‘Mr Freestone wants to talk to his wife,’ the nurse has said. She takes her arm.

  ‘I was telling him he’d better look out,’ she says.

  ‘Oh, he knows that well enough,’ the nurse has said.

  She leads her back towards the bed.

  ‘I’ve seen him here before.’

  ‘Oh, he’ll be coming up quite often,’ the nurse has said.

  Their conversation drones on for a while from the other bed.

  ‘Is there anything you need?’ I say.

  ‘I’ve got everything in the cupboard,’ she says.

  I open the door of the cabinet beside her bed.

  Her clothes are folded up inside, though not her dress.

  There’s no sign, either, of her coat or shoes; her slippers have been tucked beneath the bed. There’s her handbag, a toothbrush and a torn-up packet of cigarettes. On top of the cabinet is a cup of cold tea standing in a saucer.

  ‘Do you need any washing done?’ I say.

  ‘They’ve taken it away.’

  She waves her hand, vaguely, towards the door.

  ‘You’ve put on weight.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The food.’

  ‘I don’t eat much.’

  She glances down the ward.

  ‘Did my mother say she’d come?’

  The shadows darken around her eyes.

  ‘I haven’t seen her yet,’ I tell her.

  ‘Will you see her tonight?’

  ‘I can give her a message.’

  ‘I don’t know why she doesn’t come,’ she says.

  ‘Have they been up to see you from the ward below?’

  She shakes her head. Her thoughts, it seems, have wandered off.

  ‘I wrote her a letter. I can’t remember when it was,’ she says.

  She rubs her head.

  ‘It wasn’t long ago.’

  The nurse, smiling, has wandered back.

  She widens her eyes, still smiling, then nods her head.

  ‘Time for your husband to go,’ she says. ‘He’s been granted a special privilege, you know. Visiting at this time. You realize that?’

  I lean over Yvonne and kiss her cheek.

  The nurse, still smiling, pats down a pillow.

  She pulls up the covers; Yvonne slips back.

  ‘I’ll come up soon,’ I say. ‘And bring some flowers.’

  ‘She’s so much better,’ the nurse has said.

  When I reach the end of the ward the woman with the makeup waves. Yvonne herself is lying on her back, her face hidden now by the angle of the pillow.

  I wave in any case, get another wave back, and go out through the door to the stairs to the sound of women’s laughter.

  The bracketed light that normally burns above the rear entrance of the college has suddenly gone out. As I lock the modelling-shed door I hear a step in the yard itself and turn round to see a figure, its arm raised, standing immediately above me. I hit out instinctively, the keys still in my hand.

  The figure moves back: it goes on one knee; a second figure materializes from the darkness by its side. There seem, in that instant, to be four or five.

  I move back against the wall; I swing my fist. The keys fly off.

  Somebody’s boot comes up between my legs.

  There’s a flash, like a sheet of lightning, inside my head. It comes again. A moment later I’m lying on the ground. Other boots appear. A club comes down.

  A light goes on across the yard; feet run off. An engine starts in the street outside.

  Hendricks is standing on the steps; he holds the door open behind him, the light shining out across the yard.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I’ve fallen down.’

  He flicks the switch. ‘The light’s gone out.’

  ‘That probably explains it.’ I indicate the steps.

  ‘Can I give you a hand?’

  ‘I was locking up the modelling shed,’ I tell him. ‘I’ve gone and lost the keys.’

  ‘I’ve a torch in the car,’ he says. ‘I’ll look around.’

  A few minutes later a pale beam of light starts wandering round the yard.

  ‘Got them,’ he says.

  He comes across.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  He holds my arm.

  ‘You could sue the college, you know, for that. They’re responsible for lighting the steps,’ he says.

  He holds the door.

  One of my eyes, it seems, is closed; the other’s half-obscured by a swelling below.

  ‘My God,’ he says. He gazes at my face in the corridor light.

  ‘I’ll go into the bogs,’ I tell him, ‘and wash it up.’

  I step into the toilets and fill a bowl; in the corridor outside, as I wash my face, I can hear Wilcox talking to one of the cleaners then, seconds later, Hendricks’s voice: ‘Mr Freestone’s fallen down the steps, Mr Wilcox. The light doesn’t work.’

