The Poet and The Soldier

Five.

Edward Gregson is a busy man, but he always has time for Isadora Heroux. It's more than the fact that she has won multiple awards and been nominated for several more, but, bizarre as it may seem to many of his colleagues, Gregson likes Isadora.

He gets out of the taxi after paying, shouldering his satchel as he walks up to the door of 136 Chaser street and presses the buzzer for apartment B.

Not all the time. God no, she's difficult even at her best, and Gregson is getting desperate for anything to show at the meeting this Friday. Isadora had acquired a notorious reputation just months after entering the publishing scene, and Gregson has had to get used to barbed comments, snarling rejection and soul-destroying moods of ennui, amongst other things.

Like what recently happened. Gregson hesitates to call it recent, as Isadora's history of addiction is... extensive, to say the least. She was very good at functioning normally - or as what passes for normal in the extremely artistic. Gregson only had sneaking suspicions, at least until the day he turned up at her flat to find her with eyes like black holes and a needle sticking out of her arm.

Gregson impatiently presses the buzzer again.

Things had only spiralled from there. She shrunk before his eyes, chain smoking and falling into periods of depression, only alleviated when inspiration struck. And to be fair, it struck an awful lot; Isadora produced some stunning work in those months. But it couldn't last.

Isadora vanished. It was common for her to disappear for a few days, but after a week of no contact Gregson found himself wearing a rut into his bedroom floor.

It was about two in the morning when Gregson opened up the tracking software he'd guiltily installed on Isadora's phone. He ended up in a dodgy area and the only other people on the street were a couple of rowdy, tattooed men walking away from the dark opening of an alleyway.

Gregson holds the buzzer down for a solid five seconds before stepping back, squinting at the open windows of the second floor, curtains drawn for the first time in ages. He tries to ignore the sudden racing of his heart.

Gregson had dragged himself into the alley, but it was so dark he only found Isadora by tripping over her. A pathetic limp form with torn clothes, blood oozing from cuts, bruises darkening the track-lined skin and an arrhythmic heartbeat that skittered and stopped like an autumn leaf being blown across a sidewalk.

Gregson hunts through his bag for the emergency copy he'd made of Isadora's key. His hand trembles so much the key scrapes the surface of the lock for several seconds until he fits it in.

When he had visited her at the hospital, he gave her an ultimatum: the drugs, or the work. And although the fear in her eyes was painfully obvious, she agreed to his terms.

She went off to rehab, but when she came back, she was a shadow. Her hair was mousey, her brown eyes deeply set, flat and sad. Her skin was milky white, the scars from the track marks painfully obvious. In fact, one of the first things she did when she came back home was get two full sleeve tattoos.

This all happened only a little under a year ago, and Isadora hasn't written a poem since.

Gregson topples into the entryway, tripping in his apprehension; the thumping of pacing footsteps above his head is an instant relief.

He moves towards the staircase, tucking his key back into his bag, when the sound of voices gives him pause. The tenants of apartment A are out working, and C still reeks of its recent paint job.

He listens carefully, identifying Isadora's distinctively deep voice. It stops for a second, and there's a muffled response.

His head still cocked in concentration, he misses the creak of the first step.

Both the voices instantly hush.

After a moment, Isadora's voice rings out. "Are you going to spend all day dithering at the bottom of the stairs, or am I going to have to come down?"

"No, no," Gregson calls as he starts up the steps. "I'm coming now. Is Brown up there with you?"

But it's too late, Isadora is already clattering down the stairs towards Gregson, offering a plastic folder in one ink-spattered hand.

Gregson blinks. It's the first time in months that he's seen her in something other than that oversized silk dressing gown, and the difference is discombobulating. Her hair is tied back, looking a shinier, healthier shade than usual. Her skin too has a glow to it, like she's seen some sun, and her eyes are a deeper brown, not quite as sunken.

Gregson subtly assesses her pupil diameter, but Isadora just rolls her eyes and bites out an irritated "No, I'm not using again," before thrusting the proffered folder more resolutely in his face.

"What's this then?" he asks, taking the folder, but Isadora has already turned away, heading back up into her flat.

"Poetry," she calls over her shoulder as she vanishes from sight. Gregson fumbles, and sheets of paper covered in looping scrawl fall out of the folder, fanning out across the staircase like a fresh bed of snow.