"There's a heap of mail out there," she said. "No wonder you haven't replied. Don't you ever look at your post?"
"I've been busy," I said. I was checking through the numbered pages, fearing that some might have gone out of order. I was wishing I had taken a carbon copy of my work, and kept it in some secret place.
Felicity had come right into the room, and was standing over me.
"I had to come, Peter. You sounded so strange on the phone, and James and I both felt something must be wrong. When you didn't answer the letters, I telephoned Edwin. What are you doing?"
"Leave me alone," I said. "I'm busy. I don't want you interrupting me."
I had numbered each page carefully, but 72 was missing. I searched around for it, and some of the others slipped to the side.
"God, this place is a mess!"
For the first time I looked straight at her. I felt an odd sensation of recognizing her, as if she were somebody I had created. I remembered her from the manuscript: she was there and her name was Kalia. My sister Kalia, two years older than me, married to a man named Yallow.
"Felicity, what do you want?"
"I was worried about you. And I was right to be worried. Look at the state of this room! Do you ever clean it?"
I stood up, holding my manuscript pages. Felicity turned away to go into the kitchen. I was trying to think of somewhere I could hide the manuscript until Felicity left. She had seen it but she could have no idea of what I had been writing, nor how important it was.
There was a clattering of metal and crockery, and I heard a gasp from Felicity. I went to the kitchen door and watched what she was doing. She was standing by the sink, moving the plates and pans to one side.
"Have Edwin and Marge seen the mess you're making of their house?" she said. "You never could look after yourself, but this is the limit. The whole place stinks!"
She forced open the window and the room filled with the sound of rain.
"Would you like a cup of coffee?" I said, but Felicity just glared at me.
She rinsed her hands under the tap and looked around for a towel. In the end she wiped her hands on her coat; I had lost my towel somewhere. Felicity and James lived in a modern detached house in what had once been a field outside Sheffield. Now it was an estate, with thirty_six identical houses placed in a neat circular avenue. I had been to the house a few times, once with Gracia, and there was a whole chapter of my manuscript describing the weekend I spent there after they had their first child. I had an impulse to show Felicity the relevant pages, but then I thought she might not appreciate them.
I held the manuscript tight against my chest.
"Peter, what's been happening to you? Your clothes are filthy, the house is a tip, you look as if you haven't eaten a proper meal in weeks. And your fingers!"
"What's wrong with them?"
"You never used to bite your nails."
I turned away. "Leave me alone, Felicity. I'm working hard and I want to finish what I'm doing."
"I'm not going to leave you alone! I had to sort out all Father's business, I had to sell the house, I had to wet-nurse you all through all that legal business you wanted to know nothing about . . . and run my own home and look after my family. You did nothing! And what about Gracia?"
"What about her?"
"I've had her to worry about too."
"Gracia? How have you seen her?"
"She got in touch with me when you left her. She wanted to know where you were."
"But I wrote to her. She didn't answer."
Felicity said nothing, but there was anger in her eyes.
"How is Gracia?" I said. "Where is she living?"
"You selfish bastard! You know she nearly died!"
"No she didn't."
"She overdosed herself. You must have known!"
"Oh yes," I said. "Her flatmate told me."
I remembered then: the girl's pale lips, her shaking hands, telling me to go, not to bother Gracia.
"You know Gracia's got no family. I had to take a week in London, because of you."
"You should have told me. I was looking for her."
"Peter, don't lie to yourself! You know you ran away."
I was thinking about my manuscript, and suddenly I recalled what had happened to page 72. When I was numbering the pages one evening I had made a mistake. I had been meaning to renumber the other pages ever since. I felt relieved that the page was not lost.
"Are you listening to me?"
"Yes, of course."
Felicity pushed past me aild returned to my white room. Here she opened both windows, admitting a cold draught, then went noisily up the wooden stairs. I followed her, feeling a stir of alarm.
"I thought you were supposed to be decorating the place," Felicity said.
"You've done nothing. Edwin will be furious. He thinks you've nearly finished."
"I don't care," I said. I went to the door of the room I had been sleeping in, and closed it. I did not want her to look inside because my magazines were all over the place. I leant against the door to stop her entering. "Go away, Felicity. Go away, go away."
"My God, what have you been doing?" She had opened the door of the lavatory, but immediately closed it again.
"It's blocked," I said. "I've been meaning to clear it."
"You're living like an animal."
"It doesn't matter. No one's here."
"Let me see the other rooms."
Felicity advanced on me and tried to grab my manuscript. I clutched it tighter against me, but she had been feinting. She seized the door handle and had the door open before I could stop her.
She stared past me into the room for several seconds. Then she looked at me with contempt.
"Open the window," she said. "It stinks in there." She walked across the landing to inspect the other rooms.
I went into my bedroom to clear up what she had seen. I closed the magazines and shoved them guiltily beneath my sleeping-bag, and kicked my soiled clothes into a heap in one corner.
Downstairs, Felicity was in my white room, standing by my desk and looking down at it. As I walked in she glanced in a pointed way at my manuscript.
"Can I see those papers, please?"
I shook my head, and clutched them to me.
"All right. You don't have to hold them like that."
"I can't show them to you, Felicity. I just want you to go away. Leave me alone."
"O.K., just hold on." She pulled the chair away from the desk, and placed it in the middle of the floor. The room looked suddenly lopsided. "Sit down, Peter. I've got to think."
"I don't know what you're doing here. I'm all right. I'm fine. I need to be alone. I'm working."
But Felicity was no longer listening. She went through into the kitchen and ran some water into the kettle. I sat on the chair and held the manuscript against my chest. I watched her through the door to the kitchen as she held two cups under the tap, and looked around for where I kept the tea. She found my instant coffee instead, and spooned some of it into each cup. While the kettle sat on the gas she started clearing my unwashed pots and pans to one side and filled the sink with water, holding her fingers in the flow.
"Is there no hot water?"
"Yes . . . it's hot." I could see the steam cascading around her arms.
Felicity turned off the tap. "Edwin said an immersion heater had been installed. Where is it?"
I shrugged. Felicity found the switch and clicked it on. Then she stood by the sink, her head bowed. She seemed to he shivering.
I had never seen Felicity like this before; it was the first time we had been alone together in years. Perhaps the last time was when we had been living at home, during one of my vacs from university, when she was engaged.
Since then James had always been with her, or James and the children. It gave me a new insight into her, and I recalled the difficulty with which I had written of Kalia in my manuscript. The scenes of childhood with her had been amongst the most difficult of all, and those for which the greatest amount of background invention had been necessary.