A Severed Head

I was scarcely at that moment capable of memories or speculations. But I seemed again to hear her voice saying, 'Martin, you don't know how near the edge I am.' Indeed, there was so much I did not know, had not cared to know. Georgie's stoicism had helped to make me a brute. She had so cu

Some moments passed. I heard a sound at the door and began to rise. Reclining on one elbow I saw a figure enter. The door closed again. Honor Klein was looking down at me.

I got as far as a sitting position and said, 'The ambulance is coming.'

Honor said, 'I was afraid of this. She sent me a very strange letter.'

I said, 'She sent me her hair.»

Honor stared at me. Her face was closed and stiff. Then she looked at Georgie and said, 'I see. That's it. I thought she looked rather odd.' She spoke with detachment and precision.

I thought, she is pitiless. Then I thought, so am I.

Honor was wearing a shabby unbelted mackintosh. She was hatless, her black hair a little sleeked by the rain. As she stood there, hands in pockets, surveying the room she had a sharp business-like air. She might have been a detective. I rose to my feet.

She said, 'As she let us both know let us hope that she has not made a serious attempt. Have you found the tablets?'

I had not thought of that. We began to hunt, shifting books and papers, upsetting loaded ash-trays and piles of underclothes, and tipping the contents of drawers on the floor, stepping to and fro over Georgie's inert legs. I undid the dishevelled bed and looked under the pillow. Turning back to see Georgie still lying there amid the disordered sea of her belongings and glimpsing for a second the intent face of Honor as she rifled another cupboard I wondered into what half-ludicrous nightmare I had strayed. At last we found something, an empty bottle which had contained a well-known brand of sleeping drug, and we left off our search.

I looked at my watch. It was hard to believe that it was less than ten minutes since I had telephoned the hospital. The ambulance must arrive soon. Suddenly still, Honor and I looked at each other across the recumbent Georgie. It occurred to me that this was the first time that I had been alone with Honor since the night in Cambridge. Only I was not alone with her. We had a terrible chaperone. She was present to me, but only as a torment, as an apparition; and I knew that I was looking at her as I had never looked at any human being but as one might look at a demon. And she looked back out of her shallow Jewish mask, the line of her mouth dead straight between the curving lips, the narrow eyes black. Then we both looked down at Georgie.

Honor knelt down beside her and began to clear away from round her the various papers, garments, and other oddments which had a little snowed upon her during our rifling of the room. I saw with a curious surprise that Georgie was lying in exactly the same drowned attitude as when I had arrived. When Honor had cleared a space about her she put her hand on the girl's shoulder and turned her on to her back, moving her outflung arm down to her breast. Then she put a cushion under her head. I shivered. As I knelt on the other side the two women composed for me for an instant into an eerie pieta. Honor with bowed head, suddenly gentle with concern, and Georgie slain, alienated, sleeping.

Honor was still touching Georgie's shoulder. As if this contact lent an articulate presence to the sleeping girl, I now felt able to touch her too and I drew my finger down her thigh. I could feel the soft warm leg through the material. But what I felt more, as in an electric circuit, was the shiver of co

Twenty-six

The scene round Georgie's bed was animated by a feverish gaiety. We were all there, like a family reunited at the bedside of a sick child. Brightly coloured wrapping-paper, chocolate boxes, toy animals, Penguin books, and exotic cigarettes strewed the counterpane, and the rows of flower vases on the dressing table and the window ledge made the little white hospital room look like a florist's shop. There was something of the atmosphere of Christmas Day in the nursery.

Georgie lying back, propped up with pillows, seemed indeed like an over-excited little girl. Her face was rather red and retained a new look of plumpness. Her hair, which she had shorn roughly at the nape of the neck, had been a little trimmed up by the Sister, but was still jagged and stuck out awkwardly on either side of her head, making her look very juvenile. She nervously caressed a white fluffy toy dog which Antonia had brought her, and looked at each of us in turn with a bright diffident imploring smile. We leaned benevolently over her.

It was now the third day since Georgie's exploit. She had been in a coma for more than twelve hours, but was now out of danger and considerably recovered. Palmer was sitting close to her at the head of the bed and I was sitting opposite him. Antonia was perched on the bed, her legs curled under her, and Alexander was leaning on the iron rail at the foot. Honor Klein leaned against the window ledge behind Palmer.

'Oh dear, I've caused you all so much trouble!' said Georgie. 'I do feel bad.'

'All's well that ends well!' said Antonia, her hand impulsively meeting Georgie's in the soft fur of the toy dog. Antonia had been positively rejuvenated by the news of Georgie's attempt. On hearing of it she had completely cast aside her listless and defeated air. After three days of exhilaration and excitement she looked distinctly handsomer and like her old self. Yesterday she had bought three hats.

«And so you should feel bad!' said Palmer. 'Strictly speaking, we should have given you a good thrashing, instead of spoiling you like this!' He passed his hand affectionately over her dark cropped head, turning it slightly towards him.

I could feel Honor Klein's eyes upon me, but I did not look at her. She leaned there with a bland cat-like expression which was almost a smile, and did not join in the chatter. Alexander too was subdued, brooding on Georgie with a sad gentle stare, immersed in the enjoyment of his private emotions. I envied his evident ability to feel. I was hollow.

'I felt such a sham when I came round,' said Georgie, 'and I thought to myself, all the other women on this corridor are here with real illnesses, and I am just a trouble-maker. But do you know, they're all in for the same thing as me! The woman in the end is quite proud because she took the largest dose!'

We laughed. Alexander murmured, ' «To sleep! Perchance In dream …» ' half audibly and then would not repeat what he had said.

I looked at Georgie's nervously twisting hands. I felt com-passion for those hands as they jumpily fondled the toy dog. But I could no longer apprehend Georgie as a whole. She had never, after that strange scattering of her, come together again. I felt no grain of passionate interest in the once familiar body which lay extended so close to me. Something, even, in her still changed and alien face repelled me. It was as if she had died indeed. I wanted, when I thought of this, to kneel by her bed and bury my face and groan as a sort of desperate act of mourning. But I went on sitting there with a fixed half-smile. I wondered if, supposing I were to reach out and pat her hands, the gesture would look intolerably artificial. I could still feel Honor's eyes upon me like a cold sun.