she had needed a space alone. I felt intimidated by the changes around her: the cleaned and tidied flat, the changed hair, the outward rehabilitation. She made me aware of my unkempt, unshaven appearance, my unwashed clothes, my smelly body.
But I too had been through a process of recovery, and because it did not show I needed to tell her about it.
I said eventually: 'I'm stronger too, Gracia. I know you'll think I'm only saying that, but I really mean it. It's why I had to go away.'
Gracia looked up from her silent regard of the freshly vacuumed carpet.
'Go on. I'm listening.'
'I thought you had done it because you hated me.'
'No, I was _scared_ of you.'
'All right. But you did it because of me, because of what we had become to each other. I understand that now . . . but there was something else. You had been reading my manuscript.'
'Your what?'
'My manuscript. I wrote my autobiography, and it was here. On the bed, the day I found you. You had obviously been reading it, and I knew you were upset by it.'
'I don't know what you're talking about,' Gracia said.
'You must remember!' I looked around the room, realizing that since returning I had not seen the manuscript anywhere. I felt a _frisson_ of alarm: had Gracia destnoyed it or thrown it away? 'It was a heap of paper, which I kept bundled up. Where is it now?'
'I put all your stuff in the other room. I've been cleaning the place.'
I left her and hurried through to the sitting room. Beside the stereo record player, by the records--mine neatly segregated from hers--was a small pile of my books. Underneath, held together with two crossing elastic bands, was my manuscript. I snapped the bands away and turned a few pages: it was all there. A few sheets were out of order, but it was intact. I returned to the bedroom, where Gracia had lit another cigarette.
'This is what I meant,' I said, holding it up for her to see. I was immeasurably relieved that it was safe. 'You were reading this, weren't you?
That day.'
Gracia narrowed her eyes, though I sensed it was not to see more cleanly. 'I want to ask you about that--'
'Let me explain,' I said. 'It's important. I wrote this while I was in Herefordshire, before I went to Felicity's. I'm sure it's what was causing the trouble between us. You thought I was seeing someone else, but really I was just thinking about what I had written. It was my way of finding myself. But I never really finished it. When you were in hospital, and I knew you were being looked after, I went away to try to finish it.'
Gracia said nothing, but continued to stare at me.
'Please say something,' I said.
'What does the manuscript say?'
'But you read it! Or you read some of it.'
'I looked at it, Peter, but I didn't read any of it.'
I put the pages down, automatically reshaping them into a neat pile before letting go. I had not even thought about my writing while I was in the islands. Why was the truth so difficult to tell?
'I want you to read it,' I said. 'You've got to understand.'
Gracia again went silent, staring down at her ashtray.
'Are you hungry?' she said at last.
'Don't change the subject.'
'Let's talk about this later. I'm hungry, and you look as if you haven't had a meal in days.'
'Can't we finish this now?' I said. 'It's very important.'
'No, I'm going to cook something. Why don't you have a bath? Your clothes are still here.'
'All right,' I said.
The bathroom was also fastidiously clean. It was free of the customary heaps of dirty clothes, empty toothpaste tubes and used toilet-roll wrappers.
When I flushed the lavatory the bowl filled with fizzy blue water. I bathed quickly, while in the next room I could hear Gracia moving about as she cooked. Afterwards, I shaved and put on clean clothes. I weighed myself on her scales, and found I had lost weight while I was away.
We ate at the table in the back room. It was a simple meal of rice and vegetables, but it was the best food I had eaten in a long time. I was wondering how I had survived while I was away, where I had slept, what I had eaten. Where had I been?
Gracia was eating at a moderate pace, but unlike her old self she finished the meal. She had become like someone I barely knew, yet in the same transformation she had become recognizable. She was the Gracia I had often willed her to be: free of her neuroses, or apparently so, free of the inner tension and unhappiness, free of the turbulence that brought the quicksilver moods. I sensed a new determination in her. She was making an immense effort to straighten herself out, and it made me admire her and feel warm towards her.
As we finished I felt content. The physical novelty of clean body and clothes, of a full stomach, of the belief that I had emerged from a long tunnel of uncertainty, made me feel we could start again.