  ‘What light?’

  ‘The outside light, Mr Wilcox,’ Hendricks says.

  ‘It worked all right a minute ago,’ the Principal says. ‘I switched it on myself.’

  I’m aware of his figure, vaguely, as he stands inside the door.

  ‘I’ve been telling him he ought to sue the college, Mr Wilcox,’ Hendricks says.

  ‘He’ll do no such bloody thing. I can tell you that.’

  ‘If he’s fallen down the steps and the light doesn’t work, it’s the college’s responsibility,’ Hendricks says.

  ‘Are you trying to blame me, then, Hendricks?’ Wilcox says.

  ‘I thought you’d be on our side. Against the college,’ Hendricks says.

  ‘I am the college, Hendricks,’ Wilcox says.

  There’s a moment’s silence. The white-tiled room with its row of basins, its two glaring figures, seems slowly to be spinning round and round.

  ‘There’s a first-aid kit in my office,’ Wilcox says.

  ‘If Hendricks can take me home,’ I tell him, ‘I think I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Are you sure, then, Freestone?’ Wilcox says. He sounds relieved.

  He watches me move out to the corridor and then, feeling the wall, along the corridor towards the door.

  Hendricks, after a moment, holds my arm.

  ‘I say, shouldn’t you go to the hospital?’ he says.

  ‘You don’t want the hospital brought into it, Hendricks,’ Wilcox says. His voice is reasonable, cajoling. It’s developed, almost, a kind of whine. ‘A lot of fuddy-duddies there. Fuss about nothing, I can tell you that.’

  ‘I’ll be all right, old man,’ I tell him.

  He holds the door.

  Once in the car my mind goes blank; there’s an aching in my head, a blur of light, then Hendricks is leaning over me and saying, ‘We’re there, old man. You’ll be all right.’

  I catch a glimpse of Ferguson’s moustache; a lighted stair.

  A clock booms out. I count the hours.

  Elizabeth, when I wake, is sitting by the bed.

  ‘Why didn’t you call me?’ she says. ‘I could have come yesterday, if you’d only got in touch.’

  She kisses my one good eye, hesitates over the other, then runs her lips, circumspectly, across my cheek.

  ‘Was it Nev?’

  ‘Or Leyland.’

  ‘Did you see his face?’

  ‘There were four of them, at least,’ I say.

  She kisses my mouth, my hand: she presses her lips once more against my eye.

  ‘I’d have thought,’ she says, ‘it would have been Leyland.’

  ‘I can’t understand,’ I tell her, ‘what they hope to gain.’

  She draws back her head; her eyes are dark; recently, it seems, she might have been crying.

  ‘Do you think it’s Nev?’

  ‘I don’t really mind. One or the other. They’re two of a kind.’

  The cathedral clock begins to boom. It’s almost dark. The eerily-lit face of the clock glows out, yellowish, from the darkness of the building.

  She hasn’t, as yet, removed her hat; her coat she’s already taken off. Underneath she wears a dark brown dress: the sleeves are transparent and, like nearly all her dresses, buttoned at the wrist. There’s a small brooch, in the shape of a silver wing, pinned beside her collar. She’s on her way, I imagine, to some other appointment: she wears no make-up; even her eyes, usually masked in with mascara, she’s left untouched.

  She goes to the kitchen. There’s a tinkle of a glass: a bottle’s opened; when she comes back in she offers me a drink.

  She watches me then for a while from the angle of the door.

  ‘Would you ever leave him, Liz?’ I say.

  ‘Neville?’ she says.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘Has he got too much?’

  She begins to smile.

  ‘He’s hoping, I think, to get me fired.’

  ‘I don’t think,’ she says, ‘he’s got much chance. You’ve nothing to lose. You’ll keep your job. You have my promise on that,’ she adds.

  She moves to the window.

  ‘They’ve changed our man.’

  She’s gazing down.

  ‘The one we have now has got red hair. Just like the man below.’

  She turns to the bed.

  ‘I suppose it’s all a game,’ she says.

