“Not yet.”
“Lareen was certain you would react wrongly to it.” She laughed, shortly. “It seems a bit silly now, when I think of all the trouble we went to.”
We read a few more pages together, but Seri had spent too long with the manuscript and she grew tired.
“I’ll go on by myself,” I said.
“All right. It’s not going to do any harm.”
She lay down on the other bed, reading a novel. I continued with the manuscript, working painstakingly through the inconsistencies, as once, several times, Seri must have done. Occasionally I asked for her help, and she told me what she had had in mind, but each new interpretation only made my curiosity greater. It confirmed what I knew of myself, but it also confirmed my doubts.
Later, Seri undressed and went to bed to sleep. I read on, the manuscript resting on my lap. In the warm evening I was shirtless and barefoot, and as I read I could feel the rush mat abrading pleasantly against the soles of my feet.
It struck me that if there was any truth at all in the manuscript, then it could only be the truth of anecdote. There seemed to be no deeper pattern, no sense of metaphor.
It was the anecdotes that Seri had most frequently deleted. One or two of them she had pointed out to me, explaining that she found them incomprehensible. So they were to me, but because I was making no headway against the shape of the story, I began to look more closely at the details.
One of the longest deleted passages, occupying several pages of the text, dealt with the sudden arrival in “my” childhood life of a certain “Uncle William”. He entered the story with all the bravado of a pirate, bringing a scent of the sea and a glimpse of foreign lands. He had captivated me because he was disgraceful and disapproved of, because he smoked a vile pipe and had warts on his hands, yet he also fascinated me while I read of him, because the passage was written with conviction and humour, a plausible-seeming account of an influential experience. I realized that Uncle William, or Billy, as I seemed to remember him, was as attractive a personality to me now as he had been when I was a child. He had really existed, he had really lived.
Yet Seri had deleted him. She knew nothing of him, so she had tried to destroy him.
So far as I was concerned it would take more than a few pencil strokes to remove him. There was a truth to Uncle William, a truth that was far higher than mere anecdote.
I remembered him; I remembered that day.
Suddenly, I knew how to remember the rest. It was not whether the material could be crossed out, or whether names could be substituted. What mattered was the text itself, its shapes and patterns, those meanings that were only alluded to, the metaphors that until then I had been incapable of seeing. The manuscript was full of memories.
I went to the beginning of the text, and started to read it through. Then of course I remembered the events that had taken me to my white room in Edwin’s cottage, and all that had gone before. As I remembered I became reassured, united with my real past, but then I became scared. In remembering myself, I discovered how profoundly lost I had become.
Outside the white-painted chalet the grounds of the clinic were quiet. The ripple of my awareness spread outwards: to Collago Town, to the rest of the island, to the Midway Sea and the innumerable islands, to Jethra. Yet where were they?
I read to the end, to the unfinished scene between Gracia and myself on the corner by Baker Street Station, and then I collected the typewritten sheets and shaped them into a tidy stack. I found my holdall beneath the bed and packed the manuscript at the bottom. Quietly, so as not to wake Seri, I packed my clothes and other possessions, checked that I had my money, then prepared to leave.
I looked back at Seri. She was sleeping on her stomach like a child, her head turned to one side. I wanted to kiss her, gently stroke her naked back, but I could not risk waking her. She would stop me if she knew I was leaving. I watched her for two or three silent minutes, wondering who she really was, and knowing that once I left I should never meet her again.
The door eased open quietly; outside was darkness, and the warm sea wind. I returned to my bed to collect my holdall, but as I did so I kicked something that lay on the floor by Seri’s shoulder bag, and it clinked against the metal leg of her bed. She stirred, then settled. I crouched down to pick up whatever it was I had kicked. It was a small bottle, made of dark green glass, hexagon shaped. The cork was missing and the label had been removed, but I knew instinctively what it must once have contained, and why Seri had bought it. I sniffed at the neck of the bottle and smelled camphor.
