[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.He decided to set up a camp bed on the balcony, in the hope that his dreams of late had been in part a product of the claustrophobia he had experienced in the city.But the open air, the mild sea breeze, could do nothing to alleviate the guilt, and in the early hours he awoke in a sweat and watched his daughter’s smiling face vanish into the night.* * * *Fuller took to going on long walks early in the mornings, so as to avoid the patients who were active mainly in the afternoons.He would spend the rest of the day reading, or drinking, or watching television.It was as if he was purposefully filling his head with trivia, and allotting only the two hours he spent walking for the serious consideration of his circumstances.At the funeral, and its aftermath, he had been unable to show the slightest sign of grief.Many of his acquaintances assumed that he was still in shock, but his father had seen through his silent facade and called Fuller cold and emotionless, accused him of feeling nothing for his dead daughter.Only later did he begin to experience the guilt—not so much at being unable to grieve at her death, rather at his inability to show her more affection during the short time that she had been alive.He had kept his distance, remained aloof, believing that by doing so he could insulate himself from the hurt that inevitably followed emotional involvement.He believed that with involvement came the fear of another’s mortality, and from that the reminder of one’s own—and more than anything else Fuller feared his own death.Over the years, he had succeeded in distancing himself from everyone with whom he had contact, his daughter included.He was rewarded by the inability to suffer anguish at his bereavement.Only now was he coming to realise that his apathy had affected the quality of his daughter’s short life.* * * *One morning, after a long walk, Fuller encountered a patient on the beach beneath the cliffs.Later, he came to think of the brief meeting as prophetic.He saw the woman as he came around the headland, paused and considered retracing his steps so as to avoid meeting her.She was staring out to sea, with her back to him, and he decided to walk quickly past her towards the steps cut into the cliff-face.She stood in the wet sand, her hands slotted into the back pockets of her denim cut-offs, a short white tee-shirt emphasising her tan.She was a crew-cut blonde with the figure of a small boy, and it occurred to Fuller, with mounting shock that, if she were so physically perfect, then her debilitation had to be cerebral.Then he became aware of the subcutaneous network, the threads of gold that embroidered the surface of her arms and legs, the small of her back and belly between cotton shirt and the frayed waistline of her denims.She turned and caught him staring.Her face was young and open.Fuller tried to hurry past, but her question stopped him.“Are you one of them?” Her voice was transistorised, straight from the larynx, while her full lips smiled and her green eyes stared at him.“I arrived here yesterday, from London.” He stopped.“But aren’t you-?” He gestured to the greensward.“I’m a patient, but not of the Canterbury Line.We do not mix.’’He saw that although she had followed him with her head, her stance in the wet sand had not altered.She stood with a torque to her spine that was at once awkward and becoming, her hands still pocketed behind her.He gestured to the steps in the cliff-face, suggesting she might care to accompany him.“Why don’t you mix?” he asked.She walked with movements of such brittle care that she might at one time have broken every bone in her body, yet she was far from clumsy.She moved with the fluid grace, the deliberation of an actress in a Noh play.She said simply in reply, “I scare them.” And smiled at him.At the top of the cliff he made an excuse and returned to his chalet.There, he turned and watched her as she moved off with laborious languor.Her perfection, despite whatever injuries she had sustained, filled him with wonder—and he suspected that it was her perfection that scared the other patients.* * * *Two nights later he came close.It was a contradiction that although for thirty years he had absented himself from emotional involvement, so that he might hold himself at some remove from the inevitability of death, now he was contemplating taking his life.A fear of death had made him what he was—and it was as if threatening himself with oblivion he was in fact presenting himself with an ultimatum: either change, and learn to live and give as others do, or kill yourself now in the full knowledge of the futility of your existence.So naturally he had flung aside the pistol with which he had intended to shoot himself through the heart.Then, in lieu of fulfilling the directive of his ultimatum, he found the bottle of scotch and drank himself senseless.* * * *Often, during the next few weeks, the patients invited him to join their gatherings, and Fuller could not bring himself to refuse.He attended picnics on the greensward, barbecues on the beach, late night parties at which the invalids would sit outside in groups and point to the stars where they had served.His main concern in capitulating and joining their company, that he might have to explain himself and his presence here, proved unfounded.They had heard of Jonathon Fuller, the historical-scripter, and knew of the loss of his daughter.He found himself accepted without having to explain his past, and part of him—the part that had refused to end his life the other night—knew full well that he was cheating himself.He soon spent almost every night at their gatherings, and it was ironic that they regarded him—the only fit and whole person among them—with the pity that they themselves deserved; they had come to accept their own injuries, but they found it hard to come to terms with Fuller’s loss.They had passed so close to death that the mere thought of it terrified them.They were daunting company, these survivors of starship burnouts, novae, alien pestilence, war and a hundred other far disasters.They spoke of their experiences with a gentle wisdom at odds with the enormity of their physical deformities.He had thought that, beside them, perhaps his own problems would come to appear slight, but such was not the case.Through their experiences they had come to know themselves with a thoroughness that emphasised his own uncertainty and lack of self-knowledge.All he had that they did not was a fully-functioning body.He could not talk of himself without appearing superficial, so although he drank and laughed and partied with them, he remained aloof.To save himself he knew that he must accept the intimacies of others, and in turn give of himself, but he was not prepared to open himself to the pain and humiliation that that would entail [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]