  ‘For me,’ I tell her, ‘it’s a way of life.’

  ‘You don’t know what he’s like. He hates to be crossed. He can’t bear to lose. He’ll never let me go whatever I do.’

  She sits on the bed. For a moment, faded, she’s poised there like a child, slender, antagonistic, her arms thrust out.

  ‘He’ll never release me.’ She glances down. ‘It’s something he almost seeks,’ she says.

  She stays the night.

  The following morning, as we’re lying in bed, the door bursts open and Rebecca comes in.

  For some time I’ve been listening to the lock, to the key being turned, to a piece of wire; only as she enters do I call out from the bed.

  She says nothing for a while. I think, for several seconds, she doesn’t recognize her mother at all; only slowly does she come across.

  Elizabeth lies back.

  Her eyes half-closed, she gazes over at Rebecca and shakes her head.

  It’s like waiting for a child, impatiently, to be taken from a room.

  Rebecca turns to the door; I get up from the bed.

  By the time I’ve reached the landing she’s half-way down the stairs. There’s a vague, ‘Anything I can do, Miss?’ from Ferguson in the hall, and the outer door of the house is closed.

  I see her from the window, crossing to the car; she climbs inside: the door’s pulled to.

  ‘I never knew she had a key,’ Elizabeth says. She lies back in bed.

  ‘She’s got in the habit,’ I tell her, ‘of picking the lock.’

  ‘Hasn’t the lock been changed?’

  ‘I never saw the need.’

  The car drives off.

  I go back to the bed.

  ‘Have you got a light?’ she says. She reaches for her bag, releases the catch, takes out a cigarette.

  I flick the lighter.

  ‘My God, you’ve had it all the time,’ she says.

  She holds it in her hand.

  ‘Honestly,’ she says. She slips it in her bag.

  She smokes for a while; I begin to dress.

  ‘Is there somewhere you have to go?’ she says.

  ‘I’ve an appointment,’ I tell her, ‘to see my wife.’

  ‘Is she going to get better?’

  ‘I don’t think,’ I tell her, ‘she’ll ever get well.’

  ‘Do you mind a great deal?’ She turns her head. ‘You could even divorce her. Nowadays, incompatibility isn’t difficult to prove.’

  When I mention Rebecca she begins to smile.

  ‘Honestly, what can a mother do? Should I take precautions? It’s a wonder we don’t have bulletins pinned up outside.’

  She begins to laugh.

  ‘It’s the only thing Neville will never countenance,’ she says. ‘I’d love to be there when he gets his report.’

  ‘I’ll see you tonight,’ I tell her, ‘if you’ve time to pop in.’

  ‘There’s a party at the house,’ she says. ‘For Beccie.’ She adds, ‘It’s her birthday, you see: I thought you knew.’

  ‘That’s probably why she came,’ I say.

  ‘An invitation!’

  She begins to laugh.

  ‘And would you have gone, supposing she had? Invited you, I mean,’ she says.

  ‘I might.’

  ‘You’re a glutton for punishment: I’ll grant you that.’

  She puts up her arms.

  ‘I’ll see you,’ she says, ‘as soon as I can.’

  I can still hear her laughing as I close the door.

  Ferguson comes out of his room as I reach the porch. I keep on going when I hear his door and am round the corner before I hear his shout.

  I get on the bus and climb upstairs: with one eye closed and the other half-shut I watch the outskirts of the town pass by, and it’s not until the asylum’s reached that I realize, in my present state, I might do more to alarm than reassure and, having paused at that empty gate, gazing in myopically towards that fettered house, set off back, on foot, towards the town.

  2

  ‘I don’t know what they’ve been doing to her,’ Mrs Sherman says. ‘She scarcely seems to know me. On top of which, she’s put on all this weight.’

  She sits beneath the armorial reliefs, unaware of the fur-coated figures at the adjoining tables; she hasn’t, as yet, removed her scarf which, in addition to being fastened at her throat, is pinned to the top of her head with a metal brooch. Her handbag, the size of a small suitcase, she’s placed on the table beside her plate. The waitress, when she comes across with her tray of coffee, is at a loss for a moment where to put it. Finally, with a kind of groan, Mrs Sherman picks up the bag and sets it on the floor beside her.