Then I nearly did not go. I stood beside the bed, looking sadly down at the sleeping girl, innocently tired, selfless to me, vulnerably naked, her hair folded untidily across her brow, her lips slightly parted.
At last I put down the empty elixir bottle where I had found it, collected my holdall, then left. In the dark I got through the gate and walked down the hill into Collago Town. Here I waited by the harbour until the town woke up, and as soon as the shipping office opened I inquired when the next steamer would be departing. One had left only the day before; the next would not be for another three days. Anxious to leave the island before Lareen or Seri found me, I took the First small ferry that came, crossing the narrow channel to the next island. Later that day, I moved again. When I was sure no one would find me—I was on the island of Hetta, in an isolated tavern—I bought some timetables and maps, and started to plan my return journey to London. I was haunted by the unfinished manuscript, the unresolved scene with Gracia.
21
The fact was that Gracia had brought me to an ending. Her suicide attempt was too big to be contained in my life. She swept everything aside, admitting of nothing else. Her drastic act even overshadowed the news that she was not to die as a result. Whether or not she had seriously intended to die was secondary to the gesture she made. She had succeeded in shocking me out of myself.
I was obsessed by an imagined picture of her at that very moment: she would be lying semi-conscious in a hospital bed, with bottles and tubes and unwashed hair. I wanted to be with her.
I had come to a place I knew: the corner where Baker Street crossed Marylebone Road, a part of London forever associated in my mind with Gracia. The rain was intensifying, and the traffic threw up a mist of fine droplets that gusted around me in the city-ducted winds. I remembered the cold moor wind of Castleton, the passing lorries.
It was hours since I had last eaten, and I felt the mild euphoria of low blood sugar. It made me think of the long summer months of the year before, when I had been so intent on writing in my white room that sometimes I went two or three days without proper food. In that state of mental excitation I always imagined best, could perceive the truth more clearly. Then I could make islands.
But Jethra and the islands paled before the reality of London’s damp awfulness, just as I paled before my own. For once I was free of myself, for once I looked outwards and thought sorrowfully of Gracia.
At that moment, when I did not hope for her, Seri appeared.
She came up the steps and out of the pedestrian subway on the far side of Marylebone Road. I saw her fair hair, her straight back, the bobbing walk I knew so well. But how could she have entered the subway without my seeing her? I was standing by the only other entrance, and she had not passed me. I watched her, amazed, as she walked quickly into the booking hall of the Underground station.
I ran down the steps, slipping slightly on the rain-glossed treads, and hurried through to the other side. When I reached the booking hall she had passed the ticket barrier and was at the top of the stairs that led down to the Metropolitan Line. I went to follow her, but the inspector at the barrier asked to see my ticket. Angrily, I returned to the ticket office and bought a single fare to anywhere.
A train was standing at one of the platforms; the indicator board said it was going to Amersham. I walked quickly along the curving platform, looking through windows, looking towards the carriages ahead. I could not see her
, even though I walked the whole length of the train. Could she have caught another? But this was the evening; there were departures only at ten-minute intervals.
I rushed back as the guard shouted that the doors were about to close.
Then I saw her: she was sitting by the window in a carriage near the back of the train. I could see her face, turned down as if she were reading.
The pneumatic doors hissed loudly and slid towards each other. I leapt aboard the nearest carriage, forcing myself through the closing pressure of the doors. Late commuters glanced up, looked away. Bubbles of isolation surrounded them.
The train pulled away, blue-white discharge sparks flashing on the wet rails as we crossed the points and moved into the long tunnel. I walked to the back of the carriage to be at the door nearest to Seri when we stopped at the next station. I leaned against the heavy, shatterproof window set into the door, watching my reflection against the black wall of the tunnel outside. At last we reached the next station, Finchley Road, I pushed through the doors as soon as they opened, and ran down the platform to the carriage where I had seen her. The doors closed behind me. I went to the place where she had been sitting, but she was no longer there.
