K01 1 <#FLOB:K01\>Its owner had never looked so irresistible.

K01 2 The Charleston turned into Dancing on the Ceiling. K01 3 They flung themselves together like old friends hugging at a K01 4 station. Split-second of wild hair in Ralph's face, hay smell of K01 5 skin, echo of heart that beat as fast as his for different reasons K01 6 - then Ursula pulled cruelly back with some comment about the K01 7 party.

K01 8 "I'm famished," she said suddenly. K01 9 "Let's join Martin for breakfast. He's at a table over K01 10 there."

K01 11 "Don't think I will for the moment. Not hungry, really. K01 12 Think I'll explore the garden."

K01 13 "We'll keep you a place. Come over later."

K01 14 All over so fast, the dance might never have been. She would be K01 15 with Martin for the rest of the evening, now. What was the point in K01 16 staying? Who else was there to dance with? Where was his mother?

K01 17 Ralph, longing to go home, made his way into the garden.

K01 18 <*_>three-stars<*/>

K01 19 "I'm in love with you, Rosie, that's the crux of the K01 20 matter," Thomas heard himself saying. She gave him a slight K01 21 tap on the nose with her fan.

K01 22 "Nonsense, my darling man. It's my painting you're in K01 23 love with. Admit it, now. I saw that the moment we met."

K01 24 "I admire your painting, it's you I'm in love with. K01 25 Hopelessly, helplessly, in love with - tortured for weeks, you K01 26 know, not seeing you, not knowing what to do."

K01 27 "Now, now. Calm down." Rose spoke patiently as K01 28 a nurse to a child. "It's the moon, you know. I do believe K01 29 that. People say mad things under a half moon."

K01 30 "It's not the moon, my love."

K01 31 "Very well, then, I'll believe you if you like. It may K01 32 be the truth in your heart, but there's not very much we can do K01 33 about it, is there?"

K01 34 "Not very much," said Thomas, "no." He K01 35 looked straight ahead at the cabbages, silver globes of matched K01 36 size. There was another tap of the fan on his nose. "We K01 37 could just..."

K01 38 "No," said Rosie. "We could not act recklessly. K01 39 I'm over all that. That's all in the past."

K01 40 "You're right," said Thomas.

K01 41 They were silent for a while.

K01 42 "You can keep on visiting me, though," said K01 43 Rosie, at last. "Of course you can."

K01 44 "Of course I can."

K01 45 "Buy more pictures."

K01 46 "Buy more pictures."

K01 47 "But I'd never change my life, now, Thomas. Not for K01 48 anyone. Besides, you've got a very good wife, I'm K01 49 thinking."

K01 50 Thomas stiffened. "How do you know? But yes, you're K01 51 right. She's a good woman."

K01 52 "You'd be foolish to leave a good wife."

K01 53 "Oh, Rosie, you can't possibly know how much I love K01 54 you, how much I can't bear being away from you."

K01 55 He turned from the cabbages to look at her. She was regarding K01 56 him curiously, kindly. He felt a choking in his chest, tears K01 57 pouring from his eyes. Then a soft mouth was on his cheeks, curbing K01 58 their course: a gentle palm on his temples.

K01 59 "You're a good man, Thomas," Rosie observed in K01 60 a smudged whisper. "You must never love a woman flighty as K01 61 a butterfly, now, who would never change .... Here, don't be K01 62 crying."

K01 63 There was a confusion of handkerchiefs, dabbing. Mouths met for K01 64 an infinitesimal kiss. Thomas feared a heart attack, death. K01 65 Now more than ever ... time ripe to die, to cease upon the K01 66 midnight with no pain and all that.

K01 67 "I don't believe you," he groaned. "I K01 68 love you, Rosie, I love you, I love you, woman."

K01 69 Having kissed her, he would gladly die. He opened his eyes to K01 70 tell her this and saw, at the far end of the secret garden, a K01 71 spectre-like figure with long amber hair.

K01 72 "My daughter," cried Rosie, suddenly bright. K01 73 "Serena! I've been looking for you everywhere."

K01 74 Mother and daughter waved. Thomas closed his eyes again, unable K01 75 to face such interruption. He heard the scrunch of Rosie standing K01 76 up, preparing to leave him. But she would not succeed, she would K01 77 not succeed. He would pursue her for ever, chase her to the ends of K01 78 ...

K01 79 "Come on, Mr Arkwright, my darling Thomas," she K01 80 was saying. "I can't be waiting for you all night, now, can K01 81 I?"

K01 82 <*_>three-stars<*/>

K01 83 Soothed by her inspiration, Rachel lingered for a while longer K01 84 in her place on the terrace. She looked down on the dancers with a K01 85 mixture of sympathy, scorn, amusement. She found herself wondering, K01 86 as did Thomas the day the Farthingoes' invitation had arrived, why K01 87 the middle-aged go to all the bother and expense to give such K01 88 parties. What were they for? In Frances's case, perhaps, the months K01 89 of brilliant planning were rewarding occupation in an empty life. K01 90 But there was a certain pointlessness, was there not, in the end K01 91 result?

K01 92 In youth, Rachel reflected, the unspoken plan of every guest K01 93 was to search for - perhaps to find - a partner. Thus the meanest K01 94 gathering of party-goers was endowed with a certain excitement, K01 95 anticipation. In middle age, though cheap wine and scant food may K01 96 have given way to the sort of extravagance of tonight, the days of K01 97 the hunt were mostly over. Guests were now married, remarried, K01 98 divorced. The point of such gatherings was to be reunited with old K01 99 friends rather than to meet new ones: there is wistfulness in such K01 100 an occasion, rather than expectancy. As for the idea of signalling K01 101 availability at a party like this ... it was laughable. No-one to K01 102 notice, no-one Rachel would care to be noticed by.

K01 103 She smiled to herself, observing the dancers. They included a K01 104 scattering of people she had known vaguely for years, K01 105 contemporaries at Oxford, the odd school friend. Their various ways K01 106 had parted, their common interests divided, probably floundered. K01 107 Rachel had no desire to restrike up acquaintance with any of them: K01 108 bridging wide gaps is a tiring business - better just to wave in K01 109 friendly fashion from opposite banks, as she did to a few people K01 110 who passed her by. She was struck by their general metamorphosis. K01 111 The unkind truth is that, in middle age, if you don't see your K01 112 contemporaries with strict regularity, you are faced by the shock K01 113 of change after even a short space of time. These old acquaintances K01 114 were all balder, fatter, greyer, saggier and, judging by much K01 115 cupping of hands round ears, deafer. Their style of dancing, in the K01 116 intervening years, had changed too. No matter how wildly they had K01 117 rocked and rolled in their youth, now, with few exceptions, they K01 118 plumped for just two basic movements: the piston arms, and, just K01 119 off the beat, a kind of yanking up of one leg in the manner of an K01 120 undecided dog. Sometimes, to be fair, the men did provide a little K01 121 variation by arching their backs and twinkling down their double K01 122 chins at another man's wife. And the women sportingly jiggled about K01 123 like lampshades in a breeze, careless of their shape and size. A K01 124 love of puffy skirts was almost ubiquitous among them, while gold K01 125 edging ran amok round milkmaid bodices and sleeves. Rachel smiled K01 126 to herself again, enjoying the Englishwoman's complete indifference K01 127 to the superficialities of fashion: she was one of their band. She, K01 128 too, had different priorities: she understood the familiar comfort K01 129 of an old dress.

K01 130 After a while she gathered up the black skirt which had served K01 131 her for fifteen summers, and decided her moment had come. One final K01 132 look at the melancholy sight of the Farthingoes' friends bumbling K01 133 ungainly on the dance floor, and she turned into the house.

K01 134 Rachel know its geography well. Firm of purpose, she moved K01 135 swiftly up the stairs, across the landing past Frances's room - K01 136 glimpse of women with gold shoes thrown off, dabbing at their hair K01 137 - and on to the wing destined one day for Toby's aged mother. She K01 138 came to a door on which a No Entry notice had been K01 139 pinned: a command which had plainly taken Fiona many hours to K01 140 accomplish, decorated with a border of poppies and ice creams - the K01 141 pathos of unacknowledged effort, Rachel thought. She would remember K01 142 to congratulate Fiona if she saw her again.

K01 143 She pushed through the door into an unlit passage, turned into K01 144 the first door on the right. The room, Frances had once told her, K01 145 was sometimes used for an overspill of guests: its decoration K01 146 reflected its status. Rachel went straight to the window, opened it K01 147 in the hope that the night air, quite cool by now, would soon K01 148 dispel the stuffy smell of unaired cotton and lavender bags. She K01 149 looked at the bright half moon balanced on the crest of a giant K01 150 cedar, and listened to the faint soughing Cellar Music playing K01 151 Lullaby of Broadway. Excited by her distance from the K01 152 party, and her absolute privacy, she pulled back the K01 153 bramble-printed cover of one of the twin beds: it was made up with K01 154 clean pink sheets. She then unzipped her dress and let it fall to K01 155 the ground. By the dim light of the moon it looked like the soft K01 156 ashy mound of the remains of a bonfire. Shoes off, next: the relief K01 157 of stretching the toes - and into the strange bed.

K01 158 The pillows were of the prim kind that are often designated for K01 159 visitors. They did not cave protectively about her head, nor did K01 160 the sheets have the cool stroke of line. But it was escape, escape. K01 161 The mossiness that precedes oblivion lapped over her body. Within K01 162 moments she slept.

K01 163 <*_>three-stars<*/>

K01 164 Ant Cellar, bearing in mind his reputation of value for money, K01 165 did not leave the bandstand during the first short break: he K01 166 squatted on the floor drinking a can of beer, his pose out of K01 167 keeping with his white dinner jacket. But it was only fucking K01 168 human, as he said so often, to let the act slide for a moment or K01 169 two after hours of non-stop fantastic playing. The rest of the boys K01 170 had gone off for fifteen minutes - not a moment more, mind - rest K01 171 and refreshment. To fulfil Frances's wish for "never a K01 172 moment without music", Ant had employed his old uncle (his K01 173 old mum's brother), once a cocktail-bar player who had made quite a K01 174 reputation at a pub in Marlow, to fill the gap. Uncle Bill couldn't K01 175 run to the white gear, but had turned up neat enough in a black K01 176 dinner jacket and red bow tie, and was plunking very nicely through K01 177 a lot of old tunes on the piano. So the lovely Frances ought to be K01 178 pleased. Where was she?

K01 179 Ant, looking about, saw her daughter - wretched-looking little K01 180 mite - offering him a piece of paper and a pencil. He K01 181 <}_><-|>kew<+|>knew<}/> what she wanted. With the weariness of one K01 182 who has suffered many years of autograph-fatigue - but with a K01 183 lovely smile to cheer her up - he wrote his signature with a K01 184 flourish, and added "with love". The child seemed K01 185 pleased, thanked him.

K01 186 "Enjoying it?" asked Ant.

K01 187 Fiona struggled between loyalty and honesty.

K01 188 "Quite."

K01 189 "Some spectacle. Terrific, I'd say. Where's your K01 190 mum?"

K01 191 "Don't know."

K01 192 "If you see her, tell her I'd like a word. Promise. K01 193 There's a darling." Another friendly smile.

K01 194 Fiona backed away, unable to speak, clutching her precious K01 195 piece of paper. She began to run: over the empty dance floor, up K01 196 the steps of the terrace, into the heavy-lily air of the drawing K01 197 room, scurrying between guests, some of whom tried to clutch at her K01 198 dress and called her name. But she would not stop. She did not care K01 199 what happened to the rest of the party now, and she did not want to K01 200 be part of it. She had Ant Cellar's autograph, her most precious K01 201 possession in the world, and all she wanted to do was to lock her K01 202 bedroom door, and think about his kindness.

K01 203 It wasn't until she was in bed, autograph under the pillow, K01 204 that she remembered his request. Well, she had not seen her mother K01 205 or, for that matter, her father, for ages. She wondered whether to K01 206 get up again and keep her sort-of-promise, but she couldn't bear K01 207 the thought. Besides, Ant, if he ever found out, would be bound to K01 208 forgive her. He was a forgiving sort of man, she could tell.

K01 209 <*_>three-stars<*/>

K01 210 Thomas had always prided himself on his ability quickly to K01 211 resume dignity if, at some unfortunate moment, it eluded him. K01 212 K02 1 <#FLOB:K02\>After putting the phone down, Christopher wept. K02 2 "There must be something we can do. Something. Has to be. K02 3 He's my son ...I can't help feeling it's all our K02 4 fault."

K02 5 "Isaac would be delighted to hear you say so, but you K02 6 know it's nonsense. He was always gay. We were too thick to notice. K02 7 He didn't turn gay because we left him. Let's go out and buy K02 8 him some wonderful presents and air-express them to the clinic. K02 9 Florence is so marvellous for shopping ..." Things twisted K02 10 in my hands again. I meant to be kind, but something went wrong. K02 11 "...And I need some new shoes. And a bag. And some novels. K02 12 And then let's go to a gallery. Let's not go all mopey. Let's get K02 13 going."

K02 14 Christopher never came to terms with Isaac's illness. I think K02 15 it always puzzled him, as if he could never quite believe that each K02 16 stage in the process was irrevocable, and this thinner, iller, K02 17 older person was actually his clumsy, chubby son. I think he K02 18 half-thought that one day the old Isaac would ring and say it was K02 19 all a mistake, he wasn't ill, he wasn't gay. I gave up trying to K02 20 educate him.

K02 21 It irritated me; alienated me. We were going through a bad K02 22 patch in any case. Not a patch, a tunnel, a long dark night, as K02 23 month after month proved he was a failure - we were a failure; K02 24 we couldn't conceive.

K02 25 - I was a failure, deep-down I knew it, but I never K02 26 admitted it to Christopher, it was too hideously dangerous to show K02 27 my weakness. Marriage is a battle for survival, always; be strong K02 28 and win, or go to the wall. In the end it was Christopher who went K02 29 to the wall. Since one of us had to, I'm glad it was him. He sat in K02 30 the dark watching endless movies, he sat and stared at ghosts on K02 31 the wall.

K02 32 But I didn't let Isaac go to the wall alone. It was an old K02 33 debt; I hadn't long to pay it. Now I became the one who suggested K02 34 meetings, who noticed the weeks were creeping by, while Chris was K02 35 absent and forgetful, and silent when I talked about Isaac. We K02 36 couldn't talk to each other about it; we talked to each other less K02 37 and less. I knew we were coming to the end of the road, we were K02 38 running out of life as the century did ...

K02 39 Yet Chris was my companion, my friend, my brother. If I lost K02 40 him, I had no one else. That was the awful truth, there was no one K02 41 else. We had left them all behind, you see. We had cast ourselves K02 42 off into emptiness. In the middle of the night we clung dumbly K02 43 together and fucked without passion, without hope; blind, wordless, K02 44 regular, like moles grinding in their dark bunker (but I love the K02 45 light; I'm a creature of day, and by day we couldn't meet each K02 46 other's eyes and ate in silence like embittered pensioners).

K02 47 We weren't talking about my pregnancy either, my absent K02 48 pregnancy, my vanishing babies. I dreamed about them night after K02 49 night. They vanished like dolls I had dropped in drawers, getting K02 50 smaller and smaller as I searched for them with growing guilt and K02 51 panic. I had one, cradled it, dropped it, picked it up and found it K02 52 was no longer alive, its face was hard plastic or it had no face, K02 53 as I stared it slipped yet again through my fingers, the carpet was K02 54 covered with broken dolls, babies I'd been given but failed to look K02 55 after, failed to love, failed, failed. I started to dream K02 56 about Stuart again; he was ten years younger than Christopher; in K02 57 life we had never fucked unprotected, but in dreams we fucked K02 58 hungrily for a baby, in dream after dream Stuart made me pregnant K02 59 and I woke orgasmic, on a crest of happiness, only to feel it K02 60 trickle away, slipping away between my damp thighs ...

K02 61 But Christopher did make me pregnant. That's twice he did it, K02 62 twenty years apart, two pregnancies ending in nothing, nothing. But K02 63 no one can deny I got pregnant again; that at least they can't take K02 64 away ...

K02 65 Surely I can bear to think about it now, now I know I'm going K02 66 to have a daughter.

K02 67 - I did get pregnant. I'm not deluded. I was forty-nine; that's K02 68 quite an achievement. So fuck that rat bitch K02 69 gynaecologist. I tested my urine twenty times, it made me so K02 70 happy to be positive. I was positive! It was wonderful! No shadow K02 71 of doubt infected my joy. I was furious with Chris when his K02 72 response was muted.

K02 73 "What's the matter with you? It's such wonderful news! K02 74 It's a scientific test, we have to believe it. A little baby to K02 75 travel with us. A little baby for us to play with. Baby, baby, baby K02 76 ... Oh fuck, I can't bear to look at your miserable K02 77 face."

K02 78 "Look for God's sake, Alex, of course I'm happy, but K02 79 you're forty-nine, and only five weeks' pregnant, I just hope K02 80 everything goes right. You haven't got there yet, I dread K02 81 disappointment ..."

K02 82 I admit I was unreasonable. "Shut up! Shut up! You'll K02 83 bring bad luck! You don't want me to be pregnant, you're hateful, K02 84 hateful ... we should tell the family. I want them to K02 85 know."

K02 86 But the doubt had been sown, the little bad seed, and perhaps K02 87 where it enters, disaster grows. I think I blamed Chris for what K02 88 happened, though I'm wiser now, I am wiser now ...

K02 89 It got to ten and a half weeks. I said it was eleven, but it K02 90 wasn't. Nearly three months, I told myself, and anyone else who K02 91 would listen, strangers, waitresses, whoever I could find, the fact K02 92 of my pregnancy had to be shared, perhaps because I could hardly K02 93 believe it, perhaps because I feared it would end ...

K02 94 I had a deep need to tell 'the family' but alas, there was no K02 95 family to tell. Doubtless my family had families by now; I had K02 96 never been told; we had lost each other. My great mute solid pair K02 97 of sibs, left in the past, stranded in the past. Or perhaps I was K02 98 stranded, for they were still together, sharing their children, I K02 99 suppose, playing aunts and uncles and nephews and nieces. But not K02 100 with me. Never with me ...

K02 101 - I wished we had friends, I remember that. I wrote to Mary, K02 102 and trembled as I posted it. She was always so solid, so gloriously K02 103 maternal, one might have assumed she had six children. I think I K02 104 feared she would disbelieve it; I think I felt she would see K02 105 straight through me.

K02 106 Dear Mary,

K02 107 Surprise, surprise! Your old friend Alexandra is nearly three K02 108 months pregnant, and we are both so delighted about it ...

K02 109 Ten-and-a-half weeks isn't nearly three months. You grow less K02 110 honest when you're mad with desire, and I longed for that baby with K02 111 a monomanic love I have never felt before or since. Oh I wish the K02 112 pregnancy had lasted longer, though everyone says late miscarriage K02 113 is worse ... if it had lasted longer it would have been more real. K02 114 I would have had something, even if I lost it.

K02 115 Ten-and-a-half weeks is nothing to the medics. "It's a K02 116 good job it didn't go any further," said the doctor. K02 117 "It's nature's way, you know."

K02 118 - The profession is full of idiots, who should be muzzled, or K02 119 preferably shot. But my anger was partly in abeyance, then. Most of K02 120 what they said seemed to be beamed towards me from the other side K02 121 of a huge sheet of glass; I was recording it all instead of talking K02 122 back, only the very worst outrages made me talk back. Most of the K02 123 time I just stared at them, numb, which is not like me, not like me K02 124 at all. I was not like me. Part of me was dead.

K02 125 I began to bleed one day in a car which was rattling through K02 126 the hot Turkish hills. We'd had sex the night before; at first I K02 127 just thought it was a leak of sperm, Christopher always had a lot K02 128 of sperm even if it couldn't make live babies ... Christopher felt K02 129 too depressed to drive, since the latest reports from Isaac were K02 130 bad, and I didn't want to bother, so we sat in the back of an old K02 131 hire-car, suffering the driving of a crazy local. The roof of the K02 132 car had been rolled back; the heat was intense, even through my K02 133 straw hat, the road ahead shimmered and slurred in the heat; we K02 134 threw up a cloud of dust and small stones; every now and then a fly K02 135 whined by and was sucked into the past with dizzy speed; there was K02 136 dust and resin in my mouth and lungs and ever since then I have K02 137 never smelled pines without a cramping sense of dread.

K02 138 All of a sudden I was afraid. "Ask him to pull in to K02 139 the side of the road," I told Christopher. We screeched to K02 140 a halt and I got out alone. In the trees it was stunningly dark and K02 141 quiet after the rattling blaze of the open road. Once my eyes K02 142 adjusted, it was beautiful; a few narrow sunbeams pierced the K02 143 gloom; perfect yellow flowers underfoot, like buttercups but the K02 144 leaves were wrong, the gold heads sang in a small pool of sunlight, K02 145 telling me everything was still all right, but I looked all the K02 146 same and there was blood, at least it's dark, that can't be so K02 147 dangerous, but as I crouched there a bright splash fell.

K02 148 - I remember I thought funeral wreath. They were K02 149 mourning flowers, I knew they were. I walked back to the car like K02 150 an old woman, trying to walk without moving too much, trying to K02 151 protect the thing I carried. All at once it seemed infinitely K02 152 fragile, infinitely open to our hurts. I asked the driver to go K02 153 back to the hotel and screamed at him when he drove too fast; at K02 154 every bump I winced and clutched Christopher, suffering the baby's K02 155 imagined pain.

K02 156 The doctor who examined me was reassuring. His English was K02 157 good; he flattered me, unable to believe I was forty-nine; he said K02 158 there was often a small amount of bleeding; I could rest if I chose K02 159 to, but it wasn't essential. There was no point in tests. We had to K02 160 wait and see.

K02 161 I lay in bed for five whole days, I who could never bear to be K02 162 still. Not far from my window a mournful bell rang out the hours; I K02 163 lay and counted, lay very still in bed and prayed. When I lay still K02 164 the bleeding stopped. My spirits rose; I hoped again. For K02 165 twenty-four hours my towels were clean. Whiteness, cleanness was K02 166 wonderful. I didn't read, didn't want to read, I became a still K02 167 deep well of longing, a bowl of hope, perfectly blank. I talked to K02 168 the baby, stroked my belly. "I want you. I love you. Hang K02 169 on, please. I'll do anything to keep you safe." I couldn't K02 170 talk to Chris; he was blank and closed; he dumbly brought me K02 171 whatever I asked for, then went away and drank; I talked to the K02 172 baby, talked to myself.

K02 173 After five days I got up again and the sad, slow bleeding K02 174 started at once, stopping and starting, brown not fresh. I lay down K02 175 again; it was driving me mad.

K02 176 "Let's fly back to London," I said. K02 177 "The best gynaecologist. Stay at the Savoy. That's quite K02 178 convenient for Harley Street."

K02 179 But things had ceased to follow my plan. I was destined to stay K02 180 in hospital, flat on my back in the single bed, weeping into the K02 181 stiff linen pillow, in a room full of florist's funeral flowers.

K02 182 Christopher came with me for the ultrasound scan. First of all K02 183 they listened for the heartbeat; there was a loud, long crackle K02 184 like snow falling on all the telephone wires in the world, all of K02 185 them listening for sounds of life; to me it sounded intensely K02 186 alive, and hope surged hotly through me again. K02 187 K03 1 <#FLOB:K03\>So my phone call to the Parsons' household the next K03 2 day was in the best traditions of the society in which I found K03 3 myself living. Indeed without any wish to evade my responsibility K03 4 for subsequent events, I think I may fairly claim that in K03 5 everything I did in re Karen and her husband I K03 6 was market-led. There was a hole waiting to be plugged. I had K03 7 identified a need and was aiming to satisfy it.

K03 8 Dennis answered the phone. I thanked him for dinner and said K03 9 how much I'd enjoyed myself.

K03 10 "The reason I'm calling, actually, is that my wallet K03 11 seems to have disappeared and I wondered whether I could possibly K03 12 have left it there."

K03 13 "Hang on, I'll ask Kay."

K03 14 I stood looking down at the pavement below the payphone while K03 15 Dennis padded across the wall-to-wall carpeting and called K03 16 distantly to his wife. Half-eaten turds of Spud U Like nestled on a K03 17 bed of throw-up curry. I looked up at the concrete-grey sky, still K03 18 surprisingly free of graffiti. I tried not to look at anything in K03 19 between.

K03 20 "It's OK, we've got it," Dennis said in my K03 21 ear.

K03 22 "Sorry?"

K03 23 "When do you want to come and pick it up?"

K03 24 I got my wallet out of my pocket and held it up in front of my K03 25 eyes.

K03 26 "You've got it?"

K03 27 "Kay found it when she was clearing up. She was going K03 28 to ring you but we don't have your number. Look, we're going K03 29 shopping this morning, we could drop it off if you like. Where do K03 30 you live?"

K03 31 This brought me to my senses. I would rather have died than let K03 32 the Parsons see where I lived.

K03 33 "No, I don't want to put you to any bother."

K03 34 "It's no bother."

K03 35 "Well actually I'm going out this morning K03 36 too."

K03 37 But I was talking to myself. There was another muffled exchange K03 38 at the other end.

K03 39 "Why don't you pop in this afternoon and get it? I'll K03 40 be going out briefly at some stage, but Kay'll be here."

K03 41 Fair enough, I thought as I walked home. I was beginning to K03 42 appreciate Karen Parsons. I've always been good at thinking on my K03 43 feet. It's the other kind of thinking I've never been able to K03 44 muster, the long-term stuff. "Never confuse strategy with K03 45 tactics," one of my tutors advised me, but I can't even K03 46 remember what the words mean. Over the short distance, though, I'm K03 47 pretty impressive, and I admire the same quality in others. I liked K03 48 the way Karen had picked up that my story about the wallet was in K03 49 fact a message, and I liked the message she was sending back even K03 50 more. It was risky. If I marched round there and demanded my wallet K03 51 in front of Dennis, she would be in deep doo-doo. She was trusting K03 52 me not to do that, putting that power in my hands. I liked that, K03 53 too. It's good to go dutch on power. I've always made a point of K03 54 borrowing money from women early in the relationship so as to give K03 55 them a hold over me. It also helps when the time comes to break off K03 56 the affair, because you can talk about the money instead of K03 57 feelings and love and messy, painful stuff like that.

K03 58 At a quarter to three I was in position behind the K03 59 grime-sprayed glass of a bus shelter on the Banbury Road. The K03 60 entrance to Ramillies Drive was about thirty yards away on the K03 61 other side of the road. There I stood, waiting for Dennis's car to K03 62 emerge. It was mizzling steadily, so I had lashed out on a minibus K03 63 ticket, which cost more than a taxi would here. The afternoon was K03 64 cold and raw, and I soon regretted my choice of clothing, a light K03 65 linen suit dating from my time in this country. But I wanted to K03 66 present an exotic image, a man of the world blown in from foreign K03 67 parts to bring some much-needed glamour to Karen's drab suburban K03 68 existence.

K03 69 I had hoped she would be able to get rid of Dennis quickly, but K03 70 it was almost 4 o'clock before the red BMW finally appeared and K03 71 roared away in the direction of the ring road. By that time I was K03 72 chilled to the bone, exhausted from the relentless battering of the K03 73 traffic, sullen and depressed. This had better be good, I thought K03 74 grimly as I crossed the road and walked up the cul-de-sac to the K03 75 Parsonage. This had better be bloody good.

K03 76 I had to ring the bell several times before Karen finally K03 77 appeared. I knew at once that something was wrong.

K03 78 "Oh, it's you." She sounded surprised and K03 79 displeased. "Dennis isn't here."

K03 80 She was wearing clingy jeans and a ribbed woollen sweater which K03 81 emphasized the lines of her body. It still wasn't my kind of body, K03 82 but dressed like that it looked quite different, a gym teacher's K03 83 body, supple, firm and fit.

K03 84 "I know that," I said. "I've just spent K03 85 an hour and a quarter waiting for him not to be here."

K03 86 "Why did you do that?"

K03 87 Ah, I thought. Right. Fine, if that's the way you want to play K03 88 it.

K03 89 "Sorry if I misunderstood. Just give me my wallet and K03 90 I'll be off."

K03 91 "I haven't got your wallet."

K03 92 "I know you haven't."

K03 93 We measured each other with our eyes.

K03 94 "Then what are you doing here?" she asked.

K03 95 This was not the first time I had dabbled in adultery. I've K03 96 always had a yen for married women - it's something to do with K03 97 being an only son, I suspect, some sort of Oedipal urge to play K03 98 Daddy's part with Mummy - and I knew by experience how much care K03 99 and tact is needed. However tenuous it may have become, once a K03 100 marriage is under threat it can suddenly turn into a territory K03 101 which has to be defended at all costs, like the Falklands. Neither K03 102 partner has given it a thought for years, but let some outsider K03 103 come barging in as though he owned the place and it's war. Perhaps K03 104 I had been too forward, I thought, taken too much for granted. K03 105 After what had happened the previous evening exquisite delicacy had K03 106 seemed uncalled for.

K03 107 "I assumed you wanted me to come. Why did you say you K03 108 had my wallet otherwise?"

K03 109 She shrugged pettishly.

K03 110 "You're late. I thought Dennis would still be K03 111 here."

K03 112 I tried this on from various directions, but it still didn't K03 113 make sense.

K03 114 "Speak of the devil," said Karen.

K03 115 There was a swish of gravel as the BMW drew in. Dennis K03 116 clambered out looking disgruntled.

K03 117 "Bloody thing's on the blink. There's another up your K03 118 end of town somewhere, but I can't be bothered."

K03 119 Registering my look of bewilderment, but mistaking the cause, K03 120 he added, "Car wash. I go every Saturday. Prevents grime K03 121 build-up."

K03 122 He grasped my elbow and led me through the hallway and into a K03 123 long room knocked through the whole length of the house. A K03 124 three-piece suite and coffee table occupied the front half, a K03 125 fitted kitchen and dinette the rear. These were the real living K03 126 quarters, as opposed to the receiving rooms in the other side of K03 127 the house, where guests were entertained. Dennis apparently saw me K03 128 as 'family', or at any rate as someone he didn't have to impress. K03 129 What I still couldn't understand was why he wanted to see me at K03 130 all.

K03 131 Almost the biggest shock of the many I had sustained on my K03 132 return home was the loss of the social cachet I had enjoyed for so K03 133 many years. In Spain, in Italy, in Saudi - well, no, forget Saudi - K03 134 and above all here, among your warm-hearted and hospitable people, K03 135 I had been sought-after, even lionized. As a foreigner and a K03 136 teacher, I was the object of general interest and respect. At the K03 137 end of the EFL training course I did in London, a British Council K03 138 type gave us all a pep talk before we were packed off to Ankara or K03 139 Kuala Lumpur. "Never forget, you're not just K03 140 teachers," he told us, "you're cultural K03 141 ambassadors."

K03 142 The funny thing was that in a way the old fart was right. K03 143 Socially, we benefited from a sort of diplomatic immunity. We were K03 144 extraterritorial. The rules of the local game didn't apply to us. I K03 145 didn't appreciate this freedom until I lost it. I took it for K03 146 granted that I could associate with people from all walks of life, K03 147 from every background. It seemed perfectly natural that I should K03 148 spend one evening being waited on by uniformed retainers at the K03 149 home of an important industrialist whose son I taught, and the next K03 150 in a seedy bar drinking beer with a group of workers from the K03 151 factory where I gave private courses in technical English. Someone K03 152 rightly said that language exists to prevent us communicating, and K03 153 of no country is that more true than my own. I never made more K03 154 friends as easily as when I was among people whose language I spoke K03 155 badly and who barely spoke mine at all. In a land where trendy K03 156 caf<*_>e-acute<*/>s display neon signs reading smack bar K03 157 and snatch bar, no one's going to pick up the linguistic K03 158 and social markers that pin the native Brit down like so many K03 159 Lilliputian bonds. Subtle but damning variations of idiolect are K03 160 unlikely to count for much in a country where people go around K03 161 wearing tee-shirts inscribed with things like "The essence K03 162 of brave's aerial adventure: the flight's academy of the American K03 163 east club with the traditional gallery of Great Britain K03 164 diesel". Do you know what that means? I don't. But it must K03 165 have meant something to someone. You couldn't just invent K03 166 something like that.

K03 167 But things were different back in the land of dinge and drab, K03 168 of sleaze and drear and grot. Teachers are not figures of respect K03 169 in my country. They're the bottom of the professional heap, K03 170 somewhere between nurses and prison warders. And I wasn't even a K03 171 real teacher. The only remarkable thing about me was the fact that K03 172 I was still doing a holiday job at the age of forty. I was just K03 173 damaged goods, another misfit, another over-educated, K03 174 under-motivated loser who had missed his chance and drifted into K03 175 the Sargasso Sea of EFL work.

K03 176 Yet here I was, in sedate and semi-exclusive Ramillies Drive, K03 177 being urged to spend the rest of the afternoon with a successful K03 178 chartered accountant and his wife, being plied with expensive wine K03 179 and prawn-flavoured corn snacks, being courted. What was going K03 180 on? Were the Parsons into troilism? "Suburban couple seek K03 181 uninhibited partner, m or f, for three-way sex fun." That K03 182 was the sort of thing I could imagine Denny and Kay going in for, K03 183 at least in theory. It would go with the decor. But in practice K03 184 Dennis was too repressed to actually go through with it. Even his K03 185 drinking had to be packaged as an aesthetic experience.

K03 186 "Good green fruit on the nose. Young and vibrant. Soft K03 187 round buttery fruit in the mouth, trailing off a little on the K03 188 finish. Very chardonnay. Lovely concentrated body. K03 189 Surprisingly firm grip."

K03 190 He bought his wine from a mail-order firm, I later discovered. K03 191 Each case came with tasting notes, from which Dennis was given to K03 192 quoting extensively. The point of the whole performance was only K03 193 partly the usual snobbery and one-upmanship. The essential purpose K03 194 was to disguise the fact that Dennis was an alcoholic. He wasn't K03 195 out to get drunk - perish the thought! - but to savour the unique K03 196 individuality of each wine to the full. Dennis didn't drink, he K03 197 degusted. Well fair enough, whatever it takes. But if he couldn't K03 198 even get pissed in his own living room without all this blather it K03 199 was hard to imagine him asking casually if I'd care to step K03 200 upstairs for some kinky sex.

K03 201 Still, I wasn't complaining. I didn't know what was going on, K03 202 but I was happy to be there, sipping Dennis's eight-quid-a-bottle K03 203 plonk, trading glances with his vibrant young - well, youngish - K03 204 wife and openly admiring the charms of her lovely concentrated K03 205 body. Since I wasn't in a position to return the Parsons' K03 206 hospitality, I felt an obligation to provide conversational value K03 207 for money, so I embarked on a series of anecdotes about my time K03 208 abroad, some true, all exaggerated, a few plain invention. K03 209 K04 1 <#FLOB:K04\>Rivers hesitated. "Taking unnecessary K04 2 risks is one of the first signs of a war neurosis."

K04 3 "Is it?" Sassoon looked down at his hands. K04 4 "I didn't know that."

K04 5 "Nightmares and hallucinations come later."

K04 6 "What's an 'unnecessary risk' anyway? The maddest thing K04 7 I ever did was done under orders." He looked up, to K04 8 see if he should continue. "We were told to go and get the K04 9 regimental badges off a German corpse. They reckoned he'd been dead K04 10 two days, so obviously if we got the badges they'd know which K04 11 battalion was opposite. Full moon, not a cloud in sight, K04 12 absolutely mad, but off we went. Well, we got there - K04 13 eventually - and what do we find? He's been dead a helluva lot K04 14 longer than two days, and he's French anyway."

K04 15 "So what did you do?"

K04 16 "Pulled one of his boots off and sent it back to K04 17 battalion HQ. With quite a bit of his leg left inside."

K04 18 Rivers allowed another silence to open up. "I gather K04 19 we're not going to talk about nightmares?"

K04 20 "You're in charge."

K04 21 "Ye-es. But then one of the paradoxes of being an army K04 22 psychiatrist is that you don't actually get very far by K04 23 ordering your patients to be frank."

K04 24 "I'll be as frank as you like. I did have nightmares K04 25 when I first got back from France. I don't have them K04 26 now."

K04 27 "And the hallucinations?"

K04 28 He found this more difficult. "It was just that when I K04 29 woke up, the nightmares didn't always stop. So I used to see K04 30 ..." A deep breath. "Corpses. Men with half their K04 31 faces shot off, crawling across the floor."

K04 32 "And you were awake when this happened?"

K04 33 "I don't know. I must've been, because I could see the K04 34 sister."

K04 35 "And was this always at night?"

K04 36 "No. It happened once during the day. I'd been to my K04 37 club for lunch, and when I came out I sat on a bench, and ... I K04 38 suppose I must've nodded off." He was forcing himself to go K04 39 on. "When I woke up, the pavement was covered in corpses. K04 40 Old ones, new ones, black, green." His mouth twisted. K04 41 "People were treading on their faces."

K04 42 "Yes. I used to sleep quite a bit during the day, K04 43 because I was afraid to go to sleep at night."

K04 44 "When did all this stop?"

K04 45 "As soon as I left the hospital. The atmosphere in that K04 46 place was really terrible. There was one man who used to boast K04 47 about killing German prisoners. You can imagine what living with K04 48 him was like."

K04 49 "And the nightmares haven't recurred?"

K04 50 "No. I do dream, of course, but not about the war. K04 51 Sometimes a dream seems to go on after I've woken up, so there's a K04 52 kind of in-between stage." He hesitated. "I don't K04 53 know whether that's abnormal."

K04 54 "I hope not. It happens to me all the time." K04 55 Rivers sat back in his chair. "When you look back now on K04 56 your time in the hospital, do you think you were K04 57 'shell-shocked'?"

K04 58 "I don't know. Somebody who came to see me told my K04 59 uncle he thought I was. As against that, I wrote one or two good K04 60 poems while I was in there. We-ell ..." He smiled. K04 61 "I was pleased with them."

K04 62 "You don't think it's possible to write a good poem in K04 63 a state of shock?"

K04 64 "No, I don't."

K04 65 Rivers nodded. "You may be right. Would it be possible K04 66 for me to see them?"

K04 67 "Yes, of course. I'll copy them out."

K04 68 Rivers said, "I'd like to move on now to the ... K04 69 thinking behind the Declaration. You say your motives aren't K04 70 religious?"

K04 71 "No, not at all."

K04 72 "Would you describe yourself as a pacifist?"

K04 73 "I don't think so. I can't possibly say 'No war is K04 74 ever justified', because I haven't thought about it enough. Perhaps K04 75 some wars are. Perhaps this one was when it started. I just don't K04 76 think our war aims - whatever they may be - and we don't K04 77 know - justify this level of slaughter."

K04 78 "And you say you have thought about your K04 79 qualifications for saying that?"

K04 80 "Yes. I'm only too well aware of how it sounds. A K04 81 second-lieutenant, no less, saying 'The war must stop'. On the K04 82 other hand, I have been there. I'm at least as well qualified K04 83 as some of the old men you see sitting around in clubs, cackling on K04 84 about 'attrition' and 'wastage of manpower' and ... " His K04 85 voice became a vicious parody of an old man's voice. K04 86 "'Lost heavily in that last scrap.' You don't K04 87 talk like that if you've watched them die."

K04 88 "No intelligent or sensitive person would talk like K04 89 that anyway."

K04 90 A slightly awkward pause. "I'm not saying there are no K04 91 exceptions."

K04 92 Rivers laughed. "The point is you hate civilians, don't K04 93 you? The 'callous', the 'complacent', the 'unimaginative'. Or is K04 94 'hate' too strong a word?"

K04 95 "No."

K04 96 "So. What you felt for the Germans, rather briefly, in K04 97 the spring of last year, you now feel for the overwhelming majority K04 98 of your fellow-countrymen?"

K04 99 "Yes."

K04 100 "You know, I think you were quite right not to say too K04 101 much to the Board."

K04 102 "That wasn't my idea, it was Graves's. He was afraid K04 103 I'd sound too sane."

K04 104 "When you said the Board was 'rigged', what did you K04 105 mean?"

K04 106 "I meant the decision to send me here, or or<&|>sic! K04 107 somewhere similar, had been taken before I went in."

K04 108 "And this had all been fixed by Captain K04 109 Graves?"

K04 110 "Yes." Sassoon leant forward. "The point is K04 111 they weren't going to court-martial me. They were just going to K04 112 lock me up somewhere ..." He looked round the room. K04 113 "Worse than this."

K04 114 Rivers smiled. "There are worse places, believe K04 115 me."

K04 116 "I'm sure there are," Sassoon said politely.

K04 117 "They were going to certify you, in fact?"

K04 118 "I suppose so."

K04 119 "Did anybody on the Board say anything to you about K04 120 this?"

K04 121 "No, because it was -"

K04 122 "All fixed beforehand. Yes, I see."

K04 123 Sassoon said, "May I ask you a question?"

K04 124 "Go ahead"

K04 125 "Do you think I'm mad?"

K04 126 "No, of course you're not mad. Did you think you were K04 127 going mad?"

K04 128 "It crossed my mind. You know when you're brought face K04 129 to face with the fact that, yes, you did see corpses on the K04 130 pavement ..."

K04 131 "Hallucinations in the half-waking state are K04 132 surprisingly common, you know. They're not the same thing as K04 133 psychotic hallucinations. Children have them quite K04 134 frequently."

K04 135 Sassoon had started pulling at a loose thread on the breast of K04 136 his tunic. Rivers watched him for a while. "You must've K04 137 been in agony when you did that."

K04 138 Sassoon lowered his hand. "No-o. Agony's lying in K04 139 a shell-hole with your legs shot off. I was upset." K04 140 For a moment he looked almost hostile, then he relaxed. "It K04 141 was a futile gesture. I'm not particularly proud of it."

K04 142 "You threw it in the Mersey, didn't you?"

