quality in my mind, something lost and unattainable. And yet she stood there, real and substantial, the very best Gracia, untroubled and beautiful without that haunting terror behind her eyes.
'Where were you? The hospital was trying to trace you, they contacted the police--Where did you go?'
'I left London for a while, because of you.' I wanted to hug her, feel her body against me, but there was something in her that kept me at a distance. 'What about you? You look so much better!'
'I'm all right now, Peter. No thanks to you.' She looked away. 'I shouldn't say that. They told me you saved my life.'
I went to her and tried to kiss her, but she tunned her face so that all I could do was touch her cheek. When I put up my arms to hold her, she stepped back. I followed her, and we went into the cool dark sitting room, where the television and hi-fi were, the room we had rarely used.
'What's the matter, Gracia? Why won't you kiss me?'
'Not now. I wasn't expecting you, that's all.'
'Who's Jean?' I said. 'Is that the girl who was here?'
'Oh, she's one of my social workers. She calls every day to make sure I'm not going to do myself in. They look after me, you see. After they discharged me they found out I had tried it before, and now they keep an eye on me. They think it's dangerous for me to live alone.'
'You're looking terrific,' I said.
'I'm all right now. I won't do it again. I've come through all that.'
There was an edge to her voice, an inner hardness, and it repelled me.
It felt as if it was intended to repel.
'I'm sorry if I seemed to abandon you,' I said. 'They told me you were being looked after. I thought I knew why you had done it, and I had to get away.'
'You don't have to explain. It doesn't matter anymore.'
'What do you mean? Of course it still matters!'
'To you.. . on to me?'
I stared at her in a futile way, but she gave no hint by her expression that might help me.
'Are you angry with me?' I said.
'Why should I be?'
'Because I ran out on you.'
'No . . . not angry.'
'What then?'
'I don't know.' She moved about the room, but not in the restless way I used to know. Now she was being evasive. This room, like the bedroom, had been tidied and polished. I hardly recognized it. 'Let's go in the front. I want a cigarette.'
I followed her into the bedroom, and while she sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette, I drew the curtains. She watched me, said nothing. I sat down in the chair the social worker had been in.
'Gracia, tell me what happened to you . . . in the hospital.'
'They patched me up and sent me home. That's all, really. Then the social services found a file on me, and they've been hassling me a bit. Jean's O.K., though. She'll be glad you've come back. I'll ring her in the morning and tell her.'
'What about you? Are you glad I'm back?'
Gracia smiled as she reached down to flick ash off her cigarette. I sensed that I had said something ironic.
'What are you smiling at?' I said.
'I needed you when I came home, Peter, but I didn't _want_ you. If you had been here you'd only have screwed me up again, but the social people would have left me alone. I was relieved you weren't here. It gave me a chance.'
'Why would I have screwed you up?'
'Because you always did! It's what you've been doing ever since we met.'
Gracia was trembling, picking at her fingernails while the cigarette burned upside down in her hand. 'When I came home all I wanted was to be alone, to think for myself and work things out, and you weren't here and it was just what I wanted.'
I said: 'Then I shouldn't have come back at all.'
'I didn't want you here then. There's a difference.'
'So you want me now?'
'No. I mean, I don't know. I needed to be alone and I got that. What happens next is something else.'
We both went silent, probably sensing the same dilemma. We both knew we were dangerous to each other while desperately needing each other. There was no national way of talking about that: either we acted it out by living together again, on we talked about it in highly changed emotional terms.
Gracia was struggling to be calm; I wanted to use my new inner strength.
We were still alike, and perhaps that was what doomed us. I had left her to try to understand myself better,
