The Judas Pair

There's nothing much to say about the rest of that day except that I stayed at Watson's sister's house in a room the size of a matchbox full of toys. Children came to stare at me as I was given aspirin tablets and milk to swallow—heaven knows why—and finally I dozed until dawn. Watson, my erstwhile villain, slept on a settee. Jane drove home in my old crate, saying she'd come back for me in the morning. When I woke I found one of the children had laid a toy rabbit on my bed for company, a nasty sight in the sunrise of a nervous breakdown. Still, thank God, it wasn't a hedgehog.

I can't remember much except Watson's kindness, his sister's concern, and Jane smiling too quickly at everything that was said as we departed.

'I feel a bloody fool' were my parting words, epitaph for a crusader. Amid a chorus of denials and invitations to return soon Jane ferried me away. I couldn't even remember what the house was like.

On the way back, Jane, a smart alert driver, told me she'd been summoned into Geoffrey's police station to explain what she'd done with me, because the cottage was raided again during the night. Our vigilant bobby, understandably narked by his ruined sleep, told her in aggrieved tones how he'd wakened to the sound of the alarm and arrived before entry was effected. The would-be intruder fled unseen.

I received the news with utter calm and stared at the ceiling.

Chapter 13

Weeks of feeding my robin and watching weather, occasionally getting the odd visitor. Twice I found myself embarking on gardening expeditions armed with rusty shears and suchlike, but my heart was never in it. After all, grass does no harm growing and birds and bushes don't need mowing anyway, so there's not a lot you can do in a garden. Somewhere I'd cleared a patch for growing vegetables years ago, but it had reverted to jungle, as the herbaceous border had, and I couldn't find exactly where it was. I abandoned the attempt, taking the wise view that if vegetables had wanted to grow there they'd have done so whatever assistance they'd been given by me. There's a chap Brownlow in a bungalow not far from me who's never out of his garden. It beats me what he finds to do. Maybe he's got a blonde in the shrubbery.

Ever been stuck at home? You get up and make breakfast, put the radio on, and wash up. Then you mill about doing odd jobs like cleaning and washing, and that's the end of it. What housewives keep moaning about heaven only knows, because I was up at seven-thirty and finished easily by ten, after which the rest of the day was waiting there—in my case, for nothing. Margaret called at first with provisions, and Jane dropped in with Adrian.

The itinerant dealer Jimmo called. Tinker came after the first day, but within a week all the visits had dwindled. I was pretty glad, because I was in no mood to talk and they were embarrassed. People are, where a nervous breakdown's concerned. It's posh and gallant to break your leg, and brave to have appendicitis, but a nervous breakdown's a plain embarrassment best avoided. You're better off with the plague. Maybe people think a breakdown's a sign of lack of moral fiber, that you ought to be pulling yourself together, putting your shoulder to that wheel, et cetera. It taught me one lesson at least, that any form of 'weakness' is highly suspect. I wish I knew why.

I'd heard of breakdowns before, of course. Half my difficulty was that I didn't know what they actually were or where they came from, let alone what went on; yet there I was with all my anxieties gone, all my worries vanished, all interests evaporated. It would have been rather disturbing, if I'd been capable of being disturbed that is. As it was, I was utterly serene—dirty, unwashed, filthy, unshaven, unfed, and unkempt, but serene. Calm as a pond I was, uncaring. Worst of all, grief about Sheila had disappeared. Margaret came on a second then a third visit and discreetly left money on the mantelpiece, saying I was to be sure to remember to pay it back when I had a chance. I mumbled vacantly. Finally everyone had stopped coming. The letters lay in a heap by the door.

As days went into weeks I found myself stirring, not physically but something inside me. It really was an awakening. Instinctively my switched-off mind must have realized there was no point in trying to hurry things along and had stayed resting. My recovery was under way before I realized. The first event I can really recall is making myself some food—sausages and stale bread. Then I started feeding the birds again, sitting with them for a short while as usual, although I'd earlier automatically shunned their company as too intrusive, making too many demands on me.

About three days after starting eating I took conscious positive steps. I shaved. The next day I shaved and washed, then after that I bathed and got fresh clothes out. It was about sixteen days before I was presentable. The cottage was reasonable, and I started going down to the launderette. For some reason it was important to set myself a mental limit and stick rigidly to it, no matter how senseless that scheme actually was. Therefore, for four consecutive days I walked the garden's borders ten times every afternoon and counted all my trees and bushes assiduously after doing the washing up about nine o'clock; and for those four days I took my clothes, clean and soiled alike, to the launderette and washed them. Naturally I ran into practical difficulties such as coins for the slots, not knowing when the wretched machines were going to start or stop, what to do with that cup of powder and other details like losing socks. By the fourth day I was becoming quite intrigued by the system. You put in eight socks with your things and get out only five socks and one you've never seen before. Next day's the same. Unless you're careful you can finish up with an entirely different set of miscellaneous gear and all your own socks presumably transmuted into energy. I cut my losses on the fifth day and merely watched other sockless people's machines on the go.

My interest in antiques like everything else had suddenly vanished. Auctions had presumably taken place, the phone carried on unanswered, and Lovejoy was temporarily indisposed. Now, as I mended and consciousness returned, I took up a catalogue and read it in small stages during the course of an entire evening while the telly was on. It was an odd sensation, reading at a distance as it were, with details registering in the right places yet my own self somehow observing the whole process with caution and not a little distrust. Anyhow, I acted it out, feeling a flicker of interest here and there but suppressing it in case it got out of hand. It must have been the right thing to do, because the very next day I was answering letters and making decisions, about half speed. Injured animals go and lie quiet, don't they? Maybe that's what my mind had done. The fourth week I faced the world again.

I began life by attending a sale in Colchester and after two more days another, this time in Bury St. Edmunds. As a starter, the tokens I'd bought in darkest East Anglia—easy material whose value you can always gauge by an hour's careful checking —were launched out in a coin mart we have not far away, and they went for a good profit. I was pleased because I was pleased. The cottage hadn't been assaulted while I was out. Cheered and feeling full of emotions that were no longer lying dormant, I whistled and sang and forayed into the garden for some flowers to put in a vase. I was unsuccessful, though, not because there weren't any but because you can't really go hacking plants' heads off just because you feel a bit bouncy. I seriously thought of planting one into a pot and bringing it inside the cottage but decided against that as well. There's no breeze inside a house like there is in a garden, is there, and plants might really depend on being pushed about by the wind, not being able to stretch themselves as we can. Also, you have to think of the proper sunshine outside instead of no real light indoors. And rain. And company. I don't know much about them, not like Major Lister would, for instance, but it stands to reason you're best not trying to dabble in what you don't understand. People do damage when they want things. If people didn't want things, hardly anything would go wrong with anybody's life. All bad's desire.

I temporarily shelved the notion that if it was true that all bad came from desire, then maybe all desire was bad