K04 143 "Yes. It wasn't heavy enough to sink, so it K04 144 just" - a glint of amusement - "bobbed around. K04 145 There was a ship sailing past, quite a long way out, in the K04 146 estuary, and I looked at this little scrap of ribbon floating and I K04 147 looked at the ship, and I thought that me trying to stop the war K04 148 was a bit like trying to stop the ship would have been. You know, K04 149 all they'd've seen from the deck was this little figure jumping up K04 150 and down, waving its arms, and they wouldn't've known what on earth K04 151 it was getting so excited about."

K04 152 "So you realized then that it was K04 153 futile?"

K04 154 Sassoon lifted his head. "It still had to be done. You K04 155 can't just acquiesce."

K04 156 Rivers hesitated. "Look, I think, we've ... we've got K04 157 about as far as we can get today. You must be very tired." K04 158 He stood up. "I'll see you tomorrow morning at ten. Oh, and K04 159 could you ask Captain Graves to see me as soon as he K04 160 arrives?"

K04 161 Sassoon stood up. "You said a bit back you didn't think K04 162 I was mad."

K04 163 "I'm quite sure you're not. As a matter of fact I don't K04 164 even think you've got a war neurosis."

K04 165 Sassoon digested this. "What have I got, K04 166 then?"

K04 167 "You seem to have a very powerful anti-war K04 168 neurosis."

K04 169 They looked at each other and laughed. Rivers said, K04 170 "You realize, don't you, that it's my duty to ... to try to K04 171 change that? I can't pretend to be neutral."

K04 172 Sassoon's glance took in both their uniforms. "No, of K04 173 course not."

K04 174 Rivers made a point of sitting next to Bryce at dinner.

K04 175 "Well," Bryce said, "what did you make of K04 176 him?"

K04 177 "I can't find anything wrong. He doesn't show any sign K04 178 of depression, he's not excited -"

K04 179 "Physically?"

K04 180 "Nothing."

K04 181 "Perhaps he just doesn't want to be killed."

K04 182 "Oh, I think he'd be most insulted if you suggested K04 183 that. To be fair, he did have a job lined up in Cambridge, K04 184 training cadets - so it isn't a question of avoiding being sent K04 185 back. He could've taken that if he'd wanted to save his K04 186 skin."

K04 187 "Any trace of ... er ... religious K04 188 enthusiasm?"

K04 189 "No, I'm afraid not. I was hoping for that K04 190 too."

K04 191 They looked at each other, amused. "You know, the K04 192 curious thing is I don't think he's even a pacifist? It seems to be K04 193 entirely a matter of of<&|>sic! horror at the extent of the K04 194 slaughter, combined with a feeling of anger that the government K04 195 won't state its war aims and impose some kind of limitation on K04 196 the whole thing. That, and an absolutely corrosive hatred of K04 197 civilians. And noncombatants in uniform."

K04 198 "What an uncomfortable time you must've K04 199 had."

K04 200 "No-o, I rather gather I was seen as an K04 201 exception."

K04 202 Bryce looked amused. "Did you like K04 203 him?"

K04 204 "Yes, very much. And I found him ... much more K04 205 impressive than I expected."

K04 206 Sassoon, at his table under the window, sat in silence. The men K04 207 on either side of him stammered so badly that conversation would K04 208 have been impossible, even if he had wished for it, but he was K04 209 content to withdraw into his own thoughts.

K04 210 He remembered the day before Arras, staggering from the outpost K04 211 trench to the main trench and back again, carrying boxes of trench K04 212 mortar bombs, passing the same corpses time after time, until their K04 213 twisted and blackened shapes began to seem like old friends. At one K04 214 point he'd had to pass two hands sticking up out of a heap of K04 215 pocked and pitted chalk, like the roots of an overturned tree. No K04 216 way of telling if they were British or German hands. No way of K04 217 persuading himself it mattered.

K04 218 "Do you play golf?

K04 219 "I'm sorry?"

K04 220 "I asked if you played golf."

K04 221 Small blue eyes, nibbled gingery moustache, an RAMC badge. He K04 222 held out his hand. "Ralph Anderson."

K04 223 Sassoon shook hands and introduced himself. "Yes, I K04 224 do."

K04 225 "What's your handicap?"

K04 226 Sassoon told him. After all, why not? It seemed an entirely K04 227 suitable topic for Bedlam.

K04 228 "Ah, then we might have a game."

K04 229 "I'm afraid I haven't brought my clubs."

K04 230 "Send for them. Some of the best courses in the country K04 231 round here."

K04 232 Sassoon had opened his mouth to reply when a commotion started K04 233 near the door. As far as he could tell, somebody seemed to have K04 234 been sick. At any rate, a thin, yellow-skinned man was on his feet, K04 235 choking and gagging. A couple of VADs ran across to him, clucking, K04 236 fussing, flapping ineffectually at his tunic with a napkin, until K04 237 eventually they had the sense to get him out of the room. The swing K04 238 doors closed behind them. A moment's silence, and then, as if K04 239 nothing had happened, the buzz of conversation rose again.

K04 240 Rivers stood up and pushed his plate away. "I think I'd K04 241 better go."

K04 242 "Why not wait till you've finished?" Bryce K04 243 said. "You eat little enough as it is."

K04 244 Rivers patted his midriff. "Oh, I shan't fade away just K04 245 yet."

K04 246 Whenever Rivers wanted to get to the top floor without being K04 247 stopped half a dozen times on the way, he used the back staircase. K04 248 Pipes lined the walls, twisting with the turning of the stair, K04 249 gurgling from time to time like lengths of human intestine. It was K04 250 dark, the air stuffy, and sweat began to prickle in the roots of K04 251 his hair. It was a relief to push the swing door open and come out K04 252 on to the top corridor, where the air was cool at least, though he K04 253 never failed to be depressed by the long narrow passage with its K04 254 double row of brown doors and the absence of natural light. K04 255 K05 1 <#FLOB:K05\>Brothers and Sisters I'm afraid there has been a K05 2 coup. Please, no panic. I mean a coup de K05 3 th<*_>e-acute<*/><*_>a-circ<*/>tre. I, Zero, have ousted the tyrant K05 4 author. Now I am master of ceremonies in earnest. There will be, K05 5 alas, no tea and cakes in the Rex Cafe and Stores, no chatter about K05 6 cinema and society.

K05 7 Rest assured the army is loyal. Just how loyal I must now K05 8 relate.

K05 9 I believe there was a plan afoot, under the previous regime, to K05 10 leave the story up in the air. To have us grovelling, groping in K05 11 the dark, the air heavy with meaning. The shot in the dark, the K05 12 rule of the gun and so on. I did not like it. I don't like open K05 13 endings, loose ends, symbols. Nor will I be pensioned off to the K05 14 retirement valley. So I offer my own resolutions.

K05 15 I concede we were all in it together, all culpable, but not K05 16 equally. I agree we get the government we deserve, but some are K05 17 more deserving. Let me sift out the weevils.

K05 18 Nero escaped hanging. The fingerprints on the gun didn't tally. K05 19 I understand she is now a lecturer in film studies at Pune where K05 20 her lectures are well attended. They would be sold out if there K05 21 were not a barrier at the Film Institute gate to keep out thieves K05 22 and idlers and assorted villains. She does not hold with the K05 23 Lacanians.

K05 24 Captain Memo turned his back on filmdom forever after that K05 25 night. He sold his Hero Honda for a one-way ticket to London. There K05 26 he returned to boxing but was debarred from the ring for punching a K05 27 judge. Driven by the old intensities, he turned to writing, but K05 28 found his gloves would not come off. He has learnt to type with K05 29 them on.

K05 30 Golgappa died, needing no cremation. He was remembered in K05 31 Talkie-Talkie, but not the Tatler. One or two chubby boys K05 32 suffered burns, though not serious burns. Not disfiguring burns at K05 33 any rate, for they were back on the TV epic circuit before long, K05 34 reconciled to the small screen. Yes, TV, not Didi.

K05 35 So. Back to the edible oils for the chubby boys (and the K05 36 soyabean girl), back to the cyclotron for the (?) particle K05 37 physicist. A five-star hotel snapped up Francis.

K05 38 Nandita and Flora Fountain found happiness together in Bombay. K05 39 Chaman Lal, producer again, was a regular visitor at their Bandra K05 40 home where he too read War and Peace. Guppy Agarwal lost K05 41 more money but he bought himself a new safari suit, at a sale.

K05 42 Who would have thought Alok Singh, whilom 3c, would become PM! K05 43 3a and 3b fell out and he was the compromise candidate. His K05 44 speeches are written, if that is the word, by one A.B. K05 45 His wife is a nervous wreck but she'll get used to the idea of K05 46 being First Lady, will go on foreign tours and spending sprees and K05 47 leave the post in tears.

K05 48 GJ is a social worker, until the next election. He backed Alok K05 49 Singh; he keeps him there. But the worm can turn, so he is looking K05 50 for fresh bait.

K05 51 But you are wondering about UD.

K05 52 And you would like to be sure about Hero.

K05 53 Yes, Hero died; instantly, I would think. But UD was not the K05 54 shape on the grass I thought I saw from the royal balcony.

K05 55 Long before the guests violated her chamber in their tantric K05 56 fury, UD had left the Khas Mahal by the south entrance, on the K05 57 other side from the Diwan-i-Khas and the terrace where the K05 58 Democracy Drummers were drumming. The headache she pleaded was K05 59 real; the drumming made it worse. Instead of going down the steps K05 60 as she usually did to avoid the Coloured Palace, she crossed K05 61 straight to it and stepped in. There was a light on in there, in K05 62 Nero's room. She went in. Nero was there, painting her legs.

K05 63 It was the first time they'd met since moving into the fort K05 64 though they were neighbours. There must have been some initial K05 65 awkwardness. After all, the last time they'd met, at the house on K05 66 Chanakya Avenue, UD was happily married and Nero a guest. Now it K05 67 was different. I don't know what they talked about, but talk they K05 68 did. There were notes to compare, no doubt, because just before I K05 69 kissed her goodbye, UD let fall, having got a second opinion, a K05 70 cryptic judgement on her spouse.

K05 71 "The flesh was willing," she said, "but K05 72 the bone was weak."

K05 73 So much for the hump.

K05 74 When the paint was dry, Nero slipped into her gold bell cloak K05 75 and the two parted as friends, Nero hurrying off to the dance, UD K05 76 making her way to the cool underground rooms below the Coloured K05 77 Palace. Here Shah Jehan's ladies retired in summer, cooled by the K05 78 Stream of Paradise flowing above, by the dark deep earth all round, K05 79 by the fresh air that poured through the fretted sandstone screens K05 80 set in the vents at ground level. During Hero's harem phase, these K05 81 rooms had been opened up and aired and reappointed. Here, in K05 82 comparative quiet, UD found a bed and fell asleep.

K05 83 She didn't wake until the corybants began their chase. The K05 84 explosion, the gunfire overhead would have told their tale. Then K05 85 the silence would have drawn her out into the dark night.

K05 86 It wasn't dark for long after that single shot. I saw several K05 87 torches coming and going in the garden. Somewhere off towards the K05 88 Drum House a generator came to life.

K05 89 At the time I'd no idea UD was right below us. I made a K05 90 lightning dash to my rooms by the museum and was making my way back K05 91 to the Khas Mahal when I bumped into her.

K05 92 "What's happening?" she said.

K05 93 I threw my arms around her, in tears again. "He's K05 94 dead," I said.

K05 95 She took it calmly. We continued on our way to their palace. I K05 96 went to his room and put on the burqa. There was also a K05 97 bush shirt hanging there which I took. Then I went into her room K05 98 where she gave me her shoes. I needed that extra inch. It was then K05 99 that she let drop that line about him. She'd been chatting with K05 100 Nero, she said. I squeezed her hand. Then I lifted the window of my K05 101 burqa and kissed her goodbye. She kissed me back and K05 102 dropped the veil.

K05 103 I turned away but she called me back. She took off her platinum K05 104 ring and gave it to me. Her fingers were so frail it slipped off K05 105 easily. It had a fabulous stone set in it, a ruby, Shiraz-red even K05 106 by lamplight.

K05 107 "Don't be sentimental about it," she said.

K05 108 I went in search of the loyal army. Field Marshal Haq, Chief of K05 109 Staff, was in the devastated Diwan-i-Khas, scene of so many kitchen K05 110 cabinet meetings. He was on the phone, frantic. There was a torch K05 111 lying on the desk before him which he hastily turned on me as I K05 112 appeared in the door.

K05 113 I gestured come with one finger, and brought the finger to K05 114 my lips. He put the phone down and came after me like a lamb.

K05 115 We went down the Khas Mahal steps and out through the slit. K05 116 Then we walked side by side along the wall to the Delhi Gate where K05 117 the security ring parted for us. We walked in silence along Netaji K05 118 Subhash Road to the Daryaganj overbridge. Once when he tried to K05 119 speak I shushed him. Up there on the deserted bridge he shed his K05 120 stars and stripes and put on the bush shirt. We descended on the K05 121 other side and came to the Eros. He bought tickets and we went K05 122 in.

K05 123 The movie was almost over. The hero was in a motorboat kicking K05 124 up water. We sat for a moment, then I stood up again and gestured K05 125 stay. He sat there loyally. I wanted to pat his head and say: K05 126 Good dog. I walked back up the aisle to the ladies' cloak K05 127 room. There I threw off the burqa. I was about to abandon K05 128 it when the door opened and a woman walked in. I bunched up the K05 129 burqa and began to polish the mirror with it. I'd seen K05 130 that done in some foreign movie. The woman entered the stall and I K05 131 slipped out into the night.

K05 132 I felt in my pocket the way one does coming out from a movie. K05 133 There was a bundle of feathers there, but it said nothing. I drew K05 134 out Pedro like a gun. He was still warm. I felt pain and K05 135 self-reproach for having forgotten him. When had he died? When the K05 136 shot sounded, or earlier? Earlier, probably, in that infernal din. K05 137 The drumming would have burst his ear-drums.

K05 138 I walked south along the other side of the street from the Eros K05 139 saying my goodbyes. At Delhi Gate (the old city gate, not the fort K05 140 gate) there was a large pipal tree just outside the city wall, the K05 141 sort that birds of every kind - pigeons and parrots mostly - value K05 142 for its figs. I climbed a short way up the ropy trunk and placed K05 143 him in the wide smooth hollow where the tree forked. There was no K05 144 time for grave-digging. Ficus religiosa would K05 145 take care of him. A martyr to democracy, or democracy's drums.

K05 146 Then I caught a bus, a train, a plane, many planes.

K05 147 Far from court, far from care.

K05 148 But now I must cover my tracks. You can buy a passport - any K05 149 passport - in Kathmandu. (Did I take that route?) I boarded the K05 150 plane singing, like every patriotic K05 151 <*_>e-acute<*/>migr<*_>e-acute<*/>, 'Sare Jahan Se K05 152 Achha.' There's no place like home. I believe the poet K05 153 Iqbal wrote that before he'd seen the world.

K05 154 Here in Vancouver (let us suppose) I will sometimes pause at an K05 155 intersection till the red hand has replaced the flashing green man K05 156 - that green man whose stride always seems to me criminally K05 157 evangelical - and drift off to that last night in Old Delhi. My K05 158 fellow pedestrians will flow around me, checking their annoyance or K05 159 satisfying it with a sidelong look, but in fact I'm no longer K05 160 there. I'm walking along Netaji Subhash Road with a dead parrot in K05 161 my pocket. The shot heard around the world is ringing in my ears, K05 162 and the democracy drums are throbbing.

K05 163 But one must come back. There are little jobs to attend to, the K05 164 lawn to mow. I have found a bakery on 4th which makes bagels that K05 165 are not unlike my fruit buns. I have a lover.

K05 166 I keep in touch, though. Kiran Ahuja, Old Fogey, writes to a K05 167 post office box. She's in Dehra Dun these days, has left the Ahuja. K05 168 She has got over her bitterness; she can even bring herself to look K05 169 in a mirror and like what she sees. They are having municipal K05 170 elections in the valley. She tells me the poor will take the free K05 171 liquor, the blankets, the transistor radios the other fellow gives K05 172 away at election time - and then vote for their man. So the K05 173 democracy dance is not in vain.

K05 174 She also tells me UD is fat again and going into politics, as K05 175 His wife.

K05 176 I'm happy to say I put in that capital H quite deliberately. It K05 177 didn't catch me unawares. I distrust capitals, though I seem to K05 178 keep the capital I. I look forward to the day when we will need no K05 179 heroes. When every man will find pleasure (and a little pain) in K05 180 his job - when every man will have a job. Hero must have had K05 181 his dreams too before he gave up, or in. Dejection, despair, are K05 182 private hells, harmless enough until they overtake the group. K05 183 Sometimes I am visited by a sadness that I shall not live to see K05 184 our second moment in history - that I was not born back then, when K05 185 we were something, or forward then, when we will be something K05 186 again. Not a power, or a force, but simply a people who do things K05 187 right, who have faith in themselves. At other times I wish I were K05 188 Japanese. K05 189 K06 1 <#FLOB:K06\>My parents had presented me with a new opera cape K06 2 with white fox-fur trim for this trip. I feared that as it had K06 3 ruined my dancing, my disastrous case of strabismus would totally K06 4 ruin my life, that the scar on my chin and also the size of my nose K06 5 precluded any chance of happiness I might have. No beautiful new K06 6 cloak would help in the slightest. Finding it almost impossible to K06 7 concentrate or even stir myself from the apathy that had settled K06 8 over me, I could not even comb my own hair or dress myself.

K06 9 Miss Weaver was afflicted with a case of shingles. I was being K06 10 treated by the famous Professor N. Ischlondsky, and expert on K06 11 regenerative gland treatments who had published a tract in Russia K06 12 on the gonad glands for a new diagnosis of glandular imbalances, a K06 13 deficiency in adrenalin secretion. Two lukewarm, two-hour baths K06 14 were the treatment. I needed help into both baths and might have K06 15 spent the entire day underwater if the nurse hadn't returned to K06 16 pull me out, dry me off, dress me and help me back to the couch. My K06 17 hands and feet were wrinkled like an old prune.

K06 18 The nurse reported to Miss Weaver that I had threatened to buy K06 19 two pistols. Miss Weaver reported this to Father. I reported to K06 20 Mother that marriage was the only salvation offered to Hindu K06 21 girl-children because Hinduism said that females arrived on this K06 22 earth with no souls. But what of me? I was not Hindu and couldn't K06 23 in good conscience convert!

K06 24 My hands, I further told Mother, were so distant from my body K06 25 that I didn't know any more if they were connected to my body. Were K06 26 they? Because my own thoughts were being broadcast in my head, I K06 27 waited until Miss Weaver was out on a business appointment and the K06 28 nurse was down in the kitchen, feeding her always famished K06 29 appetite, when I grabbed my opera cloak and bolted from the K06 30 house.

K06 31 I went as far as I could on a bus. I found myself far from K06 32 Gloucester Place when I was overtaken by fatigue. I slept where I K06 33 was, under a street-lamp. When the police found me the opera cape K06 34 was in shreds. Miss Weaver came to the police station to fetch me, K06 35 and brought me back home. I told Miss Weaver to keep her rules to K06 36 herself. I demanded to do as I pleased - after all, my father was a K06 37 famous man.

K06 38 The doors and windows all now contained locks.

K06 39 Father was determined to resist any persuasion to put me back K06 40 into another maison de sant<*_>e-acute<*/>. The K06 41 year was 1935. I was twenty-eight years old. He swore to Mother K06 42 that their only daughter's mind was lightning quick and what might K06 43 be construed as incomprehensible nonsense to others were flashes of K06 44 imagination and wisdom.

K06 45 That I threatened suicide put Father into a terribly low state; K06 46 he too suffered terrible lethargy with his own work. The book he K06 47 had been working on for fifteen years - his masterpiece, he hoped- K06 48 seemed not closer to completion. Perhaps, he mused, if he could K06 49 complete his book, then I too would be freed.

K06 50 34. K06 51 The strategy was: complete and total freedom. Mother shopped K06 52 for weeks and prepared two trunks for me. At the same time she K06 53 bought eleven mirrors for the new flat on rue Valentin. K06 54 The opera cloak was mended.

K06 55 My strategy was to effect a reconciliation between my father K06 56 and the entire country of Ireland. I would travel with my favourite K06 57 aunt, Aunt Eileen, Father's look-alike sister. Edgar would join me, K06 58 my father agreed.

K06 59 Aunt Eileen's strategy was- Irish eggs, Irish air.

K06 60 Edgar told Lyo, his boss, that he would be going away for a K06 61 trip. He did not know where, but he would need to eat a salmon that K06 62 had swallowed a hazelnut before he went.

K06 63 Mother and Father accompanied me to the boat-train for London. K06 64 There was no scene at the station, the trunks were loaded, I was K06 65 the Lucia of old - sweet and laughing at every wry comment made by K06 66 either Father or Mother. My mother thought to herself that I looked K06 67 too chic to be going to dirty old Ireland, that I should be going K06 68 to a horse race instead. She didn't say this out loud, having K06 69 become, she believed, the world champion walker-on-eggs, always K06 70 alert lest a chair come flying across the room aimed at her K06 71 head.

K06 72 Father slipped an Irish pound into Edgar's pocket for luck as K06 73 Edgar stood off to the side of the tracks, trying as best as he K06 74 could to adjust his trousers which seemed to have unequal K06 75 leg-lengths.

K06 76 After the train had departed, I went to find Edgar. I found him K06 77 squeezed between two French schoolchildren in a second-class car K06 78 with all their school-books on his lap. I brought him back to K06 79 my compartment. There I presented him with a hatbox. He held the K06 80 hatbox and slowly turned it with appreciation.

K06 81 I laughed, "Ouvrez la K06 82 bo<*_>i-circ<*/>te!" He did not understand. I K06 83 laughed again and pulled off the top. Edgar peered inside. He liked K06 84 what he saw.

K06 85 "Charlie Chaplin!" I laughed and removed a K06 86 black bowler-hat from the box. I placed it squarely on K06 87 Edgar's large head. Though just slightly too small, it made him so K06 88 happy that he felt salt in his eyes.

K06 89 In London, Aunt Eileen met me and brought me by boat to Dun K06 90 Laoghaire and then twelve more miles further along the coast, to K06 91 the seaside town of Bray where she had rented a half-bungalow on K06 92 Meath Road quite close to both the railway station and the sea. I K06 93 arrived on St Patrick's Day, I carried a long walking-stick like a K06 94 sceptre and wore a grand camel-hair coat.

K06 95 Once Aunt Eileen had installed me and gone back into Dublin, I K06 96 rearranged all the furnishings in anticipation of Edgar's arrival. K06 97 I put the bottle of Veronal under the mattress, then changed into K06 98 an oriental kimono with nothing on underneath and lit the gas.

K06 99 Edgar arrived in the taxi which was bringing the trunks. He saw K06 100 that the door was wide open and people from the neighbourhood were K06 101 standing at their doors and staring boldly at the half-bungalow. He K06 102 heard someone say, "She squints."

K06 103 He carried one trunk into the house and the taximan carried the K06 104 other. Then he closed the front door. He had stopped along the way K06 105 and purchased groceries and a bag of large K06 106 pamplemousses which he now put into a glass K06 107 bowl and placed in the centre of the table.

K06 108 First he sang a song he'd learned as a child in Genti Couli, K06 109 the town outside of Saloniki, where he was born.

K06 110 And so ask our bride

K06 111 What do you call a head

K06 112 This is not called a head but

K06 113 A round grapefruit hanging on a grapefruit-tree

K06 114 Oh, my grapefruit in a tree

K06 115 Of my spacious countryside

K06 116 Long live the Bride and Groom

K06 117 We began to eat and he told me about his childhood. He K06 118 explained that all four of his older brothers had gone to the K06 119 Transvaal gold-mines in South Africa before he was born. His mother K06 120 had lit candles for their safe return but none had returned. Though K06 121 he was a small boy during the Great War, Edgar remembered his own K06 122 father going with a group of men from the village to work in French K06 123 shipyards. His father was bearded with blue eyes. He recalled more K06 124 lighting of candles.

K06 125 After the Great War Edgar lived with his mother, grandfather K06 126 and last three unmarried sisters, in a tin house which had been an K06 127 Allied troop barrack during the war. They waited for their father K06 128 to return but he did not.

K06 129 The entire village worked in the shipyards.

K06 130 Quite young he would feed his mother's silkworms with mulberry K06 131 leaves and tend to the bright-yellow silk loops which emerged from K06 132 the kettles, winding themselves on to the wooden frames. At night K06 133 he would fall asleep listening to the crackling, chewing of the K06 134 silkworms.

K06 135 When his mother took the raw silk to the loom, Edgar would hold K06 136 the soft curls carefully for her, reluctant to surrender them to K06 137 the weavers.

K06 138 Like a sack of stone he had fallen head first from a fig-tree K06 139 and died.

K06 140 In the family's tin shack a cloth covered the shard of mirror K06 141 on the wall and an earthen pitcher of clean water stood at the K06 142 door. Together the men carried the borrowed child's-size pine box K06 143 to the cemetery. Women sobbed and moaned, prayers were chanted as K06 144 the procession passed through the narrow streets and up towards the K06 145 cemetery. When the noise of a funeral was heard in other parts of K06 146 town, doors were shut. Behind these closed doors the women in their K06 147 kitchens, in order to walk symbolically with the dead boy, walked K06 148 three steps forwards and then, in order to return symbolically to K06 149 normal life (come back from the dead), walked three steps K06 150 backwards.

K06 151 On arriving at the cemetery a small grave had been dug. The K06 152 body was removed from the borrowed casket.

K06 153 Edgar's grandfather took a handful of dirt, pulled Edgar's K06 154 eyelids open, and rubbed the dirt into his eyes. Then the men K06 155 lowered the body into the grave. The grandfather splashed the body K06 156 with wine, thinking, "This boy will never drink wine. Never K06 157 love a woman. Never sing a song. Never carry on my name." K06 158 The rabbi sprinkled the body with dry dirt. Immediately, then, all K06 159 the mourners began to throw dirt down on the small body below, head K06 160 and foot. Wailing, the mother covered her own face with dirt.

K06 161 It was at this moment that Edgar sat up and began to rub his K06 162 eyes.

K06 163 Still covered in dirt, he was carried home to his grandfather's K06 164 bed. His aunt fainted dead out when she saw him carried in through K06 165 the door. His mother washed him from head to toe and tied a piece K06 166 of potato with cloth on his head. She made pinholes in a sheet of K06 167 newspaper and covered him front and back.

K06 168 His mother then mixed a glass of water with sugar and went to K06 169 the fig-tree. She poured the mixture into the ground where the K06 170 accident had occurred. His mother believed that Edgar had been K06 171 smitten with the evil eye, perhaps from the dangerous blue eyes of K06 172 his father.

K06 173 Daily she chanted seven times:

K06 174 All the evil eyes. all the stares, the pain and the evil eye

K06 175 All will go to the bottom of the sea

K06 176 And this created will be freed from the evil eye.

K06 177 Then, morning and night, and between, she would throw a handful K06 178 of salt into the stream of his urine, and say:

K06 179 They are not from the sky, nor the earth

K06 180 How they come, so should they go.

K06 181 When he got older his roaming ways began. Much of the city of K06 182 Thessalloniki, as it was then called, had been devastated by the K06 183 great fire in the summer of 1917 and still lay in ruins. Edgar K06 184 would climb around the charred remains and up the slopes of Mt K06 185 Khortiatis through huddled houses of the old town, close to the K06 186 battlement walks of the old citadel where Mediterranean pine-trees K06 187 had begun, through the charred woods, to sprout tender green shots K06 188 again.

K06 189 Sometimes he would go to the Lefkos Pirg<*_>o-acute<*/>s on the K06 190 quay of the old port surrounded by trees which had been spared by K06 191 the fire, sit down on the rampart swinging his legs over the gulf K06 192 of Thermai, watching ships sail out to sea.

K06 193 In winter the eerie Vardas wind would freeze and whine in his K06 194 ears but he wandered still.

K06 195 35. K06 196 When I next opened the door to the bungalow both Edgar and I K06 197 were fat as Christmas geese. Because this was my first time playing K06 198 house, I had created my own recipes for food - raw meat and K06 199 pamplemousse, buttermilk scones with cabbage, K06 200 sweetbreads and porridge. Neither of us had ever been fat before K06 201 and we decided that it was to our liking. It made noise seem K06 202 further away, it made sleeping cosier.

K06 203 K07 1 <#FLOB:K07\>1

K07 2 Saturday 12th

K07 3 Drove to the Geyser Hospital this morning to see Ursula's K07 4 oncologist, by appointment. The Geyser is a huge medical citadel, K07 5 much bigger and grander than St Joseph's, recently constructed in a K07 6 curvilinear concrete and mirror glass on a site about ten miles K07 7 outside Honolulu. Apparently it used to be situated down by the K07 8 shore just outside Waikiki, next to the Marina, but a few years ago K07 9 the site was sold to developers, the hospital demolished and a K07 10 high-rise luxury hotel was constructed in its place. In fact the K07 11 reception area of the new hospital is itself a bit like the lobby K07 12 of a luxury hotel, carpeted and upholstered in tasteful tones of K07 13 grey and mauve, with examples of Hawaiian folk art on the walls - K07 14 an indication of how profitable the change of location was. Dr K07 15 Gerson assures me that it also has all the state-of-the-art medical K07 16 technology, but it must seem a long ambulance ride if you happen to K07 17 be knocked down in Waikiki.

K07 18 Gerson admits to missing the view he used to have, from his old K07 19 office, of the yachts going in and out of the marina. He is a keen K07 20 windsurfer, and I should think he is good at it - he is lean, wiry, K07 21 youngish. As he leafed through Ursula's file he tilted his swivel K07 22 chair as far as it would go as if balancing a sailboard against the K07 23 wind. His forearms, thrust from the short sleeves of his starched K07 24 white tunic, were tanned and muscular, covered with fine gold K07 25 hairs.

K07 26 He thanked me for coming to Honolulu - "Frankly, it K07 27 makes my task easier if there's family around to take care of the K07 28 practical problems in a case like this." He was brisk, K07 29 forthright and, I thought, a little cold. Perhaps you have to be in K07 30 his line of medicine. The mortality rate of his patients must be K07 31 pretty high. He confirmed what Ursula had told me about her K07 32 condition: malignant melanoma with secondary cancers of the liver K07 33 and spleen."Caused by too much exposure to the sun, I'm K07 34 afraid, in the days when the danger wasn't appreciated. People came K07 35 here because of the climate and lay about in the sun all day. It K07 36 was asking for trouble. I always wear a sunblock with a fifteen per K07 37 cent protection factor when I go windsurfing. I advise you to do K07 38 the same on the beach." I said I doubted if I would have K07 39 any time for sunbathing.

K07 40 Prognosis was difficult, he said, especially with elderly K07 41 patients. His own estimate was that Ursula would live for about six K07 42 months, but it could be more, or much less. The condition was K07 43 incurable, "This type of cancer doesn't respond well to K07 44 radiotherapy or chemotherapy. I offered them to Mrs Riddell because K07 45 they can give some remission in certain cases, but she declined, K07 46 and I respect that. She's a tough old lady, your aunt. She knows K07 47 her own mind."

K07 48 When I criticized the accommodation she was in, he answered, as K07 49 I knew he would, that she had insisted on the cheapest available. K07 50 "But I agree with you, it's not appropriate for a patient K07 51 in her condition, and will become even less so as time goes K07 52 on." He said there were several private nursing homes in K07 53 and around Honolulu, costing anything from $3000 a month up, K07 54 according to the type of care and degree of luxury they offer, and K07 55 gave me a list compiled by the hospital's Nursing Coordinator. He K07 56 explained that Ursula's medical plan covered her for something K07 57 called Skilled Nursing Care, i.e. 24-hour attendance by registered K07 58 nurses, such as you get in hospital, but not Intermediate Nursing K07 59 Care, which is all she needs at present - or so he says. I deduced K07 60 that there was a certain pressure on him not to admit patients to K07 61 hospital lightly, since they then become a charge on the Geyser K07 62 Foundation. I said I thought Ursula ought to be in hospital while I K07 63 looked for a suitable nursing home, and pressed him to visit her. K07 64 He said he was very busy, but when I told him how badly constipated K07 65 she was, he agreed to try and call on her today.

K07 66 Drove back along the freeway to visit Daddy at St Joseph's. He K07 67 is in some pain, and was fretful and surly. He turned his nose up K07 68 to the pyjamas I had bought for him because they didn't button at K07 69 the neck. I pointed out that in this climate you didn't need K07 70 pyjamas that buttoned at the neck, and he said, "What about K07 71 when I go home - or don't you think I'm ever going to get K07 72 home?" I told him not to be silly. I described my visit to K07 73 Ursula yesterday, but he didn't seem very interested. Illness, I'm K07 74 afraid, makes people even more selfish and ill-natured than they K07 75 are normally. In all my time as a parish priest, visiting the sick K07 76 in hospital and at home, I could count on the fingers of one hand K07 77 the number of patients I met who 'rose above' their suffering. I'm K07 78 pretty sure I wouldn't be one of that number myself.

K07 79 Daddy asked me if I had telephoned Tess to tell her about his K07 80 accident. I said I thought it was pointless to worry her unless it K07 81 was absolutely necessary. He was displeased and said she had a K07 82 right to know, the whole family had a right to know. What he meant K07 83 was that he had a right to know they were all worrying themselves K07 84 sick on his behalf, and blaming me. He said slyly, "You are K07 85 afraid of Tess, aren't you?". Touch<*_>e-acute<*/>.

K07 86 On my way out, I met Daddy's physician, Dr Figuera, a cheerful, K07 87 portly man of about sixty, who assured me that Daddy was making a K07 88 good recovery, and that he didn't anticipate any complications. K07 89 "Good bones, good bones," he said. "Don't K07 90 worry about him. He'll mend."

K07 91 Drove to Mrs Jones's. A white BMW with a sailboard on the K07 92 roof-rack was parked outside, and proved to belong to Dr Gerson, K07 93 who was just leaving as I arrived. We conferred in the street, K07 94 through the open window of his car. His tanned, golden-haired arm K07 95 was jack-knifed to grip the roof. "You were right to call K07 96 me in, she's in bad shape," he said. "I'm K07 97 readmitting her to treat the constipation. That should give you a K07 98 few days to fix up a nursing home, OK?" I asked him when K07 99 Ursula would be moved, and he said, "When can you bring her K07 100 in?" I pointed to my old Honda and said, "You mean, K07 101 in that? Can't she have an ambulance?" He said, somewhat K07 102 irritably, "You don't seem to realize I have to operate K07 103 within certain financial constraints. I have to make a medical case K07 104 for every ambulance I authorize. If your aunt can walk to the K07 105 bathroom, she can walk to your car."

K07 106 I pointed out that the cast on her arm would make this K07 107 difficult.

K07 108 "She can sit in the back."

K07 109 "It's a two-door car. She could never climb into the K07 110 back."

K07 111 He sighed and said, "OK. You get your K07 112 ambulance."

K07 113 I stayed with Ursula until the ambulance came, and helped her K07 114 pack her few belongings. Mrs Jones, who had given me a very frigid K07 115 reception at the front door, didn't come near us. "She K07 116 thinks it's your fault that I'm being moved," Ursula said. K07 117 "Well," I said, "she's right," and K07 118 we giggled conspiratorially.

K07 119 Ursula was delighted to be escaping from that dreary house. For K07 120 the first time since I got to Hawaii - for the first time in a long K07 121 while - I felt a glow of satisfaction at having achieved something, K07 122 at having bent circumstances to my will, at having been of some K07 123 use. Ursula has also been busy on her own account. She had Mrs K07 124 Jones bring her a cordless phone, and made calls to her bank, her K07 125 stockbroker and her lawyer. It seems that I must obtain power of K07 126 attorney before I can consolidate her various bank accounts and K07 127 sell her stocks and shares.

K07 128 Rereading that sentence, I sound like a man of business. In K07 129 fact I have only the foggiest idea of what is entailed. I have K07 130 never managed personal finances more complex than a current bank K07 131 account and a Post Office Savings Book in my life. When I was K07 132 parish priest of St Peter's and Paul's my curate Thomas did all the K07 133 accounts. He had a head for figures, fortunately. I'm just about K07 134 the least qualified person in the world to help Ursula settle her K07 135 affairs. But I suppose I can learn, if only from Ursula. Perhaps K07 136 she learned from Rick. It surprises me that she has any investments K07 137 at all, good or bad. The Walshes never were any good at money. We K07 138 don't understand its abstract workings - interest, inflation, K07 139 depreciation. Money to us is cash: coin and banknotes, kept in K07 140 jamjars and under mattresses, something necessary, coveted, but K07 141 vaguely disreputable. Family gatherings - weddings, funerals, K07 142 visits from or to relatives in Ireland - were always marked by K07 143 people furtively pushing screwed-up, low-denomination bank-notes K07 144 into each other's hands or pockets by way of presents. We never had K07 145 enough money at home, and what we had was badly managed. Mummy K07 146 would send one of the girls out to the shops every day, for little K07 147 bits of this and that, instead of buying in bulk. Daddy never had K07 148 any savings to speak of. I think he bet on horses secretly. Once, K07 149 when I was still at school, I borrowed a raincoat of his and found K07 150 a betting slip in the pocket. I never told anybody.

K07 151 The ambulance came at three. The men moved Ursula out in a K07 152 wheelchair, which they carried down the front steps, and I brought K07 153 up the rear with her little holdall. Mrs Jones put on an oily K07 154 display of sympathetic concern for the benefit of the ambulancemen, K07 155 patting Ursula's hand as she was carried over the threshold. The K07 156 ambulance drove sedately and sirenless along the freeway to the K07 157 Geyser, and I followed in my car. I took Ursula's belongings up to K07 158 her ward, but did not linger. She is in a room with three other K07 159 women, but the beds are placed in the middle of the floorspace at K07 160 oblique angles, so that the occupants don't have to stare at each K07 161 other across the room, as they do in a British hospital.

K07 162 Before I left I told Ursula about finding this writing book in K07 163 her bureau, and asked her if I could have it. She said, "Of K07 164 course, Bernard, take anything you like. All I have is yours for K07 165 the asking." She bought the book a long time ago to write K07 166 down recipes in, but she had never used it and had forgotten all K07 167 about it.

K07 168 Called in again at St Joseph's on my way home, and was K07 169 pleasantly surprised to find Mrs Knoepflmacher sitting beside K07 170 Daddy's bed, in a bright yellow muu-muu and gold sandals.(She K07 171 seemed to have re-tinted her hair ash blonde to match - is that K07 172 possible? Perhaps she wears a wig.) There was a small basket of K07 173 fruit on the bedside table, gaudy and artificial-looking as K07 174 millinery. I suppose I must have mentioned the name of the hospital K07 175 to her yesterday evening, and she decided to visit Daddy. This was K07 176 a kind gesture, even though Ursula would probably ascribe it to K07 177 nosiness. I thanked her warmly and, after a few minutes of empty K07 178 chat, she left us alone.

K07 179 "Begob, I thought she'd never go," Daddy said. K07 180 "I'm bursting. Will you tell the nurse I need a bottle, for K07 181 the love of Jesus. They never answer when I press this K07 182 thing." He indicated the bell-push on his bedside table. I K07 183 found a pretty Hawaiian nurse, who brought him a bottle and drew K07 184 the curtains round his bed, and I hung about a little K07 185 self-consciously outside the screen while he relieved himself. The K07 186 nurse returned and carried off the bottle.

K07 187 "A nice thing to be doing at my time of life," K07 188 he said bitterly. "Pissing into a bottle and handing it to K07 189 a strange black woman, wrapped in a towel like it was vintage K07 190 champagne. K07 191 K08 1 <#FLOB:K08\>NINE K08 2 "MARTYN IS COMING over for lunch again on Sunday. I K08 3 think he's got something to tell us."

K08 4 "What?"

K08 5 "I hope it's not that he is going to marry Anna, but I K08 6 fear that it is."

K08 7 "Marry her?"

K08 8 "Yes. There was something in his voice. Oh, I don't K08 9 know. I may be wrong."

K08 10 "He can't marry her." Why do those we have K08 11 loved half our lives not know when devastation threatens? How can K08 12 they simply not know?

K08 13 "Good God, you sound like a Victorian father. He's over K08 14 twenty-one. He can do what he likes. I don't like that girl. But I K08 15 know Martyn. If he wants her, he will have her. He's got your K08 16 father's determination."

K08 17 I noticed she did not say mine.

K08 18 "Well, we must all wait until Sunday," she K08 19 sighed.

K08 20 The conversation was over. My thoughts went wildly into battle K08 21 with each other. I was wounded, defended myself, and fought myself K08 22 again. Silently, while I pretended to read, on and on the battle K08 23 raged. I was engulfed by anger and fear. Fear that I would never K08 24 get control of myself again. That I was now uprooted. And by a K08 25 storm of such force that even if there was a dim possibility of K08 26 survival, I would be permanently damaged, permanently weakened.

K08 27 I had not spoken. I had not touched, I had not possessed. But I K08 28 had recognised her. And in her, had recognised myself.

K08 29 I needed to get out of the house and walk. The forced stillness K08 30 of the room was agony. The pain could only be borne by constant, K08 31 endless movement.

K08 32 I touched Ingrid's forehead briefly, and I left the house. How K08 33 can you not know? Can't you sense, smell, taste disaster waiting in K08 34 the corners of the house? Waiting at the bottom of the garden.

K08 35 I was exhausted when I returned. I slept like some heavy K08 36 animal, uncertain if it can ever rise again.

K08 37 TEN K08 38 "HELLO, IT'S ANNA."

K08 39 I waited quietly. Knowing that in my life there was now an end K08 40 and a beginning. Not knowing where the beginning would end.

K08 41 "Where are you? Go to your house. I will be there in an K08 42 hour," I said. I took the address and put down the K08 43 phone.

