minute the rhythm of his breathing had slowed and deepened. She watched him for a few minutes more, recalling how often and how ardently she had yearned to watch over Frederick whilst he slept. Now her prayer had been answered, and all she could feel was a profound weariness of spirit. His breathing slowed still further; Julia would have liked to open the window, but was afraid of disturbing him, and so turned down the gas and went back to the sitting-room.
SHE HAD MEANT TO CLOSE THE FRENCH WINDOWS IMmediately, but the staleness of the bedroom seemed to have followed her down the passage, and it was not, after all, especially cold; she would close one side and leave the other open for the moment. But on her way over, her attention was drawn to the desk beneath the right- hand window. A lamp burned beside the portrait of Lydia, placed so that it also illuminated a loose sheaf of papers, which were secured by a crystal paperweight Julia was uncomfortably reminded of a votive offering. The uppermost sheet bore two stanzas in Frederick's small, precise hand:
The ink looked quite fresh, as if this were the final page of a fair copy which had not yet been put into its proper order. Julia drew out the chair and sat down, meaning to examine the rest of the manuscript, but found herself intimidated by Lydia's cool, proprietorial stare, which in the lamplight seemed unnervingly watchful. She stretched out a hand to turn the pictures eyes away from hers, but as she leaned forward, her foot thudded against something hollow beneath the desk. There was, indeed, scarcely enough room for her feet, and she bent down to see what the obstruction was. A window-box? No; too low, and she had felt it move. But its proportions were somehow familiar. A black, rectangular box, about three feet long: some musical instrument, perhaps? Curiosity impelled her to set aside her chair and draw the thing out from beneath the desk. It proved surprisingly light for its size. No doubt it would be locked; but the first of the three silver catches snapped open when she touched the knob; the other two followed suit, so there could be no harm in raising the lid.
Whatever it contained was, however, concealed beneath a purple velvet covering. Julia was kneeling alongside the box, and as she reached in to draw aside the covering, she overbalanced so that her right hand slid beneath the purple velvet and encountered something hard. There was a flash of white; she tried to snatch her hand away, but something caught it fast with a hot, piercing sensation, and the doll-child sat up and opened its eyes.
The porcelain fingers gripped like the needle-sharp teeth of a serpent; with her free hand, Julia tried to fend the creature off, but it seemed to leap from its box as she recoiled through the French windows and fell heavily against the balcony railing. She felt the creature dragging her over; for one dreadful instant it hung, smiling, in mid-air before its grip upon Julia's hand was broken and the doll-child went whirling down into the void; whole seconds seemed to pass before Julia heard it smash upon the pavement.
She remained, clinging to the railing, until the worst of the shock had subsided. But the piercing sensation in her right hand did not diminish; one of the serpent-fingers must have lodged in it. Shuddering, she lifted her hand to the light and discovered that the source of the pain was, in fact, a hat-pin, driven deep into the side of her palm. Bunched beneath the head of the pin were several torn folds of white material. Clenching her teeth, she drew out the pin and dropped it over the rail; then she stood up and leaned over to see if she could discern the fragments of the doll by the light of the street lamp below. She was too far up to make anything out, but as she watched, a small figure shuffled into the pool of light and seemed to be stooping over something in the road.
Julia became suddenly conscious of where she was, but vertigo did not follow. She felt she could stay here, leaning on the rail, for as long as she liked. But there was nothing to stay for, and her hand was throbbing painfully. She returned to the sitting room, closed the doors, restored the empty box to its place, and exchanged a final glance with Lydia's portrait. The eyes had lost their wariness; indeed the picture seemed to have faded, to have become simply a photograph of a young woman seeking to make the most of her beauty for the camera. Julia wondered, as she turned away, if she would ever see the poem in print, but it was addressed to Lydia, not to her; all that was left for her to do was to ensure that a doctor would be summoned. Looking in upon Frederick for the last time, Julia saw that he was smiling faintly in his sleep. She left him dreaming of the dead, and went wearily down the stairs to rejoin the world of the living.
I EMERGED FROM THE STORY WITH THE SENSATION OF waking from a dream in which I was Julia, and dreadfully cold, and the Reading Room had slipped its moorings and floated out to sea. The dome was palpably revolving; I could feel the sway of the waves as I struggled up from the depths, only to find that I was already awake, with a burning forehead and a deep, shivering ache in every bone. Walking back to Russell Square tube station, I was shaking so hard I had to clench my teeth to stop them chattering. From amongst the press of bodies in the lift, a desolate male voice announced to the world at large, 'Ah'm not happy. Ah feel bad. Ah'm depressed.' 'Aren't we fuckin' all,' muttered a man behind me. Crammed into our filthy metal cage, steeped in the farmyard stench of sodden clothing, we sank in silence into the earth.
For the next ten days I shivered and sweated and coughed, drifting in and out of dreams in which the doll-child appeared several times. Worst of all was a recurring nightmare in which I pursued a fleeting figure, who might or might not have been Alice, through a maze of deserted streets and derelict buildings. Usually she would vanish; once I cornered her in a blind alley and she turned to me with a face of stone. Outside the rain pelted down upon the icy slush, through which I slithered to the chemist for more drugs, or to the nearest cheap restaurant for another oily Indian meal. The Westland affair fizzled and died. The space shuttle blew up. The Iron Lady went on and on.
Three days before I was due to leave, I thought about taking a train from Waterloo to Balcombe, a village about three miles north-east of Staplefield. The least I could do was see the village and ask around. But as I looked again at the tiny black circle marked on the B2114, all I could feel was 'what's the point?' I tried to summon the old sense of wonder and refuge, but it was like feeling for a lost tooth. Without Alice-by now I had convinced myself that I would never hear from her again-Staplefield was dead and gone.
On my last day, a Saturday, a watery sun came out. I took a bus to Hampstead Heath and walked up to the top of Parliament Hill, where I did at last feel some sense of awe at the great sweep of the city below. But the wind was keen and biting, and so cold my fillings began to ache. I descended to the swimming ponds, shuddering at the sight of the icy green water in which some madwoman was actually swimming. Dodging pushchairs and bicycles, I wandered the muddy gravel paths as far as the Vale of Health, and came back along the boundary road.
I HADN'T IMAGINED I WOULD WELCOME THE HEAT AND glare of a Mawson summer. When I emerged from customs, my mother hugged me as if I had returned from the dead.
'But you're so
I told her about the flu, and agreed I should have gone to a doctor. There didn't seem to be much else to say. After breakfast we sat with our coffee under a flowering gum in the back yard. Crimson filaments drifted across the lawn; the sky was a dazzling blue. Breathing the dry, pungent scent of eucalyptus, I couldn't help thinking that it was better to be desolate and warm than desolate and frozen.
'-were you too ill to do anything at all, dear?' my mother was saying.
The only thing I could think of was my walk on Hampstead Heath. Idly watching a pair of rosellas as I talked, I was unprepared for the outburst.
'How
Her forehead was beaded with sweat, though it had been dry a moment before.
'It was a Saturday afternoon, Mother. There were people everywhere.'
'People get dragged off those paths, all the time. And never seen again. I've read about it. Anything could have happened to you.'
I tried to reassure her, but she would not listen, and shortly afterwards she said she was going inside to lie down.
