No sound came out of the receiver. Instead, there was a click, and Jessica’s voice came out of the answering machine on the table next to the phone. Her voice said, “Richard? This is Jessica. I’m sorry you’re not there, because this would have been our last conversation, and I did so want to tell you this to your face.” The phone, he realized, was completely dead. The receiver trailed a foot or so of cord, and was then neatly cut off.
“You embarrassed me very deeply last night, Richard,” the voice continued. “As far as I’m concerned our engagement is at an end. I have no intention of returning the ring, nor indeed of ever seeing you again. Bye.”
The tape stopped turning, there was another click, and the little red light began to flash.
“Bad news?” asked the girl. She was standing just behind him, in the kitchen part of the apartment, with her arm neatly bandaged. She was getting out tea bags, putting them in mugs. The kettle was boiling.
“Yes,” said Richard. “Very bad.” He walked over to her, handed her the HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? poster. “That’s you, isn’t it?”
She raised an eyebrow. “The photograph’s me.”
“And you are . . . Doreen?”
She shook her head. “I’m Door, Richardrichard-mayhewdick. Milk and sugar?”
Richard was feeling utterly out of his league by now. And he said, “Richard. Just Richard. No sugar.” Then he said, “Look, if it isn’t a personal question, what happened to you?”
Door poured the boiling water into the mugs. “You don’t want to know,” she said, simply.
“Oh, well, I’m sorry if I—“
“No. Richard. Honestly, you don’t want to know. It wouldn’t do you any good. You’ve done more than you should have already.”
She removed the tea bags and handed him a mug of tea. He took it from her and realized that he was still carrying around the receiver. “Well. I mean. I couldn’t just have left you there.”
“You could have,” she said. “You didn’t.” She pressed herself up against the wall and peered out of the window. Richard walked over to the window and looked out. Across the street, Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar were coming out of the bakery, and HAVE YOU SEEN THIS GIRL? was stuck in a place of prominence in its window.
“Are they really your brothers?” he asked.
“Please,” said Door. “Give me a break.”
He sipped his tea and tried to pretend that everything was normal. “So where were you?” he asked. “Just now?”
“I was here,” she said. “Look, with those two still around we have to get a message to . . . ” She paused. “To someone who can help. I don’t dare leave here.”
“Well, isn’t there somewhere you could go? Someone that we could call?”
She took the dead receiver from his hand, wire trailing, and shook her head. “My friends aren’t on the phone,” she said. She put it back in its cradle, where it sat, useless and lonely. Then she smiled, fast and wicked. “Breadcrumbs,” she said.
“Sorry?” said Richard.
There was a little window in the back of the bedroom that looked out on an area of roof tiles and gutters. Door stood on Richard’s bed to reach it, opened the window, and sprinkled the breadcrumbs around. “But I don’t understand,” said Richard.
“Of course you don’t,” she agreed. “Now, shush.” There was a flutter of wings, and the purple-gray-green sheen of a pigeon. It pecked at the breadcrumbs, and Door reached out her right hand and picked it up. It looked at her curiously but made no complaint.
They sat down on the bed. Door got Richard to hold the pigeon, while she attached a message to its leg, using a vivid blue rubber band that Richard had previously used to keep his electricity bills all in one place. Richard was not an enthusiastic holder of pigeons, even at the best of times. “I don’t see the point in this,” he explained. “I mean, it’s not a homing pigeon. It’s just a normal London pigeon. The kind that craps on Lord Nelson.”
“That’s right,” said Door. Her cheek was grazed, and her dirty reddish hair was tangled; tangled, but not matted. And her eyes . . . Richard realized that he could not tell what color her eyes were. They were not blue, or green, or brown, or gray; they reminded him of fire opals: there were burning greens and blues, and even reds and yellows that vanished and glinted as she moved. She took the bird from him, gently, held it up, and looked it in the face. It tipped its head on one side and stared back at her with bead-black eyes. “Okay,” she said, and then she made a noise that sounded like the liquid burbling of pigeons. “Okay Crrppllrr, you’re looking for the marquis de Carabas. You got that?”
The pigeon burbled liquidly back at her.
“Attagirl. Now, this is important, so you’d better—” The pigeon interrupted her with a rather impatient-sounding burble. “I’m sorry,” said Door. “You know what you’re doing, of course.” She took the bird to the window and let it go.
Richard had watched the whole routine with some amazement. “Do you know, it almost sounded like it understood you?” he said, as the bird shrank in the sky and vanished behind some rooftops.
“How about that,” said Door. “Now. We wait.”
She went over to the bookshelf in the corner of the bedroom, found a copy of Mansfield Park Richard had not previously known that he possessed, and went into the living room. Richard followed her. She settled herself on his sofa and opened the book.
“So is it short for Doreen?” he asked.
“What?”
“Your name.”
“No. It’s just Door.”
“How do you spell it?”
“D-o-o-r. Like something you walk through to go places.”
“Oh.” He had to say something, so he said, “What kind of a name is Door, then?”
And she looked at him with her odd-colored eyes, and she said, “My name.” Then she went back to Jane Austen.
Richard picked up the remote control and turned on the television. Then he changed the channel. Changed it again. Sighed. Changed it again. “So, what are we waiting for?”
Door turned the page. She didn’t look up. “A reply.”
“What kind of a reply?” Door shrugged. “Oh. Right.” It occurred to Richard then that her skin was very white, now that some of the dirt and blood had been removed. He wondered if she were pale from illness, or from loss of blood, or if she simply didn’t get out much, or was anemic. Maybe she’d been in prison, although she looked a bit too young for that. Perhaps the big man had been telling the truth when he had said she was mad. “Listen, when those men came over . . . “