raw deal, haven't I, a raw bloody deal. Don't anybody think I've been given a raw deal?'
Jake had turned back to face his front after one good look. The sound-quality of the last couple of dozen words told him that the woman had got up and was moving towards the top of the stairs, presumably on the way to getting off the bus. On an impulse he didn't at once understand he shifted round in his seat and said, 'Yes, I do.'
Now she did look straight at someone and he saw with unusual clarity that everything about her face was wrong. The tip of her nose was a narrow white peak above a pair of ill-matched nostrils partly outlined in red; her eyes didn't so much protrude or glare as have no discernible sockets to lie in; her eyebrows were irregular streaks of bristle; her ears were set a little too far back on her skull; the borders of her lips were well marked at one corner and blurred at the other; the state of her skin showed him for the first time what it really meant to say that someone was pale and drawn. That's right, he thought to himself: they're not just mad inside their heads, they're mad to their fingertips, to the ends of their hair. And he had spoken to her to make her give him the straight look he had needed in order to see that in her.
What might have been the beginnings of a smile showed on the woman's face in the second before she stepped clumsily to one side and passed out of view down the stairs. Soon afterwards the bus stopped and from his position above the pavement he saw her walk away, swinging her arms a lot. Some distance ahead lay a small piece of park or public garden, a grassy triangle where, with a show of energy unexpected in these latitudes a group of men in helmets and jerkins were attacking some trees. Products of their labours were strewn about them in the shape of much sound timber and vigorous foliage. The peevish wavering groan of their saws could be clearly heard through the noise of the traffic. At first idly, then with concern, Jake took in a rusty street-sign that said Trafalgar Place. Distracted by the incident of the madwoman, he was about to overshoot the stopping-point he had picked out on his deluxe 'A to Z.' He toiled his way downstairs at his best speed but no kind of speed shown by him would have affected the progress of the bus, which finally dropped him a couple of hundred yards beyond the turning he wanted.
It was raining slowly but, with his umbrella and navy-blue light mackintosh, he found this no great infliction and set off with a brisk stride, a touch elated at having successfully brought off what was for him an out-of-the-way journey. There were six minutes to go before his appointment, which should be enough if the hospital was reasonably close to the main road. He had nearly reached the corner when he saw something he did find a great infliction, a figure he recognised standing on the opposite pavement and looking at him. Of course the McDougall was a psychiatric as well as a psychological joint; of course those who attended it regularly knew the nearest bus stop to it; of course chaps who were fool enough to speak to people like that deserved all they got. And of course his first thought was of flight, but he loathed being late for anything. If he had known the district even slightly he might have risked a detour but again he didn't. So he turned the corner and quickened up to light-infantry speed.
'Excuse me!'
It was harsh and hostile and he ignored it.
'Excuse me.'
This time he thought he detected a note of appeal and found himself half-turning and slowing down so that the woman could catch him up. 'Yes?'
'I seen you on the bus, didn't I?'
'I believe so, yes.'
'You said you thought I been given a raw deal.'
'Yes, I .. .
'Why d'you say that?' she asked merely as if she wanted to know.
'Well, I thought you seemed a bit upset and I wondered if I could cheer you up, that's all.'
'You're the first one as said I been given a raw deal for I don't know how long. They all say I get the best attention and all they want to do is take care of me but they got a funny way of showing it is what I say. I was in the hospital for five months and all they done was boss me around. The doctor just give his orders and never took a blind bit of notice of how I felt or what I thought. It's not fair, it's taking advantage.'
All this had been said in a tone that showed a sense of injury but none of the bitterness noticeable on the bus. Poor devil, thought Jake, a complete stranger throws her a kind word and she calms down immediately—these bloody doctors are all the same. Not that he had stopped looking for the hospital, of which at the moment there was no sign.
'Are you disturbed?' went on the lunatic.
He grasped at once that to her there could be no other reason for coming this way than her own. 'No, just, er, tension.'
'I been disturbed for .... a long time. Ever since my mum died but they say it's nothing to do with that. Do you think it's to do with that?'
'I don't know. It must have something to do with it, I'd have thought.'
'You're the first one as ever said I been given a raw deal.' She turned her head towards him and smiled, showing a wide variety of teeth. 'That was real nice, that was. Real nice.'
'Oh I think most other people would have done the same,' he said, trying not to gabble it, to stay calm, to work out what to do if she pounced on him.
'I get very lonely. I'd like someone to come and see me. After I've had my tea, that's when I wouldn't mind someone, that sort of time. They don't, though, not them, no fear, they got better things to do, the lot of them. Dead selfish, the lot of them. Six weeks it's been since Harry come, and as for that June....'
Just then there was a sign of the hospital in the form of a hospital sign, and the monologue on selfishness kept up satisfactorily while the two approached Reception—All Patients, stopping only at the swing doors. Inside, Jake's companion, swinging her arms in her awful way, went straight on without a word or a look while he made for the desk. A girl in a grey uniform standing behind it called over his shoulder,
'Excuse me dear, are you sure you know where to go?'
The words were delivered with unimpeachable gentleness but it was as if—no, to hell with as if: the madwoman had heard something different. She stopped dead and sent towards the desk a look of great fear and