Now the train was on the surface, clattering through the crowded, decrepit suburbs of West Hampstead and Kilburn; here the line ran parallel to the street where my old flat had been. I walked the length of the open carriage, looking at all the passengers, making sure Seri had not changed her seat. At the end I looked through the windows of the two connecting doors to the next carriage, and saw her.
She was standing, as I had done, against the sliding doors and staring out at the passing houses. I went through to her carriage—a cold blast of damp air, a moment of swaying peril—and passengers looked up, thinking I must be a ticket inspector. I went quickly to where she had been standing, but once again she had moved. There was no one there who looked even remotely like her, that I might have mistaken for her.
While the train rushed on to the next station, I walked to and fro in the aisle of the carriage, preferring the illusion of doing something to the tensions of idleness. Outside, the rain ran in quick diagonals down the dirty windows. At Wembley Park there was a delay of a few minutes, as here was the interchange with the Bakerloo Line and a train was expected on the other side of the platform. I walked the length of my train, searching for Seri, but she had vanished. When the Bakerloo train arrived she was aboard it! I saw her step down, cross the platform, and climb into the carriage I had first been in.
I returned to the train, but of course she eluded me again.
I found a seat and stared down at the worn and slatted floor, littered with cigarette ends and sweet wrappers. The train moved on, through Harrow, through Pinner, heading out into the countryside. I again felt myself moving into a passive state of mental laziness, content to know that I was supposed to be following Seri. I was lulled by the warmth of the carriage, the motion of the train, and peripherally aware that passengers were getting off as we stopped at stations on the way.
The train was almost empty when we came to a station called Chalfont & Latimer. I glanced out at the station as we drew in, seeing the wet platform and shining overhead lamps, the familiar advertisements for films and language schools. Passengers waited by the carriage doors, and amongst them was Seri. In my somnolent state I barely realized she was there, but when she smiled at me and stepped outside I knew I was to follow.
I was slow and clumsy, and only just got through the doors before they closed. By then, Seri had slipped through the ticket barrier and was again out of sight. I followed, thrusting my ticket at the collector and moving on before he could check it.
The station was next to a main road; as I came out, the train I had been on went noisily over the ironwork bridge. I looked to left and right along the road, seeking Seri. She was already an appreciable distance away, walking briskly along the road in the direction of London. I hurried after her, pacing myself with short bursts of running.
The road was lined with modern detached houses, set back from the traffic with concrete drives, neat lawns and flowerbeds, and flagstoned patios. Lighted reproduction carriage lamps glittered their reflections on the rainy ground. Behind curtained windows I could glimpse the hard blue glare of television screens.
Seri stayed effortlessly ahead of me, maintaining her brisk walk without seeming to hurry, yet however much I ran she was always the same distance ahead. I was getting out of breath so I slowed my pace to a moderate walk. It had stopped raining while I was on the train, and already the air was milder, more in keeping with the season.
Seri reached the end of the lighted section of the road, and moved into the strip of countryside between Chalfont and Chorleywood. I lost sight of her in the dark, so I ran again. In a minute or two I had also passed into the darkness, but I could see Seri whenever cars passed with their headlights on. Farmland lay on either side of the road. Ahead of me, in the south-eastern sky, the sodium radiance of London was lighting the clouds.
Seri halted and turned back to face me, perhaps to be sure I had seen her. Cars passed, throwing spray and light in drifting veils. Thinking she was waiting for me I ran again, splashing in the puddles of the unmade verge. When I was within distance, I shouted: “Seri, please stay and talk to me!”
Seri said—You’ve got to see the islands, Peter.
There was a gate where she had waited, and she passed through as I came breathily up to her, but by the time I followed she was already halfway across the field. Her white shirt and pale hair seemed to drift in the dark.
I staggered on again, feeling the turned soil clogging around my shoes. I was tiring, there had been too many upheavals. Seri would wait.