K08 44 There are hidden enclaves in London of creamy houses, rich with K08 45 discretion. In the deep oily blackness of the door I watched the K08 46 outline of my body as I pressed the bell, and waited to enter K08 47 Anna's small, low and to me mysterious house.

K08 48 We made no sound as we moved down the honey-coloured K08 49 carpet of the hall. We went into her sitting-room and lay K08 50 down on the floor. She flung her arms out, each side of her, and K08 51 she drew her legs up. I lay down on her. I sank my head on her K08 52 shoulder. I thought of Christ, still nailed to the cross, which had K08 53 been laid on the earth. Then with one hand grasping her hair; I K08 54 entered her.

K08 55 And there we lay. Not speaking, not stirring until finally I K08 56 moved my face across hers, and kissed her. And at last the age-old K08 57 ritual possessed us, and I bit and tore and held her, round and K08 58 round, as we rose and fell, rose and fell into the wilderness.

K08 59 Later there would be time for the pain and pleasure lust lends K08 60 to love. Time for body lines and angles that provoke the astounded K08 61 primitive to leap delighted from the civilised skin, and tear the K08 62 woman to him, There would be time for words obscene and dangerous. K08 63 There would be time for cruel laughter to excite, and for ribbons K08 64 colourfully to bind limbs to a sickening, thrilling subjugation. K08 65 There would be time for flowers to put out the eyes, and for silken K08 66 softness to close the ears. And time also in that dark and silent K08 67 world for the howl of the lonely man, who had feared eternal K08 68 exile.

K08 69 Even if we had never come together again, my life would have K08 70 been lost in contemplation of the emerging skeleton beneath my K08 71 skin. It was as though a man's bones broke through the face of the K08 72 werewolf. Shining with humanity he stalked through his midnight K08 73 life towards the first day.

K08 74 We bathed separately. I left alone, without speaking. I walked K08 75 the long walk home. I stared at Ingrid as she came to greet me and K08 76 muttered something about needing to rest for a few hours. I K08 77 undressed and lay on the bed, and was instantly asleep. I slept K08 78 through until morning, twelve hours, a kind of death perhaps.

K08 79 ELEVEN K08 80 "LAMB OR BEEF?" asked Ingrid.

K08 81 "What?"

K08 82 "Lamb or beef? Sunday lunch, Martyn and K08 83 Anna."

K08 84 "Oh. Whatever you think."

K08 85 "Lamb then. Good, that's settled."

K08 86 Anna wore white at lunch. It made her appear larger. The K08 87 suggested innocence of the simple white dress disturbed my other K08 88 vision of her. It broke my memory of her dark power. She was her K08 89 other self; the self that dealt carefully with Ingrid, winning at K08 90 least a grudging respect from her; that gazed openly at Martyn; K08 91 that calmly spoke to me of food, flowers, and weather; spoke so K08 92 well, that none could have guessed the truth.

K08 93 If Ingrid had expected an announcement, there was none K08 94 forthcoming. They left at four, having refused tea.

K08 95 "Martyn seemed tense, I thought." Ingrid had K08 96 begun the ritual post-mortem.

K08 97 "Really, I didn't notice."

K08 98 "No? Well, he did. He looks at her in a slightly K08 99 pleading fashion. No doubt who's the lover and the loved there. She K08 100 seemed a bit less strange. More open, more friendly. Could have K08 101 been the white dress, I suppose. White always disarms K08 102 one."

K08 103 Clever Ingrid, I thought, how you can surprise me.

K08 104 "Maybe it will all peter out. Oh God, I do hope so. I K08 105 really couldn't bear the idea of Anna as a daughter-in-law. Could K08 106 you?"

K08 107 I paused. The idea seemed too preposterous. An alien concept K08 108 outside the bounds of possibility. But the question demanded an K08 109 answer.

K08 110 "No, I suppose not," I said. We left it K08 111 there.

K08 112 TWELVE K08 113 I bathed Anna's face, which was raw and damp, and squeezing the K08 114 sponge let the water run through her hair. For hours, we had fought K08 115 a battle with the barricades of the body. The battle over, I lay K08 116 beside her.

K08 117 "Anna, please ... talk to me ... who are K08 118 you?"

K08 119 There was a long silence.

K08 120 "I am what you desire," she said.

K08 121 "No. That's not what I meant."

K08 122 "No? But to you, that's what I am. To others I am K08 123 something else."

K08 124 "Others? Something else?"

K08 125 "Martyn. My mother, my father." A long pause. K08 126 "My family. Friends of my past, my present. It's the same K08 127 for everyone. For you as well."

K08 128 "Does Martyn know more? Has he met your parents, your K08 129 family?"

K08 130 "No. He asked me once. I told him to love me as though K08 131 he knew me. And if he could not - well, then ..."

K08 132 "Who are you?"

K08 133 "Do you have to ask? Oh well, it's simple. My mother's K08 134 name is Elizabeth Hunter. She is the second wife of Wilbur Hunter, K08 135 the writer. She lives happily with Wilbur on the West Coast of K08 136 America. I haven't seen her for two years. This causes me no pain, K08 137 nor, I believe, does it distress her. We write occasionally. I K08 138 phone at Christmas, Easter and birthdays. My father was a diplomat. K08 139 I travelled a great deal as a child. I went to school in Sussex, K08 140 spent my holidays anywhere and everywhere. I was not upset when my K08 141 parents divorced. My father, though apparently distressed at the K08 142 time of my mother's affair with Wilbur, recovered sufficiently to K08 143 marry a 35-year-old widow with two children. They have since K08 144 produced a daughter, Amelia. I visit them occasionally in K08 145 Devon."

K08 146 "Were you an only child?"

K08 147 "No."

K08 148 I waited.

K08 149 "I had a brother. Aston. He committed suicide by K08 150 slashing his wrists and throat in the bathroom of our apartment in K08 151 Rome. No chance of misinterpretation. It was not a cry for help. No K08 152 one knew why at the time. I shall tell you. He suffered from an K08 153 unrequited love of me. I tried to soothe him with my K08 154 body..." she paused, then continued in staccato, K08 155 "his pain, my foolishness ... our confusion... He killed K08 156 himself. Understandably. That is my story, simply told. Please do K08 157 not ask again. I have told you in order to issue a warning. I have K08 158 been damaged. Damaged people are dangerous. They know they can K08 159 survive."

K08 160 For a long time we were silent.

K08 161 "Why did you say 'understandably' Aston killed K08 162 himself?"

K08 163 "Because I understand. I carry that knowledge within K08 164 me. It is not a treasure that I jealously guard. Simply a story I K08 165 did not wish to tell, about a boy you have never known."

K08 166 "That makes you dangerous?"

K08 167 "All damaged people are dangerous. Survival makes them K08 168 so."

K08 169 "Why?"

K08 170 "Because they have not pity. They know that others can K08 171 survive, as they did."

K08 172 "But you have warned me."

K08 173 "Yes."

K08 174 "Was that not an act of pity?"

K08 175 "No. You have gone so far down the road that all K08 176 warnings are now useless. I will feel better for having told you. K08 177 Though the timing is wrong."

K08 178 "And Martyn?"

K08 179 "Martyn does not need a warning."

K08 180 "Why not?"

K08 181 "Because Martyn asks no questions. He is content with K08 182 me. He allows me my secrets."

K08 183 "And if he found out the truth?"

K08 184 "What truth?"

K08 185 "You and I."

K08 186 "That truth. There are other truths."

K08 187 "You seem to ascribe to Martyn qualities of K08 188 self-sufficiency and maturity I have not K08 189 noticed."

K08 190 "No. You haven't noticed."

K08 191 "And if you are wrong about him?"

K08 192 "That would be a tragedy."

K08 193 Of her body I have little to say. It was simply essential. I K08 194 could not bear the absence of it. Pleasure was an incidental. I K08 195 threw myself on her, as on to the earth. I forced all parts of her K08 196 to feed my need and watched her grow larger and more powerful, the K08 197 more she provided. Hungry, I would hold her at a distance by hair K08 198 or breast, sick with anger that I could have what I wanted.

K08 199 And round every meeting with her spun a ribbon of certainty K08 200 that my life had already ended. It had ended in the split second of K08 201 my first sight of her.

K08 202 It was time out of life. Like an acid it ran through all the K08 203 years behind me, burning and destroying.

K08 204 THIRTEEN K08 205 I HAD OPENED A DOOR to a secret vault. Its treasures were K08 206 immense. Its price would be terrible. I knew all the defences I had K08 207 built so carefully - wife, children, home, vocation - were ramparts K08 208 built on sand. With no knowledge of any other path I had made my K08 209 journey through the years, seeking and clinging to landmarks of K08 210 normality.

K08 211 Did I always know of this secret room? Was my sin basically one K08 212 of untruthfulness? Or, more likely, one of cowardice? But the liar K08 213 knows the truth. The coward knows his fear and runs away.

K08 214 And if I had not met Anna? Ah, what providence for those who K08 215 suffered such devastation at my hand!

K08 216 But I did meet Anna. And I had to, and I did open the door, and K08 217 enter my own secret vault. I wanted my time on earth, now that I K08 218 had heard the song that sings from head to toe; and known the K08 219 wildness that whirls the dancers past the gaze of shocked K08 220 onlookers; had fallen deeper and deeper and had soared higher and K08 221 higher, into a single reality - the dazzling explosion into K08 222 self.

K08 223 What lies are impossible? What trust is so precious? What K08 224 responsibility is so great that it could deny this single chance in K08 225 eternity to exist? Alas for me, and for all who knew me, the answer K08 226 was ... none.

K08 227 To be brought into being by another, as I was by Anna, leads to K08 228 strange, unthought-of needs. Breathing became more difficult K08 229 without her. I literally felt I was being born. And because birth K08 230 is always violent, I never looked for, nor ever found, K08 231 gentleness.

K08 232 The outer reaches of our being are arrived at through violence. K08 233 Pain turns into ecstasy. K08 234 K09 1 <#FLOB:K09\>"That's a good one," Jed said. K09 2 "That's the first time I've heard that one." And K09 3 his top teeth glistened and his mouth turned down at the corners. K09 4 While the smile lasted, he looked exactly like his car. Nathan K09 5 pictured dead flies spattered on his teeth.

K09 6 "So what is it?" he asked.

K09 7 "It's a date," Jed said.

K09 8 "The date of what?"

K09 9 Jed leaned back in Dad' s red chair. He made them wait. K09 10 "The date I killed someone," he said.

K09 11 "Yeah?" Nathan didn't believe it. But then he thought K09 12 back, all the way back to the shark run, the SUICIDE/YOU FIRST K09 13 T-shirt, that sense of contamination, and then later, Central K09 14 Avenue, his vision of the jacket lined with needles, and suddenly K09 15 he did believe it.

K09 16 "Anyone we know?" Georgia asked.

K09 17 Jed ignored her. "You remember I told you I did a job K09 18 for a guy called Creed?"

K09 19 Nathan nodded.

K09 20 "Well, that was the job." Jed reached for K09 21 another beer. A snap, a hiss. "All that stuff with the Womb K09 22 Boys, that was just practice for the real thing. I didn't know it K09 23 at the time, but it was." He stared at the can and then put K09 24 it down. "I had to do things working for Creed, anyone who K09 25 got close to him, they had to do things, that's what Creed was K09 26 like. I had to do things and then," and he looked up and K09 27 suddenly his eyes looked too pale, almost blind, "and K09 28 then," he said, "I had to leave." He took K09 29 his hat off, turned it in his hands.

K09 30 Nathan glanced at Georgia. Georgia shrugged. Nathan looked at K09 31 Jed again.

K09 32 Without his hat on, Jed looked curiously mutilated, raw, no K09 33 longer whole, The hat seemed such a part of him, almost like a hand K09 34 or a smile. His pale-brown hair lay flat and lifeless against his K09 35 skull. A red line crossed his forehead horizontally as if the K09 36 removal of the hat had been an operation and had left a scar.

K09 37 For a while nobody spoke.

K09 38 It was during this silence that Nathan heard a creak. He K09 39 thought he recognised the sound. It had come from the hallway, it K09 40 was one of the last six stairs. He looked round and saw the tail of K09 41 the door handle begin to lift. The door had always been hard to K09 42 open, ever since Dad had painted the leading edge. Even now, years K09 43 afterwards, it often stuck. The crack it made as it was pushed from K09 44 the other side made everybody jump.

K09 45 The door opened and Yvonne stood in the gap. She had thrown a K09 46 coat over her nightgown. Her copper hair lifted away from her head K09 47 on one side where she had slept on it. She clutched her metal box K09 48 of garlic in her hand. To keep the devils on their toes.

K09 49 "I heard a voice."

K09 50 She was staring at the red chair, and at Jed, because he was K09 51 sitting in it.

K09 52 "I thought it was him. I thought he was calling K09 53 me."

K09 54 Nathan stood up and walked towards her. "Sorry, if we K09 55 woke you, Yvonne."

K09 56 Yvonne looked to him. "What time is it?"

K09 57 "Four-thirty," Georgia said.

K09 58 Yvonne nodded to herself.

K09 59 Nathan put his hand on her elbow. "Come on, K09 60 Yvonne," he said. "I'll take you back to K09 61 bed."

K09 62 At the top of the stairs she stopped and turned to him. K09 63 "It wasn't him," she said.

K09 64 "No."

K09 65 She gripped his arm. "But who was it?"

K09 66 "Just a friend."

K09 67 He helped her back into bed and drew the covers over her. She K09 68 lay on her back, her eyes wide as a child's.

K09 69 "I painted him a picture," she whispered.

K09 70 "I know."

K09 71 "You think he would've liked it?"

K09 72 "Of course he would." He kissed her on the K09 73 cheek. "Now you go to sleep."

K09 74 Back in the lounge Jed was still sitting in front of the TV. K09 75 Nathan sat down next to Jed, but found he couldn't concentrate. Jed K09 76 kept scratching himself. First the side of his neck, then an ankle, K09 77 then his stomach. It was as if his whole body itched, but not all K09 78 at the same time. Nathan couldn't help watching. And as he watched K09 79 he began to imagine the tiny flakes of dead skin building up around K09 80 the legs of Dad's chair. He stared at the piece of floor where the K09 81 chair stood and saw the flakes of skin piling up like snow, and K09 82 then drifting.

K09 83 And suddenly he couldn't watch any more. He had to say K09 84 something. "Jed?" he said. "You seen K09 85 Georgia?"

K09 86 Jed didn't look away from the TV. "I think she went K09 87 outside."

K09 88 Out on the terrace birds were beginning to call from the trees, K09 89 hinges on the door that would soon let morning in. Georgia was K09 90 sitting on the steps, one leg drawn up against her chest, her cheek K09 91 resting sideways on her knee. Only the fingers of her right hand K09 92 moved, twisting the chunks of her amber necklace. The pool trickled K09 93 and dripped behind her.

K09 94 "How's Yvonne?"she asked.

K09 95 "She's all right."

K09 96 "Her hearing his voice like that," and she K09 97 shuddered.

K09 98 He sat down beside her. "It was only us. She was half K09 99 asleep and all mixed up. She'll have forgotten by K09 100 morning."

K09 101 It was still dark in the garden, but dawn had spilled across K09 102 the sky like acid. It dripped down into the trees, eating night K09 103 from between the branches. The hedge was no longer the silhouette K09 104 it had been an hour before; hundreds of individual leaves stood K09 105 out. When you had been up all night, dawn was like a magic trick: K09 106 even though you knew what was coming, it still managed to surprise K09 107 you. It was sinister too: you realised just how slowly the world K09 108 turned, how slowly and relentlessly; you realised there was no K09 109 escaping it.

K09 110 Georgia broke the pool's surface with a racing dive. He saw her K09 111 rise again, her black hair shining, tight against her skull. He K09 112 looked back towards the house. There was a white face framed in the K09 113 lounge window. It was Jed, he realised. But not before he'd gone K09 114 cold. Dad used to stand like that. Stand at the window, looking out K09 115 into the garden. Then he used to tap on the glass. He couldn't K09 116 shout. He had to save his voice, his breath. He couldn't open the K09 117 door either and come out. The air itself was dangerous. Too humid, K09 118 too moist, It collected in his windpipe like moss, it blocked his K09 119 narrow lungs. Nathan always thought it looked as if Dad was K09 120 trapped, as if he wanted to get out, but couldn't. Or he was dead K09 121 already, under glass. Once, when Dad tapped on the window, Nathan K09 122 had shouted, "Do you HAVE to do that?" And then, K09 123 when Dad had looked at him, wounded, he hadn't been able to explain K09 124 why he was angry.

K09 125 The sudden sound of flung beads. But it was just the water K09 126 spilling off Georgia's body as she climbed out of the pool. She K09 127 stood beside him, wrapped in a thick towel, her hands bunched under K09 128 her chin. "I just remembered. He said he killed K09 129 someone."

K09 130 Nathan smiled up at her. "It was probably just the coke K09 131 talking."

K09 132 Jed was folded up in the red chair when they went in. One hand K09 133 supporting his cheek, asleep. The TV was still on. A cartoon K09 134 chipmunk danced across the lenses of his glasses.

K09 135 Georgia tilted her head sideways, read the numbers on his K09 136 wrist. "You're probably right. It's probably just some K09 137 phone number." She yawned. "I'm going to K09 138 bed." She kissed Nathan on the cheek. "I'll see you K09 139 in the morning." She laughed. "I mean, K09 140 afternoon."

K09 141 He waited till she'd left the room, then he looked down at Jed K09 142 again. The early morning light caught on Jed's skin like torn K09 143 fingernails on wool. He touched Jed on the shoulder.

K09 144 Jed's eyes slid open. "What's up?"

K09 145 "You did kill someone," Nathan said, K09 146 "didn't you?

K09 147 The laughter sifted out of Jed's nostrils. "Where am I K09 148 sleeping?" he said.

K09 149 AND SPRING CAME FOR EVER

K09 150 He shouldn't have talked so much.

K09 151 The lights turned red and Jed was so angry, he stamped on the K09 152 brake much harder than he needed to. His bald tyres screeched on K09 153 the hot asphalt. A woman almost toppled off her gold high-heeled K09 154 sandals. She was wearing a T-shirt that said I CAME TO MOON BEACH K09 155 AND LIVED.

K09 156 BUT ONLY JUST, Jed thought, through gritted teeth. BUT ONLY K09 157 JUST.

K09 158 It was Monday morning. The sun cut down through the sky like a K09 159 guillotine. He could still feel all that beer and cocaine behind K09 160 his eyes, he could still feel them in his blood, like grit. His K09 161 skin didn't seem to fit this morning. He should've known better. He K09 162 had to keep his eyes clear, his blood pure.

K09 163 He drove down the promenade and parked close to the Ocean K09 164 Caf<*_>e-acute<*/>. This was where he was supposed to be meeting K09 165 Carol. He was early. He sat behind the wheel, the radio murmuring. K09 166 He watched people in bright clothes flash by like parts of a K09 167 headache. Friday night. OK, so he'd talked too much. But really, K09 168 who was going to remember? Nathan and that sister of his, they were K09 169 both so trashed, he doubted they'd remember anything. And even if K09 170 they did, what of it? Stories about murder and tattoos and gangs, K09 171 who'd believe stories like that, specially in cold daylight.

K09 172 He leaned back in his seat, tucked a piece of candy into his K09 173 cheek, sucked on it thoughtfully. Stories were his ticket to K09 174 places. they always had been. Now they'd taken him to Blenheim. The K09 175 word brought a smile to his face. Say there actually were vultures K09 176 on his tail. They'd never dream of looking in Blenheim. It just K09 177 wasn't him. It wasn't anything like him. He'd really landed on his K09 178 feet this time.

K09 179 He celebrated by putting 50 cents in the parking meter when he K09 180 got out of the car. It always amused him to obey small laws.

K09 181 Nathan slept badly. All night the sheets felt rough against his K09 182 body, and when morning came the glare seemed to reach through his K09 183 eyelids with metal instruments. In a dream he saw Jed at the bottom K09 184 of the garden, a wheelbarrow beside him. He was shovelling his dead K09 185 skin on to the bonfire. He was burning the dead parts of K09 186 himself.

K09 187 When Nathan woke he went straight to the window, expecting Jed K09 188 to be standing below, a spade in his hands. But there was only K09 189 bright sunlight and green grass. He rubbed his eyes. His skin K09 190 stretched taut and thin across his face, the tail-end of all that K09 191 cocaine rattling like a ghost train through his blood. It was K09 192 Monday. He looked at the clock. It was almost eleven.

K09 193 In the kitchen he found the one person he had been trying to K09 194 avoid: Harriet. She was sitting at the table with a cup of coffee K09 195 and a cigarette.

K09 196 "There you are," she said.

K09 197 She had the face of a witch that morning. A shield of black K09 198 hair and skin like candlewax. Her two front teeth were crossed K09 199 swords in her mouth. He could no longer believe what had happened K09 200 on the day of the funeral.

K09 201 "I'd like a word with you," she said.

K09 202 He poured himself some coffee. "What about?" He K09 203 kept his hand steady, his voice even.

K09 204 She glanced at the ceiling. Yvonne was moving about upstairs. K09 205 "In the dining-room," she said. "I don't K09 206 want us to be disturbed."

K09 207 In the dining-room she lit another cigarette and stood by the K09 208 fireplace. All the furniture had been sold. There was nowhere to K09 209 sit.

K09 210 "That person who's staying," she said, K09 211 "who is he?"

K09 212 "He's a friend."

K09 213 "A friend." She gave the word some extra K09 214 weight.

K09 215 He knew what she was implying, but he didn't rise to it.

K09 216 "This," and she paused, "friend, how K09 217 long is he staying?"

K09 218 "I don't know."

K09 219 "I want him out of here." She held her right K09 220 elbow in the palm of her left hand and stared at him, her lit K09 221 cigarette aimed at him and burning, like a third eye.

K09 222 K09 223 K10 1 <#FLOB:K10\>And then the butterfly curator from the zoo came in K10 2 with a big net, caught up all the beauties and took them somewhere K10 3 warm and snug for Peregrine had their welfare at heart. All was K10 4 uproar and commotion but we pressed forward for our kisses.

K10 5 "Floradora! You haven't changed one bit!"

K10 6 I was about to say him nay, draw his attention to the K10 7 crow's-feet, the grey hairs and turkey wobblers but I saw by the K10 8 look in his eye that he meant what he said, that he really, truly K10 9 loved us and so he saw no difference; he saw the girls we always K10 10 would be under the scrawny, wizened carapace that time had forced K10 11 on us for, although promiscuous, he was also faithful, and, where K10 12 he loved, he never altered, nor saw any alteration. And then I K10 13 wondered, was I built the same way, too? Did I see the soul of the K10 14 one I loved when I saw Perry, not his body? And was his fleshy K10 15 envelope, perhaps, in reality in much the same sorry shape as those K10 16 of his nieces outside the magic circle of my desire?

K10 17 But when I registered I'd used those words, "my K10 18 desire", I stopped thinking in that direction toot K10 19 sweet. I'd properly shocked myself and I had to knock off K10 20 another glass of champagne to cool myself while Nora came in for K10 21 her share of hugs and kisses and then Daisy Duck, and all the rest, K10 22 because not since the Change had yours truly felt such a sudden K10 23 rush of blood in that department, down there.

K10 24 Saskia was standoffish and turned the cold shoulder. Imogen K10 25 tried to slip away but was impeded by her headgear so he grabbed K10 26 hold of her and gave her such a hug the goldfish slopped out of the K10 27 bowl and she went down on her knees in a puddle to pick it up K10 28 again, it was slippery as soap and gave them a fine chase all over K10 29 the dancefloor while the camera crews and the photographers and the K10 30 reporters didn't know where to turn next, so much grief, joy, K10 31 resentment and pursuit was going on, while the multitude babbled K10 32 and got in the way until suddenly Peregrine caught sight of a K10 33 certain heavily veiled figure tucked away behind a pillar and K10 34 stopped short with the gasping goldfish in his hand.

K10 35 "It isn't ..." he said.

K10 36 "Put it back in!" urged Imogen, kneeling at his K10 37 feet. Perry absently dropped the fish back in the bowl and a hush K10 38 spread in ever-increasing circles over the crowd until there was K10 39 perfect silence. All eyes were focused on the invisible Lady A. Her K10 40 fingers clenched and unclenched on the arms of the wheelchair. She K10 41 pushed herself backwards, as if she were trying to roll offstage K10 42 back into the wings, where nobody could see her, but she banged K10 43 against the wall because there was nowhere to go except here.

K10 44 Melchior, sensing that something was up, craned forward, K10 45 leaning heavily on Margarine, so he got a good view when Perry K10 46 plucked off the veil. Then came a bewildered pause. Melchior sank K10 47 back on his throne, again, with a puzzled look, quite grey with K10 48 exhaustion, although things were only just livening up. I don't K10 49 think he'd got the foggiest who the lady in the wheelchair was. You K10 50 could hear Margarine going:"Who's that? Who's K10 51 that?" But Saskia and Imogen backed off aghast, as well K10 52 they might.

K10 53 Perry said softly, "Hi, there, bright eyes."

K10 54 The Lady A. said, "Why! It's Peregrine!" and K10 55 twinkled.

K10 56 He wheeled her round to face the crowd.

K10 57 "Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "the K10 58 Lady Atalanta Hazard. The most beautiful woman of her K10 59 time."

K10 60 Suddenly she looked her old self again, but, due to her white K10 61 curls, even more like a sheep, to my way of thinking, but it would K10 62 seem that sheep are irresistible; everybody gasped. Perry led the K10 63 applause that followed. She scrabbled at her veil, as if K10 64 half-inclined to cover up again, but I could tell she was K10 65 pleased. Melchior gave a jump.

K10 66 "Attie!"

K10 67 So now all three Lady Hazards were together in one room and I K10 68 wondered if our mother's ghost was somewhere here, too, floating in K10 69 the smoky air above the cake, which was waving about, a bit, K10 70 because its arms were getting tired.

K10 71 "I've brought you something special, in my K10 72 trunk," said Peregrine to Melchior. "Give us a K10 73 little light on the subject, if you please." The little K10 74 pages dashed up and down relighting everything until the room was K10 75 brilliant.

K10 76 Perry must have tipped the baroque trumpets because they let K10 77 loose another fanfare as half a dozen stocky wee brown men in penis K10 78 sheaths and feathers, friends of Perry's from Brazil, evidently, K10 79 heaved in a cabin trunk covered with labels of hotels that had long K10 80 since ceased trading, shipping lines long since defunct, railways K10 81 long since torn up. They hauled it into the middle of the ballroom, K10 82 set it down on the parquet. Peregrine spat on his hands and rubbed, K10 83 strode boldly forth and first of all I thought: He's going to do a K10 84 conjuring trick, because he put on his conjuring manner that I K10 85 hadn't seen for years: "Ladies and gentlemen, I have K10 86 nothing up my sleeve." He was a sprightly walker. A K10 87 hundred? Never!

K10 88 "He's made a pact," said Nora in a whisper.

K10 89 He addressed Melchior. He gave as low a bow as his paunch K10 90 permitted.

K10 91 "Melchior, my dear brother," he said, K10 92 "I give you ... the future of the Hazard K10 93 family."

K10 94 He lifted up the lid of the trunk.

K10 95 "If," he added, "she'll have you."

K10 96 We had an intuition who it was.

K10 97 Out of that trunk stepped our little Tiff, as fresh as paint, K10 98 not a tad the worse for wear except her eyes were no longer those K10 99 of a dove, stabbed or whole, and she looked sound in mind and body K10 100 almost to a fault. She'd changed her clothes; she'd got on a pair K10 101 of overalls and those big boots, Doc Marten's, but she looked K10 102 lovelier than ever, enough to make you blink. Our Tiff as ever was, K10 103 our heart's delight.

K10 104 We were all tears and laughter. We skidded across that skating K10 105 rink of a floor on our ridiculous heels and held her as if we'd K10 106 never let her go while the baroque trumpets went on and on until I K10 107 thought: perhaps we've died and gone to heaven. But the first K10 108 paroxysm subsided and there we still were.

K10 109 I'll say this for Tristram's reflexes, he was down on his knees K10 110 in front of her in a flash, laughing and crying at the same time or K10 111 doing a fair simulacrum thereof.

K10 112 "I love you, Tiffany" he said. "Forgive K10 113 me."

K10 114 She started down at him as if sunk deep in thought, which I was K10 115 glad to see in itself - she'd never been one for reflection, K10 116 before. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, she'd picked K10 117 up a dreadful cold, somewhere, though not at the bottom of the K10 118 river, as it turned out.

K10 119 "Fat chance," she announced at last.

K10 120 Tristram was stunned. He sat back on his heels.

K10 121 "But, Tiffany, I'll marry you!"

K10 122 "Not on your life, you bastard," she said, K10 123 right out in front of all those people. God, I was proud of her K10 124 that moment! "Not after what you did to me in public. I K10 125 wouldn't marry you if you were the last man in the world. Marry K10 126 your auntie, instead."

K10 127 A palpable hit. Saskia turned white and dropped her glass. Poor K10 128 old Melchior was at sea, couldn't make head nor tail of this K10 129 bit of cut and thrust, of course, but he was pierced to the heart K10 130 by the riveting sight of his son's rejection.

K10 131 "Oh, my dear," he murmured in that thick, rich, K10 132 vintage port voice. "Take pity on him; have pity on your K10 133 own unborn child."

K10 134 I felt quite sorry for Melchior, having his grandchild given K10 135 and taken away before it was so much as born. He looked so pitiful, K10 136 and, after all, it was his birthday, that Tiff might have K10 137 wavered but Tristram spoiled it all. He waxed histrionic.

K10 138 "My baby! Think of my baby!" He tore his hair, K10 139 he gnashed his teeth.

K10 140 "Pull yourself together and be a man, or try K10 141 to," said Tiffany sharply."You've not got what to K10 142 takes to be a father. There's more to fathering than fucking, you K10 143 know."

K10 144

We each squeezed the hand we held, she squeezed back. I K10 145 thought, we'll teach the baby tap and ballet, when the time comes. K10 146 Then came another banging on the door.

K10 147 "That'll be my mum and dad," she announced K10 148 confidently. All the help was in the ballroom, now, transfixed by K10 149 all this real-life drama, nobody to let in the new arrivals, but a K10 150 splintering crash indicated that the locked front door posed no K10 151 problems to a ranked light-heavyweight. Tiff let off her parting K10 152 shot.

K10 153 "Not that your old man and mother aren't perfectly K10 154 welcome to take a peek at the baby when it's born but don't you K10 155 come sniffing around until you've dried off behind the ears, K10 156 Tristram."

K10 157 He was too stunned to get up off his knees as Bren and Leroy K10 158 stepped round him to embrace their daughter in a fusillade of K10 159 flashes. The lutes started up again, Lord Somebody or Other's Puff, K10 160 I think Perry slipped them a couple of quid. Quite like old times, K10 161 lights, music, action. There was a patter of applause as Tiff and K10 162 Bren and Leroy departed for their cab and were followed by no K10 163 photographers after Leroy sent one of them downstairs on his K10 164 ear.

K10 165 Perry said he found our little Tiff by chance, wandering in the K10 166 street the previous night, on his way from the airport; his taxi K10 167 nearly ran her over.

K10 168 "So I took her back with me to the Travellers' K10 169 Club"

K10 170 "Oh, Peregrine!" I cried, struck by an awful K10 171 thought. "You never!"

K10 172 "I most certainly did not," he huffed. K10 173 "What a suggestion! There was a damsel in distress, if I K10 174 ever saw one."

K10 175 Tristram was crying on Saskia's shoulder. I could tell by the K10 176 look in his mother's eye she'd no love lost for Saskia, either, K10 177 even if they had been best friends at Ro-de-o-do back in the K10 178 year dot. And here was bloody Saskia now, elbowing her out of her K10 179 big scene with her own son. Margarine blazed away with thwarted K10 180 mother love and snatched up a lump of cake, that had sunk down to K10 181 the ground out of sheer weariness, pulled off a candle that had K10 182 burned down to a stump, and pressed the cake into her son's K10 183 hand.

K10 184 "Eat something, my dear," she said. K10 185 "Just a mouthful, to give you strength."

K10 186 There was a piercing screech and crumbs everywhere because K10 187 Saskia dashed the cake from Tristram's lips and collapsed in a fit K10 188 in the arms of her sister, who promptly commenced her celebrated K10 189 goldfish imitation again, her lips opened, her lips closed, oh! oh! K10 190 oh! but no sound came out. Perry, ever quick off the mark, seized K10 191 Imogen's goldfish bowl and dashed the water over Saskia, shocking K10 192 her out of her fit and into you never saw such a shimmy as she K10 193 shook that goldfish out of her vee-neck.

K10 194 Yes, she confessed, she had slipped something into the K10 195 cake she'd baked with her own hands for her father's birthday, K10 196 though whether it would have made him rather ill or very ill or K10 197 finished him off altogether I never found out because now such a K10 198 hullabaloo broke out, lights, cameras, the wailing of that poor old K10 199 man, the recriminations of his wife, the exclamations of his son, K10 200 and everybody else putting their vocal tuppence ha'p'orth in as K10 201 well. Even Perry looked grave and as if he were to blame, stricken K10 202 with compunction, possibly for the first time in a century. He and K10 203 the Lady A. drew close together, the guilty parties, when Saskia K10 204 wailed to Melchior:

K10 205 "You never loved us!"

K10 206 It was high time that Saskia got wise. Remember Gorgeous George K10 207 on Brighton Pier long ago, and the punch line of his joke? K10 208 K11 1 <#FLOB:K11\>Aubrey Taylor gave a lop-sided grin and said, K11 2 "I suppose it is."

K11 3 "Try John Lehmann if you like. I don't suppose the K11 4 government will stick it on a poster as a morale K11 5 booster."

K11 6 Taylor flushed with pride. Actually I thought it was a pretty K11 7 rotten poem - portentous, disjointed and alliterative. I was about K11 8 to tell him as much when he glanced over my shoulder and said, K11 9 "There's MacCready now."

K11 10 I looked round. MacCready, pushing his way through the pub, had K11 11 the physical presence of an actor playing a medieval baron. The K11 12 crowd parted for him.

K11 13 "Where have you been, Morgan? This Anglo-Saxon been K11 14 boring you, again?" His freckled, boyish face beamed at me K11 15 as he pulled up a stool and undid his heavy, stained raincoat. From K11 16 the pockets he took out some of his pipe-cleaner animals, put them K11 17 on the bar and said "So who's going to give me some money? K11 18 A shilling each."

K11 19 The animals had got squashed in his pocket. Delicately he K11 20 pulled them back into shape with his fleshy fingers.

K11 21 "A shilling?" I said. "That's bloody K11 22 outrageous."

K11 23 "But the beauty of these is that you can change them K11 24 later if you get bored of them. It's a new concept in sculpture. K11 25 There."

K11 26 He leaned back to look at them. The five animals stood in a K11 27 row, as though about to enter a pipe-cleaner ark. At the back was K11 28 the biggest and most elaborate: a giraffe made from perhaps twenty K11 29 pipe-cleaners, with an elaborately plaited neck and one of its back K11 30 legs wittily cocked like a dog. In front of that came an elephant K11 31 with a long, baroque trunk, and a snake that MacCready had arranged K11 32 so that it was slithering over the rim of an ashtray. Then there K11 33 was a monkey swinging from a branch, and at the front something K11 34 that I couldn't at first identify consisting of elegant swirls K11 35 topped by a strange horned head.

K11 36 "What's that one supposed to be?" I asked.

K11 37 "A snail."

K11 38 "I'll give you ninepence for it,"I said, and K11 39 counted out the coppers.

K11 40 "I always thought you were a man of taste and K11 41 refinement," said MacCready when he'd bought himself a K11 42 beer. "Perhaps you'd like to start a collection. I do K11 43 commissions."

K11 44 "I thought you were going to do Morgan," put in K11 45 Aubrey Taylor, "when you said you were looking for K11 46 him." MacCready smiled condescendingly at him between gulps K11 47 of his beer, and encouraged by this Taylor ploughed on. K11 48 "I've been meaning to ask you: where on earth do you get K11 49 all those pipe-cleaners from? Fell off the back of a lorry, I K11 50 suppose? I'm surprised the government still allows their K11 51 manufacture, with all that wire inside. They're taking away all the K11 52 park railings, you'd think they'd do something about pipe-cleaners, K11 53 wouldn't you?"

K11 54 MacCready suddenly slammed his glass down on the counter, stood K11 55 up and kicked his stool away. He was famous for his tantrums. The K11 56 drinkers along the bar stopped talking and turned to watch. For a K11 57 few moments he just stood there, red-faced and glaring at poor K11 58 Aubrey Taylor. Then he grabbed the giraffe off the counter and, K11 59 holding it up in front of Taylor's face, started pulling it apart K11 60 and refashioning it. The legs and body were yanked up over the K11 61 neck, so that the whole thing formed a kind of obscene tower. Then K11 62 the head was pulled apart into a bulbous knob, and two more K11 63 protuberances formed to hang where the haunches had been. The pub K11 64 looked on, fascinated.

K11 65 "What's that, MacCready?" asked Taylor, K11 66 watching him nervously. "What are you making?"

K11 67 MacCready furiously put the finishing touches, then shoved it K11 68 into Aubrey Taylor's hands. "Winston's cock," he K11 69 yelled and stormed across the pub, stopped, came back, grabbed my K11 70 arm, and frogmarched me to the door.

K11 71 "Sorry about that," said MacCready cheerfully K11 72 when we were outside. "Some of these Englishmen have no K11 73 manners." He leant over me, breathing beery breath.

K11 74 "That's all right," I said, irritated with all K11 75 this Celtic camaraderie. I moved back towards the door of the K11 76 pub.

K11 77 "Wait." MacCready held my arm. "I wanted to K11 78 talk to you about something. You speak languages, don't you? K11 79 Weren't you a foreign correspondent?" I nodded. K11 80 "Well, you might be able to help us then. We had an K11 81 intruder at our place a couple of nights ago. We think he might be K11 82 foreign. I thought you could talk to him, find out who he K11 83 is."

K11 84 "What kind of intruder?"

K11 85 "A boy, about sixteen or seventeen. Quite a pretty one, K11 86 a Jew." He smiled lasciviously. MacCready liked trying to K11 87 shock people by pretending to be homosexual.

K11 88 "I suggest you take him along to the police. They'll K11 89 find out who he is." I didn't want to get mixed up in K11 90 MacCready's capers.

K11 91 "For Christ's sake, Morgan, you're sounding like that K11 92 stupid Englishman. Why don't you come and have a look at him. He's K11 93 a mystery. He might be a parachutist, or a Russian aristocrat on K11 94 the run from Stalin." He was still gripping my arm.

K11 95 "Where is he now, this boy?"

K11 96 "At the place where we're living, five minutes from K11 97 here. He doesn't seem to have anywhere else to go. In fact he seems K11 98 a bit confused."

K11 99 "All right then, but this had better not be some stupid K11 100 joke."

K11 101 We started walking up the street, MacCready still holding my K11 102 arm. By now I was quite curious to know what it was all about. I K11 103 was also interested to see what kind of a place MacCready lived in. K11 104 He had referred to "we".

K11 105 As he said, it was only a few streets away, just north of K11 106 Oxford Street. A terrace of Georgian houses glowed in the evening K11 107 sun. The air raid was late tonight. In front of the houses stood a K11 108 row of To Let signs. Most of the windows were boarded up, the rich K11 109 owners having left for overseas or the country. I stopped for a K11 110 moment and looked at the terrace. There was something familiar K11 111 about it.

K11 112 MacCready and his friends, it turned out, were living in the K11 113 basement of one of the more dilapidated buildings. I was led down K11 114 some iron steps and into a low, dark basement with stone paving on K11 115 the floor. It extended quite far back and I could just make out at K11 116 the far end piles of old junk: wood, metal, some bits of plastic. K11 117 Perhaps these were the materials for MacCready's sculptures. Around K11 118 the walls were four or five mattresses, heaps of bedding, and an K11 119 old sofa with the stuffing coming out. In the middle of the room K11 120 was a table, at which sat a long-haired man, a woman who had once K11 121 been pointed out to me in the Belgravia as MacCready's 'model', and K11 122 the mysterious visitor.

K11 123 "This is Morgan," said MacCready. "He's K11 124 going to talk to the boy. Go on then, Morgan: ask him something in K11 125 German."

K11 126 I had stopped dead still in the doorway, staring at the boy. K11 127 "He's not German," I said. "He's K11 128 Czech."

K11 129 "How can you ...?" began the woman.

K11 130 "So you do know him?" said MacCready.

K11 131 Through my amazement at seeing Antonin Treiber sitting in this K11 132 London basement, I registered MacCready's comment. It was a strange K11 133 thing to say.

K11 134 At that moment, the sirens started up.

K11 135 III

K11 136 Stories Are There To Be Told

K11 137 BEFORE THE WAR, I had been the News Chronicle's K11 138 correspondent in Vienna. The paper had sent me there in February K11 139 1934, when Chancellor Dollfuss, under the guidance of Mussolini, K11 140 had turned on the Austrian socialists. I was there in July when a K11 141 group of Austrian Nazis occupied the Chancellory and murdered K11 142 Dollfuss. And over the next four years I watched as the K11 143 conservative and authoritarian Austrian leadership - with the K11 144 acquiescence of Italy, France and Britain - gradually surrendered K11 145 Austrian independence. I grew to hate the hypocrisy of those K11 146 smooth, aristocratic Austrian politicians for whom anything could K11 147 be glossed over by a 'gentleman's agreement' couched in suitably K11 148 elevated, diplomatic language. Then in March 1938, when Schuschnigg K11 149 made a last, small gesture towards Austrian autonomy, Hitler's K11 150 troops marched in and took over. A few weeks later, along with a K11 151 number of other British and French journalists, I was ordered K11 152 out.

