'Go to bed, keep warm and drink plenty.' Dr Irving added as an afterthought, 'I mean dihydrogen monoxide. Water to you, haha.' It was a favourite joke, often repeated.
Ella had believed it was impossible for anything to shock her. She had seen too much, witnessed too many sad or wretched situations, heard too many tales of pain and suffering and cruelty. But Joel Roseman's condition had shocked her. She had gone to that bungaloid mansion in Hampstead Garden Suburb, certain she would find her patient kept under duress, perhaps even physically a prisoner, possibly maltreated, and she had been prepared to call the police and tell them here was someone detained against his will. But she had seen nothing of that, only a man who in any other period of history would have been described as mad, as stark raving mad, tended by his mother, the father with whom he was reconciled, and in the care of one of the most reputable psychiatrists in the country. She was shocked because she had been so wrong and because of Joel's pitiable state.
And their encounter had left her feeling nervous and vulnerable. Alone in the half-furnished flat from which all the books were gone and most of the ornaments, she longed for Eugene. Now that Joel was no longer her patient she could have talked to Eugene about him, described the horror she had felt when this poor man with his dyed yellow hair talked of himself as an angel or a god, and described too the pathetic mother, pared down now to a raw skinless creature who had grown, in so short a time, from absurd girlishness into her true age. And the grotesque father whose own daughter had drowned yet who kept a picture of a drowning woman in his home. Eugene would have listened and comforted and suggested kind remedies, brought her drinks and kissed her and taken her out to somewhere lovely. None of which would have helped Joel but would have helped her.
She thought of those early evening times in his study when, over a glass of wine, they had talked about the day that had just passed. She thought of his cooking for her with greater skill than she possessed, of their quiet sitting side by side, each reading in companionable tranquil silence, of their nights and his ardent lovemaking. It was gone and there was no one. Joel might be mad in the recognised sense of that term but Eugene's was also a kind of madness, inexplicable, absurd, utterly destructive.
Ella buried her face in the only two cushions remaining in her living room and began to cry.
They hadn't named any specific time for Ian to come. They never made arrangements of that sort. But when it got to nine and he still hadn't arrived Fize began to get worried that he wouldn't come at all and at the same time he was relieved. He wanted to put off what he had to say, yet he knew he would have no peace of mind until he had said it. But most people are like that. They prefer the doubt to the fact. Fize knew he was weak while wishing he were brave and strong, he knew that women liked him because he was good-looking and nice and perhaps because they could kick him around. Sometimes he thought that the only bold and daring thing he had ever done in all his life was set fire to Gilbert Gibson's house, and while he was pondering along these lines the doorbell rang.
Ian hadn't brought anything to drink. This was no surprise to Fize who would have been amazed if he had. Because he was unemployed and living on the benefit, Ian thought people in work ought to pay for everything he consumed, drink, curry, fish and chips. The first thing he said was, 'You got anything to eat in this place?'
Gemma subsisted on a healthy diet. 'There's bread. There's cheese and sardines and apples and stuff.' Fize remembered another foodstuff. 'Oh, and there's muesli.'
'Christ.'
'You can have a beer.'
When Fize came back Ian was sitting on the edge of Gemma's cream-coloured sofa as if it were made of thin ice. He had never been there before and was no doubt feeling the way Fize had when he first met Gemma and was invited back, that he had come into the showroom of a furniture shop. Everything was clean and brushed or polished, there were flowers in a vase and