I came to a halt, slithering on the lumpy sods, and leaned forward to catch my breath. I hung my head, resting with my hands on my knees.
When I looked up again I could see Seri’s ghostly figure at the bottom of the dip, by what appeared to be a hedge. Behind her, on the gently rising slope of a hill, was the lighted window of a house. Trees stood darkly blurred on the close horizon.
She did not wait: I saw her white movement, sideways along the hedge.
I sucked a deep breath. “Seri! I’ve got to rest!”
It made her pause momentarily, but if she called an answer I did not hear it. It was difficult to see: paleness moved like a moth against a curtain, then it was gone.
I looked back. The main road was lights sweeping behind trees, and the distant sounds of wheels and engines. To think made my head hurt. I was in a foreign country, needing translations, but my interpreter had left me. I waited until my breath steadied, then walked on slowly, raising and lowering my feet with the deliberation of a shackled man. The mud made deadweights of my legs, and every time I managed to scrape some of it away more clung on. Somewhere invisible to me, Seri must be watching my ponderous, arm-swinging progress through the clay.
At last I reached the hedge and wiped my feet in the long grass that grew there. I moved on in the direction taken by Seri, and peered towards where I had seen the house with the lighted window, seeking a reference. I must have been mistaken, though, because I could now see no sign of it. A wind, mild and steady, came from beyond the hedge, laden with a familiar tang.
A gate was let into the hedge and I went through. Beyond, the ground continued to drop away in a barely perceptible gradient. I took a few steps in the dark, feeling for the unwelcome cling of waterlogged soil, but here the grass was short and dry.
Ahead was a horizon: distant and flat, flickering with a few tiny lights almost invisible in their remoteness. The sky had cleared, and overhead was a display of stars of such brilliance and clarity as I had rarely seen. I marvelled up at them for a while, then returned to the more earthly business of cleaning the remainder of the mud from my shoes. I found a short branch on the ground and sat down to poke and scrape at the gluey muck. When I had finished I leaned back on my hands to stare down the slope at the sea.
M
y eyes were adjusting to the starlight, and I made out the low black forms of islands; the lights I had seen were from a town on an island straight ahead. To my right was a shoulder of land, which ran out to sea with an aged, rounded resilience, forming the high end of a small bay. The land to my left was flatter, but I could see rocks and a sand-bar, and beyond these the coastline curved back and out of sight.
I walked on and soon came to the beach, clambering down a small cliff of soil and flints, then running out across dried seaweed and powdery sand that seemed to crush beneath my feet. I ran as far as the water’s edge, then stood still in the darkness and listened to the special sound of the sea. I felt utterly reassured and complete, able to face anything, free of worry, cured by the essences of the ocean. The faint pungency of salt, warm sand and drying seaweed held powerful associations with childhood: holidays, parents, minor accidents, and that sense of excitement and adventure which, for me, had always overcome the envies and power struggles between Kalia and myself.
My clothes had dried in the warm air, and I felt invigorated and fit. Seri had vanished, but I knew she would reappear when she was ready. I walked the length of the beach twice, then decided to find somewhere to sleep. I found a place in the dry sand that was sheltered by rocks, and here I scooped out a shallow bowl. It was warm enough to sleep uncovered, so I simply lay on my back, cupped my hands behind my head and stared up at the dazzling stars. It was not long before I fell asleep.
I awoke to the sound of the sea, and to brilliant sunlight, and to the crying of gulls. I was instantly alert, as if the transition from sleep to waking was as easy as turning on a light; for months I had been used to a slow, sleepy recovery, dogged by mental and physical clumsiness.
I sat up, regarded the glistering silver sea and the sweep of bone-white sand, and felt the sun warm on my face. To the side, the headland was yellow with flowers and beyond it was a clean blue sky. Lying on the sand beside me, an arm’s length away, was a small pile of clothes. There was a pair of sandals, a denim skirt, a white shirt; resting on the top, in a shallow recess made by a hand, was a small silvery cluster of rings and bracelets.