K11 153 Back in London, during the nervous celebrations surrounding K11 154 Munich, I conceived a hatred for the British leadership as bitter K11 155 as that I had had for the Austrian, and for similar reasons. When K11 156 the war came, I presented myself for service - but aged forty, K11 157 overweight and with bad eyes, I was turned down. With my fluency in K11 158 German and knowledge of Austria, I had hoped and expected to be K11 159 approached for Intelligence work. But the call never came. With K11 160 hindsight it was easy to find reasons for this - my lower K11 161 middle-class origins, for example, or my membership in the late K11 162 twenties of the Independent Labour Party. I applied to the Ministry K11 163 of Information and was given a job, though not an important or K11 164 interesting one. I resented the fact that my considerable skills K11 165 and experience were being under-used in the war effort.

K11 166 One of my last acts before leaving Vienna was to help a Czech K11 167 journalist acquaintance, a Jew, obtain British visas for his son K11 168 and brother. Another instance of my squeamishness. Josef Treiber, K11 169 an aloof man who found it distasteful to ask me for help, was K11 170 convinced that Hitler was encouraging agitation by the Sudeten K11 171 Germans in order to establish a pretext for the invasion of the K11 172 whole of Czechoslovakia. He was also convinced that Jews in a K11 173 German-controlled Czechoslovakia would be no safer than they were K11 174 in Germany itself. His wife insisted on staying with him K11 175 throughout, but Treiber was determined to get his only son and his K11 176 elder brother away to safety. I arranged meetings with an official K11 177 I knew at the British Embassy in Vienna and wrote to Peter K11 178 Musgrave, a pro-Zionist Conservative MP who had interceded in K11 179 similar cases in the past. I didn't hold out much hope for Treiber, K11 180 because the embassy official had told me privately that the K11 181 government feared an anti-Semitic backlash in Britain and was K11 182 ordering its embassies to reduce the number of visas they granted. K11 183 In addition, the security services had warned that the Germans K11 184 could use Jewish emigration as a means of smuggling spies into the K11 185 country. But Musgrave's influence must have helped, because the K11 186 next thing I heard, once I was back in England, was that the uncle K11 187 and nephew had got their visas and were being housed, along with a K11 188 number of other Czech refugees, in Musgrave's mansion in Sussex.

K11 189 I visited them there in the spring of 1939. The boy, Antonin, I K11 190 had never seen before, and the uncle I had met just once, in a K11 191 caf<*_>e-acute<*/> in Vienna. Stefan Treiber was even more distant K11 192 and difficult to fathom than his brother. He was fifty-five, but K11 193 looked and moved more like a man ten years older. According to K11 194 Josef, he had been a successful businessman in Germany, but in 1933 K11 195 had been in a train accident in which he himself had been injured K11 196 and a number of those around him killed. He had never recovered K11 197 from this experience, and Josef had had to take over his affairs K11 198 and sell his business. Stefan had never married. He was tall, with K11 199 a stooped back and thinning grey hair. He didn't look in the least K11 200 Jewish. He spoke excellent German and English, and told me at K11 201 length, as we sat together in the chilly gloom of a servants' K11 202 pantry, of the kindness he and his nephew had received since K11 203 arriving in England, and of the beauty of the English countryside. K11 204 But his flat voice told me that he was uninterested in what he was K11 205 saying, that he was performing a duty and couldn't be bothered to K11 206 disguise the fact. All the time, the boy gazed solemnly at us. He K11 207 seemed to be hanging on our every word, though when I asked him K11 208 questions in English and German, he didn't appear to understand K11 209 either.

K11 210 That was the last I saw of the Treiber uncle and nephew. K11 211 K12 1 <#FLOB:K12\>"All right, Frankie. But this is personal K12 2 information. It's not for use in the courts. It's just for me. Why K12 3 did you fall out with my brother?"

K12 4 "What brother?"

K12 5 "Scott."

K12 6 "Who the hell's Scott? Ah don't know your K12 7 brother."

K12 8 The troubled amazement in his eyes was not for denying. He was K12 9 having a bad day and he didn't know where it came from. I told him K12 10 Gus McPhater's version of the incident in the Akimbo Arms.

K12 11 "Ah remember somethin' like that," he said. K12 12 "Was that your brother? Jesus, he was wild. Runs in the K12 13 family, eh? But Ah never understood what it was supposed tae be K12 14 aboot. Ye no' ask him?"

K12 15 "He's dead."

K12 16 I thought I saw an infinitesimal relaxation on Frankie's K12 17 face.

K12 18 "What happened?"

K12 19 I told him.

K12 20 "Ah'm sorry. That's hellish. Ah'm sorry. Jack. But Ah K12 21 never knew what that was about. Ah think the fella was just drunk. K12 22 Picked on me. Maybe he didny like the suit Ah was wearin'. He K12 23 wouldny be the first."

K12 24 The way he used my first name confirmed my suspicions. False K12 25 intimacy is treachery's favourite weapon. Judas kisses. The best K12 26 way to knife a man is to embrace him as you do it. I decided I K12 27 didn't believe him. He knew what I needed to know and he was lying. K12 28 I felt my anger freeze me to the chair. I stared at Frankie. K12 29 Drinking his tea seemed to demand as much concentration as K12 30 threading a needle.

K12 31 "Frankie," I said. "Tell me why Scott K12 32 quarrelled with you."

K12 33 "Ah wish Ah knew."

K12 34 "Frankie. Ah need to know."

K12 35 "What can Ah say?"

K12 36 "The fuckin' truth."

K12 37 "Come on. Ah can't tell ye what Ah don't K12 38 know."

K12 39 We will take our little deceits to the edge of the grave. We K12 40 will trivialise even death. Frankie White was staring the ulitmate K12 41 truth in the face and still he couldn't kick the habit of a K12 42 lifetime: lie to the police. My compassion for what was happening K12 43 in his life atrophied.

K12 44 "Frankie," I said. "You're a petty crook. And K12 45 you're not very good at it. You're a fantasist and a liar and a K12 46 phoney. But you've got two things going for you. Just two. I K12 47 suppose they're what hold you together. You've never touted to the K12 48 polis. And if that woman Sarah's anything to go by, there are maybe K12 49 a couple of people who believe in you as a good man. Like your K12 50 mother. Your mother must think you're something special. What I'm K12 51 going to do. If you don't tell me what you know. I'm going to make K12 52 your name a bad smell everywhere. Not just in Glasgow. I know where K12 53 you're living now." I told him his address in Kentish Town. K12 54 "But before that. I'm going to go upstairs and tell your K12 55 mother things that'll destroy her faith in you."

K12 56 We both sat still in the room for a couple of minutes, K12 57 despising me. I thought of Pete Wells and knew I wouldn't have K12 58 liked to look in his eyes just now. I had threatened to make an K12 59 innocent old woman's dying miserable in order to get at her son.

K12 60 "Frankie," I said. "I apologise. Of course, I K12 61 won't say anything to your mother. It would be like pissing on my K12 62 own mother's grave. I'm sorry. Forget if. Forget I K12 63 asked."

K12 64 Frankie finished his tea.

K12 65 "You know," he said. "The last week or K12 66 so. Ah've had to look at maself in a different mirror. It's not K12 67 nice. All that woman's done for me. An' what did Ah give her back? K12 68 An' she still believes in me. It's probably all she's got to K12 69 believe in. If she stops believin' in that, she'll know that all K12 70 those years were wasted. In one way, Ah'm glad for her that she K12 71 hasn't been out the door for the past few months. She hasn't heard K12 72 what the village thinks o' me these days. May she never. That's K12 73 what your brother was talkin' about. Ah honestly didn't know that's K12 74 who he was. He was a stranger to me. But he knew me all right. And K12 75 he knew what had happened."

K12 76 He lifted his cigarettes from beside the fire and offered me K12 77 one. We lit up. I waited. He was talking to himself as much as to K12 78 me. A question would have been an intrusion.

K12 79 "Ah've been thinkin' all this week," he said. K12 80 "Ah wish Ah wis more of a man. Not just for me. But for K12 81 her. Ah mean, there she is. She hasny cheated the world outa K12 82 tuppence change in the whole of her life. She could teach God K12 83 fairness. She came through the sorest times an' made them intae a K12 84 bed for me. An' whit does she get oot them? A fuckin' toe-rag for a K12 85 son. An' Ah've been thinkin'. Ah want to give her somethin' to hold K12 86 in her hand before she goes. Somethin' good. Some belief in me. K12 87 Just so that she can shut her eyes on a good feelin'. It's the K12 88 least she deserves. An' Ah've been wonderin' how Ah do K12 89 that."

K12 90 He looked across at me.

K12 91 "You're a respectable man," he said.

K12 92 "I think you could be confusing me with somebody else, K12 93 Frankie."

K12 94 "Come on. Jack. Jack Laidlaw. If you're not, ye K12 95 certainly look the part."

K12 96 I couldn't see where he was taking me.

K12 97 "Jack. Ah'm even callin' ye Jack. Just like old K12 98 friends. How about takin' that a stage further? Ah'll make a deal. K12 99 Ah'll tell ye what ye want to know. An' you do one thing for me. K12 100 You walk up that stair an' talk to ma mother an' be ma friend. Not K12 101 many people round here come about this house these days. Sarah is K12 102 it. For the rest, it might as well be a leper colony. At least K12 103 while Ah'm in the house. But if you went up there. An' ye sat a wee K12 104 while. An' ye told her what a good man Ah am an' how much ye K12 105 believe in me. That would be something, eh? See what Ah mean? Could K12 106 be like morphine for 'er. She'll float out in a dream. That's all K12 107 Ah'm askin'. Help me to give her somethin' nice she can cuddle to K12 108 herself till she gets tae sleep."

K12 109 He was finding it difficult to go on. But he did.

K12 110 "You see, you don't know her. But she's worth it. This K12 111 is a wumman that ..."

K12 112 "Frankie," I said. "Don't waste your K12 113 breath."

K12 114 He looked saddened and hurt.

K12 115 "For that generation of working-class women," I K12 116 said, "I'd burn down buildings. I know how much they gave K12 117 and the shit they got back. You don't have to convert a disciple. K12 118 Just tell me what to say an' Ah'm yer man."

K12 119 He smiled at me and I smiled back and we were a momentary K12 120 brotherhood - two reprobates who nevertheless understood the shared K12 121 goodness they had come from.

K12 122 "Ah'll leave the details up to you," he said. K12 123 "Ah canny think of one thing in ma favour at the moment. K12 124 Ye'll se why when Ah tell ye. Your brother knew something that had K12 125 happened here in Thornbank three month<&|>sic! ago. He knew Ah was K12 126 involved in it. Don't ask me how he knew. Ah think he thought Ah K12 127 was more involved in it than Ah was. But Ah was involved all right. K12 128 An' he hated me for it. Ah couldny believe how much he hated me K12 129 that night."

K12 130 I remembered Gus McPhater's awe at Scott's anger. That small, K12 131 vicious altercation was about to clarify into meaning, like an K12 132 insect noise that is finally identified.

K12 133 "Dan Scoular's dead," Frankie said. He paused K12 134 as if he was still not fully used to the idea. "The big K12 135 man's dead. You know who he was? He was as good as ye get. Your K12 136 brother knew he was dead. An' he blamed me for it."

K12 137 The name of Dan Scoular whispered a memory at me that I K12 138 couldn't quite catch. Scott had mentioned him to me more than once. K12 139 Something about how formidable he had been.

K12 140 "A bit of a puncher?" I said. "An K12 141 ex-miner?"

K12 142 "That's your man. You knew him?"

K12 143 I shook my head.

K12 144 "Well, what happened was. He was unemployed. An' Ah got K12 145 him into a bare-knuckle fight. Wi' Cutty Dawson." I was K12 146 familiar with the name of the ex-heavyweight boxer. "Dan K12 147 won. But they thought Cutty might be blinded. An' as a loser he got K12 148 no money. Big Dan wouldn't have that. So he's taking on the K12 149 promoters next."

K12 150 "Who set up the fight?"

K12 151 "Matt Mason and Cam Colvin. Dan was Matt's man. Cutty K12 152 was Cam's."

K12 153 "So what happened?"

K12 154 "Dan visits Cutty in hospital after the fight, finds K12 155 out the score. He goes back to Matt Mason's, knocks him out and K12 156 takes what he decides should be Cutty's wages. He delivers them to K12 157 him. Can ye imagine it? He robbed Matt Mason."

K12 158 Frankie was right to find it an amazing story. The headline K12 159 could have been: Gunfighter challenges the Eighth Army.

K12 160 "Then Dan came back here. Hide in plain sight, right K12 161 enough. Ah knew Ah was in the line of fire. Ah had it away to K12 162 London. But Ah tried to take Big Dan with me. Ah warned him what he K12 163 was mixed up in. You try to pick Matt's pocket, ye're goin' to K12 164 leave yer hand in there. But Ah felt responsible. Not for what Dan K12 165 did. Who could have imagined anybody would be as simple as that? K12 166 But for setting him up for the fight in the first place. Ah made K12 167 him the offer to come with me. Why didn't he take it?"

K12 168 He seemed genuinely puzzled. I recognised the old Frankie K12 169 White. Confronting a potentially transforming experience, he hadn't K12 170 really changed. I sometimes wonder if we ever do. Because his was a K12 171 portable self, a suitcase on which the labels will vary according K12 172 solely to personal need, he couldn't understand that a man might be K12 173 fixed to a place by factors beyond self-interest.

K12 174 "Thing is, Ah hear Cutty's sight's all right again. He K12 175 didn't go blind."

K12 176 He appeared to be saying that Dan Scoular's stand had been K12 177 pointless after all. I thought Frankie perhaps had his own problems K12 178 of vision. He couldn't see that the big man was presumably K12 179 protesting against the nature of things beyond the pragmatic.

K12 180 "How did Dan Scoular die?"

K12 181 "A hit-and-run driver. Dan kept up the joggin'. We used K12 182 to do that for his trainin'. He went out one mornin' an' never came K12 183 back. Seems he was found on the road. Ah mean, when ye think of it. K12 184 They never found who did it." Frankie looked at me like a K12 185 small boy who wants to show his butterfly but is afraid you might K12 186 crush it. "Ah mean. It really could've been an accident. K12 187 Couldn't it?"

K12 188 "Sure, Frankie," I said. "And John F. K12 189 Kennedy shot himself."

K12 190 "Aye," Frankie said.

K12 191 We sat in our own thoughts. I was glad mine weren't K12 192 Frankie's.

K12 193 "He was married?"

K12 194 "Aye. Betty. Two boys."

K12 195 "They still live here?"

K12 196 "Three streets away."

K12 197 "Where exactly?"

K12 198 Frankie was staring at me.

K12 199 "You're no' goin' there?"

K12 200 "That was the idea."

K12 201 "Come on. What's the point of that?"

K12 202 "Frankie. There's things I need to know. I still don't K12 203 know what Scott had to do with all this. Do you?"

K12 204 "Not a clue."

K12 205 "Maybe Betty Scoular has."

K12 206 "Rather you than me," Frankie said. K12 207 "Betty never liked me anyway. She's a smashin' big wumman, K12 208 right enough. But Ah'll admire her from a distance. Especially now. K12 209 Ah just hope she doesny know Ah'm here. Though Ah suppose she's K12 210 bound to. If thoughts could kill, they'd be buryin' me soon, not ma K12 211 mother."

K12 212 I asked him where she lived and he told me how to get there.

K12 213 "You've kept your bit of the bargain," I said. K12 214 "You want me to speak to your mother?"

K12 215 "You don't mind?"

K12 216 "Why should I mind?"

K12 217 "Well, Ah suppose Ah'm askin' ye to lie."

K12 218 "I've only two rules about lying, Frankie," I K12 219 said. "Never tell them to yourself, if you can help it. K12 220 K13 1 <#FLOB:K13\>She made a movement of the head appropriate to K13 2 someone who doesn't demean herself by noticing someone else's K13 3 concern about whether he's on the same wavelength or not.

K13 4 "Three old friends," I said.

K13 5 "Enough for your purpose?" She smiled.

K13 6 Enough for my next biography, she meant. My first essay in the K13 7 genre, published a little over six months ago, had met with K13 8 considerable success. She was right. I definitely ought to be K13 9 settling on the subject for my second - actually more desirably K13 10 from my point of view a subject in the plural, i.e. subjects; and K13 11 for my preference, a circle of them.

K13 12 During a pause in the conversation I made a start on eating my K13 13 plateful of cold cherry soup. Randa was giving me lunch at The Gay K13 14 Hussar, a small Hungarian restaurant in Soho, first opened (I had K13 15 asked the manager) in 1954, and even now - we were in 1982 - still K13 16 keeping up a sort of reputation for left-wing chic, not totally K13 17 'In' but not totally 'Out'. Randa was very fond of their cold K13 18 cherry soup, especially on a warm summer's day: it was not for me K13 19 to say I was rather un-fond of it, for my taste a somewhat K13 20 wishy-washy red liquid. A dissentient view on my part was not the K13 21 thing. Why not? Because I had a hunch that her invitation sprang K13 22 from having it in mind to offer me something to my advantage.

K13 23 The Horsfall Circus as a subject for me - Was this that K13 24 something? Thinking that she had been Horsfall's lawyer for the K13 25 best part of his lifetime, and that Gotham was still with her, I K13 26 presumed that she must know what she was talking about.

K13 27 I kept my head down for a while, more to give myself a chance K13 28 to think than to concentrate on consuming this ruby-red liquid.

K13 29 My stock of ideas about the Horsfall Circus flurried through my K13 30 mind. A little group of men, from the same school somewhere on the K13 31 Welsh borders, who made a mark when they fetched up at Oxford, all K13 32 of fifty years ago. Their ringmaster, so designated by the Eye K13 33 for his superlative combination of Celtic ambition and guile, was K13 34 Cledwyn Horsfall, famous economist, famous writer and finally K13 35 famous publicist - well, famous up to a point. He had died some K13 36 time in the New Year, leaving quite a large fortune. (The other two K13 37 old friends were very much alive.)

K13 38 The Eye had made the occasion of Horsfall's death an K13 39 opportunity for reviving their scandalous account of Celtic K13 40 ambition and guile getting him into a top stratum of the Honours K13 41 List under a previous Government - that notorious Resignation K13 42 Honours List, inscribed on a certain lady's shell-pink K13 43 writing-paper, which (so it was said) led the Queen, when she was K13 44 shown the List, to ask:

K13 45 "Are you sure it's the Prime K13 46 Minister's?"

K13 47 It was the Prime Minister's. Thereafter Horsfall, a big K13 48 rotund fellow singularly gifted with intelligence and hwyl, K13 49 had been in a position to give full rein to that intelligence and K13 50 hwyl from the eminence of the House of Lords.

K13 51 Randa was concentrating on her cold cherry soup. I exerted K13 52 myself to give the impression that I was doing likewise.

K13 53 I remembered scanning Horsfall's obituary in The K13 54 Times through interest in him as writer rather than as K13 55 economist or publicist. Unfortunately I hadn't studied it; so my K13 56 present knowledge of his career and its chronology was somewhat K13 57 patchy. The story was that while at Oxford he first sighted fame K13 58 and distinction for a major contribution he claimed to have made to K13 59 something called The Beveridge Report, which had come out K13 60 in the middle of the War, been turned into a couple of White Papers K13 61 towards the end of it, and then widely received with such acclaim K13 62 that the post-War Labour Government declared its intention of K13 63 implementing it. (A national health service was one of its K13 64 assumptions.)

K13 65 When the implementation of the Report was firmly under way, K13 66 Horsfall was thought to be an obvious man to be drawn into the K13 67 Civil Service to work on it. I hadn't noted which department he K13 68 went into; but from College gossip in my own time I knew that he K13 69 had ended up in an influential, if rather mysterious, post in the K13 70 Cabinet Office. So far so good.

K13 71 However, after a long and arduous - and successful - stint in K13 72 the Civil Service, Horsfall had caused no surprise by announcing K13 73 that he'd had enough. He wanted to return to academic life. The K13 74 College welcomed his return, of course. But it lasted for an K13 75 unexpectedly short time. In less than a year he'd been tempted back K13 76 to official life. By the offer of an appointment - what man of K13 77 ambition (or guile!) could have refused it?- as Economic Adviser to K13 78 the Prime Minister; housed in No 10 Downing Street.

K13 79 At No 10 Horsfall had stayed - apart from four years' tactful K13 80 retirement to Oxford while a different Government was in power - K13 81 till the next impressive step forward in his eventful history. K13 82 1976, and that Resignation Honours List. Reading the obituary I K13 83 couldn't help feeling that elevation must nevertheless have K13 84 foreshadowed an end to his effective life in high economics. In K13 85 1976 there was a new Prime Minister, for one thing. For another, K13 86 high economics was now in a state of high turmoil over the conflict K13 87 in theoretical circles between neo-Keynesianism and Friedmanite K13 88 monetarism. High economics was in a state of high turmoil and as a K13 89 consequence high politics as well. The new Prime Minister was said K13 90 to be moving towards monetarism. Horsfall was at heart a Keynesian. K13 91 Ergo ... 1976 must have seen for him a summary switch from the K13 92 frenzied activity of No 10 to the subdued existing of the House of K13 93 Lords.

K13 94 In compensation, though, the subdued existing of the House of K13 95 Lords must have offered him prospects of time to devote to other K13 96 things. For Horsfall, I understood, there were plenty of other K13 97 things, well ahead of all of them being writing. Throughout the K13 98 length of his career, it seemed, he had sustained an overriding K13 99 desire to write novels - he had even published a first novel while K13 100 he was still completing his D Phil in Economics. That novel, at K13 101 least, I'd already read: it was about intrigues and conflicts, in a K13 102 small Welsh town, between Methodists (very powerful) and those whom K13 103 they called 'the big people' (also very powerful). I had liked it K13 104 well enough to read two or three more - I imagined, now, that I K13 105 could face reading the whole of his oeuvre, if necessary. K13 106 Since his death I'd heard animated discussions among the other dons K13 107 at High Table about whether he was a major novelist - he had K13 108 apparently thought he was. Needless to say they didn't K13 109 concur!

K13 110 Lastly as a publicist. I'd noticed his activities as a public K13 111 figure reported with increasing frequency in the media - if only, I K13 112 thought now, I'd paid more attention! Independent, freelance K13 113 activities in the cause of world peace. I did remember having seen K13 114 him on television making a powerful speech in favour of what K13 115 amounted to universal d<*_>e-acute<*/>tente, and saying what he K13 116 himself was in the process of doing about it. (Quite impressive - K13 117 was there more to him than mere Celtic ambition and guile?) By the K13 118 time he died it was clear that had got himself an international K13 119 reputation.

K13 120 Plenty of work ahead of me if I took the assignment on. Plenty K13 121 of varied work, in much of which I should be starting form Square K13 122 1.

K13 123 Meanwhile not much more work was required of me on the cold K13 124 cherry soup - not many spoonsful still lay in my plate. I lifted my K13 125 head to find Randa watching me. Not that that was anything new: K13 126 Randa had been keeping an eye on me, in the metaphorical sense, for K13 127 years.

K13 128 The situation was this. Randa's firm, currently recognised as K13 129 the foremost libel lawyers in London, was called Goslett&Goslett; K13 130 and Randa (short for Miranda) and her sister, Jess (short for K13 131 Jessica), were two of its three senior partners. The third, their K13 132 matriarchal mother, Mabel, known as Mabsie, was the boss, K13 133 punctiliously given credit in public for ruling the firm, although K13 134 she didn't - Randa and Jess did. I was a cousin of Miranda and K13 135 Jessica, my paternal grandfather having married one of Mabsie's K13 136 sisters; so Randa and Jess were a generation older than me - they K13 137 were in their early fifties, I in my early thirties. Superficially K13 138 we were all on good terms with each other. Au fond I K13 139 never felt at ease with them. Randa's metaphorical keeping an eye K13 140 on me had consisted of recurrently taking steps since I was K13 141 adolescent to 'keep me in the family'. At that time I hadn't K13 142 understood why. It was when I was an undergraduate reading English K13 143 Literature that she started to ask my literary advice - free of K13 144 charge - on manuscripts of new books that had come in to be vetted K13 145 for libel. In return she was ready to vouchsafe me - free of charge K13 146 - her moral advice. Nowadays she was paying me for my professional K13 147 advice, of course; and in my opinion she was getting value for K13 148 money. I didn't know what she thought of my attitude towards her K13 149 moral advice: since I was getting it free of charge I didn't feel K13 150 any obligation to take it.

K13 151 Randa had finished her soup. While attacking the last of mine, K13 152 I reactivated the conversation.

K13 153 "The animosity of old friends ..." I murmured K13 154 reflectively.

K13 155 "You could find it rewarding." Pause. K13 156 "Very rewarding." Another pause. "You K13 157 know? ..."

K13 158 "It's an intriguing thought ..." I looked her K13 159 in the eye. "As you act for two out of the three, you K13 160 should know."

K13 161 Instantly Randa's eyelids half-closed. She lifted her shoulders K13 162 a little and said softly:

K13 163 "What can I say to that, James?"

K13 164 Professional discretion! A beautifully bogus spectacle. (Here I K13 165 must remark that as well as being clever and literate, Randa was a K13 166 beautiful woman.) I said facetiously: "Randa, you're a K13 167 temptress!"

K13 168 Instantly her eyelids lifted again and her tone of voice K13 169 changed from the seductive to the imperative.

K13 170 "No, James!"

K13 171 Randa was a strong feminist.

K13 172 Discovered as a male chauvinist, I dived my spoon into the last K13 173 ruby-red shallows. Unease in her presence was no excuse for such a K13 174 gaffe; and protesting that I had not intended it would only K13 175 discover me in her eyes as the more abject a male chauvinist.

K13 176 Randa was the strongest feminist in my acquaintance, where she K13 177 was closely followed by Jess, with dear old Mabsie, as in most K13 178 other things, some distance behind both of them. In Private K13 179 Eye the firm of Goslett&Goslett was routinely referred to as K13 180 'the Virago Sisters' (not to be confused with the Virago Press, of K13 181 course), but that was the least of the Eye's offences. K13 182 "So-and-So firm of publishers," it would say, K13 183 "are presently being mis-advised by the Virago K13 184 Sisters." Routinely it cast its typical aspersions on their K13 185 competence: that passed. Then last year it had cast its typical K13 186 aspersions on their probity. That did not pass! Not for a moment. K13 187 The Eye had had to pay up - out of court to the tune of K13 188 pounds20,000, it was rumoured.

K13 189 "No, James!" This time even more K13 190 emphatically if anything. "Never let me hear you make that K13 191 kind of remark again!"

K13 192 I didn't lift my glance. Had she thought the temptress I had in K13 193 mind was Eve? Actually it was the third party in the Garden of Eden K13 194 ...

K13 195 "OK," I said. Refusing to give up the good fight for K13 196 undergraduate facetiousness, I added: "If I make it to any K13 197 other woman, I'll try to be sure you're out of earshot."

K13 198 Randa made it clear that she didn't find the remark in the K13 199 least funny, which didn't surprise me. Even my relatively short K13 200 Life's Experience had taught me that people who were in the grip of K13 201 an 'ism' - Feminism, Monetarism, Communism, Leavisism, to name just K13 202 a few - never found jokes about it in the least funny. If they let K13 203 themselves laugh, I thought, the grip might slip? ...

K13 204 K13 205 K14 1 <#FLOB:K14\>Incidentally (gentleman that he was) my brother had K14 2 never said a word to me about our friend's involvement with Diana. K14 3 I suppose he felt it to be beyond my comprehension when I was K14 4 younger and none of my business when I was older.

K14 5 I have said that we met "on our own". In fact K14 6 we were surrounded by tens of thousands of people. By chance we K14 7 were pushed together. A glance, a recoil, a laugh, and a pleased K14 8 exchange of greetings inevitably followed.

K14 9 This was in Trafalgar Square, at a rally of the Campaign for K14 10 Nuclear Disarmament. I was there because I believed in campaigning K14 11 for nuclear disarmament. He was there because he had promised his K14 12 boss to attend the meeting and to report informally to him on K14 13 it.

K14 14 His boss, he told me over a cup of coffee some minutes later, K14 15 was the Minister of State - i.e. the Number Two - at the Home K14 16 Office.

K14 17 "You mean you're a spy!" I exclaimed, K14 18 aghast at what he had revealed, and yet at the same moment feeling K14 19 my participation in the rally to have been utterly vindicated. K14 20 "You see!" I might have said to him, but did not. K14 21 "That's what we're up against!"

K14 22 He smiled. "Not really a spy, no. I'm not going to K14 23 report on anyone in particular, I promise you. Not even on you. No, K14 24 old - was curious. He asked me to come along and tell him what I K14 25 thought about it all. 'Atmosphere' is what he wants from K14 26 me."

K14 27 "There must be two thousand policemen here. Can't they K14 28 give him all the information he needs?"

K14 29 "Yes, of course. But he wants something fancier. More K14 30 subtle. More sensitive. That's because he thinks of himself as such K14 31 a subtle and sensitive soul too. So ... me." He pointed K14 32 with a thumb at his chest.

K14 33 Though he had spoken rapidly enough, his voice sounded K14 34 strained, careful, somehow rusty in timbre, as if it cost him more K14 35 of a physical effort to bring out his words than it did for most K14 36 other people. He was, after all, a foreigner by birth: I had never K14 37 fully realised this until that moment, until I had heard him claim K14 38 to work in the Home Office, of all ill-chosen places. The thought K14 39 occurred to me: he could be a spy not for the Home Office but K14 40 in it. He could be working for someone else. The Americans? K14 41 The Russians? The South Africans?

K14 42 "I honestly don't know if I should believe K14 43 you."

K14 44 His reply was no more than an ironic pursing of the lips and K14 45 something between a nod and shake of his head.

K14 46 For some reason this made me believe him. I too shook my head, K14 47 at myself rather than at him, dismissing (with a little regret) the K14 48 idea of his being a double-agent.

K14 49 "So what kind of report are you going to carry back to K14 50 him?"

K14 51 "I'll tell him what he knows anyway: that the people K14 52 here are mostly well-meaning, middle-class dupes, led by a smaller K14 53 band of dupes, some of whom are well-meaning and some of whom are K14 54 not."

K14 55 "Dupes? What do you mean, dupes? Whose dupes do you K14 56 think we are?"

K14 57 "Moscow's, ultimately."

K14 58 "You really believe that?"

K14 59 "Yes, I do."

K14 60 "Just because I don't want to be irradiated and K14 61 incinerated at the whim of some American president or general - K14 62 that makes me Moscow's dupe?"

K14 63 "Oh please!" he said. "I don't want to K14 64 be incinerated either. Nor do I want to lose the war we're already K14 65 fighting; the one we've found ourselves in." He hesitated, K14 66 as if reluctant to go on; then took the plunge. "People K14 67 aren't supposed to say that kind of thing, I know; but the hell K14 68 with it. We're finished if a real war breaks out, that's for sure. K14 69 But to surrender, to chuck our weapons away because we're so afraid K14 70 of a real, shooting war breaking out? That would be another way of K14 71 finishing ourselves off. What you and your friends - the K14 72 well-meaning ones - are doing is to make one of those things more K14 73 likely to happen; the latter especially. Your ill-meaning friends K14 74 know it, of course; that's why they're so keen on what you're K14 75 doing. And that's why the Russians support them so K14 76 eagerly."

K14 77 "Yeah-yeah. Them evil Commies coming to get K14 78 us."

K14 79 "That's just childishness. I'm not interested in K14 80 Communists, only in Communism. There is a K14 81 difference. People are pretty much the same everywhere - obviously. K14 82 The real issue is what their system permits them to do if they're K14 83 in positions of power, or what it compels them to do if they're K14 84 not. At bottom old - in the Home Office is the same human type as K14 85 his counterpart in the Kremlin: I have no doubt of it. Neither of K14 86 them would be sitting in his office if that weren't so. The same K14 87 would probably be true of their counterparts in Nazi Germany - let K14 88 alone the people at this demo compared with your average crowd in K14 89 Red Square, say. The difference between them lies in the systems K14 90 they live under, only there, nowhere else."

K14 91 "And what our system does in Vietnam isn't evil? Or in K14 92 South Africa? Or in the Argentine?"

K14 93 "Look, there might be a thousand things I loathe about K14 94 our side - right here in England, never mind what goes on in other K14 95 parts of the world. But there's nothing to love or admire or K14 96 believe to be of any human value whatever in the kind of Communism K14 97 that's in power in Russia and Eastern Europe. The entire apparatus K14 98 is based on nothing but lies and fear: not partially, mind you, as K14 99 any system is bound to be; but wholly, indivisibly. The result is K14 100 exactly what you'd expect. If there were peace in Vietnam tomorrow, K14 101 or if the South African blacks got the vote, or if the military had K14 102 been kicked out of the Argentine last week, we, us, the West, Nato, K14 103 etcetera, would actually be stronger than we are now. But if the K14 104 people of Poland or Czechoslovakia could go the way they wanted to K14 105 go, Communism would be finished. Dead. The Kremlin knows it, so do K14 106 the people in Eastern Europe. That's why the Russians are trying so K14 107 hard not to let them do it. And why the Kremlin values so much the K14 108 help that you people here are giving them."

K14 109 Ancient arguments, I admit; now settled pretty much in his K14 110 favour too, I must also admit; though he never lived to see it. At K14 111 the time I was greatly taken aback to hear such sentiments from an K14 112 old acquaintance, a friend of the family; a man who did not look or K14 113 talk like the parodic, reactionary dope I would have wished him to K14 114 be.

K14 115 We left the coffee-room in the National Gallery to which we had K14 116 retreated, and stood in the raised portico of the building, looking K14 117 down on the shabby, vainglorious square below, and on the throngs K14 118 of people now beginning to disperse from it. The speakers' platform K14 119 had been built up in front of the plinth of Nelson's Column, K14 120 between the attendant lions; it still bristled with loudspeakers K14 121 and was bedraped with banners, but was now silent and deserted. It K14 122 looked all the more dramatic, somehow, for having just been K14 123 abandoned. A multitude of banners and posters, red and white, black K14 124 and white, moved sluggishly above the demonstrators who held them; K14 125 some fluttered, yawned, tilted, collapsed suddenly as they were K14 126 lowered and furled. At ever corner people were streaming away; with K14 127 each pace they took they seemed visibly to transform themselves K14 128 from a shifting, drifting, collective entity into so many disparate K14 129 individuals, under the clouded sky. There was only one segment of K14 130 blue above the dusky roof-line of buildings to the west: it was as K14 131 if the world breathed through that blue space, so serene and empty K14 132 it looked. On one side it was edged with a smouldering ruddiness; K14 133 there the entire cloud would eventually ignite. Watching the crowd K14 134 make off, I was filled with pride at having been one of their K14 135 number. It was indistinguishable, this pride, from the conviction K14 136 of being utterly ignorant of what was going to happen to me and K14 137 caring not at all what that might turn out to be. The feeling was K14 138 so intense I could only feel sorry for anyone who did not share K14 139 it.

K14 140 Him, for instance. This man, met by chance, who had been a K14 141 figure of awe in my childhood, and whom I now saw to be nothing K14 142 more than a plump, solitary person entering middle-age (to K14 143 my eyes, at least), wearing his weekend sports jacket and K14 144 open-necked shirt. Once again, glancing at him, with his K14 145 grand-sounding and yet underhand reason for being there, I wondered K14 146 if he was nothing more than an idle fantasist. It was easy enough K14 147 to feel sorry for him, anyway: for being old, for looking forlorn, K14 148 for not being one of us, for cherishing such backward political K14 149 views.

K14 150 "I don't suppose there's any chance I'll find my K14 151 friends again," I said, looking at the people so full of K14 152 movement; the buildings so hard and inert; the skies so K14 153 indifferent.

K14 154 "I'm sorry I took you from them."

K14 155 "No - no - it doesn't matter."

K14 156 Anyway, shortly afterwards I did find them. There they were, on K14 157 the pavement below us: Andy among them - Andy who was and sometimes K14 158 was not my boyfriend in those days. Looking at him in the throng I K14 159 thought: he would stand out anywhere. Even his skin, let alone his K14 160 tousled hair and pale brown eyes, seemed to me to shine with golden K14 161 glints. Like the others, he was a fellow-student of mine at K14 162 Edinburgh University. We had come down together for the K14 163 demonstration; among them I was the foreigner, for they were all K14 164 Scots.

K14 165 I introduced them to my mature friend. I was longing to tell K14 166 them what he was doing there - partly to discomfit him, partly in K14 167 order to impress them - but restrained myself from doing so. Then K14 168 off he went. When they asked me who he was, this chap I had sloped K14 169 off with, I answered, "Oh, nobody. An old friend of my K14 170 brother's."

K14 171 Still, I wrote him a letter a few days later. I addressed it to K14 172 him care of the Home Office, Whitehall, London SW1. If he had been K14 173 telling me the truth, it would find him there; if he had not, he K14 174 did not deserve to get my letter anyway.

K14 175 The letter was an attempt to make up for what had later seemed K14 176 to me my cowardly silence in the face of the attack he had made on K14 177 me and my fellow-demonstrators. Also an attempt, of course, to make K14 178 him take notice of me; to make him see what a serious and K14 179 thoughtful young person I was. I wrote that I did not want him to K14 180 think I was simply following the crowd in supporting unilateral K14 181 disarmament. Nor was I foolishly optimistic, as he seemed to think, K14 182 about human beings and how they behaved. Nor was it that talking K14 183 about incineration and radiation gave me an illicit, unadmitted K14 184 thrill, as it certainly did to some of the people at the K14 185 demonstration, both in the audience and on the platform. Nothing of K14 186 the kind.

K14 187 It was the thought of the last war, the one that had ended K14 188 years before I had been born, that had made a unilateralist of me. K14 189 And it was not even my feelings about the direct suffering it had K14 190 caused - the devastation of Europe, the destruction of the Jews, K14 191 the slaughters in Russia and China and Japan, the bombs falling K14 192 around the house in which I had grown up - that had bewildered me K14 193 as a child, and bewildered me still. It was, rather, the belief K14 194 that all of it had been preventable. None of it, not the sufferings K14 195 of one mutilated soldier or murdered civilian, had been inevitable. K14 196 None of it needed to have happened. Hitler and Mussolini could have K14 197 been stopped long before. The Japanese too. If different decisions K14 198 had been taken at this stage and at that, in this place and in K14 199 that; if different conclusions had been drawn from events and K14 200 spoken words; if - ! if - ! if - !

K14 201 K15 1 <#FLOB:K15\>Well, she'd soon put this one right. It was amazing K15 2 what a little extra soul could do to a marriage.

K15 3 A single light burned in a tall office block in Victoria. In K15 4 the luxuriously appointed suite leased by Wiseman and Partners K15 5 (Chartered Accountants), there was a last-minute panic to complete K15 6 the annual accounts of a prestigious client. Mr Wiseman, now the K15 7 revered senior partner, had asked a fresh-faced articled clerk to K15 8 stay on and help him.

K15 9 "I'd be most appreciative Ronald," he'd said. K15 10 "You see, it's my daughter's birthday and we're having a K15 11 slight - er - family do. And I'd like to get home as soon as K15 12 possible."

K15 13 "Of course sir," had been the obliging K15 14 response. Ronald was ambitious - and anyway he had rather a crush K15 15 on Clive Wiseman. He'd always had a soft spot for older men, had K15 16 Ronald.

K15 17 And so when the angel flew in, exhausted from her earnest K15 18 do-gooding, her quarry was seated at his desk, deep in the profit K15 19 and loss figures of Smith & Son Ltd.

K15 20 "What is it?" he asked absent-mindedly. K15 21 "A soul? Free? You mean I'd owe you nothing? Go ahead then, K15 22 quickly. I have to get home."

K15 23 That was easy. A cinch. The angel was hugely relieved - and in K15 24 a flush of euphoria she offered a soul to young Ronald as well. K15 25 What the hell. And Ronald, eager as always for the main chance, K15 26 accepted with alacrity.

K15 27 And the angel flew off, rather pleased with herself. She turned K15 28 back for a last look at two satisfied customers thinking there's K15 29 nothing in the world like making a good sale when ... oh dear. This K15 30 was not what she'd planned. Not at all. She didn't even know such K15 31 things were possible. What was she to do?

K15 32 For the four souls and two bodies of the respected accountant K15 33 and his fresh-faced clerk were no longer focused on money matters. K15 34 They'd locked together amongst the ledgers, clung passionately to K15 35 one another between a multitude of sheets and bills and, balanced K15 36 precariously atop piles of books, they swore eternal devotion.

K15 37 Shocked beyond measure, the angel watched as Clive repaired to K15 38 the Gents to - collect himself for the evening ahead. He looked at K15 39 his watch anxiously. Gosh, he was terribly late and his mother was K15 40 coming. Well, she'd have to wait a few minutes longer. When a man K15 41 had to go ...

K15 42 Ten minutes later, she watched him emerge with an exalted K15 43 smile.

K15 44 "Ronald my dear fellow," he was saying, K15 45 "this is a momentous occasion. I've just achieved a K15 46 lifelong ambition. At last, at long long last, I managed to produce K15 47 a natural and perfectly formed motion. Ronald, tonight I am a happy K15 48 man."

K15 49 "I don't get it - and I don't like it. Not one K15 50 bit," whispered the angel as she prepared for take-off and K15 51 wondered how it would feel to fall and fall and fall.

K15 52 Vanessa's birthday dinner was a disaster from start to finish. K15 53 Bee burnt the lokshen pudding. Then Mia phoned to say Mum wasn't K15 54 well and they were waiting for the doctor. Then Clive called to K15 55 announce he'd be late. Then the birthday girl barricaded herself in K15 56 her bedroom and refused to come out and I had to contend with K15 57 Bernice's mounting irritation (the child is completely without K15 58 gratitude, she kept saying) and Eli's sinking blood sugar (he'd K15 59 developed diabetes).

K15 60 Then Mia called again to say that Mum seemed worse and there K15 61 was still no sign of the doctor.

K15 62 Then Clive: "I'm ready to leave the office now Gabby K15 63 darling. The work took much longer than I expected."

K15 64 Me: "Fine, fine. Come as soon as you can." Why K15 65 had he suddenly called me darling?

