better attended than my lecture. Paleontologists hate to bury things, especially bones; I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why. Poor George will not have done so well: an unmarked lime pit within the prison walls, this is where he’ll have been laid to rest. I do worry about Cleo; I’ve told you we Coals have a tendency to despair, and I’m rather afraid that with me out of the picture it may well get the better of her. I’m rather afraid she’ll go the way of Sir Digby.
Fledge has turned on the gramophone, and is asking Harriet if she will dance. That numbness in my upper body: it feels now as though I have been suffused with a great light. In the garden, George has begun to rise from the ground. Very slowly he ascends, to a height of about ten or twelve feet, and as he does so he very slowly opens his arms. They are all still gazing at me, but from George’s eyes, and ears, and mouth, and from the region of his heart, a sort of silvery radiance is spilling forth, dazzling me and filling me with a sensation of immense, oceanic peace, a quite extraordinary feeling of bliss. He is surrounded by fluttering birds, barely visible in this blinding, gorgeous light. What is happening to me?
About the Author
Patrick McGrath was born in London and grew up near Broadmoor Hospital, where for many years his father was Medical Superintendent. He has lived in various parts of North America, and for several years on a remote island in the north Pacific. He moved to New York City in 1981. He is the author of the critically acclaimed collection
