Inside, I found my way to the Casualty Wand.
After a long wait a social worker came to see me. Gracia was still unconscious, but she would survive. If I wished I could visit her in the morning, but first there were a few questions.
'Has she ever done this before?'
'I told the ambulance crew. No. It must have been an accident.' I looked away to divert the lie. Wouldn't they have records? Wouldn't they have contacted her G.P.?
'And you say you live with her?'
'Yes. I've known her for three or four years.'
'Has she ever shown any suicidal tendency before?'
'No, of course not.'
The social worker had other cases to go to; he said the doctor had been talking about making out a Section on her, but if I would vouch for her...
'It won't possibly happen again,' I said. 'I'm sure it wasn't deliberate.'
Felicity had told me that after Gracia's last attempt she had been sent for a month's compulsory psychiatric treatment, but she had been released at the end of it. That was in another hospital, another part of London. Given time, the people here would find that out, but hospital casualty wards and the social services were constantly overworked.
I gave the address to the social worker, and asked him to let Gracia have lien shoulder bag when she came round. I said I would visit her in the morning. I wanted to leave; I was finding the modern building oppressively neutral and disinterested. What I perversely wanted was some kind of authoritative recrimination, a change from this social worker that I was somehow to blame. But he was preoccupied and harassed: he wanted Gracia's case to be a straightforward one.
I went outside, into the drizzling rain.
I needed Seri as never before I had needed her, but I no longer knew how to find her. Gracia's act had jolted me; Seri, Jethra, the islands. . . these were the luxuries of idle inwardness.
Yet by the same token, I was less able than ever to cope with the complex real world. Gracia's terrible attempt on her life, my complicity in it, the destruction Seri had warned of. I shied away from them, appalled at the thought of what I might find in myself.
I walked down Rosslyn Hill for a few minutes, then a bus came along and I caught it, getting off at Baker Street Station. I stood for a while outside the entrance to the Underground, staring across Marylebone Road at the corner where Gracia and I had once before reached an ending. On an impulse I walked through the pedestrian subway, and stood in the place. There was an employment agency on the conner, offering positions for filing clerks, legal secretaries and P.A.s; the high advertised salaries surprised me. It had been a night like this the last time: Gracia and I at an impasse, Seri waiting somewhere around.
From there I had found the islands, yet now they seemed to be beyond reach.
The evocations of place: it was as if Gracia were there with me again, rejecting me, willing me to leave her and propelling me towards Seri.
I stood there in the drizzle, watching the late rush-hour traffic accelerate away from the lights, heading for Westway and the Oxford road, the countryside fan beyond. Out there I had first found Seri, and I wondered if I would have to go there to fluid her again.
Feeling cold, I paced to and fro, waiting for Seri, waiting for the islands.
18
This much I knew for sure:
My name was Peter Sinclair, I was thirty-one years old, and I was safe.
Beyond this, all was uncertain.
There were people looking after me, and they went to great lengths to reassure me about myself. I was totally dependent on them, and I was devoted to them all. There were two women and a nian. One of them was an attractive, fair-haired young woman called Seri Fulten. She and I were extremely fond of each other because she was always kissing me, and, when no one else was around, she played with my genitals. The other woman was olden; her name was Lareen Dobey, and although she tried to he kind to me I was a little frightened of her. The man was a doctor named Corrob. He visited me twice a day, but I never grew to know him very well. I felt rejected by him.
I had been seriously ill but now I was recovering. They told me that as soon as I was better I should be able to lead a normal life, and there was no chance of a relapse. This was very reassuring to know, because I was in pain for a lot of the time. At first niy head was bandaged, my heart rate and blood pressure were constantly monitored, and a number of smaller surgical scans on other pants of my body were protected by plasters; later, one by one, these were removed and the pain began to ease.
My state of mind, described broadly, was one of intense curiosity. It was a most extraordinary feeling, a mental appetite that seemed insatiable. I was an extremely _interested_ person. There was nothing that bored me or alarmed me or seemed irrelevant to my interests. When I awoke in the mornings, for just one example, the sheer novelty of the feeling of sheets around me was enough to hold my full attention. Sensations flooded in. The experiences of Warmth and Comfort and Weight and Fabric and Friction were enough sensations to entertain my untrained mind with all the permutations and nuances of a symphony. (Music was played to me every day, exhausting me.) Bodily functions were an astonishment! Just to breathe or to swallow was a miracle of pleasure, and when I discovered farting, and that I could imitate the noise with my mouth, it became my funniest diversion. I quickly worked out how to masturbate, but this was just a phase which ended when Seri took oven. Going to the lavatory was a source of pride.
Gradually I became aware of my physical surroundings.
My universe, as I perceived it, was a bed in a room in a small chalet in a garden on an island in a sea. My awareness spread around me like a ripple of consciousness. The weather was warm and sunny, and during most days the windows by my bed were opened, and when I was allowed to sit up in a chain I was put either by the open