K15 66 Mia again: "The doctor's finally here. Mum seems to be K15 67 unconscious. Oh, Gabby. It's awful."

K15 68 Me: "I don't know what to say ... ring me again when K15 69 the doctor says what's wrong."

K15 70 Bernice: "What's happening? What's going on? Where's K15 71 Clive? He's never been this late before. Do you think we ought to K15 72 notify the police?"

K15 73 Me: "No, no, Bee. He's on his way. He told me K15 74 so."

K15 75 At last, at last, the sound of the key in the door. Never have K15 76 I been so happy to see him. He seemed happy too. Unusually K15 77 happy.

K15 78 But the moment of contentment came and went. Clive went K15 79 upstairs to deal (unsuccessfully) with his rebellious daughter. Mia K15 80 phoned for the fourth time to say that Mum had been medicated and K15 81 the doctor would return in the morning. "He thinks she's K15 82 had a stroke," she sobbed.

K15 83 "Don't cry Mims," I said, feeling helpless. K15 84 "People do recover from strokes you know."

K15 85 And I put down the phone and burst into tears. And Clive ate K15 86 supper with his parents. And Vanessa went to sleep.

K15 87 A few days later another framed quotation appeared beside the K15 88 hallowed words of Hippocrates on the lavatory wall. This time it K15 89 was taken from the Song of Solomon: "My beloved put in his K15 90 hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for K15 91 him."

K15 92 I didn't quite understand it and was about to ask Clive what it K15 93 meant. But then Mum became worse and was taken to hospital and K15 94 Vanessa took it into her head to leave home and - well, Solomon's K15 95 song on our lavatory wall seemed somewhat irrelevant. Especially K15 96 after I'd answered the phone to Mia's hysterical voice late one K15 97 night about a week later. Clive was working overtime again.

K15 98 "Gabby," she was saying, "I've just had a call K15 99 from the hospital. Mum's dying. We'd better get there K15 100 fast."

K15 101 16 K15 102 "Miss Marks? Is that Miss Mia Marks?" A voice K15 103 that never slept. It waited, cool and businesslike and ever alert, K15 104 to bring bad news into the dark of night. I'd heard the telephone K15 105 and dreamt it was a dream but it rang and rang relentlessly and I K15 106 knew and woke and, heart pounding, lifted the receiver to let out K15 107 the voice. There was no stopping the messenger of death.

K15 108 "Yes, it's me."

K15 109 "This is the sister speaking. Your mother seems to have K15 110 taken a turn for the worse. We - don't think she has long to - K15 111 live. Perhaps you'd better come here - as soon as you K15 112 can."

K15 113 "Oh - yes - I will. Thank you."

K15 114 I'd thanked her. She'd tinkled a death bell in my ear and I'd K15 115 said thank you. Ever, ever grateful Mia - to the man who'd deserted K15 116 her because he'd shown her paradise, to the world that was taking K15 117 her son because it was giving him belief, to the mother who'd done K15 118 nothing - for being there. But not for long, the brisk voice in the K15 119 night had said. Not for long. Thank you. Thank you so much for K15 120 telling me, sister.

K15 121 "You don't have to thank me," she might have K15 122 said. "Isn't this what a sister is for - to tell you the K15 123 things that you'd rather not hear?"

K15 124 Was that it? If so my sister Gabriella had been slipping of K15 125 late. She'd almost stopped telling me anything, and I suppose I'd K15 126 done the same. But now I'd have to fulfil my duty. Would she rather K15 127 not hear? Would she care? Would the self-consciously sociable and K15 128 stylishly unconscious Mrs Wiseman mind that her mother was drawing K15 129 her final breaths? I hardly knew any more.

K15 130 "Gabby, it's Mum. She's dying. We'd better get there K15 131 fast."

K15 132 "I'm coming Mims. I'll meet you at the K15 133 hospital."

K15 134 She minded. She wiped away a tear as we stood on either side of K15 135 the bed looking down on the wraithlike figure of the woman who'd K15 136 borne us. With the sister, we'd walked quietly through grey shapes K15 137 and deep groans in the darkened ward to a far corner where her bed K15 138 was curtained like a shroud. White light blanched the last touch of K15 139 colour from a face that had always looked faded. Her pale eyes were K15 140 open but seemed to see nothing.

K15 141 "We've done all we can. Her breathing's very weak. The K15 142 doctor said there's nothing more ..."

K15 143 I touched the sister's arm. "It's OK," I K15 144 whispered (why was I comforting her?) "Can you K15 145 leave us with her - for a while?"

K15 146 She slipped out soundlessly and Gabby moved round the bed and K15 147 we watched over her side by side, hand in hand. Breathing together K15 148 and waiting for each breath of hers.

K15 149 "Mum," I said, "Mum, it's us. Mia and K15 150 Gabby." I put a tentative hand on her cheek, stroked it K15 151 gently, afraid that her flesh would crumble at my touch. It looked K15 152 as though it had been carved out of fine white powder.

K15 153 "Mum," said Gabby in a little voice. A small lost K15 154 child. "Mum, don't die, I don't want you to die." K15 155 She pulled me towards her, burying her head in my shoulder and K15 156 crying, and I suddenly saw that my mother's eyes were shut.

K15 157 "Gabs." We held our breath. But hers continued. In ... K15 158 out ... in ... out. She seemed to be sleeping. Perhaps she'd get K15 159 better. Maybe she'd live. "I'll call sister."

K15 160 "No, wait." Gabby held me back. "Look." K15 161 Mum's eyes were opening. She was frowning, trying to lift her head, K15 162 gazing intently at me as though she were about to say something. We K15 163 waited, afraid to breathe, to move. But the words wouldn't come and K15 164 her frown went away and a shadow seemed to cross her face as she K15 165 surrendered to her final helplessness.

K15 166 "What - d'you think she was trying to say?" K15 167 asked Gabby, holding on to me, trembling at this soundless snuffing K15 168 of a life. Already Mum had joined the past tense.

K15 169 "I don't know," I said, looking at my mother K15 170 now resting in her last-ever bed. "Perhaps she was wanting K15 171 a piece of toast."

K15 172 There was a small shocked silence. Then my sister flung her K15 173 arms round me and we laughed and cried and our tears splashed over K15 174 our poor dead mother who would never ask me for the thinnest slice K15 175 of anything again.

K15 176 "It was the end," I said, sitting at the edge K15 177 of his bed as dawn broke on my first motherless day. I hadn't K15 178 slept. All the things I'd never said to her ran through my head. K15 179 The truths I'd never told her, those I'd never demanded from her. K15 180 Why? Why?

K15 181 "Joseph," I told my son, averting my head to hide the K15 182 ravages of my grief, protecting him as ever and suddenly sad about K15 183 the truths I'd hidden from him, "your grandma is K15 184 dead."

K15 185 He took my hand and held it and his seemed solid and strong. K15 186 Not a boy's hand any more. "I'm sorry Mum. I'm so terribly K15 187 sorry."

K15 188 Rays of morning light slid in between the curtains and under K15 189 the door and melted together and the room that had once been K15 190 Gabriella's was no longer dark. But Joseph and I didn't move. I K15 191 wanted to stay there for ever, sitting at the edge of his bed with K15 192 my hand in his.

K15 193 "Do you remember?" I wanted to ask, "do K15 194 you remember the day we came here to live with Grandma? Do you K15 195 remember - before? Do you remember Utopia?"

K15 196 But of course he didn't. How could he? He'd arrived in my arms, K15 197 four months old, with his world in the soft warm neck and breasts K15 198 of his mother. I'd been his Utopia and he'd been my memory, his K15 199 navy-blue eyes my memento. That night, that first night of the rest K15 200 of my life when I'd brought my Joseph to Hendon, I'd sat alongside K15 201 his small crib and mourned the drabness of the life I was offering K15 202 him. Streets that were ever treeless, an arid house devoid of K15 203 cheer. Such emptiness.

K15 204 "I'll make it up to you my darling Joseph," I K15 205 promised my son. "I'll make you a multicoloured dreamcoat K15 206 even finer than the one worn by your namesake in the Bible. I'll K15 207 cut it out of the rainbow, weave into it the richest legends I can K15 208 find, the most fantastic fairy-tales, knights in search of truth K15 209 and honour, glorious stories of love and conquest. It will be my K15 210 gift to you, my favourite, one and only son."

K15 211 And there, in the very room that had once been Gabriella's, I'd K15 212 drawn close to Joseph night after night after month after year and K15 213 wrapped him in dreams of every imaginable hue. K15 214 K16 1 <#FLOB:K16\>He feared he was, but picked up the pieces and K16 2 dropped them in the grate, he and the others watching as they K16 3 twisted in the heat. Then he put on his jacket under their silence K16 4 and walked out of the house, only Harry calling for him to come K16 5 back and burn some more.

K16 6 THIRTY-FIVE

K16 7 An invisible blade of frosty coal smoke from trains and house K16 8 chimneys cut familiarly at his nostrils as he strode along wanting K16 9 to damn them all yet knowing that, even so, there was no guarantee K16 10 of them vanishing this side of hell or heaven, and they would be K16 11 there when he got back.

K16 12 He drew his collar up and went along Glasshouse Street. At the K16 13 Central Market wartime business was slack, a few handcarts forlorn K16 14 along the pavement, and a couple of tall soldiers in purple berets K16 15 buying at a fruit stall.

K16 16 The same thoroughfare became Broad Street (not broad enough) K16 17 and Stoney Street (merely cobbled); house doors opening onto K16 18 pavements, and children playing warily, shouts drowning the flick K16 19 of marbles before they dropped into winning holes.

K16 20 Among lace workshops and warehouses vans were collecting K16 21 camouflage netting or parachute material. Every place worked night K16 22 and day, women and girls keeping the machines going. Hosiery firms K16 23 turned out uniforms to clothe the serviceman in all climates. K16 24 Raleigh made shellcases by the million. John Player produced K16 25 tobacco and fags so that everyone could have a puff in a tight K16 26 corner, or relaxing drag in a pub. Boots' concocted medicines for K16 27 dosing the wounded and ailing. Cammell Lairds made artillery. Tanks K16 28 were assembled at Chilwell. Something definitely hush-hush went on K16 29 at Ruddington Moor. Ericssons did telephones and wireless sets. K16 30 Scores of other factories were subcontracting for bigger firms, the K16 31 whole city and environs labouring flat-out to help win the war.

K16 32 Nobody was idle, from fourteen-year-olds to men and women in K16 33 their seventies. Not since the last big do had there been such K16 34 scope, and he wondered why everyone couldn't be so employed in K16 35 peacetime. They might occasionally moan at not having much to buy K16 36 with their hard-gained pay packets, but there were fairer shares of K16 37 food which hadn't been possible till then. Pubs had beer, picture K16 38 houses did top trade, and there was a wireless in nearly every K16 39 house so that they could even listen to Lord Haw-Haw if they cared K16 40 to. The country wouldn't go back to what it had been like before, K16 41 and that was a fact.

K16 42 Broadway was a short throughway of redbricked factories with K16 43 their grand entrances up steps, looms busy behind rows of tall K16 44 windows, sky visible only on bending backwards to see a K16 45 four-engined plane flying across. A young boy pushing a handcart of K16 46 planks brushed his shin. "You want somebody walking in K16 47 front of you waving a red flag," Leonard called out merrily K16 48 enough.

K16 49 "Bollocks!" - a flash of pale and lively face as his K16 50 barrow rattled at a greater rate over the cobbles.

K16 51 "I'll put your bollocks where your batchy head should K16 52 be." Leonard, half into a run, struck air with his fists: K16 53 "You cheeky little bastard!"

K16 54 A girl walking by, with a pinched face and hands deep in K16 55 overall pockets, looked as if he was ready for a straitjacket. He K16 56 lowered his hands, thinking he could well be, face heated with K16 57 shame, turmoil, chagrin, fierce heartbeats saying he might be about K16 58 to bend over the gutter and throw his stomach up.

K16 59 He quietened such unwarrantable rage, thinking that if he K16 60 didn't teach the kid manners, someone surely would. Youngsters were K16 61 like that because they worked hard and earned money. Every evening K16 62 they came home exhausted out of the factories, joshing in the K16 63 streets before the twenty-mile bus ride home. Up at six in the K16 64 morning, they caught the bus again, rather than work in the K16 65 colliery at the end of their garden.

K16 66 He walked the slippery cobbles wondering where he was going and K16 67 why, but only heading as far as the next turning, which was the K16 68 same with Life, because you could never see beyond the limits of K16 69 your sight, while only God, if such he was, was able to view the K16 70 pattern from above.

K16 71 He had a home to go to but couldn't stop walking, waited for an K16 72 old man on a bike to pass before crossing the road. He didn't know K16 73 whether he loved Sophie, but you lived with a woman for better or K16 74 worse, and worse was better than nothing if you loved her and K16 75 didn't want her to leave. Looking back, she had fallen into his bed K16 76 so quickly he hadn't known her for what she was. The only way they K16 77 could be intimate nowadays was for him to imagine she was someone K16 78 else.

K16 79 He couldn't put up with her going off with other men, though he K16 80 didn't know how to end it unless to hang himself. But he was too K16 81 tenacious of life, or too cowardly, or too aware that such an act K16 82 might make certain people happy, or an equal number unhappy, and he K16 83 didn't see why he should disturb either sort to that extent. And K16 84 above all, to do such a thing would be the worst sin he could think K16 85 of.

K16 86 A few years ago such calculating thoughts had been no part of K16 87 his nature. It was surely a matter of know thyself, in K16 88 which case you must make the effort to do so more and more, K16 89 otherwise you ended up at the mercy of those who thought they knew K16 90 you better than you did yourself, and there was no fate worse than K16 91 that.

K16 92 THIRTY-SIX

K16 93 From a bomb-blasted gap in the houses he looked at a train K16 94 ploughing boisterously through the marshalling yards under a rudder K16 95 of smoke, lines of carriages and wagons as if in a shop window of K16 96 toys before the war. On the edge of the city a power station threw K16 97 up cloths of steam. The town closed you in, though maybe there was K16 98 a better life in the wooded hills beyond.

K16 99 A few feet apart, decrepit fa<*_>c-cedille<*/>ades had curtains K16 100 across their windows, the glass cracked, brown paint bubbled, putty K16 101 broken, since there was nothing to sell. He walked down a stepped K16 102 footway to a street of bombed houses: destruction brought change, K16 103 though people were killed who had done nothing to deserve it.

K16 104 On Long Row, women made-up to the nines (some so young you K16 105 would think they were still at school) strolled up and down calling K16 106 at any man or soldier going by. One even had a toddler with her, K16 107 and Leonard couldn't think why. He made a bridgehead at the counter K16 108 of Yates's Wine Lodge.

K16 109 "I'd know that thirsty voice anywhere," Albert K16 110 said. "Even if it was in the middle of The Hallelujah K16 111 Chorus."

K16 112 "Why aren't you on your allotment digging for K16 113 victory?" He opened his jacket, at the heat from so many K16 114 people. "It's just the right raw day for it."

K16 115 "You can't get the spade in - and if you do it weighs K16 116 half a ton. Mind you, it's lovely to see all them fat worms K16 117 wriggling about."

K16 118 "You could do a bit of fishing."

K16 119 Albert detected that something wasn't right, while pressing K16 120 tobacco into his pipe. "Life treating you well, K16 121 Leonard?"

K16 122 "I'm in the pink. Never felt better."

K16 123 "Well, that's all right, then. Mind you, I have thought K16 124 of a bit of fishing. My youngest lad's just been called up, so I K16 125 might take his tackle out and see if I can't pull a few tiddlers K16 126 out of the Trent. They say it's good by the power station, but I K16 127 reckon there's too many at it. People are bleddy locusts these K16 128 days. You'd think it was the Siege of Mafeking." He drew a K16 129 long suck of his pint. "Last September me and the missis K16 130 thought we would go blackberrying. She remembered a lovely spot K16 131 from years ago near Beeston. Used to get her bloomers caught in the K16 132 brambles, I expect, when she was courting the bloke she packed in K16 133 to take up with me. But there wasn't a blackberry to be seen. We K16 134 ended up with six green 'uns in the bottom of a tin, hands all K16 135 scratched to boggery. So no jam, even supposing we could get the K16 136 sugar to make it. It's the same with mushrooms. And the wild K16 137 rabbits have all been eaten. They'd start on the moggies if they K16 138 weren't all skin and bone. Still, they feed the lads in the army, K16 139 so my lot are all right. I've got three serving now. 'This is going K16 140 to be the war to end wars, Dad,' my eldest said, 'not like the one K16 141 you pansied about in last time.' I nearly knocked his block off, K16 142 except he's bigger than me. And now my only daughter's hopped it as K16 143 well, into the Land Army. A glorified muckraker, I told her. She K16 144 nearly chucked the teapot at me."

K16 145 Leonard called for another. "The house must seem a bit K16 146 empty."

K16 147 "Seem? Me and Gwen rattle around like French pennies in K16 148 a gas meter. Whenever she wants to shout at me I'm not there. Mind K16 149 you, when I want to give her a kiss, she is. We might take a couple K16 150 of lodgers, and make a bob or two. It'd be company. No use getting K16 151 a smaller house, either, because my mob'll be back when they've won K16 152 the war."

K16 153 "If you aren't careful," Leonard said, K16 154 "you'll get some soldiers billeted on you."

K16 155 "Not likely. If the Council people come snooping I'll K16 156 grab a few kids off the street and chuck'em in the beds. God knows, K16 157 there's enough around our way, and most of 'em don't know who their K16 158 fathers are. One or two darkies, as well."

K16 159 "How many rooms have you got empty, then?"

K16 160 Albert laughed. "You want one?"

K16 161 He wondered, for a moment."Have the next jar on K16 162 me."

K16 163 "I thought you was serious for a minute. I've got two, K16 164 if you know anybody respectable. That'll leave one for when my lot K16 165 comes on leave, and if they all show their clocks at the same time K16 166 they can fight for it. They would, too. They're demons when they're K16 167 together. Yes, I will have another. I like the ale in this place. K16 168 Even Gwen don't mind me coming here, though I think she'd like it a K16 169 lot less if she saw all these tarts."

K16 170 Leonard felt better with a couple of pints in him. K16 171 "Where do they go when they pick somebody up?"

K16 172 Handsome ebullient Americans filled the place with their K16 173 accents. Albert joked: "I didn't think you was like K16 174 that," and saw his mistake. "Well, I suppose they K16 175 take 'em home. The parents don't care these days, being partial to K16 176 some Yankee fags or a tin of their posh snap. Or there's all them K16 177 bed-and-breakfast places up Mansfield Road. Six-and-a-tanner a K16 178 night, or so I heard."

K16 179 Leonard walked tall and upright towards home, mended somewhat K16 180 at knowing he had a few pounds in his Post Office book and could K16 181 lodge with Albert while looking for a place - if he had to.

K16 182 THIRTY-SEVEN

K16 183 Sophie was in the scullery cooking dinner. "I thought K16 184 you was never going to come back."

K16 185 He was jovial. "You missed me?"

K16 186 "I always do, you know that."

K16 187 He kissed her. "That's good news."

K16 188 "It didn't come from The Daily Liar, K16 189 either."

K16 190 "I'm glad you say so."

K16 191 She smiled. "It wouldn't pay me to believe anything K16 192 else, would it?"

K16 193 He hung his scarf on the back of the door. "Wouldn't K16 194 it?"

K16 195 Sophie was two women, but he lived with one at a time, and the K16 196 one he didn't like could not be turned out of the house without K16 197 taking the half he was in love with, which he was sure loved him. K16 198 Because of this she made him feel he was two different men, and if K16 199 he was, neither of them could manage the part of her that he could K16 200 not endure.

K16 201 She stood up from the oven. When she stayed home she cooked, K16 202 and looked after things, so what more did he want? K16 203 K16 204 K17 1 <#FLOB:K17\>"He says he's going to try to string it to a K17 2 national."

K17 3 Daisy sat down heavily on the bed. "Why, for God's K17 4 sake?"

K17 5 She could almost see Alan shrugging at the other end of the K17 6 line. "Finally got to her?" he suggested. K17 7 "Flipped her lid?"

K17 8 "Don't even mention it." But the thought had K17 9 already occurred to her. Alice Knowles was under intolerable K17 10 pressure; many lesser people would have cracked before now. K17 11 "When's this meant to be happening?" she asked.

K17 12 "At three this afternoon."

K17 13 Inevitably. End of quiet Saturday.

K17 14 Daisy tried calling Alice Knowles, but there was no reply. K17 15 Already left for the show, perhaps. Or lying low, avoiding the K17 16 phone.

K17 17 There was nothing for it then, not if all the work wasn't going K17 18 to go up the spout. Quite apart from anything else, she rather K17 19 liked Mrs Knowles; it would be dreadful to see her disappointed, K17 20 maybe even humiliated.

K17 21 Nothing, however, was going to rob Daisy of her breakfast, not K17 22 even Alice Knowles, and she sat cross-legged on the floor and K17 23 consumed a large bowl of Coco Pops and milk, followed by several K17 24 slices of toast and jam, which tasted marvellously of white sugar K17 25 and processed flour. As she ate she started to go through the K17 26 newspapers, looking for cuttings, but soon broke off and stared K17 27 through the window, thinking of Alice Knowles.

K17 28 The case was typical of many that came Catch's way. The K17 29 Knowleses were a farming family with seven hundred acres of good K17 30 arable land not far from Newbury. Nice hard-working people, K17 31 reasonably prosperous, distinctly law-abiding. Like most farmers, K17 32 they worked with large quantities of chemicals. But unlike most K17 33 other families they had been unlucky or not careful enough, or K17 34 both, and now things had gone wrong.

K17 35 But was a demonstration going to help? Daisy tried to imagine K17 36 what sort of protest Alice Knowles might be planning. Handing out K17 37 leaflets, setting up a stall? Not so bad. Banner waving, shouting, K17 38 speech making? Not so good. In the minds of much of the press any K17 39 sort of jumping up and down was still firmly associated with K17 40 weirdos and political agitators, and while they might print a K17 41 two-line protest story, they were unlikely to give the item the K17 42 space it deserved. Alice would be written off as an isolated old K17 43 woman with a grievance, and Daisy's chances of getting a serious K17 44 investigative piece would be that much reduced.

K17 45 But there might still be time to pre-empt things. Leafing K17 46 through her address book, she found the number of Simon Calthrop, a K17 47 Sunday Times journalist she'd just met. Simon belonged to K17 48 that relatively new species of writer, the environment K17 49 correspondent, of whom from a count of six or seven five years ago K17 50 there were now so many that you couldn't count them for green lapel K17 51 stickers. Simon was a committed environmental reporter, just as K17 52 he'd been a committed consumer affairs correspondent two years K17 53 before, and a dedicated investigative reporter the year before K17 54 that.

K17 55 She'd last seen him a week before at a party for the launch of K17 56 yet another rain forest appeal in which consumers were being asked, K17 57 among other things, to boycott mahogany lavatory seats. As one man K17 58 had said in a loud voice, did that mean having to raise the seat K17 59 before sitting down? This had met with the sort of stony silence K17 60 usually reserved for nuclear power promoters and toxic waste K17 61 apologists. Daisy felt for the poor man. Nobody'd told him you K17 62 weren't allowed to have a sense of humour.

K17 63 Simon hadn't smiled, he was too busy looking detached. She'd K17 64 invited him to take her on to dinner, to see if the detachment K17 65 survived a candlelit evening. Rather to her surprise it did. K17 66 Writing for the Sunday Times was, for Simon, an onerous K17 67 experience. But there were definite chinks in his armour and, K17 68 having squeezed the odd smile out of him, she liked to think she'd K17 69 levered some of them open.

K17 70 He sounded grumpy when he answered the phone. "Can't do K17 71 anything this week," he began unpromisingly.

K17 72 "As a human interest story then," Daisy K17 73 suggested. "You know, how ordinary people are driven to K17 74 desperate acts. It could make a good photo feature."

K17 75 "Mmm." He sounded unconvinced. "So tell K17 76 me about it."

K17 77 Daisy told him about the family and how the medical tests had K17 78 shown them to have high levels of pesticide residues in their K17 79 bodies - the residue of several pesticides unfortunately, and not K17 80 just one or two, so that it was impossible to know which particular K17 81 chemical or cocktail of chemicals might have caused their troubles. K17 82 But Daisy had her suspicions. For years the Knowleses had been K17 83 using the pesticide Aldeb on their potato crop. She reminded Simon K17 84 that Aldeb was under notice of withdrawal in the US because of K17 85 fears that it was carcinogenic.

K17 86 "And in Britain?" he asked.

K17 87 "Here?" Daisy gave a derisive laugh. K17 88 "You know how it is - everything takes a little longer. The K17 89 ministry did their usual trick and rejected the US research on the K17 90 grounds that it was inconclusive. Aldeb's still heading the K17 91 best-sellers' list."

K17 92 "Mmm." He wasn't sounding enthralled by the K17 93 story so far. "Aldeb's who, remind me?"

K17 94 "Morton-Kreiger. They've just announced their results. K17 95 Worldwide profits of three hundred million, give or take the odd K17 96 million. Pounds, that is."

K17 97 "And what's their response been? You've contacted them, K17 98 presumably."

K17 99 Daisy was beginning to realise that, for all his erudite K17 100 environmental articles, Simon still didn't know everything about K17 101 the workings of agrochemical companies. "What K17 102 response?" she replied caustically. "You must be K17 103 joking. I'm always referred to their legal department."

K17 104 He took the point, though she could sense that he didn't K17 105 appreciate it being made so forcefully. Tactlessness - and instant K17 106 regret - were such a regular feature of her life that she K17 107 automatically backtracked, adding quickly: "What I mean is, K17 108 they've been less helpful than they could have been."

K17 109 "Listen, this isn't exactly straightforward," K17 110 Simon said. "If there's a story, it could take weeks to dig K17 111 out. I really don't think there'd be much point in covering this K17 112 woman and her demonstration this afternoon, not at this stage K17 113 -"

K17 114 "Maybe not, but let me come over with the K17 115 file," Daisy urged. "It's impressive, I promise K17 116 you. The story could be an important one. At least we think so. And K17 117 if we're right, then a lot of farmers could be at risk." He K17 118 was silent, but Daisy could sense a flicker of interest. K17 119 "Needless to say," she added, "you'd have K17 120 full access to all our material."

K17 121 Another pause. She'd almost got him, she felt it.

K17 122 "Where do you live?" she asked.

K17 123 He lived in Islington. After a detour to the office at King's K17 124 Cross to pick up the Knowles file and the draft press releases, she K17 125 made it in forty minutes. His flat was on the third floor of a tall K17 126 house in a rubbish-strewn street off the Pentonville Road. The main K17 127 room was basic but comfortable, with a couple of deep sofas, a K17 128 Habitat dining-table and chair set, and an expensive-looking K17 129 Scandinavian hi-fi system. There were a few good etchings on the K17 130 walls, a dying fig tree in the window, and on the floor several K17 131 piles of magazines and newspapers stacked high enough to reach the K17 132 sofa arms. A functional if untidy kitchen was visible through a K17 133 half-open door.

K17 134 A typical bachelor flat - or was it? She found herself casting K17 135 around for signs of female occupation, and was surprised at K17 136 herself. Was she making room for a new man in her life? More to the K17 137 point, was she considering the rather dry, unemotional Simon?

K17 138 He emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of coffee. He was K17 139 wearing the rumpled but carefully-assembled uniform of the north K17 140 London intellectual: well-worn jeans, open-necked safari-style K17 141 shirt which, if it had encountered an iron at all, had met it only K17 142 briefly, and old tennis shoes. He had a pale face, glasses with K17 143 minimal gold frames, dark eyebrows that feathered over the bridge K17 144 of his nose, and heavy black hair which kept falling over his eyes. K17 145 He was slim, although she noticed the first signs of the badge of K17 146 office of the true journalist, the drinking paunch, showing beneath K17 147 the shirt.

K17 148 She took him through the file, item by item. Eventually he said K17 149 wearily: "It could make a small item, I suppose... Or a K17 150 major investigative piece. But I can't see anything in K17 151 between."

K17 152 "Okay then," Daisy said immediately. K17 153 "Make it a major investigative piece."

K17 154 His heavy brows lowered until they formed a solid black line. K17 155 He gave a weighty sigh. "I've got two big features on the K17 156 go at the moment... I couldn't possibly start on anything yet. Not K17 157 for some time, in fact."

K17 158 "But soonish?" She was pressing him, she knew K17 159 it, but it was vital to screw some sort of commitment out of him, K17 160 however tenuous. "We could get more data, I'm sure of K17 161 it," she said more out of hope than certainty. K17 162 "Other victims and that sort of thing."

K17 163 "Oh? Where from?"

K17 164 She had to think quickly. "Umm, the unions. The NFU, K17 165 the Transport and General Workers." She had in fact already K17 166 spent long hours with the health-and-safety officers of the two K17 167 unions, combing their files. The National Farmers' Union had K17 168 produced a number of cases which might be traceable to Aldeb, but K17 169 the evidence had been sketchy even by Daisy's undemanding K17 170 standards. There were hundreds of cases out there, Daisy was sure K17 171 of it; the victims just didn't know what had hit them.

K17 172 "Okay." Simon gave another, sharper sigh. K17 173 "Find what you can and when I've got the time I'll have a K17 174 look at it."

K17 175 She had to settle for that. She took another coffee off him all K17 176 the same, partly to satisfy her curiosity about him, partly to K17 177 argue her case again should the chance arise, which it soon did. If K17 178 she was being dogged, it was because in this line of work K17 179 opportunities had to be grabbed as they arose and then shaken into K17 180 life. It wasn't enough to have right on your side; that never got K17 181 anyone anywhere.

K17 182 "Of course it has been known for the Americans to K17 183 get it wrong," Simon said. "They can K17 184 over-react."

K17 185 "What, on Aldeb?" Daisy exclaimed. K17 186 "Have you seen the evidence?"

K17 187 He shrugged, as if nobody of any sense could seriously believe K17 188 that anything, even scientific evidence, could be taken at face K17 189 value. "To provide balance I'd have to interview K17 190 Morton-Kreiger. Get their side of things."

K17 191 "I wish you luck," she said drily. "I'd K17 192 be interested to know what they have to say."

K17 193 He got up and, going to the stereo system, put on a CD. Early K17 194 music. A concerto of some sort. She tried to guess. K17 195 "Bach?" "Haydn," he said. K17 196 "On original instruments. I think it sounds rather more K17 197 interesting, don't you?"

K17 198 "Sure," she said, though she wasn't certain she K17 199 could tell a wire string from a piece of eighteenth-century catgut K17 200 if it was sounded in her ear. She couldn't help thinking that Simon K17 201 was just the type to go for original instruments.

K17 202 Simon, making an obvious effort to be sociable, asked about her K17 203 background. Daisy seemed to remember that they'd been over this at K17 204 dinner the previous week. Had he simply forgotten? Giving him the K17 205 benefit of the doubt, she went through it again. She told him about K17 206 being brought up in Catford, famous for the greyhound stadium, for K17 207 being somewhere beyond the South Circular, and for being impossible K17 208 to find without an Ordnance Survey map of south London. How her K17 209 father had encouraged her to get some A-levels and try for a law K17 210 scholarship to Birmingham, which she didn't get. Her parents had K17 211 sent her all the same, though it was a strain financially. K17 212 "They thought education set you apart. It did, in Catford K17 213 at least. None of my school friends ever spoke to me again. I had a K17 214 best friend called Samantha who thought I'd got totally above K17 215 myself. The last I heard, she was earning a thousand quid a week as K17 216 a nude model." She gave a chuckle, as she always did when K17 217 she came to this part of the story. K17 218 K18 1 <#FLOB:K18\>And the terror struck again. She closed her eyes K18 2 with the unmanageability of all she had to do without noticing that K18 3 her terror, only moments before, had been because she had nothing K18 4 to do.

K18 5 She was hungry. Well, it was practically lunchtime. She had K18 6 noticed, on her way here yesterday, a fish and chip shop on the K18 7 main road. She decided she needed something to eat before she began K18 8 the awful tasks that lay ahead of her.

K18 9 Sylvie returned with her parcel of fish and chips. The curtains K18 10 were still drawn. She left them that way and turned on the lights, K18 11 declaring it night, although the day was bright and sunny outside. K18 12 As far as she was concerned, it would be night. She wanted its K18 13 safety and comfort. It was no more than a hope, some atavistic K18 14 memory of rolling a stone across a cave entrance and watching the K18 15 fire spring to life. Safe at last.

K18 16 Not so for Sylvie. The electrical brightness and the imagined K18 17 darkness outside threw their own fearful shadow over her as she K18 18 piled her fish and double portion of chips on to a plate and K18 19 slumped with it into the armchair.

K18 20 The emptiness grew inside her in spite of the food she stuffed K18 21 into her mouth. The void expanded and offered her a vista, once K18 22 again, of a lifetime, an eternity, of nothing. That was the fear; K18 23 but, in truth, she knew she coped with that daily. There were ways K18 24 of facing time. There was another fear, which combined with its K18 25 impossible opposite, made everything intolerable, utterly K18 26 insoluble. It was the terror of living, of doing anything, of K18 27 filling the awful-enough void with activity. Between Sylvie's K18 28 aversion to life and its doings, and her horror of what seemed an K18 29 endless emptiness, there was no room for living at all. There was K18 30 only panic that flickered madly between the one unspeakable option K18 31 and the other. Somehow, the space between, which was where other K18 32 people seemed to exist and get on with their lives, had been K18 33 annihilated by the two monsters that fought for control.

K18 34 This was how it was for Sylvie.

K18 35 She had begun her day fearing the emptiness of the rest of her K18 36 life. Now, the fear reversed. The thought of actually achieving the K18 37 where-withal of a normal existence filled her with terror. K18 38 What if they gave her the rent, a job, the child? Having got those K18 39 things she needed to lead an independent life, she would then be K18 40 obliged to get on with it, to cope like everyone else. She knew she K18 41 couldn't.

K18 42 Her head filled with images of things breaking down, or needing K18 43 constant renewal - machines stopped working, sinks blocked and K18 44 flooded, clothes needed repair and replacement, food ran out, a K18 45 mouth that had to be fed every day, a body that grew and grew, to K18 46 be clothed and cleaned, a voice that wanted things, stories, a K18 47 cuddle, to know where something was. She wouldn't know where it K18 48 was. Things would have to be put away in the right place so that K18 49 they could be found again. Simple, practical activities that made K18 50 life, in the long run, easier. But so many of them, so much, for so K18 51 long. Day after day of being in charge of not letting things get K18 52 out of hand. Daily routines, pushing the shopping trolley to the K18 53 shops, school every morning if she got up in time, fetching every K18 54 afternoon, in between sorting out, tidying up, renewing, going to K18 55 work ... For ever and ever, or until she was so old that there K18 56 would be nothing left but waiting to die.

K18 57 Sylvie looked around the room. Clothes, towels, sheets, most of K18 58 them, so far, clean; things waiting to be put away lay on every K18 59 surface. And she saw how it would be in just a few days' time. K18 60 Newspapers to be thrown out, broken toys, dirty plates, overflowing K18 61 ashtrays, empty wine and beer bottles, quarter-filled cups of cold K18 62 tea or coffee. It wasn't that she wouldn't notice, at least some of K18 63 the time, but she knew she wouldn't be able to do anything about K18 64 it. Wouldn't know where to begin. And as it got worse, it would K18 65 become all the more impossible. She had held off this nightmare by K18 66 living a temporary life in other people's houses. They cleared up, K18 67 paid the bills and kept everything going because they knew how to K18 68 do it.

K18 69 She didn't.

K18 70 She wanted her independence, and her child, in an abstract sort K18 71 of way, but she didn't want the reality of a flat for which she was K18 72 responsible, or a six-year-old who needed ... and needed ... and K18 73 needed. She told herself that she feared these things because she K18 74 just couldn't cope with the practical attention they required. She K18 75 hadn't the experience. She was ready to admit that, it was clearly K18 76 true. But in her guts, where she didn't have to think or give names K18 77 to the feeling, she just didn't want them. She wanted only to K18 78 be left alone and not to have to do or think about anything. That K18 79 was what the juices inside her screamed, when faced with the K18 80 prospect of getting what every adult was supposed to want.

K18 81 Fully inside her terror of a normal life, she shook with the K18 82 horror of it, and knew what she really wanted: nothing, no plans, K18 83 just a day-to-day vacuity. Until, of course, the thing came full K18 84 circle and the horror of that overtook her to rack her with K18 85 the other misery.

K18 86 She put the empty plate on the floor. Not possible to be like K18 87 this, to live like this. Not possible, at any rate, to allow the K18 88 day to continue. She had no idea of the time, but she went to the K18 89 bedroom, dragging herself slowly, like a wounded creature, and K18 90 pulled off her clothes, dropping them on the floor and picking up K18 91 the nightie she had discarded an hour and a half before. She K18 92 crawled into bed, huddling beneath the blankets.

K18 93 "Bastards. Bastards," she whispered into her K18 94 pillow. "They're all bastards."

K18 95 And in seconds she was asleep. The rent, the job, the child K18 96 would have to wait.

K18 97 Sylvie fought her way through hours of excessive sleep. K18 98 Sometime in the early hours of the next day she came fully awake, K18 99 her body at least refreshed by fourteen hours of inactivity. Her K18 100 mind howled, however, and demanded more unconsciousness. For a K18 101 while Sylvie tossed and turned in the dark like a threatened rabbit K18 102 desperately digging for a lost burrow. She gave up finally, and K18 103 pushed back the covers to go in search of a bottle of Mogadon that K18 104 she knew she had last seen in the bathroom, or possibly on the sofa K18 105 under some clothes. In the living room, the bathroom proving K18 106 fruitless, she heard the sound of pacing above her head. Slow K18 107 footsteps moving up and down across the room upstairs. There were K18 108 two floorboards that creaked each time a foot fell on them. Creak, K18 109 creak. Creak, creak. The rhythm held. Six, seven, eight crossings K18 110 and recrossings of the room.

K18 111 She wasn't the only one awake, then. Liam couldn't sleep K18 112 either. Well, serve him right for waking her up this morning, K18 113 Sylvie thought. Maybe she ought to go and offer him a Mog. That K18 114 would be neighbourly. What's he got to worry about, she grumbled to K18 115 herself, spilling a tablet, and then, thinking about it, a second, K18 116 into her palm and heading for the bathroom. But there was an K18 117 unacknowledged comfort in the sound of the regular padding K18 118 upstairs. The evidence of another life warmed Sylvie slightly, K18 119 though she hardly realized it. The sound of human footsteps K18 120 signalled that she was not totally alone in the world, and everyone K18 121 else dead in their sleep, or gone away suddenly. She wouldn't wake K18 122 to an empty planet where some cataclysm had happened and no one K18 123 thought to tell her. Even for Sylvie, for whom other people K18 124 represented most of what made her life insufferable, something was K18 125 better than nothing at all, and footsteps in the early hours of the K18 126 morning provided solace of a sort.

K18 127 At last, Sylvie's pills began to take effect, so that in spite K18 128 of her subversive anxiety ("they're not working ... they're K18 129 not working ... I'll never get to sleep ... never ... never K18 130 sleep"), she realized her body and mind had grown heavy, as K18 131 if soft, warm mist had descended, and she headed, semi-conscious K18 132 and grateful, towards the tumbled haven of her bed.

K18 133 Finally, Liam felt the stunning weariness of his unrequited K18 134 middle-aged lust fall on him with the suddenness of a lift coming K18 135 to a stop at the basement of a high building. He stopped pacing, K18 136 drank a long draught of water and barely had time to get into bed K18 137 before blessed unconsciousness brought an end to another of his K18 138 days.

K18 139 It took three days for Sylvie to gather the inner resources to K18 140 go out and do what had to be done. Or rather to create the K18 141 necessity. She was running out of money, and she had promised Liam K18 142 that he could have the first week's rent before the weekend. K18 143 Promises were easily broken, but she had to have money for food K18 144 anyway. To get that she had to do everything else: tell social K18 145 security that she was in permanent accommodation, get Divya back so K18 146 that her social security benefit would increase, find a job so that K18 147 she could have Divya back. Round and round. There was no way out of K18 148 it, unless she could find another sofa to sleep on. But she K18 149 discovered after a few phone calls that Sophie had rung people and K18 150 told them she had organized a flat for her. Instead of offering her K18 151 a bed, everybody congratulated Sylvie on having a place of her own. K18 152 So there was nothing else for it, since she didn't have the energy K18 153 to go away for long enough to be welcomed back to the sofas, she K18 154 had to get on with her tasks.

K18 155 Sylvie marched down the road, her thick black curls bobbing K18 156 against her hunched shoulders as if set in motion by an excess of K18 157 the furious energy that pushed her forward along the street. She K18 158 had worked this energy up for a whole morning, pacing up and down, K18 159 playing music as loud as it would go, banging drawers shut, before K18 160 setting out and slamming the front door as hard as she could to K18 161 give herself a final spurt that would last until she reached her K18 162 destination. It was either that or slouch, drop shouldered and K18 163 leaden, through the streets to occasional male cries of K18 164 "Cheer up, love, it may never happen!" These K18 165 wouldn't be enticing calls. They were sneers from men who, having K18 166 been rejected by or not daring to offer themselves to those they K18 167 fancied on the street, could get their own back on a female too low K18 168 in spirits to lift a haughty head and stare at them with contempt. K18 169 The "it may never happen" meant, in reality, K18 170 "it has happened, whatever brings a confident bitch down a K18 171 peg or two, and we're delighted to see it".

K18 172 But protection against the cries of men in the street was only K18 173 a side-effect, the build-up of anger and energy was needed K18 174 for when she got to where she was going.

K18 175 "Take a seat. We'll call you when it's your K18 176 turn."

K18 177 It took an hour. Sylvie used the time to rehearse what she K18 178 would say, over and over, and each time, as she imagined the K18 179 answers, off-putting, downright rejection, the fury increased. By K18 180 the time she was called, she had, in her imagination, been refused K18 181 a dozen times in succession.

