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I did not sleep. The sheets were clammy and somehow slippery, and I was convinced I was not the first to have tossed and turned between them since their last laundering. I tried to lie, tensed like a spring, in such a way that as little of me as possible came in contact with them. The hours were marked by a distant churchbell with a peculiarly dull note. There was the usual barking of dogs and bellowing of cattle. The sound of my own fretful sighs infuriated me. Now and then a car or a lorry passed by, and a box of lighted geometry slid rapidly over the ceiling and down the walls and poured away in a corner. I had a raging thirst. Waking dreams assailed me with grotesque and bawdy visions. Once, on the point of sleep, I had a sudden, dreadful sense of falling, and I sprang awake with a jerk. Though I tried to put her out of my mind I kept returning to the thought of A
Mrs Reck was tall and thin. No, she was short and fat. I do not remember her clearly. I do not wish to remember her clearly. For God's sake, how many of these grotesques am I expected to invent? I'll call her for a witness, and you can do the job yourselves. At first I thought she was in pain, but it was only a terrible, tongue-tied shyness that was making her duck and flinch. She fed me sausages and rashers and black pudding in the parlour behind the bar (it was the executioner who ate a hearty breakfast). An intricate silence filled the room, I could hear myself swallow. Shadows hung down the walls like fronds of cobweb. There was a picture of Jesus with his dripping heart on show, done in thick shades of crimson and cream, and a photograph of some pope or other blessing the multitudes from a Vatican balcony. A feeling of gloom settled like heartburn in my breast. Reck appeared, in his braces and shirt-sleeves, and asked coyly if everything was all right. Grand, I said stoutly, grand! He stood and gazed at me, smiling tenderly, with a sort of happy pride. I might have been something he had left to propagate overnight. Ah, these poor, simple lives, so many, across which I have dragged my trail of slime. He had not once mentioned the monies I owed him – even on the phone he had apologised for not waiting for me. I rose and edged past him in the doorway. Just popping out for a moment, I said, get a breath of air. I could feel my horrible smile, like something sticky that had dripped on to my face. He nodded, and a little flicker of sadness passed over his brow and down his sheep's muzzle. You knew I was going to do a flit, didn't you? Why did you not stop me? I don't understand these people. I have said it before. I don't understand them.
The sun was shining through a thi
Your honour, I know I have spoken of having a plan, but it was a plan only in the broadest sense. I have never been much good at details. In the night, when the egg hatched and the thing first flexed its sticky, brittle wings, I had told myself that when morning came and real life started up again I would laugh at such a preposterous notion. And I did laugh, even if it was in a thoughtful sort of way, and I believe, I really do, that if I had not been stranded in that hole, with nothing to pass the time except my own dark thoughts, none of this would have happened. I would have gone to Charlie French and borrowed some money from him, and returned to the island and paid my debt to Senor Aguirre, and then I would have taken my wife and child and come home, to Coolgrange, to make my peace with my mother, and settle down, and become a squireen like my father, and live, and be happy. Ah -
What was I saying? My plan, yes. Your lordship, I am no mastermind. The newspapers, which from the start have been quite beside themselves – it was the silly season, after all, and I gave them a glorious, ru