'Then you can't remember everything!' Seri said. 'We had to wait a few days for the next ship to Collago. We were staying imi Muriseay Town. I had a flat there, and you moved in with me. Because I knew what would happen when you took the treatment, I was getting you to tell me everything about your past. You told me then . . . about Gracia. She committed suicide, and you borrowed a house from a friend and you went there to write everything out of your system.'
'I don't remember,' I said. Behind us the pilot cutter had come alongside, and two men in uniform were boarding the ship. 'Is Gracia her real name?'
'It's the only name you told me . . . the same as in the manuscript.'
'Did I tell you where I went to write the manuscript?'
'In the Murinan Hills. Outside Jethra.'
'The friend who lent me the house . . . was his name Cohan?'
'That's right.'
One of Seri's insertions: pencil above typewritten line. Underneath Colan's name, scored through lightly, Edwin Miller, friend of the family.
Between the two names a space, a blankness, a room painted white, a sense of landscape spreading out through the white walls, a sea filled with islands.
'I know Gracia's alive,' I said. 'I know because every page of my story is imbued with her. I wrote it for her, because I wanted to find her again.'
'You wrote it because you blamed yourself for her death.'
'You took me to the islands, Seri, but they were wrong and I had to reject you. You said I had to surrender to the islands to find myself. I did that, and I'm free of them. I've done what you wanted.' Seri seemed not to be listening. She was staring away from me, across the heaving water to the headlands and moors black behind the city. 'Gracia's alive now because you're alive. As long as I can feel you and see you, Gracia's alive.'
'Peter, you're lying to yourself. You know it isn't true.'
'I understand the tnuth, because I found it once.'
'There's no such thing as truth. You are living by your manuscript, and everything in it is false.'
We stared together towards Jethra, divided by a definition.
Thene was a delay on the ship, a hoisting of a new flag, then at last we moved forward at half speed, steering a course, avoiding hidden underwater obstacles. I was impatient to land, to discover the city.
Seri went to sit away from me, on one of the slatted deck benches facing to the side. I stayed in the prow of the ship, watching our approach.
We passed a long concrete wall near the mouth of the river and came to smooth water. I heard the ringing of bells and the engines cut back even further. We glided in near silence between the distant banks. I was looking eagerly at the wharves and buildings on either side, seeking familiarity.
Cities look different from water.
I heard Seri say: 'It will always be Jethra.'
We were passing through a huge area of dockland, a major port, quite unlike the simple harhours of the island towns. Cranes and warehouses loomed dark on the bank, and large ships were tied up and deserted. Once, through a gap, I saw traffic on a road, moving silently and quickly; lights and speed and unexplained purpose, glimpsed through buildings. Further along we passed a wildly floodlit complex of hotels and apartment buildings standing about a huge marina, where hundreds of small yachts and cruisers were moored, and dazzling lights of all colours seemed directed straight at us. People stood on concrete quays, watching our ship as we slid by with muted engines.
We came to a broader stretch of river, where on one bank was parkland.
Coloured lights and festoons hung in the trees, smoke rose multicoloured through the branches, people clustered around open fines. There was a raised platform made of scaffolding, surrounded by lights, and here people danced.
All was silent, eerily hushed against the rhythm of the river.
The ship turned and we moved towards the bank. Ahead of us now was an illuminated sign belonging to the steamship cornpany, and floodlights spread white radiance across a wide, deserted apron. There were a few cars parked on the far side, but they showed no lights and there was no one there to greet us.
I heard the telegraphy bell ringing on the bridge, and a moment later the remaining vibrations of the engines died away. The pilot's judgement was uncanny: now without power or steerage, the ship glided slowly towards the berth. By the time the great steel side pressed against the old tyres and rope buffers it was virtually impossible to detect movement.
The ship was still; the silence of the city spread over us. Beyond the wharf, the lights of the city were too bright to be properly seen, shedding radiance without illumination.
'Peter, wait here with me. The ship will sail in the morning.'
'You know I'm going ashore.' I turned back to look at her. She was slumped on the seat, huddling against the river winds.
'If you find Gracia she'll only reject you, as you reject me.'
'So you admit she's alive?'
'It was you who first told me she wasn't. Now you remember differently.'
'I'm going to find her,' I said.
'Then I'll lose you. Doesn't that mean anything to you?'