K18 182 The social security clerk behind the glass booth, listening to K18 183 her demands and tone of voice for the first time, registered that K18 184 the woman was unreasonable, hysterical, and altered his manner and K18 185 decisions accordingly. For Sylvie, however, this was not only the K18 186 culmination of her fantasy rejections over the last hour, but, K18 187 realistically, the latest in a long series of such scenes that went K18 188 back years.

K18 189 K19 1 <#FLOB:K19\>"But you didn't laugh..."

K19 2 "I didn't laugh but who are you?"

K19 3 "Tim Harding"

K19 4 "Cecelia Sloan. I haven't much time, my father has a K19 5 bad flu. I work in London. I only came this weekend because he K19 6 sounded so bad on the phone even though my aunt is there but I just K19 7 had to tell you, I've thought of you every day for the past two K19 8 weeks..."

K19 9 "I've thought of you every day."

K19 10 "No you haven't, buster, you were looking for an easy K19 11 lay and when it didn't work you forgot about me. This isn't patter, K19 12 I'm sincere and telling you simply because I can't help K19 13 myself."

K19 14 What sort of gimmick was this? I put my glass on the K19 15 counter.

K19 16 "Listen to me for a change. I said I thought of you K19 17 every day and I did. If you don't believe it then goodbye. And K19 18 you're right, I was looking for a ride. This is Charlie's for God's K19 19 sake. But now, now it's different. Please believe that."

K19 20 She looked at Charlie's clock - which had stopped, then at her K19 21 watch. "I have to go. Walk me home." She looked K19 22 down the counter for attention and drew Charlie.

K19 23 "May I have a whiskey to go, please." To me she K19 24 said: "For my father." Charlie wrapped up the small K19 25 bottle - in a piece of newspaper rescued from the waste bin - took K19 26 her money and gave her the change without a comment. So unlike K19 27 Charlie. I had known all sorts of women since I started at sixteen K19 28 with one of the bingo hall girls in Fulham Broadway yet when I K19 29 tried to lift my glass for a last drop my hand shook. She put the K19 30 whiskey in her shoulder bag, landed from the stool and walked to K19 31 the door. Where she stopped and waited. Until I copped on and K19 32 opened the door for her. "And who is Tim Harding, Tim K19 33 Harding?" She pulled my sleeve to make me walk on the K19 34 outside of the footpath.

K19 35 "Tim Harding is a twenty-eight year old Fulham man, K19 36 graduate of Trinity, Dublin, and presently chief executive of the K19 37 one-man business, Fagend - that's my office across there, overhead K19 38 the auctioneers."

K19 39 "Fagend?"

K19 40 "I help people stop smoking."

K19 41 "Oh Gawd!"

K19 42 "Hold on, I'm really a maths teacher. But I got into K19 43 this racket by accident and it beats work."

K19 44 "If you're a maths teacher you should be teaching K19 45 maths, Tim Harding."

K19 46 "I know. I will. Teaching jobs are scarce here. I K19 47 suppose I should go back to London, they can't get enough teachers K19 48 there, all the good ones are dead, dying or cashiered for K19 49 pederasty."

K19 50 "Cross here. That's where my father worked all his K19 51 life. It used to be a Montague's. Now look at it."

K19 52 "I know. All I have to do is walk down town with K19 53 Charlie. 'There's Mr Sloan... look at Yendall coming alone... would K19 54 you look at the face of Simpson...' Charlie expresses it more K19 55 colourfully."

K19 56 "I can imagine." I stopped to look at the K19 57 building where her father had worked all his life. To do the same K19 58 thing all your life. Charlie climbed into my head with his myriad K19 59 vocations.

K19 60 "...since I was ten collecting slops from the lanes at K19 61 a ha'penny a bucket..."

K19 62 "...Tim Harding, you may hold my hand..." And K19 63 so our love affair began. The throat dry I turned away from Old K19 64 Sloan's prison to the smiling Cecelia with her hand down by her K19 65 side. I held her hand tightly and went to lean towards her to kiss K19 66 her.

K19 67 "No. That comes much later. Keep walking."

K19 68 We walked across the bridge. I could wait for later. I could K19 69 count my blessings. I was holding her hand. It was an autumn night. K19 70 I was in love. I was in heaven.

K19 71 Apart from Donat's Sexton Square across the bridge was the most K19 72 fashionable part of the city. This was so simply because it once K19 73 was and old blood still lived there. We squeezed hands in silence K19 74 until we reached the large wrought-iron gate, hundred yards' gravel K19 75 driveway, garden with four oak trees and leaf covered lawn, the K19 76 three storey red brick desirable residence of Sloan, Esquire. She K19 77 let my hand go and folded her arms. "This is it, Tim K19 78 Harding."

K19 79 "You must be rich," I pointed out.

K19 80 "We haven't a bob. My father lived prudently. His own K19 81 word. Goodnight."

K19 82 "Heeey... hold on there. Don't I at least get my K19 83 goodnight kiss?"

K19 84 "That comes much later. As it is I've knocked off six K19 85 months to hold your hand. What was good enough for my father and K19 86 mother will be good enough for us."

K19 87 "What do you mean?"

K19 88 "My father walked out with my mother for six months. K19 89 When he brought her home at night he raised his hat and thanked her K19 90 for the evening. Then they held hands for three months. Then he K19 91 proposed. She was wearing an engagement ring when they kissed. And K19 92 a wedding ring when they made love. I think it was so wonderful, K19 93 absolutely divine, don't you?"

K19 94 "You're kidding?"

K19 95 "Am I?"

K19 96 "You're not kidding. But when will I see you again? K19 97 When are you going back?"

K19 98 "In the morning."

K19 99 "I'll go with you to the airport."

K19 100 "No you won't. My father will."

K19 101 "I'll ring you. Charlie said you're with a publisher, K19 102 what publisher?"

K19 103 "You won't ring me. I'm with William Drake."

K19 104 "Here's my card, you ring me."

K19 105 "Ha! You don't know William Drake, I'm afraid. I K19 106 couldn't make a cross-channel call to James Joyce."

K19 107 "I know, I'll fly over to London, take you out to K19 108 dinner..."

K19 109 "No. Goodnight. I love you."

K19 110 She high-heeled it in the gravel.

K19 111 I didn't go back to the Statue of Liberty for half an hour. K19 112 After crossing over the bridge I went down the steps and walked K19 113 along the quay thinking like a Fagender, counting my blessings. No K19 114 more could I indulge the grievance of my beautiful mother taken K19 115 from me when I was seventeen and the discovery that Dr Bollix was K19 116 my father. I had Cecelia Sloan.

K19 117 I reached Charlie's in time for one drink. Charlie is strict. K19 118 Nobody is served after hours unless it is someone he thinks will K19 119 give him the ride or Sam or myself. Sam was there. I congratulated K19 120 him. Serving the drink, Charlie leered at me.

K19 121 "Harding, you black English Protestant, I told you, K19 122 Sloan's daughter? You'd have a better chance with Mother Mary K19 123 fuckin' Aikenhead."

K19 124 "You cleaned his clock, Sam." Sam started to K19 125 tell me about the game but I don't think I caught a word. I was K19 126 listening to the music. Cecelia, Cecelia, Cecelia. Charlie cleared K19 127 the bar, stood Sam and me a drink, and came out to sit by the fire, K19 128 drinking Ballygowan water by the neck.

K19 129 "What about the bollixes, what do they talk K19 130 about?"

K19 131 "Loss of faith. Father Brock woke up one day and it was K19 132 gone. Donat objects to ecumenism. Is there some part of the mass K19 133 when people shake hands with each other, Sam?"

K19 134 "The priest says: Let us all offer each other the sign K19 135 of peace."

K19 136 "Donat won't go along with that so I gather he stays K19 137 away from mass which I must say is news to me."

K19 138 "It's news to me. I just assumed he went to the K19 139 Jesuits. He never did go to the Redemptorists as long as I know K19 140 him. I'm sad to hear that, Tim. And Father Brock too?

K19 141 "It's funny. He 'Fucks' away like Charlie there. If his K19 142 faith comes back he won't be able to swear so he sins now while the K19 143 going is good."

K19 144 "Sin, my bollix. I'll tell you a sin story. Listen to K19 145 this, Harding. And you too, Sam, 'twill do you good. When I was Tex K19 146 with Paschal Larkin in Hank Larkin and the Hoedowners. It's about K19 147 half past two on a Sunday morning, we've been playing about five K19 148 hours straight - we didn't have a relief band, we were a fucking K19 149 relief band. We pack away all the equipment and we're sitting in K19 150 the back of the unheated van somewhere in the arsehole of Kerry K19 151 waiting to start the three hour drive home. Bitterly cold. We knew K19 152 how cold it got in the van so we're all sitting there wrapped in a K19 153 blanket and muttering to each other like dispossessed fucking K19 154 Indians. And the cause of our misery: Paschal has scored. Paschal K19 155 did the Elvis bit, he used to have a French letter full of sand K19 156 strapped to his leg so 'twould bulge out of his jeans even though K19 157 his prick wasn't the size of my thumb. But he had this foolproof K19 158 way of clicking. He'd scour the hall during the break until he'd K19 159 find the ugliest, filthiest, scrapeist<&|>sic! woman in the hall. K19 160 This night he's gone to fucking town altogether. Grossly fat, this K19 161 woman has encased herself in the tightest black dress you could K19 162 imagine, great bands of flesh encircle her like fucking car tyres. K19 163 Her hair is a bee-hive job that hasn't been dismantled in years and K19 164 her face is one big splodge of sweaty make up. Now the rule of the K19 165 band was that anyone who clicked took the shortest time to get the K19 166 job done - usually in the nearest field - so we could all get home. K19 167 But it's so cold that even Paschal's knob would shrivel, so he K19 168 shoves her into the long seat in the front of the van and dives on K19 169 her. Sound of clothes being yanked off and then: 'You can't, you K19 170 can't, it's me period.' Grunts of disapproval from Paschal and then K19 171 whispered instructions. Followed by a rhythmic rocking in the front K19 172 seat. Then: 'Me hand is tired, you're never goin' a come.' Further K19 173 whispered instructions from Paschal. 'No, I don't like doin' that.' K19 174 Paschal with the poetry again. 'Promise you won't come in me K19 175 mouth.' Paschal grunted his agreement. Then great slurping sounds K19 176 and little squeals of pleasure from Paschal. Progress is being K19 177 made. Her nibs trying to wrench out from under but Paschal just K19 178 gets there. Explodes into the poor bitch. The rest throw off their K19 179 blankets and cheer. And meanwhile, young Charlie, without manual K19 180 stimulation of any kind has shot his lot in his pants. And here's K19 181 the question, Harding, you black English Protestant, and Sam, you K19 182 statue licker, was what I did a sin? And if it was, how in the name K19 183 of fuck could I confess it?"

K19 184 Sam was nauseated. Charlie walking up and down, grinning, K19 185 clutching his bottle of Ballygowan. It was the type of story I K19 186 usually loved, typical Charlie iconoclasm but tonight Cecelia K19 187 obtruded. Holding her hand.

K19 188 "To think that you call people to church, you're a K19 189 disgrace to the tower. No wonder Dr Donat doesn't pick you when we K19 190 have eleven, I don't know how the tower isn't struck by K19 191 lightning."

K19 192 "You don't? I'll tell you why. Because there's a K19 193 lightning conductor up on it, you dumb prick. As for Dr Bollix K19 194 conductor I knew his doctor bollix of a father before him." K19 195 Charlie's grin was gone. There was anger, bitterness in his face. K19 196 "Old Dr Cagney - Dr fucking John - with the usual bullshit K19 197 reputation for being kind to the poor. You'd have had to get K19 198 yourself a fucking underground shelter to escape from the poor in K19 199 those days. Everyone was the poor then except for the likes of the K19 200 Cagneys and a few more like bollix Yendall in the office in K19 201 Montague's, and that shower of drapers looking down their noses at K19 202 carpenters for Jayses sake. Drink up that there, ye pair of K19 203 bollixes, I had to give it up myself, couldn't handle it. When you K19 204 find yourself in a hotel room for a month and having the booze and K19 205 the dock whores sent up to you and only putting on a vest to be K19 206 formal answering the door, 'tis time to give up. I know their K19 207 history, you see. Farmers. Farming stock. But for an Irish farmer K19 208 'twas as necessary to have a doctor in the family as a fucking K19 209 silver-laden mahogany sideboard in the parlour. His people set him K19 210 up in Sexton Square after he got his doctorate.

K19 211 K20 1 <#FLOB:K20\>Younger Chaps

K20 2 There was another colour slide, a companion to the one of me as K20 3 a tearaway on the beach at Westward Ho. This one was of Edward in K20 4 baggy shorts and funny hat and I had taken it. There had been no K20 5 nonsense with a timer; we had taken pictures of each other. On the K20 6 evening I returned from my visit to the Bungalow, after I had K20 7 thanked Lynn for looking after him, I brought him downstairs to sit K20 8 before the fire as usual. I placed the slide in the viewer, and K20 9 held it up to his right eye, which is stronger, I think, than his K20 10 left. I gave him a little time to take in that first slide, then I K20 11 showed him the one of me.

K20 12 I'm not sure what I expected, or if I expected anything at all. K20 13 Just as well really, since what I got were the words "Blue K20 14 Grass" several times, and a gesture indicating that he was K20 15 thirsty. After I'd made him a milky drink, I tried to explain to K20 16 him why I'd shown him the colour slides.

K20 17 "Mother was in Scotland, do you remember, looking after K20 18 a sick great-aunt, who, it was thought, might bequeath her a few K20 19 hundred pounds. In the end she got a silver-plated tea service with K20 20 thistles all over it." Then I waited, watching him use the K20 21 good side of his mouth to sip at the drinking chocolate.

K20 22 I lied a moment ago. I had expected something. I'd expected him K20 23 either to look at me properly or to turn his head completely away K20 24 from me. But neither happened. Instead he continued to look into K20 25 the fire and sip his drink. I waited for this turn of the head for K20 26 about three minutes before going on. What's an extra three minutes K20 27 after almost thirty years?

K20 28 "You were never happy behind the counter, were you? K20 29 Panicked by mental arithmetic, always forgetting what pepole had K20 30 asked for. When mother was there, your role was to fetch and carry, K20 31 chat to the customers, and see off any unwelcome travellers. You K20 32 always used to say that mother was the brains and you the brawn, K20 33 with a modicum of public relations thrown in. What happened to K20 34 personal relations, dad?"

K20 35 From where I was sitting, I could just see his eyes, see the K20 36 fire reflected in them, could, if I'd wanted to, have imagined a K20 37 reaction and made of it whatever I wanted to make. Only somehow I K20 38 didn't feel like playing both parts any more.

K20 39 "Ten-year-olds aren't supposed to sell stamps, fill out K20 40 official forms, or stand behind a counter all day paying out large K20 41 sums of money, but no one reported us to the NSPCC or reminded us K20 42 of the Child Labour Laws. Then, one morning, you woke me up at the K20 43 usual time, only you hadn't taken in the post or swept out the K20 44 shop, because a Miss Johnson had arrived to take over as our K20 45 holiday relief.

K20 46 "When I got downstairs, you were reading a road map, and our K20 47 suitcases were packed. The idea of us taking a holiday without K20 48 mother had never occurred to me. Nor to you, until that morning. K20 49 But I'd noticed how uncomfortable you'd looked standing beside me K20 50 behind the counter, watching the customers watch me do all the K20 51 adding and subtracting, while the jokes about my possible future as K20 52 a Chancellor of the Exchequer wore thinner and thinner.

K20 53 "Nothing had been booked, and it was high summer. You didn't K20 54 care, you said; if we had to, we could always sleep in the car. And K20 55 you didn't telephone mother to let her know what we were up to K20 56 until we reached Barnstaple. When you came off the phone, you were K20 57 all smiles. You said, 'We were in luck. She was busy, so we got K20 58 away with just leaving a message.'

K20 59 "For a whole week, it was as if you were a different person, K20 60 almost as though you were happy for the first time in your life, K20 61 and you have no idea how good that made me feel. We sang all the K20 62 way in the car, driving down. We'd sit in pub gardens, with you K20 63 wearing a handkerchief on your head tied with knots at the corners, K20 64 and you'd talk to me, telling me things about your own childhood K20 65 I'd never heard, and using phrases I've never forgotten. 'Innocent K20 66 as a new-laid egg, and no more chance of escape than a sheep being K20 67 driven to the butcher's back premises' - that was you being dragged K20 68 to school on your first day.

K20 69 "You told me about your travels to find work between the wars, K20 70 cycling from one job prospect to another, with your only suit K20 71 rolled up in your saddle-bag. The common lodging houses you stayed K20 72 in, where fleas came up from the bottom of the bed and everyone had K20 73 to get threepennyworth of Blue Unction, a strong ointment of K20 74 mercury, to smear around their ankles, to hold back the mid-night K20 75 invasion - lodging houses where, to save on heating, they only K20 76 opened the windows once a year in March to let out those staggering K20 77 and bloated fleas.

K20 78 "You told me about the time you were a drug pusher in Bilston, K20 79 working as an assistant in a chemist's shop, selling people four K20 80 ha'porth of laudanum to tide them over the Bank Holiday. About the K20 81 regulars, old women who looked like pollarded oaks, you said, old K20 82 women who claimed to have everything wrong with them but who K20 83 lingered year after year and finally fell from sheer decay. You K20 84 told me about the grubby pencilled notes handed over the counter by K20 85 urchin children - 2d Grossmith Face powder, 2d Parma Violets (in a K20 86 bottle) and 1d Carmine. 'Somebody's going out tonight to earn next K20 87 week's rent.'

K20 88 "I remember the names of the people you talked about, the K20 89 'characters' who were your customers, some of them opium addicts, K20 90 others just heavily constipated drudges. The cobbler, Mr K20 91 Bullworthy; Ira Bodfish, the tinker; Shem Allit, the wheelwright; K20 92 Noah Cooknell, Myrtle Amos, Ronald Blythman. You told me how much K20 93 jalap, aloes, and hiera picra (called 'hirapike' by the customers), K20 94 all in penny and twopenny packets. How on market day they stood K20 95 along the counter three deep, waiting for their purgatives. You K20 96 would sell Epsom or Glauber Salts, bicarbonate of soda, cream of K20 97 tartar, tartaric acid, linseed oil, turpentine, pickle spice, K20 98 turmeric, vinegar and methylated spirits, all to the one customer. K20 99 You were lucky if you got ten minutes to grab a sandwich or dash to K20 100 the toilet yourself. You said, 'Best purgative in the world is a K20 101 war. Nothing like it to unblock the system.'

K20 102 "You'd strike up conversations with complete strangers on that K20 103 holiday, and then, with an arm over my shoulders and hugging me to K20 104 you, you'd tell them, 'This is my son. We're on the loose,' and K20 105 you'd giggle. We laughed a lot that week. I suppose it was the K20 106 feeling that we were doing something secret and slightly wicked. K20 107 Hence my tearaway expression in the slide I just showed you. I felt K20 108 important, wanted, almost needed. You'd ask my opinion about K20 109 things, and really listen to my answers.

K20 110 "Every ride I went on at the fun fair, you came on it with me. K20 111 By then you'd won a cowboy hat on a side stall, and you wore that. K20 112 'You younger chaps' became your new favourite phrase. 'In my day, K20 113 younger chaps like yourself would always have run out of funds by K20 114 now. The bank's open, if you'd like to apply for a non-returnable, K20 115 interest-free loan.'

K20 116 "We'd found a twin-bedded room overlooking the sea in a small K20 117 hotel. We got up early and, tired and sunburned, we went to bed K20 118 early and just lay there talking until we fell asleep. Every night K20 119 I was given a goodnight kiss, and then you'd lie on your back, K20 120 looking up at the ceiling and just talk, while I listened and K20 121 watched you.

K20 122 "You told me about the men you'd known in the army, described K20 123 them in detail so I could visualize them. Before that holiday, I'd K20 124 never known you describe people so vividly. 'Len came from K20 125 Tyneside. Short feller, red haired - that blond red - had a K20 126 funny-shaped mole on his hip, just here,' and you pointed to where K20 127 the mole had been, remembering Len and involving me. That was what K20 128 I had always wanted, to be involved with you. 'If he did anything K20 129 wrong, he'd claim he'd been so poor in Civvy Street that his brains K20 130 had leaked through a hole in his boots. Or he'd say he'd been born K20 131 stupid, and had greatly increased his birthright, and then he'd K20 132 just stand there, grinning at you like something from the Funny K20 133 Farm.' You remembered so much of what it had been like - the K20 134 closeness of the other men, the friendships and grievances, the K20 135 skiving off and the fear. You said, 'Then there was Bill, hell of a K20 136 big man, six foot four, covered from head to toe in thick glossy K20 137 hair like a Grizzly, and stammered something chronic whenever the K20 138 Sergeant went near him. It was another world, the only world as far K20 139 as we were concerned. If we thought about home it upset us, and K20 140 being upset brought everyone else down, so what would have been the K20 141 point of that? We had to try to live as though that was our home, a K20 142 different kind of home, as though we were a large family - K20 143 brothers, cousins - husbands and wives sometimes. We were thrown K20 144 together too close in some ways. That's what happens when you don't K20 145 know if your time on earth is going to be limited or not. You take K20 146 what you can get to make some kind, any kind, of contact. Human K20 147 beings adapt in the most extraordinary ways, you know, to crisis. K20 148 And if that crisis goes on for years, it's hard for them to K20 149 recollect what they were like before. I would have done almost K20 150 anything then to improve my chances of staying alive.'

K20 151 "I wanted to ask why you never wrote to the men you'd known in K20 152 the army, why you never tried to see any of them, but for some K20 153 reason I didn't ask. Perhaps I sensed that the reason was there in K20 154 what you'd told me, and that some day I'd know what that reason K20 155 was.

K20 156 "Every morning I was asked, 'What shall we younger chaps do K20 157 today? Come on! I didn't spend four years fighting Corporal K20 158 Turner's smelly feet so you could lie in bed like Lady Muck.'

K20 159 "We found a conch shell in a junk shop. 'Probably from the West K20 160 Indies,' you said, 'never been near a British beach. Never mind, K20 161 we'll take it to remind us of the fun we had getting to know each K20 162 other.' And we sat side by side on the shingle of the beach at K20 163 Westward Ho, passing that conch from one to the other, trying to K20 164 hear in its depths the far-away West Indian sea, while the real sea K20 165 was just in front of us, sucking up the pebbles and spewing them K20 166 out again, drowning the sound in the conch shell altogether.

K20 167 "It was the best time of my life. I was the happiest I've ever K20 168 been.

K20 169 "When the week ended, we came back here, but almost before we'd K20 170 reached home the closeness we'd achieved on holiday had gone, as K20 171 though it would have been embarrassing and out of place in front of K20 172 your wife, my mother; she'd not been pleased at our going off K20 173 without her. And a few days later I overheard you telling her that K20 174 it hadn't been much fun. Poor food and lumpy beds. You told her. K20 175 'Not much of a holiday for me,' you said, 'having to keep the lad K20 176 occupied. You know how difficult it is to amuse him. But he'd K20 177 worked hard in the shop, and I felt I had to do something.'

K20 178 "I was ten years old then. It was another ten years before I K20 179 realized why you'd found it necessary to say that about our K20 180 holiday, ten years of very mixed feelings. K20 181 K21 1 <#FLOB:K21\>ADAM MARS-JONES

K21 2 BEARS IN MOURNING

K21 3 When I think about it, it was terrible the way we behaved when K21 4 Victor died. We behaved as if we were ashamed of him, or angry. It K21 5 didn't show us at our best - we didn't cope at all well. We all K21 6 knew Victor was 'ill', obviously, but none of us really took on K21 7 board how bad things had got.

K21 8 He was in the middle of our little group, our sect, but somehow K21 9 he got lost all the same. I suppose each of us paid him some token K21 10 attention - his conversation tended to go round in circles, K21 11 particularly with the drink - and then left it to somebody else to K21 12 do the real work: supporting him and talking him through the dark K21 13 days. He was our brother Bear, but the fraternity didn't do well by K21 14 him.

K21 15 We Bears are a varied crowd. There's an organist, a social K21 16 worker, a travel agent, an osteopath. That's not the full list, of K21 17 course, that's off the top of my head. If it wasn't for membership K21 18 of the Bear nation we would have nothing in common. Somehow we K21 19 always thought that would be enough.

K21 20 It's amazing that Victor was able to hold down his job for as K21 21 long as he did, but then he'd done it for a long time. He was K21 22 working with friends, people who would make allowances. In any case K21 23 there was a structure set up, and within limits it ran itself. K21 24 Every few months Victor, or rather the company that employed him, K21 25 put out the first issue of a magazine devoted to some sure-fire K21 26 subject - French cookery, classic cars, sixties pop. When I say K21 27 the first issue, I mean of course Parts One and Two, Part Two K21 28 coming free.

K21 29 It doesn't take long, with a half-way decent picture K21 30 researcher, to get enough stuff from reference books to fill a few K21 31 magazine pages. Tasters for future issues take care of the rest. K21 32 Part Three never arrives, and maybe people wonder why not. Maybe K21 33 they think, shame nobody bought Parts One and Two - it was such a K21 34 good idea. Pity it didn't catch on.

K21 35 I used to wonder what would have happened if one of Victor's K21 36 magazines had really taken off, had sold and sold off the K21 37 news-stands. Would there have come a time when Part Three became K21 38 inevitable? I don't think so. I think Victor's employers would have K21 39 carried on repackaging their little stack of ideas for ever. With a K21 40 little redesign, they could put out the same Parts One and Two K21 41 every two years or so. Which they did.

K21 42 Victor was prime Bear, Bear absolute. I know I haven't K21 43 explained just what a Bear is, and it's not an easy thing to K21 44 define. There have always been tubby men, but I can't think they K21 45 ever formed a little self-conscious tribe before. Tubby isn't K21 46 even the right word, but at least it's better than chubby. K21 47 Chubby is hopeless, and chubby-chaser is a joke K21 48 category.

K21 49 To be a Bear you need, let's see, two essential K21 50 characteristics, a beard and a bit of flesh to spare, preferably K21 51 some body hair. But it's a more mysterious business than that. Some K21 52 men will never be Bears however hairy they are, however much K21 53 surplus weight they carry. They just look like hairy thin guys K21 54 who've let themselves run to seed, thin men who could stand to lose K21 55 a few pounds. A true Bear has a wholeness you can't miss - at K21 56 least if you're looking for it.

K21 57 It's a great thing to watch a Bear become aware of himself. All K21 58 his life he's been made to feel like a lump, and then he meets a K21 59 person, and then a whole group, that thinks he's heaven on legs. On K21 60 tree-trunk legs. He's been struggling all his life against his K21 61 body, and suddenly it's perfect. There have been quite a few lapsed K21 62 health-club memberships in our little circle, I can tell you.

K21 63 One of them was mine. I remember the first time I was hugged by K21 64 a Bear, as a Bear. We were Bear to Bear. I remember how his hand K21 65 squeezed my tummy - tummy's a childish word but the others K21 66 are worse - and I realized I didn't need to hold it in. He wasn't K21 67 looking for a wash-board stomach, the sort you can see in the K21 68 magazines. He was happy with a wash-tub stomach like mine. He liked K21 69 me just the way I was.

K21 70 And Aids, Aids. Where does Aids come into this?

K21 71 All of us were involved in the epidemic in some way, socially, K21 72 politically, rattling collection buckets at benefit shows if K21 73 nothing else. And of course we were all terrified of getting sick. K21 74 But that's not what I'm getting at.

K21 75 Aids is like the weather. It doesn't cause everything, but the K21 76 things it doesn't cause it causes the causes of. So, yes, you'd K21 77 think there'd be a link between a group of men who like their K21 78 lovers to have a bit of meat on their bones, who like men with K21 79 curves, and a disease that makes people shrivel away into a K21 80 straight line up and down.

K21 81 But I don't really think so. The Bear idea would have happened K21 82 with or without Aids. The English language had a hand in it, by K21 83 putting the words bear and beard so close to each other K21 84 in the dictionary. Perhaps it's a sexual style that works K21 85 differently in other languages. Has anyone in history ever really K21 86 enjoyed beards, let alone based a little erotic religion around K21 87 them? I suppose Victorian wives were the people in history most K21 88 exposed to facial hair, and they weren't in much of a position to K21 89 shop around or compare notes.

K21 90 The beard is a mystery worn on the face. There are beards of K21 91 silk and beards of wire, each with its charge of static, and it K21 92 isn't easy to tell them apart without a nuzzle, or at least a touch K21 93 of the hand.

K21 94 We in our group are great observers of the way a beard shows up K21 95 different pigments from the rest of the head hair. Ginger tints are K21 96 common; less often, we see magical combinations of darkness and K21 97 blondness. Beards age unpredictably, sometimes greying before the K21 98 head hair, sometimes retaining a strong shade when all colour has K21 99 drained from the scalp. The first frost may appear evenly across K21 100 the beard, or locally in the sideboards, or on the chin, or at the K21 101 corners of the mouth.

K21 102 We in our group are tolerant of tufty beards, wispy beards, K21 103 beards with asymmetrical holes. There are beards that Nature more K21 104 or less insists on, to cover up her botches. Only a few bearers of K21 105 the beard, we feel, positively bring it into disrepute, usually by K21 106 reason of fancy razorwork. The beard to us is more than a sexual K21 107 trigger, not far short of a sexual organ. Some of us even defend K21 108 jazzman beards, goatees, beards that look like a few eyebrows stuck K21 109 together. As a group, we particularly admire a beard that rides K21 110 high on the cheeks, or one that runs down the neck unshaven.

K21 111 Bears don't discriminate against age. It's just the other way K21 112 about. We often say that someone is too young for his beard - he'll K21 113 have to grow into it.

K21 114 A man with a pure-white beard can expect as many looks of K21 115 appreciation, still tinged with lust, as someone twenty, thirty K21 116 years younger. There are many couples in our group, though few of K21 117 them even try to be monogamous, and some of them are made up of K21 118 figures who we might describe as Bear and Cub, Daddy Bear and Baby K21 119 Bear - but even they don't take their roles very seriously. Neither K21 120 of them tries too hard to play the grown-up.

K21 121 It's as if in every generation of boy children there are a few K21 122 who put their fingers in their ears during tellings of K21 123 Goldilocks, filtering out the female elements in the story, K21 124 until what they are left with is a fuzzy fable of furry sleepers, K21 125 of rumpled beds and porridge.

K21 126 Every happy period is a sort of childhood, and the last ten K21 127 years have been a happy period for the Bears, in spite of K21 128 everything.

K21 129 So when I say that Victor was an absolute Bear, I meant that he K21 130 had pale skin, heavy eyebrows and a startlingly dark beard, full K21 131 but trimmed. No human hair is black, even Chinese or Japanese, and K21 132 Raven Black hair dye is sold as a cruel joke to people who know no K21 133 better, but Victor's came close. He was forty-two or three then, I K21 134 suppose, and five foot eight, ideal Bear height. He pointed his K21 135 feet out a bit, as if his tummy was a new thing and needed a new K21 136 arrangement of posture to balance it.

K21 137 We met in a bar. Under artificial light the drama of his K21 138 colouring wasn't immediately obvious, and I mistook him for a K21 139 German who had been rude to me in another bar a couple of months K21 140 before. I suppose my body language expressed a pre-emptive K21 141 rejection, which in the event Victor found attractive. After a K21 142 while he came over to me and said, "You win. You've stared K21 143 me down. Let me buy you a drink."

K21 144 I went home with him in his old Rover to Bromley, an K21 145 unexpectedly long journey, and a suburban setting that didn't seem K21 146 to fit with the man who took me there. Later I learned that this K21 147 had been his childhood home. When his mother died, Victor had let K21 148 go a West End flat so as to keep his father company. It was a K21 149 doomed gesture, as things turned out - one of a series - because K21 150 his father soon found some company of his own. The companion may in K21 151 fact have dated back to days before Victor's mother died.

K21 152 It was late when we arrived at Bromley. I assumed we were alone K21 153 in the house, in which case Victor's father was stopping out with K21 154 his lady friend, but perhaps he was asleep in a bedroom I didn't K21 155 see. If so, he slept soundly, and got up either before or after we K21 156 did.

K21 157 The bedroom was in chaos, but not knowing Victor it didn't K21 158 occur to me to wonder whether it was an ebullient chaos or a K21 159 despairing one. There was a big bulletin board on the mantelpiece, K21 160 with photographs, letters and business cards pinned up on it, but K21 161 there was still an overflow of paper and magazines. There was the K21 162 inevitable shelf of Paddingtons, Poohs and koalas, and a single K21 163 Snoopy to show breadth of mind.

K21 164 Victor wanted first to be hugged and then fucked. He mentioned K21 165 that this second desire was a rarity with him, and I could believe K21 166 him. He was vague about the location of condoms. Eventually I found K21 167 a single protective in a bedside drawer, of an unfamiliar brand K21 168 (the writing on the packet seemed to be Dutch) and elderly K21 169 appearance. I could find no lubricant that wouldn't dissolve it. I K21 170 put it on anyway, to show willing, and lay down on top of Victor. I K21 171 enjoyed the heat and mass of the man beneath me; I made only the K21 172 most tentative pelvic movements, just vigorous enough to tear the K21 173 dry condom. Then Victor remembered that he had some lubricant after K21 174 all, under the bed.

K21 175 Victor was apologetic about the confusion of our sexual K21 176 transaction, but looking back I find it appropriate. He was both in K21 177 and out of the world, even then, and he could summon up separately K21 178 the elements of love-making, desire, caution, tenderness, but not K21 179 string them together.

K21 180 At some stage I noticed he was crying, and he went on for over K21 181 an hour before he stopped. I hugged him some more, but I cant' say K21 182 that I took his distress very seriously. I didn't make anything of K21 183 the fact that we didn't have a particularly good time in bed. Good K21 184 sex isn't very Bear, somehow. I was already well used to K21 185 awkwardness, lapses of concentration, sudden emotional outpourings. K21 186 K22 1 <#FLOB:K22\>The notebooks

K22 2 She would tell him about the swish of black gaberdine along the K22 3 cold flagstones; you could barely see it, she said, except by the K22 4 candles, or when the daylight happened through the little arched K22 5 leaded windows. Somehow one never looked at the faces of the K22 6 sisters, she had said, one always looked down, down at the swishing K22 7 habits, often glimpsed rather than seen, in shadowy corners as they K22 8 spied upon their charges and then hurried on. Sometimes, alone in K22 9 the chapel, you only knew afterwards that you had been seen, as you K22 10 became aware of the swirl of heavy fabric against the stone of a K22 11 pillar, but looking up, it would have gone.

K22 12 When he knew her better, and saw the dresses she made, he felt K22 13 that she had translated that dark swishing of her past into K22 14 something bright, something you could look at square on instead of K22 15 glancing at through lowered eyelashes. These confident wide skirts K22 16 that swirled at her shins, she owed them to the nuns, that and the K22 17 way she looked up through her eyelashes and never square on. He K22 18 found it charming, but never told her so.

K22 19 Yesterday, he had suggested that he sleep in the spare room K22 20 from now on. Perhaps he had hoped for some response other than her K22 21 tacit agreement, but in any case it had not surprised him when she K22 22 busied herself in finding fresh sheets and clean blankets. It was K22 23 left to him, however, to prepare the room, and it was in moving the K22 24 old chest of drawers that had been in the children's playroom, that K22 25 he discovered her notebooks.

K22 26 At first, he thought they were diaries, dated as they were year K22 27 by year, but as he examined them, he realised, with a sort of K22 28 shock, that they were of a peculiar kind. For all they contained K22 29 was a record of his speech over the years, and only his speech as K22 30 it described her. Any passing comment on her looks, her clothes, K22 31 her hairstyle had been carefully noted and written down here: K22 32 thirty years of marriage summarised in his words, and nothing of K22 33 any wit or passion, for he was not given to great expression of K22 34 emotion.

K22 35 He opened the notebook for 1954, the year they met. They both K22 36 worked for one of the big London department stores. He was a junior K22 37 manager in ladies' fashions, and she did the alterations, and K22 38 sometimes made dresses for private customers. His eyes fell upon: K22 39 '6th July. "You look nice".' Later, "Did K22 40 you make that dress yourself?" and flicking through he K22 41 found '31st October. "Your hair looks nice like K22 42 that".'

K22 43 He replaced the book. His overwhelming feeling was one of K22 44 embarrassment, firstly, for having read something so private, even K22 45 if it was his wife's, but secondly because ... To find his K22 46 awkwardness scrawled across a page like that and to find his K22 47 memories of those early courting days, that summer when they would K22 48 go out after work and he would watch her emerge from the grime of K22 49 the Underground station in a whirl of colour, and it was as if all K22 50 the hope that people felt, with no rationing any more, and the K22 51 shops being full again, and you didn't have to scrimp and save, and K22 52 there she was swathed in some creation that she had sewed herself K22 53 with masses of heavy fabric - it was all summed up in this vision, K22 54 and he wanted to say she was beautiful, that she was his new life, K22 55 their new life together ...

K22 56 He had said only You Look Nice, and he couldn't now remember K22 57 even saying that; and yet she had written it down, treasured it, K22 58 clutched it to herself. Or had she done so simply out of a need for K22 59 order, to chart and classify the course of their courting, all K22 60 those magic moments encased in utterances of pure banality?

K22 61 Or worse, a sense of irony. Perhaps she knew she was beautiful, K22 62 she knew the effect of her appearance, perhaps she felt she K22 63 deserved to be told a hundred times that she was magnificent, K22 64 glorious, and so his painful You Look Nice had been cruelly K22 65 recorded for posterity? Yet there was nothing of this about her, K22 66 and even the slow decline in their marriage was without malice. He K22 67 suspected that she thought he had been unfaithful; he hadn't, but K22 68 how could he tell her so without arousing suspicion? In silence K22 69 they had become strangers.

K22 70 The notebooks, however, were eloquent. Bare of all descriptions K22 71 (it was left to him to remember the contest and location of his K22 72 utterances which seemed, as he read, to grow in confidence), they K22 73 continued:

K22 74 14th March 1956 (they had been married ten months): K22 75 "You're lovely". 18th August 1956: "You K22 76 look smashing in pink". Later, "Are you a little K22 77 thinner these days?" - and as the years passed, K22 78 "You look good enough to eat"; "You look K22 79 all tousled"; "Pregnancy suits you"; K22 80 "I love you"; "You do look funny like K22 81 that"; "You're my life"; "You're a K22 82 beautiful mother"; "She's as pretty as her K22 83 mum"; and at some point, on holiday: "You ought to K22 84 wear that swimsuit every day ..."

K22 85 Reading it now, this catalogue of everyday intimacy, he lost K22 86 his unease. This rose-tinted summary of their early married life, K22 87 although devoid of any context, gave him a voice that he'd never K22 88 had. These funny little sayings strung together became a whole, a K22 89 charm bracelet of his feeling for her.

K22 90 Then she began to write the painful things; he described her as K22 91 blowzy (he couldn't remember that either, though he thought of it K22 92 as one of her words). "You neglect your K22 93 appearance"; "Why can't you look like K22 94 that?"; "No one would believe you're only K22 95 35". It recalled to him this era in their life together. K22 96 Having withstood the holy sisters for so many years, having been K22 97 joyful and pretty, revelling in the clothes she made for herself K22 98 just like those she made for her customers and for the children, it K22 99 was as if that heavy black drapery had caught up with her. She K22 100 appeared weighted down, her eyes lowered, no longer daring even to K22 101 peek upwards. She had atrophied under his gaze.

K22 102 It was strange to feel remorse for something he had not done, K22 103 but here was his crime. Her growing silence in their marriage had K22 104 been accompanied, it seemed, by an ever-increasing torrent of words K22 105 from him. "Why don't you try a bit harder?"; K22 106 "You could go out more"; "You look funny K22 107 like that"; "What about all those lovely clothes K22 108 you used to make? You could do that again." Each comment K22 109 was dutifully transcribed; and finally, here we were in 1976, a few K22 110 years ago, "Doesn't anything mean anything to you any K22 111 more?"

K22 112 That was the last comment of the last notebook; and it was one K22 113 he remembered. He realised, at last, that this had all been said in K22 114 an urge to help, and what seemed like a tirade against a worthless K22 115 woman to him had been careful, if awkward attempts to bring her K22 116 back to the world, back to him; failed attempts. The notebook for K22 117 1977 was blank. There were none at all for subsequent years; over K22 118 ten years of silence.

K22 119 He felt angry. He found himself returning once more to the K22 120 books which recorded the middle years of their marriage, when their K22 121 two children were growing up, and when, it seemed, his comments had K22 122 become negative. Here was one, January 1969. "You could K22 123 make an effort, you know, you could look much younger than you K22 124 do." How differently he remembered that time, their boy had K22 125 won a place at the grammar school, their daughter was learning the K22 126 piano, and they were happy, he knew they had been happy then. Yet K22 127 the only record she kept was an odd comment that he probably didn't K22 128 even mean. These passing references to her hairstyle, her clothes, K22 129 conveyed nothing. He recalled her gracefulness; another thing K22 130 bequeathed by the nuns, and uprightness of posture that comes from K22 131 being clad in black from top to toe. He knew he had never seen her K22 132 the way she described and was angry with her for her selfishness, K22 133 for being so wrong.

K22 134 They had been happy, and even in their silence there had been a K22 135 companionship. It was her fault if it had changed; her fault if he K22 136 had to sleep in the spare room from now on.

K22 137 He put the book into his pocket, then packed all the others K22 138 carefully away, and went downstairs to where she was watching the K22 139 television news. He placed the book on the table in front of her, K22 140 looking hard at her. She glanced at it, then back to the screen.

K22 141 "I found them," he said.

K22 142 She said nothing. His anger took him by surprise, and he turned K22 143 down the sound on the television.

