Sunlight was streaming into the room. Rivers lay thinking about the dream, then switched his thoughts to yesterday evening. In the fugue state (though it was more than that) Prior had claimed to feel no pain and no fear, to have been born in a shell-hole, to have no father. Presumably no relationships that pre-dated that abnormal birth.
To feel no pain and no fear in a situation that seemed to call for both was not impossible, or even abnormal. He’d been in such a state himself, once, while on his way to the Torres Straits, suffering from severe sunburn, severe enough to have burnt the skin on his legs black. He’d lain on the deck of a ketch, rolling from side to side as waves broke across the ship, in constant pain from the salt water that soaked into his burns, vomiting helplessly, unable to stand or even sit up. Then the ketch had dragged her anchor and they’d been in imminent danger of shipwreck, and for the whole of that time he’d moved freely, he hadn’t vomited, he’d felt no pain and no fear. He had simply performed coolly and calmly the actions needed to avert danger, as they all had. After they’d landed, his legs had hurt like hell and he’d once more been unable to walk. He’d been carried up from the beach on a litter, and had spent the first few days seeing patients from his sick bed, shuffling from the patient to the dispensing cupboard and back again on his bottom. He smiled to himself, thinking Prior would like that story. Physician, heal thyself.
Other people had had similar experiences. Men had escaped from danger before now by running on broken legs. But Prior had created a state whose freedom from fear and pain was persistent, encapsulated, inaccessible to normal consciousness. Almost as if his mind had created a warrior double, a creature formed out of Flanders clay, as his dream had suggested. And he had brought it home with him.
Rivers, thinking over the previous evening, found that he retained one very powerful impression. In Prior’s speech and behaviour there had been a persistent element of childishness. He’d said, He was wounded. Not badly, but it hurt. He knew he had to go on. And he couldn’t. So I came. So I came. The simplicity of it. As if one were talking to a child who still believed in magic. And on the stairs. What happened then? Nothing. He wasn’t there. It was like a toddler who believes himself to be invisible because he’s closed his eyes. And that extraordinary claim: I have no father. Surely behind the adult voice, there was another, shrill, defiant, saying, He’s not my Dad? At any rate it was a starting-point. He could think of no other.
Rivers had not thought Prior would appear for breakfast, but no sooner had he sat down himself than the door opened and Prior came in, looking dejected, and in obvious pain. ‘How did you sleep?’ Rivers asked.
‘All right. Well, I got a couple of hours.’
‘I’ve asked the girl to bring us some more.’
‘It doesn’t matter, I’m not hungry.’
‘Well, at least have some coffee. You ought to have something.’
‘Yes, thanks, but then I must be going.’
‘I’d rather you stayed. For a few days. Until things are easier.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of imposing on you.’
‘You wouldn’t be “imposing”.’
‘All right,’ Prior said at last. ‘Thank you.’
The maid arrived with a second tray. Rivers was amused to see Prior devour the food with single-minded concentration, while he sipped milky coffee and read The Times. ‘I’ve got an hour before I need go to the hospital,’ he said, when Prior had finished. ‘Do you feel well enough?’
When they were settled in chairs beside the desk, Rivers said, ‘I’d like to go back quite a long way.’
Prior nodded. He looked too exhausted to be doing this.
‘Do you remember the house you lived in when you were five?’
A faint smile. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you remember the top of the stairs?’
‘Yes. It’s no great feat, Rivers. Most people can.’
Rivers smiled. ‘I walked into that one, didn’t I? Do you remember what was there?’
‘Bedrooms.’
‘No, I mean on the landing.’
‘Nothing, there wasn’t… No, the barometer. That’s right. The needle always pointed to stormy. I didn’t think that was funny at the time.’
‘Do you remember anything else about it?’
‘No.’
‘What did you do when your father came in drunk?’
‘Put my head under the bedclothes.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘I went down once. He threw me against the wall.’
‘Were you badly hurt?’
‘Bruised. He was devastated. He cried.’
‘And you never went down again?’
‘No. I used to sit on the landing, going PIG PIG PIG PIG.’ He made as if to pound his fist against the other palm, then remembered the burn.
‘Where were you exactly? Leaning over the banisters?’
‘No, I used to sit on the top step. If they started shouting I’d shuffle a bit further down.’
‘And where was the barometer in relation to you?’
‘On my left. I hope this is leading somewhere, Rivers.’
‘I think it is.’
‘It was a bit like a teddy-bear, I suppose. I mean it was a sort of companion.’
‘Can you imagine yourself back there?’
‘I’ve said I —’
‘No, take your time.’
‘All right.’ Prior closed his eyes, then opened them again, looking puzzled.
‘Yes?’
‘Nothing. It used to catch the light. There was a street lamp…’ He gestured vaguely over his shoulder. ‘This is going to sound absolutely mad. I used to go into the shine on the glass.’
A long silence.
‘When it got too bad. And I didn’t want to be there.’
‘Then what happened? Did you go back to bed?’
‘I must’ve done, mustn’t I? Look, if you’re saying this dates back to then, you’re wrong. The gaps started in France, they got better at Craiglockhart, they started again a few months ago. It’s nothing to do with bloody barometers.’
Silence.
‘Say something, Rivers.’
‘I think it has. I think when you were quite small you discovered a way of dealing with a very unpleasant situation. I think you found out how to put yourself into a kind of trance. A dissociated state. And then in France, under that intolerable pressure, you rediscovered it.’
Prior shook his head. ‘You’re saying it isn’t something that happens. It’s something I do.’
‘Not deliberately.’ He waited. ‘Look, you know the sort of thing that happens. People lose their tempers, they burst into tears, they have nightmares. They behave like children, in many respects. All I’m suggesting is that you rediscovered a method of coping that served you well as a child. But which is —’
‘I went into the shine on the glass.’
Rivers looked puzzled. ‘Yes, you said.’
‘No, in the pub, the first time it happened. The first time in England. I was watching the sunlight on a glass of beer.’ He thought for a moment. ‘And I was very angry because Jimmy was dead, and… everybody was enjoying themselves. I started to imagine what it would be like if a tank came in and crushed them. And I suppose I got frightened. It was so vivid, you see. Almost as if it had happened.’ A long pause. ‘You say it’s self-hypnosis.’