Just what the actual fuck do you fucking mean by that?"
The hospital attendant remains calm and resolute, blocking Nosty's path to Belle and the frantically working paramedics and the elevators. He repeats, not unkindly, "Go call her family, lad."
Behind them, the elevator doors slide shut, and Nosty's beautiful bird, the only good person he's ever known, disappears from view.
"I am her fucking family!" Nosty screams frantically, lunging forward. "I'm her, ah—I'm fucking her brother!"
From over near the nurses's station, Nosty hears a loud, familiar, exasperated voice: "He isn't anybody's family. That's Nosty. You know, Nosty, 'the frequent flyer.' Unmedicated bipolar. Likes to stick things in his chest and get sent up to Bethlem Royal for a little mental health vacation? Homeless, obviously."
It's the pert little bird with the teddy bear scrubs from his many previous 'holidays' in hospital. Her eyebrows are arched, and her arms are crossed. Several more bulky attendants quickly encircle Nosty—and then he's panicking and striking out at them and shouting himself hoarse and fighting them off. There is a sharp, painful yank to his right elbow, then a sharp, painful jab in the fleshy part of his left thigh.
And then he's feeling nothing at all.