K22 144 "I said, I found them. What were you thinking K22 145 of?"

K22 146 "They're only my notebooks," she said K22 147 defensively. "And anyway, you shouldn't have read K22 148 them."

K22 149 A jumble of words came to him, but he was unaccustomed to such K22 150 feelings of resentment, and all he could say was, "You just K22 151 didn't listen, did you?"

K22 152 The bitterness behind his voice surprised her. She looked at K22 153 him, but could think of nothing to say, and after a while turned K22 154 the sound up again. He stood awkwardly by the window looking out K22 155 onto the blackness of their patio, he could see nothing beyond. K22 156 Once he turned towards her, wanting to say "If only I could K22 157 have said the right things" ... something like that. But K22 158 the silence defeated him, and eventually he went upstairs to K22 159 bed.

K22 160 She switched off the television and seeing the notebook he had K22 161 left, picked it up. It occurred to her that she had never re-read K22 162 the later ones. The early ones were well thumbed, and she liked to K22 163 read the things he had said. But these critical comments, on her K22 164 ageing, on her appearance, seemed to chart too well the decline of K22 165 her marriage. Once the children had grown up it was as if she no K22 166 longer knew what she was for any more. It was clear that he too K22 167 thought she had nothing more to offer, and he would say she looked K22 168 old, or she looked funny, or how she could do more with her K22 169 life.

K22 170 Her eye fell on an entry: 'You've grown into yourself, you K22 171 know.' She wondered what he had meant, and checked the date on the K22 172 notebook. What had he seen when he looked at her then? Were they K22 173 doing the garden? Was it one evening when the children were in bed, K22 174 and did he look up suddenly and see her, a woman of nearly 40, K22 175 looking dowdy and blowzy and familiar? She had feared the K22 176 familiarity most of all, in case it meant that rather than see her K22 177 and judge her he would cease to see her altogether. Yet he had K22 178 said, she had grown into herself; and perhaps he had always seen K22 179 her, all this time, perhaps his comments had never been judgments K22 180 but simply what he saw.

K22 181 A wave passed over her, some feeling that had no name. It felt K22 182 like an ending, but they would continue as they were, she supposed, K22 183 in this silence that people called companionable, yet which to her K22 184 now appeared unbearable. In a rush of feeling she went upstairs to K22 185 pack away the book once and for all, and was over the threshold K22 186 before she remembered that this was now his room. She paused, K22 187 standing in the doorway, imagining him seeing her now, a familiar K22 188 shadow against the lighted doorway, and was reminded of K22 189 something.

K22 190 She ventured to the chest of drawers, and taking up the very K22 191 last notebook, which contained no words at all, she turned to the K22 192 back page. There, taped inside, were two small squares of material. K22 193 One was black gaberdine; the other was a bright floral cotton. She K22 194 stood, remembering the dress in the sunshine, aware of him awake in K22 195 the room behind her now.

K22 196 K23 1 <#FLOB:K23\>Baby Love

K23 2 JULIE BURCHILL

K23 3 "THERE THERE," SHE said, as she stroked his K23 4 bulging brow. "Poor baby. Brave little soldier. Who's a K23 5 brave little soldier for Mama?"

K23 6 Baby pointed a wobbly finger at his chest, not trusting his K23 7 quivering lips to transmit the message. He lay across the bed, damp K23 8 and distressed, a casualty of his own luxuriant daring.

K23 9 Baby had been showing off when disaster struck; bouncing on the K23 10 bed before attempting a death-defying leap on to the sofa. He had K23 11 slipped and hurt his ankle; she had bestowed a magic-mend kiss. K23 12 Baby had been well pleased.

K23 13 "Baby have new hurt," he announced now. K23 14 "Kiss better."

K23 15 "Oh? Where?"

K23 16 Baby laughed; not his normal shrill squeal but a deep, dirty K23 17 cackle, a dead ringer for that of Sid James contemplating Barbara K23 18 Windsor's bosom. He lowered his pyjama bottoms to display a fully K23 19 erect nine-inch penis, looking like something matrons from Montana K23 20 would ooh and ahh over at Stonehenge.

K23 21 "There!" Baby cackled, grabbing her head and thrusting K23 22 it up against his groin.

K23 23 Maria awoke to The Wonderful World of Disney blaring K23 24 from the cable channel. Daniel lay on the sofa on his stomach, K23 25 naked, a joint dangling from his lips and a can of cola fizzing in K23 26 his hand, sniggering at the antics of a posse of unlikely mice.

K23 27 She groaned, pulling the pillow over her head. Then peeping K23 28 out, she cased the room in one short guilty sweep, like a K23 29 shoplifter sizing up her prey. My God, she thought, what a K23 30 mess.

K23 31 Now they were on the point of packing up and checking out, she K23 32 could visualise the room as it had been the day they arrived; with K23 33 cleanliness crackling like static from its fittings and fixtures, a K23 34 room which seemed to hum, smug with satisfaction, at its ersatz K23 35 elegance. It now looked as if a legion of Roman emperors, pursued K23 36 by a package tour of heavy metal groups, had passed through it.

K23 37 It had been a whole seven days ago when Maria and Daniel K23 38 arrived in Brighton; it now seemed like nothing more than a slice K23 39 of morning, a scoop of afternoon and a creamy dream-topping K23 40 of night. They had dropped their suitcases and sat bouncing on the K23 41 big bed, inarticulate with glee at having escaped London - she K23 42 exclaiming over the delights of a room service, he in ecstasy over K23 43 the offerings of the 24-hour cable TV. Soon two separate tables K23 44 groaned "Enough!" under the weight of their very different K23 45 KP rations; champagne and cola, smoked salmon and Smarties, K23 46 Camembert and crisps, Rioja and Ribena, hot black coffee in silver K23 47 pots and a rainbow of Italian ice cream in silver dishes. The TV K23 48 stared blankly at the food.

K23 49 Out came the cocaine; on went the Do Not Disturb sign; off came K23 50 their clothes. Everything else could wait.

K23 51 On the train back to London he was silent. Sulkiness thickened K23 52 the air like pollen, making her feel sleepy. He sighed ceaselessly K23 53 and kicked his feet against the opposite seat. She didn't ask what K23 54 the matter was; she knew the answer.

K23 55 Last night, as they had walked back from the Palace Pier to the K23 56 Grand, he had said, "Maria - I don't want to go home. Let's K23 57 stay here. We could, you know. Just stay. Just carry on having fun. K23 58 There's a million things we haven't done yet."

K23 59 She hugged him. She had always adored his enthusiasm.

K23 60 "I'm not joking. We could have a brilliant K23 61 time."

K23 62 This was Daniel's Holy Grail; the ultimate Brilliant Time. She K23 63 felt like a wet blanket damping the bonfire of his hedonism as she K23 64 recited the rules and regulations of adulthood - work, money and K23 65 mortgage. Daniel considered her answer thoughtfully. Then he K23 66 puckered up the lips that had made grown men plead and beg on two K23 67 continents, and, having carefully weighed the two viewpoints, he K23 68 replied with a measured, moist raspberry.

K23 69 On the mat Maria found a welcome-home present; a letter K23 70 confirming her promotion to the post of editorial director of Metro K23 71 Books plc. Gotcha! she snickered to herself, not wanting to flaunt K23 72 her triumph in mixed company. For she was successful, and Daniel K23 73 was unsuccessful; and that was about as mixed as it got these K23 74 days.

K23 75 Her success could so easily remind him of his latest failure. K23 76 Only a month ago he had auditioned for a part in a primetime K23 77 hospital drama that could have taken his career off the critical K23 78 list once and for all. When the bad news came, he simply shrugged K23 79 and said, "That's cool. Something will turn up."

K23 80 It did; a demand from the Inland Revenue for pounds40,000 in K23 81 back taxes. Daniel's past was forever on his trail, like David K23 82 Janssen chasing the one-armed man in The Fugitive. It K23 83 sniffed after him like a bloodhound after a bitch or a burglar. K23 84 After many false leads, letters were constantly scratching at the K23 85 door of Maria's flat, addressed to Daniel: unpaid parking tickets, K23 86 library-book reminders, determinedly cheerful postcards from old K23 87 girlfriends. He looked at them all with the same absent-minded K23 88 frown; as though someone else should have taken care of it.

K23 89 "You're the most babyish man I know," she K23 90 teased him one night in bed.

K23 91 "Babyish, moi?" he said, taking her K23 92 nipple into his mouth.

K23 93 In the beginning it had been part of his charm. But now she K23 94 couldn't help wondering if it had all gone a bit too far.

K23 95 It was she who had started it, calling him Bad Baby in K23 96 affectionate recognition of his inability to function outside the K23 97 plush playpen of her apartment. The way the label always hung out K23 98 of his sweater; the way she couldn't take him out to dinner without K23 99 taking his clothes to the dry cleaner the morning after; the way K23 100 his attempts at DIY turned the air blue and his thumbs purple. He K23 101 called her Mama because of the effortless efficiency with which she K23 102 did everything; she made life look like ice-dancing, a smooth glide K23 103 to a full-marks finish. She was the grown-up he would never be; K23 104 even though he was 31 and she was 26.

K23 105 Mama and Baby games became a way of erasing their separate K23 106 pasts. It also smoothed out the differences between them in the K23 107 here and now. Only by shedding their old selves could they be born K23 108 again with each other, tender enough to touch.

K23 109 Men were all big babies anyway, reasoned Maria as they went K23 110 deeper into their private world. But Daniel was more honest than K23 111 most. He could laugh at himself.

K23 112 Soon after he moved in with her, they stopped seeing people. K23 113 Every night when she got home from work at seven, he'd be in bed. K23 114 She would drop her clothes on the floor and join him. After three K23 115 hours of sex they would order in pizza, open a good red, play K23 116 boardgames, watch TV with the sound off and the Velvet Underground K23 117 blasting, smoke dope and snort coke till around three, all the K23 118 while singing their own songs and speaking their own language. K23 119 Maria was mystified as to why everyone didn't live this way, just K23 120 pigging out on pure pleasure; mystified as to why she had spent so K23 121 many evenings standing up in crowded rooms with a glass of cheap K23 122 white wine in her hand, being bored by masters of the art, when she K23 123 could have been staying in, enjoying herself. But then, how could K23 124 she have done it before she had Daniel? He had given her back her K23 125 youth; helped her shut out the dreary adult world of dinner K23 126 parties, blind dates, barbecues, house prices and holiday plans - K23 127 all those sad adult pleasures, all those envious adult K23 128 responsibilities which tried to make their love sit up straight, K23 129 stop playing with itself and behave.

K23 130 On her first day at her new job, he called her at work. K23 131 "I just called to say I love you," he sang.

K23 132 "Okay baby, that's enough," she said on the K23 133 third call.

K23 134 When he called again, demanding that she sing him his favourite K23 135 song, You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby, she hung up. K23 136 When she returned from lunch, her secretary Jill said, "Oh, K23 137 Maria - you had six calls. From a Mr Bad Baby."

K23 138 "Oh? And did Mr Bad Baby leave any message?" K23 139 Maria asked, trying to sound as cool and casual as was humanly K23 140 possible for one covered from head to toe in a scalding red stain K23 141 of agony.

K23 142 "Yes. He said ..." Jill consulted her note pad, K23 143 making no attempt to hide the relish she took in her boss's acute K23 144 embarrassment. "Ah, here it is. He said, 'Tell Mommy Bunny K23 145 that Bad Baby doesn't love her any more.'"

K23 146 "Thank you, Jill," said Maria calmly. She was K23 147 just about to gain sanctuary behind the safety of her own door when K23 148 Jill said clearly, "If Mr Bad Baby phones again, should I K23 149 give him a message from Mommy Bunny?"

K23 150 "Yes," said Maria, turning to her tormentor. K23 151 "Tell Mr Bad Baby to grow up."

K23 152 At her desk, Maria tossed a coin to decide between sobbing and K23 153 screaming. She should have pretended that Mr Bad Baby was just some K23 154 unknown pervert! In ten minutes, the story would plummet down from K23 155 her penthouse through the building like an elevator out of K23 156 control.

K23 157 As it happened, she was wrong. The coin fell to the floor and K23 158 she was on her knees under her desk peering at it when Suzy from K23 159 Publicity popped her head round the door, only five minutes later. K23 160 "Hi. Has Mommy Bunny got a minute to discuss publication K23 161 scheduling?"

K23 162 Daniel was in bed when she got home. The room was strewn with K23 163 cola cans, sweet wrappers and comics. "Mama!" he cried, K23 164 holding his arms out for a hug.

K23 165 "Don't ever do that to me again!"

K23 166 "Why?" he squealed, panic pinging across his face and K23 167 voice like a ping pong ball across a table.

K23 168 "Because it's bloody embarrassing!"

K23 169 "But ..." He burst into tears. She was horrified. K23 170 "Can't you take a joke anymore? Can't you?" he K23 171 shouted defiantly.

K23 172 "Yes. But not in public. Do you understand that there K23 173 is a difference?"

K23 174 "Yes!" he snapped back, and went into the sitting room K23 175 to play with his train set.

K23 176 Sometimes Maria wondered whether he was waving or drowning. It K23 177 was so very hard to tell. He didn't seem to be worried about K23 178 his life; that he was now grid-locked in the outer suburbs of K23 179 youth, that his trust fund was drier than a good martini and that K23 180 he hadn't worked in six months.

K23 181 He'd been born into a minor showbiz dynasty and been a hot K23 182 child movie star for a season during one of their temporary moves K23 183 to Los Angeles. After a string of flops, his family returned to K23 184 England.

K23 185 In the mid-seventies, the teenage Daniel was considered by the K23 186 demimonde to be 'the most beautiful boy in London'. The capital was K23 187 a soft city then, and a boy with his beauty and charm could ride K23 188 the perfect pleasure wave of parties, premieres and people for a K23 189 thousand and one crazy nights, working now and then - a play on the K23 190 fringe one year, a film on the Riviera the next. For years he was K23 191 considered 'a promising actor' - though one jealous wag said this K23 192 was "because he's always promising to sleep with K23 193 directors". Some also muttered that he was "a fag K23 194 of convenience". But his beauty and charm were enough to K23 195 lift him up above such pettiness. Until the eighties, that is. In K23 196 the eighties, something happened.

K23 197 Slowly but surely, all his crazy actor friends were cleaning up K23 198 their acts; quitting drugs, drinking spritzers, marrying Born Again K23 199 Christians, having children, moving to smallholdings in Surrey - K23 200 working hard. They gave him big hugs, but little time. K23 201 Only the unemployed had time to play these days.

K23 202 He had never been a fireball of blind ambition, and Maria liked K23 203 that. Men on the make repelled her; their passion went into their K23 204 projects, rendering them humourless and diminishing their capacity K23 205 for extra-curricular fun. She was ambitious - but only because of K23 206 the freedom success could buy.

K23 207 K24 1 <#FLOB:K24\>BAD CONNECTION

K24 2 Linda Waterman

K24 3 Prologue

K24 4 10th May, 1941

K24 5 THE MESSERSCHMIDT 110 wheeled and the man who was pretending to K24 6 be Rudolf Hess found himself looking down on Renfrewshire. He K24 7 repeated the difficult word conscientiously several times. Although K24 8 his English was good, there had always been few opportunities to K24 9 practise of late; besides, he must remember that he had finished K24 10 his education at Landsberg of all places, not at Oxford as had K24 11 originally been intended.

K24 12 There was very little fuel left now and the gauge flickered K24 13 around empty. He had lost his pursuers some time ago. They had K24 14 never been so concerned to follow him as to endanger themselves in K24 15 any way. It was obvious his was a suicide mission. He was relieved K24 16 to have given them the slip. He knew that soon he would have to K24 17 bale out and now he would not have to worry about being K24 18 machine-gunned from above.

K24 19 He did not remember the actual jump. He must have gone through K24 20 the preparations in a daze. He lost consciousness at least once on K24 21 the way down. When he came to again he could see flames somewhere K24 22 off to his left. A few seconds later he hit the ground. It was a K24 23 bad fall. A stab of pain went through his ankle. It must be broken. K24 24 Alles in ordnung.

K24 25 He was not sorry to see the farmer, even though he was carrying K24 26 a pitchfork. It was not part of the plan to remain undetected for K24 27 long. He got to his feet and began to draw from his inside breast K24 28 pocket the photographs he had brought. He called something friendly K24 29 and, limping forward reached out a steady hand.

K24 30 "I have come today from Augsburg, via Munich. I have no K24 31 weapons." He spoke slowly and clearly as he had been K24 32 taught. His bearing was haughty.

K24 33 "Or bombs." He spread his arms wide and tried K24 34 to look self-deprecating.

K24 35 The farmer stared at him, or rather at a place slightly to the K24 36 right of his eyes, as if expecting dozens of airborne troops to K24 37 emerge from behind him.

K24 38 "My name is Alfred Horn." the pilot said, K24 39 nodding vigorously several times, as if to allay the farmer's K24 40 doubts. They began to walk slowly, in Indian file, back towards the K24 41 low, whitewashed farmhouse. The parachutist did not have to K24 42 exaggerate his limp.

K24 43 "Would you like a cup of tea?" the farmer K24 44 asked.

K24 45 "I would enjoy water." Horn replied.

K24 46 K24 47 Forty years later

K24 48 K24 49 Rudolf was dreaming that he was in England. Well, not in K24 50 England, so much as over it. The plane had banked steeply and he K24 51 had his first glimpse of the English coast. Were those the White K24 52 Cliffs? Even from a window seat he couldn't have been sure. He K24 53 tried to stretch his stiff legs out into the aisle without moving K24 54 his torso. They ached but there was no room to flex the muscles. He K24 55 was half awake now and he allowed his mind to wander. Planes, he K24 56 thought crossly, were built for one legged travellers. They could K24 57 sit on either side of the gangway in comfort in matching pairs. And K24 58 the legless ones would be assigned the window seats as a K24 59 consolation. That was only fair. The plane's engines were making a K24 60 strange, repetitive noise. Maybe they were going to land soon.

K24 61 Rudolf wakes but does not open his eyes immediately. It K24 62 was the rhythm of the train that had sent him off to sleep in the K24 63 first place. Teresa is lying across his legs, calm and relaxed but K24 64 watchful. He notices that her skirt is drawn up immodestly high. He K24 65 reaches over and smoothes it down across her thin thighs. She K24 66 laughs and immediately pulls it higher, coquettishly. He does not K24 67 push it back. Otherwise it would become a game. He closes his eyes K24 68 to signify that he will not play.

K24 69 It was strange how even in dreams he never got into England. K24 70 He'd been many times to France and after all it wasn't far across K24 71 the Channel. But he'd gone in completely the opposite direction, K24 72 flying half way round the world, and staying longer than anyone K24 73 could have predicted. Even after all this time he could clearly K24 74 remember his arrival in Peru. He had left Europe for a new world K24 75 and found a clean, new Rudolf. It had seemed like the best day of K24 76 his whole life.

K24 77 Outside the airport the air had been like hot flannels. There K24 78 was a small boy on the sidewalk selling melons. He'd cut one into K24 79 sections, and held a piece up to the European traveller. Rudolf was K24 80 moved. The child could have no idea who he was and still, K24 81 spontaneously, he was giving him something for nothing. The sweet K24 82 smell made Rudolf feel lightheaded, almost faint. He had never K24 83 tasted anything like it. The boy had looked up at him showing his K24 84 teeth, confident, assured, happy. People in Europe didn't look like K24 85 that any more. Rudolf could still see his face in his mind's eye. K24 86 Or was that some other boy? He discovered now that what he really K24 87 remembered from then was not the boy or the place but his own K24 88 extraordinary sense of well-being; pure joy welling up, running K24 89 down his chin like sweet juice.

K24 90 He calculated the years that separated him from that day, K24 91 moving his lips silently. A. had always teased him about that K24 92 counting. Peasant's reckoning he had called it. Out of caution, K24 93 even when he talked to himself, Rudolf still referred to him as A. K24 94 What he had felt for A. had been love. But that word was never K24 95 mentioned. Instead they had talked of Cameraderie. Brotherhood. K24 96 Loyalty. That was more the sort of thing really. And he hadn't been K24 97 the only one. Far from it. A. had drawn young men about him, like K24 98 lemmings. Of course many had come later, for the glory. But Rudolf K24 99 had been his from the First War. They were David and Jonathan, K24 100 Hagen and Gunther. He'd thought at the time that this would be the K24 101 love of his life. Not that you could say such things then. Today's K24 102 men wore bracelets and grew their hair as long as they liked. It K24 103 was ironic that now, when it didn't matter to him any more, it K24 104 seemed that it no longer mattered to anyone else either. In those K24 105 days everything had been different. They'd been so stiff - arms, K24 106 legs, and thoughts moving rigidly in sections like an old jerky K24 107 film, all in sepia tones, with brown the predominant colour. Even K24 108 his car had been brown he remembered. Had that been deliberate? He K24 109 couldn't be sure now. All he knew was that the Mercedes had been K24 110 his only indulgence.

K24 111 Later, he was all for indulgence. The southern warmth relaxed K24 112 him, reminding him of his Egyptian childhood. But it wasn't just K24 113 that he felt young again. It had to do with personalities too. A. K24 114 had made it impossible really to love anyone else. He was all too K24 115 pervasive. There was nothing of Rudolf left over. Like Montaigne K24 116 after La Bo<*_>e-acute<*/>tie, he'd discovered that life went on, K24 117 with or without the loved one. As time went by he had been K24 118 surprised to realise that to an outsider other things in his life K24 119 seem as important as the all-consuming passion with A.

K24 120 Rudolf knows he should feel safe in the train. He is K24 121 making food his escape after all. Every mile they travel takes him K24 122 that much further away from retribution, recrimination, K24 123 repatriation. But instead the train seems to echo those very words K24 124 over and over again and he has the impression that wherever it K24 125 stops it will deliver him straight into the waiting arms of his K24 126 pursuers. Which is ridiculous because aren't they behind K24 127 him?

K24 128 Maria had been a continuation of his story as well as a new K24 129 beginning. He'd met her in a mountain town in Ecuador where the K24 130 buildings looked like blocks of pink and vanilla ice cream melting K24 131 in the sun and the air was so thin it made you gasp. He'd been K24 132 fascinated by her boyish plainness. She reminded him of the Indians K24 133 he'd seen from the train, wrapped in brightly coloured blankets, K24 134 placid and self-absorbed. There was an air of stillness, almost of K24 135 tiredness about her large, brown face and heavy eyelids. In her K24 136 room she had love stories translated from the American, where the K24 137 central characters said things like "Hello you." K24 138 when they were alone together and the men were always tilting the K24 139 women's chins up to kiss them. By now Rudolf's Spanish was quite K24 140 good enough to allow him to understand all this. Over the bed there K24 141 hung a set of wind chimes, unvarnished clay bells arranged in a K24 142 simple spiral with plain white pot beads for clappers. Like a child K24 143 he lay and looked at them and when the breeze stirred he waited K24 144 breathlessly for their music to begin.

K24 145 She got herself pregnant almost immediately. Neither spoke of K24 146 it, as if the child had nothing to do with them but to his surprise K24 147 her thickening waist and stately, straight-backed walk began to K24 148 give him a real pleasure.

K24 149 He supposes the guard will come round soon to check on his K24 150 guests. His prisoners more like. You couldn't trust these people. K24 151 Not an inch. How humiliating to ride like this <}_><-|>is<+|>in<}/> K24 152 a cattle truck. They didn't have access to even the most basic K24 153 facilities. Maria had noticed the bucket in the corner when they K24 154 first climbed up into the wagon and with a reproachful look to K24 155 Rudolf, had wordlessly steered the children into the corner K24 156 furthest away from it.

K24 157 Meanwhile, his compatriots had found him a job as a Security K24 158 Consultant. He knew very little about security work but then he K24 159 didn't actually have to do much. His status seemed to be enough for K24 160 the Company. Of course, he was using a different name but they K24 161 dropped hints now and again to important clients about his ranking. K24 162 Word was put around, discreetly, to trusted friends here and there. K24 163 It was quite safe. He was assured that the Company's standing had K24 164 risen considerably since his recruitment. It was a big K24 165 international with branches in many countries. Someone had once K24 166 told him that they had six million customers, worldwide. Six K24 167 million! It seemed incredible. For himself, he didn't believe K24 168 it.

K24 169 In the office everyone spoke German. Everywhere was painted in K24 170 gleaming white. It almost hurt his eyes. And they had the most up K24 171 to date office equipment. It could just as well have been K24 172 M<*_>u-umlaut<*/>nchen. Natives guarded the street doors, and K24 173 stopped other natives coming in, except on business or first thing K24 174 in the mornings to sweep up and empty the wastepaper baskets. All K24 175 the employees were German.

K24 176 Maria is asleep now, her heads<&|>sic! nodding on her K24 177 bosom in the time to the rocking motion of the train. Behind her K24 178 the foothills are a patchwork of fields littered with corrugated K24 179 iron shacks.

K24 180 She had had two children in quick succession. Neither of them K24 181 seemed to resemble him in the slightest with their brown eyes and K24 182 broad, flattish noses. Yet they were good natured and bright and K24 183 from the start he'd been closer to them than to his eldest son back K24 184 home. Their lithe, olive bodies delighted him. They were not like K24 185 the children of an old man at all. Sometimes he even bathed them. K24 186 He wondered about A.'s reaction to that. He had so often laughed at K24 187 the Kinder, Kirche, K<*_>u-umlaut<*/>che K24 188 mentality of the good burghers. How far he and Rudolf had been K24 189 above that! If Rudolf didn't yet go to church, still his new life K24 190 revolved around the family.

K24 191 In those days they would all eat together in the kitchen. While K24 192 the serving woman made enchiladas at the stove, Maria would feed K24 193 the baby with a spoon. After a few mouthfuls from Rudolf the older K24 194 boy would climb down and play on the floor, jumping up sometimes to K24 195 snatch another titbit from the table.

K24 196 How surprised his wife would have been to see him eating like K24 197 that. K24 198 K25 1 <#FLOB:K25\>Christine Mc Neill

K25 2 The Lesson

K25 3 A tap on the letter slot.

K25 4 He hangs his leather jacket up in the hall. She makes a gesture K25 5 towards the front room. He follows, sits down on the sofa.

K25 6 She insisted on the direct method. Introducing the vocabulary, K25 7 repeating each word three times, pausing, if necessary standing up K25 8 and performing a mime.

K25 9 Purpose of wanting to learn German? To take up an army post in K25 10 Heidelberg.

K25 11 She smiled, and said: "Der Vater. K25 12 The V pronounced like an F."

K25 13 She listened to his creative endeavours: "Der K25 14 Vater geht ..." - The father goes ... K25 15 "Der Vater wohnt ..." - The K25 16 father lives ...

K25 17 "Sehr gut," she K25 18 complimented him. Then nodded at his pages of script. K25 19 "Der Vater ist tot." She leant K25 20 back. Enjoying his struggle in trying to grasp the last word.

K25 21 "Tot." She let her head go slack. Then drew a K25 22 large black cross on a piece of paper.

K25 23 Her own father, Herr Johann Genz, had been an K25 24 ordinary bank clerk, belonging to an ordinary political group in K25 25 Vienna. She was a child, when one day the neighbours told her: K25 26 "Your father has been hanged!"

K25 27 At night she imagined it. That rope attached to the bedroom K25 28 curtain. Moving towards the shadow cast by the chair near her bed. K25 29 The weave was thick and methodical. Above her bed it went limp, K25 30 then looped itself. "Der Vater ist K25 31 tot." In the morning, the rope hung again at the K25 32 side of the curtain.

K25 33 "Ah." Eagerly he consigned the word tot to K25 34 his memory.

K25 35 She watched him. Remembering 1947. Next door lived a friend by K25 36 the name of Karl. She, Miri, in those days, used to give him half K25 37 her bread.

K25 38 One day, after the defeat of the Austrian and German army, a K25 39 Russian had come to her mother's flat. He had returned the K25 40 following day with a giant loaf. Her mother and she had shared it, K25 41 and offered some to Karl's mother. But Karl's mother had refected K25 42 it, and also told Kark not to take any. Why, she'd asked. Karl had K25 43 looked at the ground. Then he had said: "There is a rumour K25 44 that your mother didn't get the bread just for allowing the Russian K25 45 to wash his hands."

K25 46 "He was so grateful," she'd said.

K25 47 Karl had looked at her with fierce eyes. "Miri, he was K25 48 a Russian! One can't let an enemy into one's home. All the other K25 49 tenants were mad about it."

K25 50 "They didn't say anything."

K25 51 "They were mad at your mother."

K25 52 "Mother didn't tell me."

K25 53 "Then I will tell you: my mother said your mother K25 54 didn't get the bread just for the water."

K25 55 "What do you mean?"

K25 56 "My mother said your mother took her clothes K25 57 off."

K25 58 "Took her clothes off? I don't understand."

K25 59 "She was naked!"

K25 60 "Why?"

K25 61 "Ask your mother."

K25 62 The student looked at her, expectant for the next word.

K25 63 "Mutter, she said. K25 64 "The u pronounced like the English double o."

K25 65 She rather liked him. She asked him to stand up. She wanted him K25 66 to look in the mirror and describe his appearance.

K25 67 Gossip. People talked, telling a story over and over, and by K25 68 the time it had traversed three or four months, a Rabelaisian story K25 69 came out.

K25 70 "You didn't take your clothes off for him?"

K25 71 "Of course not," her mother said.

K25 72 "Then why do people say it?"

K25 73 "They say it because they do not trust us."

K25 74 "That's no reason to tell lies."

K25 75 Her mother had brushed breadcrumbs from the table. K25 76 "People tell lies, when they're afraid of their own K25 77 truth."

K25 78 "Verstehen Sie?"

K25 79 The student nodded.

K25 80 She thought of her husband Joe. United States. An executive K25 81 family had advertised for a nanny in an Austrian newspaper. She'd K25 82 met Joe, dainty moustache and holed jeans, in a downtown bar. K25 83 Rockaby days and Big Nothings. Joe liked living with foreign women K25 84 who spoke English as though it were an heroic language.

K25 85 Sunday morning lying in bed, they crossed possibilities via K25 86 complicated silences.

K25 87 "Will you marry me?" she asked.

K25 88 He moved his arm towards the wall. Shadow-played. A cat, a K25 89 rabbit. "Yes," he said.

K25 90 A simple wedding. Two witnesses off the street, and a registrar K25 91 loudly proclaiming the sanctity of children, church, kitchen.

K25 92 The following morning. Joe had got out of bed, and straight to K25 93 the bread-pin. It was empty.

K25 94 "A nightmare," she'd explained. "I got K25 95 up while you were sleeping and ate the last slice."

K25 96 "Damn!" Joe had stamped his foot, and she, still in her K25 97 dressing-gown, had grapped the purse and rushed out to the K25 98 delicatessen.

K25 99 The man behind the counter had reached to the bottom shelf and K25 100 brought out a white loaf. She had pinched it with her thumb and K25 101 forefinger. "It's stale," she'd said.

K25 102 The man had looket at her with murder in his eyes, and started K25 103 talking about love thy neighbour and thou shall and shall not.

K25 104 "Do you realise," she told Joe afterwards, K25 105 "that people are mad here?"

K25 106 "Ich möchte Tee und K25 107 Brot."

K25 108 Miracle - a mistake-free sentence. She encouraged him to an K25 109 ingenious touch: he must surely be capable of linking butter with K25 110 bread and thus form the compound noun K25 111 "Butterbrot"

K25 112 She brushed the edge of her right hand along her outstretched K25 113 left palm.

K25 114 He looked puzzled.

K25 115 She repeated the movement, then realised that it was rather K25 116 inadequate since it would only elicit the verb 'to spread' which K25 117 was not what she wanted.

K25 118 Nonetheless, tenderly, he raised his hand, and let it come down K25 119 on his left palm.

K25 120 She remembered his wish to become a sergeant.

K25 121 Right, left, under cover! Advance into position A-D-Zero!

K25 122 That day Joe was called up for service in Vietnam. The cheers, K25 123 the waves, the noisy "Bon Voyage!"

K25 124 Months later searching the tree, the grass, the sky.

K25 125 "Remember the snow, honey?" Joe's hand had K25 126 zigzagged across the crumpled page. "In this place the K25 127 blind lead the blind, and some blow their heads off."

K25 128 No military honours for a coward who had gone insane.

K25 129 (Joe, love - remember the United States stars, coming out all K25 130 huge and dazzling, and falling, one by one, into your hands?)

K25 131 He had chosen a day of pouring rain, the commanding officer K25 132 told her. Shot his brains out while everyone had breakfast. (If you K25 133 can call it breakfast with mosquitoes doing the work of K25 134 surgeons.)

K25 135 Joe, my love, the snowflakes fell on the sidewalk. I opened my K25 136 mouth. I tilted my head back. The slivers of snow fell on my K25 137 tongue. A man with a fur collar stepped in front of me. I heard him K25 138 say that underneath the snow the grass was green, and how about K25 139 it, doll?

K25 140 I threw my head back. The snowflakes fell deeper into my K25 141 throat. Was it Israel you mentioned once, where burying the dead K25 142 would have been a useful job?

K25 143 My coat slipped to the ground.

K25 144 The last time. Calling the lesson 'personal assessment'.

K25 145 She moved the chair closer to his sofa and looked into his K25 146 eyes.

K25 147 Journey into the past. In particular his opinion of it.

K25 148 It transpired that it was neither strong nor clear. The latter K25 149 due to the fact that even after several lessons his command of the K25 150 language was still limited.

K25 151 She montioned him to kneel.

K25 152 Seeing herself reflected in his pupils, she launched into a K25 153 symbolic tale.

K25 154 Two beggars standing at opposite ends of a long road.

K25 155 She mimicked her part by getting up, hunching her shoulders and K25 156 using the ash-tray as a bowl of alms.

K25 157 She asked him to do the same, but he declined.

K25 158 She closed her eyes, and stepped towards him. K25 159 "Bitte!" - please. Her knees trembled. At convent K25 160 school the priest's mellow thumb had drawn the ash-cross on her K25 161 forehead. "Your name, child?" She'd clenched her K25 162 fist. "Miriam." "That is a Jewish name. K25 163 What faith has your father?" She'd breathed deeply. K25 164 "Jewish. But my mother is a Catholic."

K25 165 The priest had stared at her. So she'd pinched his purple K25 166 sleeve, remembering that in his sermon he'd said that purple was K25 167 the colour of mercy.

K25 168 But he'd wrenched himself free. "Let's go child! God K25 169 will punish you."

K25 170 Golden tabernacle. Her hand at the altar-rail, falling. She'd K25 171 thought of the world's mysteries. God, the ocean, those sparrows K25 172 caught in brilliant sunlight behind the stained glass window. The K25 173 church was dynamically still, as all the children got up to receive K25 174 absolution.

K25 175 In the name of the Father, the Son, and the - K25 176 "Tot!" She'd screamed. Wiping the ash-cross from K25 177 her forehead, and raising her fist in the air - K25 178 "Er ist tot!""

K25 179 She opened her eyes. Where the student had been kneeling, there K25 180 was only the carpet.

K25 181 Twenty past two. He has never been this late.

K25 182 She paces the room. Suddenly, footsteps. At her door they K25 183 pause.

K25 184 She listens for the familiar tap on the letter-slot. It K25 185 happens. Then there is a second tap. With a start she realises the K25 186 slot has been lifted and, with the minimum of noese, been pushed K25 187 back into place.

K25 188 The footsteps recede, hurriedly, down the stairs.

K25 189 On the mat she finds a sheet ripped from a note-pad. It begins K25 190 with "I" and ends with his name - "Jamie".

K25 191 She stares at the words in between. "... won't be able K25 192 to continue with the lessons any longer, but do appreciate your K25 193 trouble."

K25 194 In the kitchen there are fuchsias in a window-box. They have K25 195 not been pruned for years, and climb, in conquest of that elusive K25 196 sun.

K25 197 What can she expect? He knows the genders and the four cases, K25 198 and is now able to read the captions to nude pictures in German K25 199 magazines.

K25 200 His "Ich verstehe" - K25 201 "I understand" was just a clinical response.

K25 202 She lifts the lid of the breadbin. A last slice. She butters it K25 203 and cuts it into 'soldiers'.

K25 204 The view beyond the fuchsias is of a grey drainpipe. She thinks K25 205 of a rope, the word 'hanged' swinging between past and present.

K25 206 Britain, where things are civilised.

K25 207 With the edge of her right hand she brushes dead blossoms into K25 208 her left palm.

K25 209 On her ageing skin they reveal their inner voice, while staying K25 210 purely external.

K25 211 Christine McNeill

K25 212 K25 213 High Risk Tenement

K25 214 Mary McCabe

K25 215 Top Right:

K25 216 Original panelling, brass handles which still turn, dented K25 217 snibs which still snib. To the right, the kitchen, black range with K25 218 gas taps, press with plates, swan-necked wooden sink. Curtained K25 219 bed-recess. To the left, the room. Floral yellow wallpaper, worn K25 220 red mat. Recess with Jenny's wardrobe. Above the dressing table, K25 221 china ducks fly towards the bow window; opposite is the fifties' K25 222 fawn fireplace with the coal-effect electric fire. Near the window K25 223 is a built-in display cabinet with willow-pattern plates, Delft K25 224 china clogs, a Dresden dancer. At the window Jenny peered over the K25 225 wire curtain rail.

K25 226 "Here she comes, Miss O'Flaherty, back from the chapel. K25 227 Whit's this she's oan? Pair sowel, I doot she's got it oot a jumble K25 228 sale. Aw thon prayin - whit's she goat tae show fur it? ... An K25 229 here's Fanny Allen, decked oot like a Christmas tree, skirt half up K25 230 her backside. Yet another fancy man. Dirty dog. Honest tae God, K25 231 whit a wey tae bring up lassies."

K25 232 "There's the Pakistanis pittin up their shutters K25 233 already. Used tae be open aw hoors. Doot they're gettin lazy an K25 234 Scottified. Wantin their telly at night like everybody K25 235 else."

K25 236 One up, Right:

K25 237 Plate steel on the door, shutters on the windows. Darkness in K25 238 the air and rubble on the floor. The patches of streetlighting that K25 239 pass through the holes in the shutters show graffiti on the walls K25 240 of the ruined front room.

K25 241 In the kitchen, a hole where the range was now houses rustling K25 242 nests. The shelves are out of the press, and in the recess are K25 243 sticky crisp packets.

K25 244 Top Left:

K25 245 Kitchen units in avocado, stainless steel sink, lowered ceiling K25 246 with polystyrene tiles. Black vinyl suite, lamps with metal shades. K25 247 In the recess, yellow formica table and chairs. Cassette recorder K25 248 blaring.

K25 249 "Gonny you shut up that racket?" said Michelle. K25 250 "Ah've goat French words tae learn fur the K25 251 morra."

K25 252 "Efter 'Simple Minds'," moaned Michelle. K25 253 She's goat tae ask me aw thae words."

K25 254 The front door opened and closed. The kitchen door opened and a K25 255 strange man looked in.

K25 256 K26 1 <#FLOB:K26\>A FIZZLE OF FAT MEN

K26 2 Hilary Patel

K26 3 The Honourable Winston Mulembo is a man of many roles. With two K26 4 wives and, at the last count, thirteen children, he can consider K26 5 himself to be a family man. He is also a cabinet minister and has K26 6 responded to the government's call to return to agriculture by K26 7 buying a piece of land and calling himself a farmer. He does not K26 8 call himself a businessman, though he is. Owning premises for that K26 9 role is not necessary. Instead, he performs 'favours' for people K26 10 who, in return, 'help' him.

K26 11 His official ministerial duties have, this weekend, brought him K26 12 to Mkushi. Even by African standards, it's a dreary little town, K26 13 wilting in the midst of a vast nowhere. He's visited the Member of K26 14 Central Committee, the Permanent Political Secretary and the K26 15 District Governor. He's delivered all his favourite speeches, done K26 16 his duty, and now we should leave. But we're not going till K26 17 tomorrow, he says. I can't imagine why that should be.

K26 18 Sunday afternoon, and the town is sleeping. A couple of bars K26 19 are open but there's no beer in town and a bar without beer is a K26 20 bar without customers. He's not picked up by a prostitute so I know K26 21 he's not staying for that. The habits of the Honourable Mulembo are K26 22 well known to me. They should be; we've travelled all over the K26 23 country together during the last ten years. I'm his driver. You'd K26 24 call me a chauffeur. But here, I'm a driver, and a comrade too. K26 25 We're all comrades here. Winston Mulembo is an Honourable comrade. K26 26 I'm a driver, and a comrade too. We're all comrades here. Winston K26 27 Mulembo is an Honourable comrade and about all those duties which K26 28 are not official.

K26 29 Now he's calling me and asking if I'm ready to go. That K26 30 surprises me.

K26 31 "Back to Lusaka, Sir?" I ask.

K26 32 "No," says he. But he wants the flag put on. Since it's K26 33 not an official visit, he must want to impress someone. Anyway, I'm K26 34 spruced up and ready as I always am. And the car, a Mercedes, is K26 35 spick and span. That's the reason I like driving for the Honourable K26 36 Mulembo. Driving a Land Rover over long distances on dirt road is K26 37 extremely uncomfortable.

K26 38 But, I tell you, it's hot today. It always is, in October, just K26 39 before the rains.

K26 40 Here he comes, wearing one of his tailored suits. He won't K26 41 allow the oppressive heat to stint his style. He's a man who K26 42 believes in the importance of setting standards of respectability. K26 43 He squeezes himself into the car - he's a big man, is the K26 44 Honourable Mulembo, and squashes himself into the left-hand K26 45 corner.

K26 46 "The filling station," he says. I feel a little K26 47 peeved. He should know that I've already filled up. Then the coin K26 48 drops. The heat must have dulled my senses. Now I realise what it's K26 49 all about. Chatterjee. Chirak Chatterjee. The Honourable has had K26 50 dealings before with comrade Chirak. It's been quite a while since K26 51 he visited him here, but they've met several times in Lusaka since K26 52 then. A deal up their sleeves? Possibly. And a chance too for the K26 53 Honourable to kill two birds with one stone. Where else in this K26 54 barren hole would he find free booze on a Sunday afternoon? And he K26 55 does get very thirsty on hot afternoons in dreary little towns K26 56 after promoting the message of the party and instilling the spirit K26 57 of humanism.