  She rubs her hand across her nose, half-weeping, then searches in her pocket.

  ‘I had one with me,’ she says. ‘I don’t know where it’s gone.’

  I hand her mine.

  She blows her nose.

  ‘She’s changed out of all recognition. She’s never had all that weight. Not even as a girl. I didn’t recognize her, you know, when I first went in.’

  She gazes at the coffee, picks up a spoon, stirs the cup, replaces the spoon then gazes vacantly before her.

  ‘I’m sure, now, she shouldn’t have come out. She wasn’t well enough. If we’d only been patient she’d still be in that admission ward. You can see into the garden you know, from there. From where she is now, it’s like a prison. I felt so awful when I first went in. And all those other patients.’ She runs the handkerchief across her mouth.

  She wipes her eyes.

  ‘Have you seen Doctor Lennox at all?’ she says.

  ‘It was over a week ago,’ I tell her.

  ‘I asked to see him. They said he was busy. If you want an appointment, they told me, it’d take three weeks. She might be dead by then. Or so ill from seeing those people around her she’ll not recover.’

  ‘She’s already much improved,’ I say.

  ‘But she doesn’t know me. When I talk to her she doesn’t listen. I try to imagine at times what she must be thinking. But it’s all a blank. It’s like talking to a wall, or somebody you’ve never seen before. There’s no contact between us, and we’ve been so close before. Particularly since her father died. She’s been such a good daughter to me. She really has.’

  ‘I should drink your coffee.’

  She wipes her nose. She screws up the handkerchief, then hands it back.

  ‘You lose your appetite for food when you’ve been in there. I’ve hardly eaten anything these last few days. I get it ready, cook it; but when it’s there I just think of her, you know, and cry.’

  She looks across with tear-filled eyes.

  ‘You’ve been so good to her, I know. But I honestly think, Colin, she’s getting worse. It’s a disease of the mind. It’s not like a broken arm. There’s nothing to mend. It’s all inside. And now, you see, she’s grown so fat.’

  She lifts her cup. She presses it for a moment against her lip.

  She doesn’t drink.

  ‘I’ve been in here, you know, before. Yvonne brought us, when she got her degree. We came here afterwards and had a meal. You should have seen us then. It makes you wonder why you live at all. All that effort.’ She begins to cry.

  I hold out the handkerchief.

  She searches for her own. The heads, at the surrounding tables, begin to turn.

  She feels down to her bag, lifts it up, knocks over the coffee: a brown stain seeps out across the table.

  The waitress comes across.

  ‘Will there be anything else?’ she says as if she’s watched this charade go on now long enough.

  ‘If you’ve got a bill.’

  She puts it down beside the cup.

  Mrs Sherman herself seems unaware that anything’s occurred; she roots inside the bag, still sobbing, taking out a bag of oranges, a bag of apples, a box of chocolates and some envelopes and paper: gifts these, which, at the hospital, inexplicably, her daughter has refused.

  ‘I must have dropped it.’

  I offer her mine.

  She takes it in her hand, examines it for several seconds, finds a spot unmarked by lipstick, and wipes her cheek.

  The waitress, having deposited the bill, is mopping up the table. I replace the chocolate, the fruit and the writing material in Mrs Sherman’s bag.

  I get up from the table. I pay the bill.

  When we get to the stairs leading to the street she takes my arm.

  ‘I don’t see any point,’ she says. ‘If somebody you love ends up like that what’s the purpose in going on? All she’s ever wanted in life is to help other people and do some good. You read every day of criminals who get unpunished, of people, who never do anything with their lives at all: and there’s Yvonne, a heart of gold. And she ends up in a ward like that. Some of those women.’

  She shakes her head.

  When we reach the street she takes the bag.

  ‘You got its number, then?’ she says, and adds, ‘This car, I mean, that knocked you down.’

  ‘They’re trying to trace the owner now,’ I say.

  ‘You want to sue them for a lot of money. You could easily have been killed with a thing like that.’