K26 58 He's a tricky character is Chirak Chatterjee. The Honourable K26 59 comrade must know he runs a risk of being drawn into promises he K26 60 won't be able to keep, but must consider a few drinks to be worth K26 61 that risk. Besides, promises can always be revoked, and the K26 62 Honourable Mulembo is as voluble with his excuses as he is with his K26 63 promises - almost as clever a crook as Chatterjee.

K26 64 I glide away from the government rest house (you'd call it a K26 65 sleazy motel, perhaps) and drive along the dusty roads of the K26 66 deserted town. Without even a murmur of a breeze, the flag with its K26 67 green background hangs limply on the bonnet as I turn towards the K26 68 filling station.

K26 69 It must be somebody important; the security guards are in a K26 70 dilemma. Bwana Chirak is sleeping. He doesn't like to be disturbed K26 71 when he is sleeping, unless it's somebody very important. They're K26 72 taking the chance. One of them is pressing the button to the K26 73 intercom system in the bwana's bedroom.

K26 74 It's like a fortress in here with the great stone wall and the K26 75 heavy metal gates. It's the highest wall in the country. Everybody K26 76 says so. Even the President doesn't have such a high wall around K26 77 State House.

K26 78 The filling station is on the other side. That's Bwana Chirak's K26 79 official business. It doesn't look very important and it isn't, K26 80 except for people needing fuel. It isn't from the filling station K26 81 that Bwana Chirak makes his money. The important deals are done at K26 82 home, mostly on the phone and mostly in his pyjamas.

K26 83 The wall was built less to protect his wealth, most of which is K26 84 out of the country anyway, than to defend the man's privacy and K26 85 keep out those whom he no longer considers useful. Bwana Chirak can K26 86 be a generous man with those currently in favour - those whom he K26 87 terms his friends; his personal friends. He can be very K26 88 charming when he wants something for nothing, but can be equally K26 89 nasty when he has to pay.

K26 90 They've got permission. They're opening the gates. It's a K26 91 cabinet minister. I can see the flag. But I can't be sure yet who K26 92 it is. Ah, yes, it's Winston Mulembo, the Minister of Transport. Of K26 93 course, he's in town this weekend. And the driver? Yes, David, K26 94 that's his name.

K26 95 They were here some time back, only he wasn't Minister of K26 96 Transport then; Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, I think. K26 97 That was around the time when the tusks arrived. Yes, they've been K26 98 here quite a while now. Look at this yard - it's a mess. You'd K26 99 hardly think that, amongst the jumble of junk, there are items of K26 100 value. It's easy not to notice the elephant tusks over there, under K26 101 the tarpaulins. They're valuable though, those tusks, and they K26 102 quite legally belong to Bwana Chirak. With a little help from K26 103 friends in high places, personal friends, mind you, he's got K26 104 the documents, authorised and stamped, declaring him the legal K26 105 owner of that ivory. I know. I've seen the papers.

K26 106

I know quite a lot about what goes on in this house. I keep K26 107 quiet though. So does Momma Chirak. We both keep quiet.

K26 108 It's unfinished business - those tusks, and it's giving him K26 109 headaches. He's got those tusks and they're his, but he's still not K26 110 got the export licenses to get them out of the country. It all K26 111 depends on who's up there, you see. I wouldn't have thought that a K26 112 transport minister would be able to help with licenses. That would K26 113 be for the department of trade, wouldn't it? Although I don't know; K26 114 with these people anything is possible. They can wangle most K26 115 things. Or maybe it's something completely different this time. You K26 116 never know.

K26 117 Anyway, it's not my problem. My problem is all this ginger I've K26 118 got to peel. But sitting here, doing my jobs, I see a lot of K26 119 things. I know quite a lot about what goes on.

K26 120 The cabinet minister has gone inside. David's coming over. I'll K26 121 get a chair for him - one of the folding canvas ones. He'll expect K26 122 that. He greets me, and thanks me, and sits down.

K26 123 Bwana Chirak won't be in a good mood. He's calling his wife, so K26 124 she's calling me to take over the roasting of the pappadoms.

K26 125 Basically he's a simple man, is Chirak Chatterjee. He doesn't K26 126 drink, doesn't smoke and doesn't have any girlfriends. And, being a K26 127 devout Hindu, he doesn't eat meat. The thing he likes best is K26 128 making money and he's very good at that.

K26 129 The house is as shoddy as the yard. He doesn't intend to stay K26 130 here forever. He's always telling people that. Once he's made K26 131 enough, he'll leave. But he stays. He might be a big fish here, but K26 132 it's going to take a long time to make 'enough' to survive in a K26 133 bigger pond somewhere else. He keeps trying though.

K26 134 He's got lots of gadgets in his living room, even an electric K26 135 organ. He doesn't play it, of course; uses instead as a shelf on K26 136 which to display some of the ugly ornaments he likes picking up. K26 137 There's an enormous lampshade there too, made from an elephant's K26 138 tusk. These things are a comfort to Chirak Chatterjee and these, I K26 139 suppose, he can take with him, or sell, if he ever leaves. But he K26 140 won't be able to do that with the paint on the walls. So he doesn't K26 141 bother with paint and the peeling patches don't bother him.

K26 142 He's just told Momma Chirak to make some tea for him and to K26 143 bring some milk for their guest. So now she's telling me to make K26 144 the tea. I must leave the pappadoms. Momma's pouring the milk and K26 145 yes, she's spilt some on the floor. She always does. And of course K26 146 I'm supposed to mop it up.

K26 147 Momma's taking in several different varieties of spiced snacks K26 148 and the bwana's telling her to bring a bottle of whisky. K26 149 "Local, not imported," I hear him cluck at her in K26 150 Hindi. I've learnt a lot of Hindi working here. He's still K26 151 crotchety at having been woken.

K26 152 The tea's ready now. Momma's bringing the snacks back out K26 153 again. I remember now, and Momma should have remembered too: K26 154 Winston Mulembo always has an ulcer. Hot, spicy food irritates it. K26 155 So does whisky, but then milk is there to be offset the effects of K26 156 that.

K26 157 I'm clearing up now before I go back outside to the ginger. K26 158 That's a shame - I would have liked to stay and listen. I have a K26 159 quick glance before I go. Winston Mulembo is happily gulping down K26 160 his whisky laced with milk. Bwana Chirak is smiling. He must be K26 161 awake now, and scheming.

K26 162 It might look as if my husband cares about me - insisting that K26 163 I come along, but I know Gerald better than that. Bringing the wife K26 164 along provides a veneer of respectability - makes it look as if we K26 165 are indeed indulging ourselves in nothing more than a pleasant K26 166 Sunday afternoon jaunt and a little light socialising. I can assure K26 167 you though, it's not that straightforward. It never is with my K26 168 husband.

K26 169 "Judith, I think we'll visit Mr Chatterjee this K26 170 afternoon." he said. Not: "What do you K26 171 think?"Not: "Would you like to?" But: K26 172 "We will." I will and you will.

K26 173 So here we are bouncing unmerrily along: Mr Road Engineer and K26 174 his wife, couped up inside a stuffy Land Rover in the stifling heat K26 175 of the afternoon, and believe you me, it's horribly hot. And the K26 176 pot-bellied pink blob in the driver's seat is sweating badly and it K26 177 stinks.

K26 178 This is our third contract and Gerald's pushing for a fourth. K26 179 We did the first one for the money: expatriate allowance, K26 180 re-settlement bonus and all that. And we did make quite a bit. K26 181 Enough, I thought. But Gerald found he likes the life out here. He K26 182 likes acting out the big white bwana stuff.

K26 183 So we've stayed, and live in a caravan. It's a luxury caravan, K26 184 mind you and we live in it rent-free, with a lot of other things K26 185 thrown in free as well. There are many perks to be picked up on a K26 186 foreign aid scheme.

K26 187 They're all doing it: the Canadians, the Italians, the Swedes, K26 188 and even the Chinese. They're all busy building roads to transport K26 189 food which isn't being grown. Infrastructure's so important for a K26 190 developing country, don't you know?

K26 191 Now the World Bank is offering a loan to the Government for the K26 192 construction of another road in some other, faraway forgotten K26 193 corner of the country, and interested groups are tendering for the K26 194 contract. I don't care who gets it as long as it isn't the British K26 195 contingent and my husband Gerald.

K26 196 K27 1 <#FLOB:K27\>Up to then she'd felt okay, but away from her bed, in K27 2 the strange room, sitting in her father's favourite chair, she felt K27 3 lonely and cried. She kicked out at the policemen as they K27 4 approached.

K27 5 "How did it happen?" one of them asked. K27 6 "Did you push him, love? Is that what happened?"

K27 7 Stella blew her nose. "He fell, I think."

K27 8 "You think. But you're not sure?"

K27 9 She shook her head. One of them fetched her coat from the hall K27 10 and draped it across her shoulders. Then he touched her on the K27 11 sleeve and said, "Come on, love, we're going for a K27 12 drive."

K27 13 They led her to a waiting car and drove her through the town. K27 14 And she still remembered that journey, even more vividly than the K27 15 arrest of her father or the death of the policeman; the smell of K27 16 walnut veneer and red leather that drenched the interior, and the K27 17 genial bell which rang each time they approached a junction. At the K27 18 police station she was taken to a small room where an elderly lady K27 19 sat at a broad desk. She offered Stella milk and digestive K27 20 biscuits, spoke imperiously about the weather and the state of her K27 21 roses, and between gaps in the small talk threw in questions of K27 22 pertinence and tact, like little darts. Where was her mummy? What K27 23 did her daddy do for a living? Where were they both last Friday?

K27 24 But Stella sensed a trap. Back then she had a nose for those K27 25 things. And so she sipped her milk, chewed a biscuit, and lied K27 26 beautifully, effortlessly, rubbing her eyes for emphasis.

K27 27 "Last Friday we went to the park. Dad bought me ice K27 28 cream and a bag of crumbs and we fed the ducks."

K27 29 "Dooks?"

K27 30 Stella laughed and rubbed her nose. "Don't be daft. K27 31 Ducks."

K27 32 The elderly lady returned the smile and fingered her necklace. K27 33 She asked Stella to wait and left the room. It seemed colder when K27 34 she'd gone, darker, and Stella imagined that she saw malignant K27 35 faces in the patterns on the tiled walls. The old lady had helped K27 36 her to forget, but alone the true horror of what had happened K27 37 rushed in on her like a wave. She began to cry, crashing her fists K27 38 on the table until the biscuits and orange juice fell to the floor. K27 39 The last thing she remembered was being pinned to the table by a K27 40 burly policeman and someone plunging a needle into her arm. She K27 41 kicked out feebly, and then fell into a deep sleep, dreaming of K27 42 dolphins skimming the surface of a wide grey sea.

K27 43 Her mind always drifted to the sea in times of trouble. Clear, K27 44 warm shallows with fine white sand, snug cabins inside a safe old K27 45 steamer, swimming with the dolphins, sleek, sweet, good-natured. On K27 46 childhood holidays she would stand on a cliff and watch them, K27 47 plunging in schools through the surf. And the sight of them always K27 48 brought on other memories, of other holidays at other resorts, when K27 49 her father still had two good legs and chased her along the beach. K27 50 Sea, sand and childhood. The holy trinity. Cucumber sandwiches and K27 51 chocolate flakes, liver and onions, a dirty face scrubbed clean by K27 52 a damp handkerchief. Then home on the train, smelling of sand and K27 53 saliva.

K27 54 But then someone brushes against her and the memories dissolve. K27 55 She sees the corridor, the stained walls, the parkland that K27 56 stretches from sight beyond the tall french windows. In an hour she K27 57 will meet the doctor, who will shake her hand, take her pulse, and K27 58 tell her not to worry. And Stella will slip into the offered chair K27 59 and do her best to remember. Memories, the doctor tells her, are K27 60 the best cure of all. Better than pills, warm baths or massage. He K27 61 points to a shambling figure at the end of the corridor. Take K27 62 Annie. Why, only last year she was in a terrible state, close to K27 63 the end. But now the power of memory has healed her, or at least K27 64 eased her condition. Once, it was all she could do to wash her own K27 65 face. But now she takes a bath on her own, without help, writes K27 66 letters to a sister in Southport, and twice a year she visits her K27 67 husband's grave. Only the other day she went with Stephen here to K27 68 the coast, and together they won a cutlery set on the bingo.

K27 69 He laughs, and Stella bites her nails. It's not that she is K27 70 being unhelpful, but how else can she prove to them her health, her K27 71 innocence? After all, Annie is ill, deeply, stubbornly ill, ill K27 72 beyond a cure. Her sick mind has cooked up a thousand ways to K27 73 insinuate itself into the patterns of their expectations. And what K27 74 is wrong with Stella that a couple of aspirin can't fix? A cough, a K27 75 headache, a touch of frayed nerves. In the old days they would have K27 76 given her a spoonful of medicine and told her to go home. Now K27 77 everyone went too far. They killed you with their concern. K27 78 Operating when a few pills would do, stuffing you with chemicals K27 79 and radioactive drinks. She would smile at the nurses when they K27 80 handed her the pills, and then spit them out when their backs were K27 81 turned. Sometimes they checked, but there was a hollow under her K27 82 tongue in which she hid them with ease. "Anything K27 83 wrong?" she'd ask, smiling and narrowing her eyes. And K27 84 they'd look sheepish and carry on with their rounds. That was one K27 85 thing that approaching old age hadn't stolen from her; the ability K27 86 to lie and be believed.

K27 87 But other things had gone. Taken, treacherously, while her back K27 88 was turned. The clear skin and auburn hair, the set of strong white K27 89 teeth that had turned yellow and weak and simply rotted in her K27 90 mouth one year. When she was first admitted to the hospital she K27 91 lost her voice with the awfulness of the place. The stained carpets K27 92 and green walls, the winnowed screams from adjacent wards. A doctor K27 93 called her into his office and asked impertinent questions about K27 94 her childhood and early marriage, but she couldn't answer. Every K27 95 time she tried to speak her lips turned rigid and cold. When the K27 96 doctor answered the phone she glanced down at the notes he'd K27 97 written. Much of it was indecipherable, but two words were fixed in K27 98 her memory. One was "stubborn" the other "naive". K27 99 Naive? Maybe. But stubborn? And after she'd spent the balance of K27 100 her life obeying orders. She looked at the doctor with a fresh K27 101 contempt. That was the problem with silence. It was loaded with K27 102 unconscious motives.

K27 103 But the other hospital, the one they took her to as a child, K27 104 was quite different. It welcomed the young, lived for them. And K27 105 young she was, back then. Too young maybe. Half done. She awoke K27 106 with a searing pain in her arm and a bubbling nausea. Sunlight K27 107 slanted through the blinds above her head and a fat nurse sat at K27 108 her side. Stella coughed and moved her arm, and the nurse took her K27 109 pulse and called for a doctor. She was given something to drink and K27 110 then she fell asleep once more. A week later she was strong enough K27 111 to sit up in bed. The needle was taken from her arm and a watery K27 112 breakfast brought. Within a fortnight she was receiving visitors in K27 113 style, propped up against a bank of pillows. The grey lady from the K27 114 police station, and an earnest young man who asked endless K27 115 questions about her home life. But no sign of her father or mother, K27 116 or the big policeman whose hand she'd bitten. Yet all the nurses K27 117 would say was, "Forget about them. They've gone for a trip. K27 118 Just concentrate on making yourself well again."

K27 119 "Gone where?"

K27 120 "Abroad. A long way away."

K27 121 "Then where will I live? Who will look after K27 122 me?"

K27 123 "Don't worry. Soon you'll be well enough to go to K27 124 school. See your old friends and teachers again. You'd like that, K27 125 wouldn't you?"

K27 126 "No." said Stella stubbornly. "I K27 127 wouldn't."

K27 128 But her recovery was slow. Much slower, she heard the doctors K27 129 say, than they had expected. One day she would feel fine and K27 130 strong, ready to face the world and all it could throw at her, and K27 131 the next all her hope and strength seemed to have drained away in K27 132 the night. If she tried to get up on such a day she would faint K27 133 before her feet had touched the floor, or vomit into one of the K27 134 zinc buckets that the nurses kept at her side. On the good days she K27 135 made friends with the children in the adjacent beds. But no sooner K27 136 had she learnt their names, exchanged addresses and favourite K27 137 colours, than they had gone, transferred to another hospital, or K27 138 made well and taken away by their parents while she was asleep. So K27 139 the nurses became her friends, and the little dramas she saw played K27 140 out through the window above her head; swollen flocks of migrating K27 141 birds, high, attenuated clouds strewn like tissue across the sky, K27 142 and the ruddy splendour of the sunsets through the trees. At night, K27 143 when the ward slept, she would carefully pull back the blinds and K27 144 stare out at the sky, trying to remember the names of the stars and K27 145 planets that the dead policeman had fixed in her mind. Neptune, K27 146 Leo, The Great Bear. On a clear night she watched the moon rise K27 147 above the trees, breathless, impatient, as a shadow covered its K27 148 face and she saw her first eclipse. A dog barked in the distance, K27 149 and she slipped beneath the sheets, shivering, exhilarated. The K27 150 next day she was dying to tell someone. But the adjacent beds were K27 151 empty, and to tell the nurses would have been self-defeating, they K27 152 would have given her sleeping pills, or else lashed the blinds more K27 153 firmly to the window. So she said nothing. Kept the encounters K27 154 hidden, like a little book of experiences that grew fatter by the K27 155 night. The darkness gave her strength and hope. But in the daylight K27 156 she would listen to the laughter of the children playing in a K27 157 nearby school, and cry at the thought of the world she'd lost. The K27 158 other world, outside the margins of the window.

K27 159 Then one day her mother appeared in the ward. Stella didn't K27 160 recognize her at first, it had been so long since she'd seen her, K27 161 and her face was lined and drawn where once it had been smooth and K27 162 full. But her voice hadn't changed. She sat at the side of the bed, K27 163 clutching another baby and sucking pear-drops. "So, you're K27 164 all right, then?" she kept saying. "There's nothing K27 165 that you want?"

K27 166 "I want to go home."

K27 167 Her mother pulled the pear-drop from her mouth and looked at K27 168 it. "Well, you can't. You're ill. The doctor says you must K27 169 stay."

K27 170 "Where's dad?"

K27 171 "Abroad. He's gone abroad."

K27 172 She made one last visit, and then stopped coming. Now Stella's K27 173 memories are confined to those two brief encounters and the last K27 174 few days before her father's arrest. She can picture her mother K27 175 quite clearly then, in a scarve<&|>sic! and pinafore, K27 176 breast-feeding the baby at the kitchen table. Stella often wondered K27 177 what became of her younger sister. She had dreams in which she K27 178 appeared as a rich widow, to pluck her from penury and the K27 179 hospital. She did try once to contact her, but the man in the K27 180 council offices said it was too long ago, there weren't enough K27 181 details. She was ashamed now to think about it, but when he'd asked K27 182 her sister's name she couldn't remember.

K27 183 And memory is everything. It determines who we are. Without it K27 184 we might as well be dead. And each year a little more is chipped K27 185 away, like a spit of land eroded by the sea. Stella glances across K27 186 at Annie, and with a shiver sees herself in ten years time. Once K27 187 she was young, pretty perhaps, with boyfriends and fond memories. K27 188 But now everything she has known has been fragmented into a K27 189 desultory jumble, like a recording type, broken and reassembled at K27 190 random. K27 191 K28 1 <#FLOB:K28\>A Mistake

K28 2 It was not my door in the long corridor that I opened and, K28 3 seeing a woman's blue camel-hair coat on the stand, and catching a K28 4 faint whiff of hyacinth, I muttered "a mistake" and K28 5 began to withdraw. But I had no time to retreat across the K28 6 threshold before a familiar shy voice said "No, not a K28 7 mistake. I've been waiting for you."

K28 8 "Mother!" I cried, and with a joyful impulse I K28 9 stepped into the room and closed the door behind me. She was K28 10 sitting at the desk, dressed for work in a short-sleeved blouse. On K28 11 her face was the slightly enigmatic, though on the whole kindly, K28 12 expression with which she greeted my little bids for independence. K28 13 She was without her glasses, and her wide-open browless eyes were K28 14 of an intense, almost unnatural blue, as though painted over by K28 15 someone wishing to emphasise her better features. It was not my K28 16 office in which she sat, but a bigger, brighter place, higher up K28 17 the building, and the typewriter on which her fingers rested was of K28 18 an older model that we no longer used downstairs.

K28 19 "Sit down," she said, pointing to the visitor's K28 20 chair. "No, don't kiss me. It won't be K28 21 necessary."

K28 22 And she laughed, her old raucous laugh, of a woman who believes K28 23 that she alone of all the world is risible. The chair was warm, as K28 24 though someone had just vacated it, and the arm-rests seemed to K28 25 cradle my arms like the hands of a rescuer. How agreeable K28 26 everything was in this room! The spaces seemed larger, the K28 27 furniture more comfortable and better arranged than in the corridor K28 28 below. And the little reminders of the world outside - the prints K28 29 of Oxford Colleges on the wall, the gay Venetian vase before her, K28 30 in which a few pale tulips stood, the bookcase with its Edwardian K28 31 Volumes of poetry - all bore the mark of her anxious good nature, K28 32 which could settle itself in any place, and fill it with a fragile K28 33 sense of home. Impulsively I jumped up again, and began to pace on K28 34 the Turkey carpet.

K28 35 The view from this floor was especially harmonious. It seemed K28 36 as though our little town had been designed precisely to be viewed K28 37 from such a height, and was at last able to offer me (who had lived K28 38 in it grudgingly for forty years) a pleasing prospect of ivy-clad K28 39 houses, busy courtyard and churches of yellow stone. I seemed to K28 40 recall the prospect too, perhaps from an old postcard - though how K28 41 on earth it could have been captured in those days, before the K28 42 office tower existed (a tower, I should add, which has spoiled the K28 43 harmony of our townscape for ever) I had no idea.

K28 44 "How extraordinary to find you here," I said; K28 45 "though come to think of it, I heard a rumour that you K28 46 might move in, now the firm has expanded, and we have acquired the K28 47 floors above. Of course, it is typical that you didn't bother to K28 48 tell me. I suppose you were afraid of seeming pushy, afraid of K28 49 encroaching, as you put it, on my independence. Honestly Mother!" K28 50 As though that mattered now! But then you were waiting for me, you K28 51 say, in the very room into which I have strayed, suffering from K28 52 some post-prandial confusion not unconnected with my habit K28 53 (I regret to say it Mother) of drinking far too much at lunch-time. K28 54 Well, you don't really expect me to believe you! On the other hand, K28 55 it is just possible that you have been following my movements K28 56 today. I must admit that it wouldn't have been difficult, me being K28 57 so sluggish, and - to be quite frank Mother - somewhat depressed of K28 58 late, taking such a long time to make even the smallest decision, K28 59 like for instance whether to have lunch at the George, or whether K28 60 to go instead to the Coach and Horses which you have never cared K28 61 for. No, it wouldn't have been difficult to keep track of me today, K28 62 nor to rush ahead without my knowledge, to install yourself in the K28 63 office into which I was about to blunder - just the kind of impish K28 64 trick you always play on me. And no doubt with some fantastic plan, K28 65 to tempt me away form work - maybe to the bookshop at Haysborough, K28 66 though as you know it's rather a sorry affair these days, with K28 67 nothing but biographies of yesterday's men. Or maybe - for I can K28 68 see a mischievous twinkle in your eye - you are planning something K28 69 rather more ambitious: one of those jaunts to Oxford or Woodstock, K28 70 to get a breath of old stone as you say, though how you imagine we K28 71 could get there now that the Morris has gone to the Great Car Park K28 72 in the Sky I don't for the life of me know ..."

K28 73 All this and more came out in a rush. And while the words were K28 74 far beyond anything I had meant to say, constituting indeed a K28 75 breach of the longstanding rule of silence between us, I felt them K28 76 to be entirely natural. How often does it happen, meeting a K28 77 familiar person by chance, and in circumstances which do not lend K28 78 themselves to conversation, that you suddenly give way to the K28 79 impulse to say everything in your heart? There had been so much I K28 80 had wanted to express to her, and which, for one reason or another, K28 81 I had never dared to say: not the great things (for who can say K28 82 great things to his mother?) but all the little, gentle, joyful K28 83 things which would cause her such pleasure, which she mutely begged K28 84 to hear from me and which in my embarrassment I had always K28 85 withheld. I wanted to tell her how beautiful she was, how beautiful K28 86 she had always been, how secretly proud of her I felt - and not K28 87 only of her beauty; of her intelligence too. For really, when she K28 88 puts her mind to it, there is no one better than Mother at finding K28 89 solutions. Take any problem - how to buy chicken giblets, for K28 90 instance, how to get the best price in curtain material, how to K28 91 write a business letter, how to resolve a labour dispute, how to K28 92 conduct the symphonies of Beethoven (for Mother knows those K28 93 wonderful scores by heart) - and she will give her queer, hesitant K28 94 and impeccably conservative answer to it, utterly indifferent as K28 95 she has always been to the world's temporary opinion. And I was K28 96 proud of that too: her conviction, come down from recusant K28 97 forefathers, that the good sense of the present may be in every K28 98 particular the exact opposite of the truth, and that we had no K28 99 better guide, when all was said and done, than the secretly K28 100 enduring things, in which God has concealed his will. Not that she K28 101 believes in God, any more that I do - at least, not in any literal K28 102 sense. And that is a remarkable thing too, the almost religious K28 103 vision we share, of a world entirely fallen, ourselves striving for K28 104 righteousness, at odds with our times, and capable in our isolation K28 105 of a kind of crazy joy, like the joy of the Credo, a private K28 106 hallelujah, and neither of us believers!

K28 107 I knew instinctively that this thought, which had just occurred K28 108 to me, was running through her mind as well, that she even K28 109 associated it with the very images which came tumbling into my K28 110 consciousness: the sea at Brancombe, pouring green over blue, and K28 111 rushing at the pebbles like a kitten at play; the little boarding K28 112 house with the smell of magnolias, and its sepulchral suppers when K28 113 we whispered and giggled like children under the stony eyes of the K28 114 guests; and the long walk that day over the moors, the farmstead K28 115 which was our assumed destination (though we needed none); the old K28 116 couple, brother and sister, who welcomed us into the kitchen, who K28 117 fed us from the dishcloth-flavoured bacon which hung in flitches K28 118 from the beams, and who sang with us at the harmonium, hymns and K28 119 parlour songs, our lungs straining in cheerful rivalry, until the K28 120 sun began to slope towards the near horizon, and we stalked it home K28 121 to the sea - how wonderful it was to remember this together, and to K28 122 be once more enfolded in the oneness of the world!

K28 123 I had sat down, but was so excited that I again leapt up before K28 124 she could reply to my stream of questions at all, but invitations K28 125 to the deeper silence that lay beyond this necessary flood of K28 126 words. The view from her office delighted me. It showed the town as K28 127 we had known it, every detail still in place, and I gestured to her K28 128 vigorously as I described the scene. I had the impression that she K28 129 rose slightly in her chair, as though tempted to join me at the K28 130 window, but then thought better of it and sat quietly, enjoying my K28 131 words. There was Hapgoods the grocers, with the Regency shop whose K28 132 torn canvas awnings were often carried away by the breeze. There K28 133 were the churches: the Parish church of sandstone, with lancet K28 134 windows, surrounded by its audience of graves; the Methodist K28 135 church, upright, classical, with yellow half-columns strapping its K28 136 walls; and the Catholic church, our church, in Victorian freestone K28 137 and flint, jabbing its stubby tower like a self-satisfied thumb K28 138 into the skyblue waistcoat of the heavens, claiming discrete but K28 139 exclusive ownership. And there was Pelham Street, with our old K28 140 house still standing, so clearly visible from this angle that I K28 141 could count every tile on the roof and even, it seemed to me, peer K28 142 through the windows and guess at the life inside - for instance K28 143 there was a woman, combing her hair before Mother's lacquer K28 144 dressing table.

K28 145 I could make out the little paddock with Bill Maidstone's K28 146 ponies, a white fence surrounding it, and the shed painted in K28 147 circus colours as it always was. In fact, it seemed to me that I K28 148 saw the old pony, Scamp, who pulled Bill's rag-and-bone cart around K28 149 our street all those years ago - Scamp with his neolithic neck, his K28 150 vast bony indented head like a rhinoceros, and three white socks on K28 151 his dung-coloured legs. But of course Scamp was dead: the pony was K28 152 evidently another from the same stock, a mortal instance of the K28 153 eternal Form of Scamp. I beckoned Mother over to comment on this K28 154 interesting fact. Before I had finished explaining, however, my eye K28 155 was caught by another detail - the allotment, our allotment, right K28 156 there behind St Hilda's Church of England Primary School, with the K28 157 rhubarb patch still sprouting and the cucumber cloches laid out K28 158 neatly in rows.

K28 159 "Who do you think is working it now? No, don't tell me: K28 160 it is Jack Baines, who took it over when - when it happened and we K28 161 were rid of Father for ever. He had been wanting our allotment for K28 162 some time, I remember, on account of its being the sunniest spot, K28 163 just that little bit lighter, and less damp too, than the patches K28 164 along the road, and blessed, as you would say, with those K28 165 elder-bushes at the top, they're still there I notice, from which K28 166 old Jack could gather fruit for his home-made wine ..."

K28 167 Of course, it was a mistake to mention Father, however K28 168 obliquely, and I was not surprised when, having several times made K28 169 as if to speak, she now remained silent, her eyes turned down to K28 170 the typewriter, and her fingers playing sadly and distractedly over K28 171 the keys. I wanted to embrace her, to stroke her grey hair, to K28 172 smooth her still youthful brow, to tell her how little those K28 173 painful years mattered, how the good things were always with us, K28 174 shining through the temporary clouds, and warming our spirits into K28 175 joy. I took a step towards her, talking still, though God knows K28 176 why, of Jack Baines, his vinegary wine and vinegary opinions (for K28 177 Jack had been a Baptist preacher before his wife's death, and still K28 178 retained, in his despair, a belief that God should be instantly K28 179 informed of every wickedness), and with my heart full of tenderness K28 180 and concern for her, of a desire above all to wipe away the memory K28 181 of those suffering to which I had been so helpless a witness - when K28 182 suddenly my eye was caught by the Mickey-Mouse transfer on the K28 183 black enamel side of the typewriter.

K28 184 K29 1 <#FLOB:K29\>I had left a baking tray in the oven that morning K29 2 and by now it should have become a miniature Death Valley of K29 3 hard-baked morphine granules. I opened the oven door to find a dark K29 4 brown ruckled surface, gratifyingly broken here and there into K29 5 regular patterns of scales, like the skin of some moribund lizard. K29 6 I used a steel spatula to scrape the material up and placed it K29 7 carefully in a small plastic bowl (the one decorated with a K29 8 sequence of leaping bunny rabbits; after the divorce, my wife K29 9 divided the chattels: she took the adult-sized plates and cutlery, K29 10 leaving me with our children's diminutive ware).

K29 11 Although I've had no formal training in chemistry, I have, by a K29 12 process of hit and miss, developed a method that allows me to K29 13 precipitate a soluble tartrate from raw morphine granules. But K29 14 there's a problem. Because I obtain my morphine supplies from K29 15 bottles of kaolin purchased in sundry chemists (if the bottles sit K29 16 for long enough most of the morphine rises to the top), the stuff K29 17 still contains an appreciable amount of chalk. Months of injecting K29 18 have given my body an odd aspect. With every shot, more chalk has K29 19 been deposited along the walls of my veins, much in the manner of K29 20 earth being piled up to form an embankment or a cutting around a K29 21 roadway, mapping out the history of my addiction. Having K29 22 methodically worked my way through the veins in my arms and legs, K29 23 turning them the tan colour of drover's paths, then the darker K29 24 brown of cart tracks, until eventually they've become macadamized, K29 25 blackened, by my abuse. I can now stand on my broken bathroom K29 26 scales and see a network of calcified conduits radiating from my K29 27 groin. Some have been scored into my flesh like underpasses; others K29 28 are raised up on hardened revetments of flesh: bloody flyovers.

K29 29 I have been driven to using huge five millilitre barrels, each K29 30 one fitted with the long, blue-collared needles necessary for K29 31 hitting the arteries. Should I miss, the consequences for my K29 32 circulatory system could be disastrous. I might lose a limb; there K29 33 could be tailbacks. I wonder sometimes if I may be losing my K29 34 incident room.

K29 35 And can you blame me? There is, moreover, the matter of the K29 36 thesis. Not only is the subject obscure (some might say risible), K29 37 but I have no grant or commission. Why am I doing it? It would be K29 38 all right if I were some dilettante, privately endowed, who could K29 39 afford to toy with such things, but I am not. Rather, I have both K29 40 myself to support and the maintenance to keep up. If the K29 41 maintenance isn't kept up my ex-wife will become as obdurate as any K29 42 consulting civil engineer. She has it within her power to arrange K29 43 bollards around me, even to insist on tolls. There could be K29 44 questions in the bungalow - something I cannot abide.

K29 45 But last night none of this troubled me. I was lost in the arms K29 46 of Morphia. Around I swept, pinned by g-force into the tight K29 47 circularity of history. In my reverie I saw the M40 as it will be K29 48 (still no services; all six carriageways and the hard shoulder are K29 49 grassed over; only shallow depressions visible from the air), K29 50 perhaps some twenty thousand years from now, when the second K29 51 neolithic age has dawned over Europe.

K29 52 Relative K29 53 "Can I pay for these?"

K29 54 "Whassat?"

K29 55 "Can I pay for these - these de-scalers?" Time K29 56 is standing still in the hardware store. It is dark and scented K29 57 with nails and resinous timber. I had no idea that the transaction K29 58 was going to prove so gruelling. The proprietor is looking at me K29 59 the same way that the pharmacist does when I go to buy my K29 60 kaolin.

K29 61 "Why d'you want three?" Is it my imagination, K29 62 or does his voice really have an edge of suspicion?

K29 63 "I've got an incredible amount of scale in my kettle, K29 64 that's why." I muster an insouciance I don't feel. Since I K29 65 have been accused, I know that I am guilty. I know that I lure K29 66 young children away from the precincts of the model village and K29 67 subject them to appalling, brutal, intercrural sex. I abrade their K29 68 armpits, their knee pits, the juncture of their thighs, with my K29 69 spun mini-rolls of wire. That's why I need three.

K29 70 Guilt dogs me as I struggle to ascent the High Street. Guilt K29 71 about my children. Ever since my loss of sense of scale, I have K29 72 found it difficult to relate to my children. They no longer feel K29 73 comfortable visiting me here in Beaconsfield. They say they would K29 74 rather stay with their mother. The model village, which used to K29 75 entrance them, now bores them.

K29 76 It was the boy who blew the whistle on me, grassed me up to his K29 77 mother. At seven, he is old enough to know the difference between K29 78 the smell of tobacco and the smell that comes from my pipe. K29 79 Naturally he told his mother, and she realized immediately that I K29 80 was back on the M.

K29 81 In a way I don't blame him - it is a filthy habit. And the K29 82 business of siphoning off the morphine from the bottles and then K29 83 baking it in the oven until it forms a smokable paste - well, I K29 84 mean, it's pathetic, the DIY addiction. No wonder that there are no K29 85 pleasure domes for me, in my briccolage reverie. Instead I see K29 86 twice five yards of fertile ground, with sheds and raspberry canes K29 87 girded round. In a word: an allotment.

K29 88 When my father died he subdivided his allotment and left a K29 89 fifth of it to each of his children. The Association wouldn't allow K29 90 it. They said that allotments were only leased rather than owned. K29 91 It's a great pity, because what with the subsidies available and K29 92 the new intensive agricultural methods, I could have probably made K29 93 a reasonable living out of my fifth. I can see myself: making hay K29 94 with a kitchen fork; spreading silage with a tea spoon; bringing in K29 95 the harvest with a wheelbarrow; ploughing with a trowel tied to a K29 96 two-by-four. Bonsai cattle wend o'er the lee of the compost heap as K29 97 I recline in the pet cemetery ...

K29 98 It was not to be.

K29 99 Returning home from High Wycombe, I add the contents of my two, K29 100 new bottles of kaolin and morphine to the plant. Other people have K29 101 ginger beer plants; I have a morphine plant. I made my morphine K29 102 plant out of a plastic sterilizing unit. It would be a nice irony, K29 103 this transmogrification of taboo, were it not for the fact that K29 104 every time I clap eyes on the thing I remember with startling K29 105 accuracy what it looked like, full of teats and bottles, when the K29 106 children were babies and I was a happier man.

K29 107 I mentioned the dividing of chattels following the divorce. K29 108 This explains why I ended up, here in Beaconsfield, with the K29 109 decorative Tupperware, the baby bouncer, sundry activity centres K29 110 and the aforementioned sterilizing unit. Whereas my ex-wife resides K29 111 in St John's Wood, reclining on an emperor-sized K29 112 bateaulit; my vessel, when I cast off and head out on to K29 113 the sea of sleep, is a plastic changing mat, decorated with a K29 114 regular pattern of Fred Flintstones and Barney Rubbles.

K29 115 It's fortunate that the five 'police procedurals' that I wrote K29 116 during my marriage are still selling well. Without the royalties I K29 117 don't think I would be able to keep the members of my ex-family in K29 118 the manner to which they have become accustomed. I cannot imagine K29 119 that the book I am currently working on, Murder on the Median K29 120 Strip, will do a fraction as well. (I say that confidently but K29 121 what fraction do I mean? Certainly not a half or a quarter, but why K29 122 not a two hundredth or a four hundredth? This is certainly K29 123 conceivable. I must try and be more accurate with my figures of K29 124 speech. I must use them as steel rulers to delimit thought. K29 125 Wooliness will be my undoing.)

K29 126 In Murder on the Median Strip (or M on the K29 127 MS as I refer to it), a young woman is raped, murdered and K29 128 buried on the median strip of the M40, in between Junction 2 K29 129 (Beaconsfield) and Junction 3 (High Wycombe): a howdunnit, rather K29 130 than a whodunnit. The murder occurs late on a Friday evening when K29 131 the motorway is still crowded with ex-urbanites heading for home. K29 132 The police are patrolling, looking for speeders. Indeed, they have K29 133 set up a radar trap between the two principal bridges on this K29 134 section of road. And yet no one notices a thing.

K29 135 When the shallow, bitumen-encrusted grave is discovered, the K29 136 police, indulging in their penchant for overkill, decide to K29 137 reconstruct the entire incident. They put out a call on K29 138 Crimewatch UK for all those who were on the motorway in K29 139 that place, at that time, to re-assemble at Junction 2. The public K29 140 response is overwhelming and by virtue of careful interviewing - K29 141 the recollection of number-plates, makes of car, children making K29 142 faces and so forth - they establish that they have managed to net K29 143 all the cars and drivers that could have been there. The logistics K29 144 are immensely complicated, but eventually, by dint of K29 145 computer-aided visualizations, the police are able to re-enact the K29 146 whole incident. The cars set off at staggered intervals; the police K29 147 hover overhead in helicopters; patrol cars and officers on foot K29 148 question any passers-by. But, horror of horrors, while the K29 149 reconstruction is actually taking place, the killer strikes again. K29 150 This time between Junction 6 (Watlington) and Junction 7 (Thame). K29 151 Once more his victim is a young woman, who he sexually assaults, K29 152 strangles and then crudely inters beneath the static, steel fender K29 153 of the crash barrier.

K29 154 That's as far as I've got with M on the MS. K29 155 Sometimes, contemplating the MS, I begin to feel that I've painted K29 156 myself into a corner with this convoluted plot. I realize that I K29 157 may have tried to stretch the credulity of my potential readers too K29 158 far.

K29 159 In a way the difficulties of the plot mirror my own K29 160 difficulties as a writer. In creating such an unworkable and K29 161 fantastic scenario I have managed, at least, to fulfil my father's K29 162 expectations of my craft.

K29 163 "There's no sense of scale in your books," he K29 164 said to me, shortly before he died. At that time I had only written K29 165 two procedurals, both featuring Inspector Archimedes, my K29 166 idiosyncratic Greek Cypriot detective. "You can have K29 167 limited success," he went on, "chipping away like K29 168 this at the edges of society, chiselling off microscopic fragments K29 169 of observation. But really important writing provides some sense of K29 170 the relation between individual psychology and social change, of K29 171 the scale of things in general. You can see that if you look at the K29 172 great nineteenth-century novels." He puffed on his pipe as K29 173 he spoke; observing his wrinkled, scaly hide, his red lips and the K29 174 yellow teeth masticating the black stem, I was reminded of a K29 175 basking lizard, sticking its tongue out at the world.

K29 176 A letter arrived this morning from the Municipality, demanding K29 177 payment of their head tax. When I first moved here a man came from K29 178 the borough valuer's to assess the rateable value of the property. K29 179 By dint of quick work with the trellises, I managed to make it look K29 180 as if Number 50, Crendon Road, was in fact one of the houses in the K29 181 model village.

K29 182 To begin with the official disputed the idea that I could K29 183 possibly be living in this pocket-sized manse, but I managed to K29 184 convince him that I was a doctoral student writing a thesis on 'The K29 185 Apprehension of Scale in Gulliver's Travels, with special K29 186 reference to Lilliput'; and that the operators of the model village K29 187 had leased the house to me so that I could gain first-hand K29 188 experience of Gulliver's state of mind. I even entered the house K29 189 and adopted some attitudes - head on the kitchen table, left leg K29 190 rammed through the french windows - in order to persuade him.

K29 191 The result of this clever charade was that for two years my K29 192 rates were assessed on the basis of seven feet, eight inches square K29 193 of living space. K29 194 K29 195