As days went into weeks I found myself stirring, not physically but something inside me. It really was an awakening. Instinctively my switched-off mind must have realized there was no point in trying to hurry things along and had stayed resting. My recovery was under way before I realized. The first event I can really recall is making myself some food—sausages and stale bread. Then I started feeding the birds again, sitting with them for a short while as usual, although I'd earlier automatically shunned their company as too intrusive, making too many demands on me.
About three days after starting eating I took conscious positive steps. I shaved. The next day I shaved and washed, then after that I bathed and got fresh clothes out. It was about sixteen days before I was presentable. The cottage was reasonable, and I started going down to the launderette. For some reason it was important to set myself a mental limit and stick rigidly to it, no matter how senseless that scheme actually was. Therefore, for four consecutive days I walked the garden's borders ten times every afternoon and counted all my trees and bushes assiduously after doing the washing up about nine o'clock; and for those four days I took my clothes, clean and soiled alike, to the launderette and washed them. Naturally I ran into practical difficulties such as coins for the slots, not knowing when the wretched machines were going to start or stop, what to do with that cup of powder and other details like losing socks. By the fourth day I was becoming quite intrigued by the system. You put in eight socks with your things and get out only five socks and one you've never seen before. Next day's the same. Unless you're careful you can finish up with an entirely different set of miscellaneous gear and all your own socks presumably transmuted into energy. I cut my losses on the fifth day and merely watched other sockless people's machines on the go.
My interest in antiques like everything else had suddenly vanished. Auctions had presumably taken place, the phone carried on unanswered, and Lovejoy was temporarily indisposed. Now, as I mended and consciousness returned, I took up a catalogue and read it in small stages during the course of an entire evening while the telly was on. It was an odd sensation, reading at a distance as it were, with details registering in the right places yet my own self somehow observing the whole process with caution and not a little distrust. Anyhow, I acted it out, feeling a flicker of interest here and there but suppressing it in case it got out of hand. It must have been the right thing to do, because the very next day I was answering letters and making decisions, about half speed. Injured animals go and lie quiet, don't they? Maybe that's what my mind had done. The fourth week I faced the world again.
I began life by attending a sale in Colchester and after two more days another, this time in Bury St. Edmunds. As a starter, the tokens I'd bought in darkest East Anglia—easy material whose value you can always gauge by an hour's careful checking —were launched out in a coin mart we have not far away, and they went for a good profit. I was pleased because I was pleased. The cottage hadn't been assaulted while I was out. Cheered and feeling full of emotions that were no longer lying dormant, I whistled and sang and forayed into the garden for some flowers to put in a vase. I was unsuccessful, though, not because there weren't any but because you can't really go hacking plants' heads off just because you feel a bit bouncy. I seriously thought of planting one into a pot and bringing it inside the cottage but decided against that as well. There's no breeze inside a house like there is in a garden, is there, and plants might really depend on being pushed about by the wind, not being able to stretch themselves as we can. Also, you have to think of the proper sunshine outside instead of no real light indoors. And rain. And company. I don't know much about them, not like Major Lister would, for instance, but it stands to reason you're best not trying to dabble in what you don't understand. People do damage when they want things. If people didn't want things, hardly anything would go wrong with anybody's life. All bad's desire.
I temporarily shelved the notion that if it was true that all bad came from desire, then maybe all desire was bad too. Calm but feeling alive again now, I gently worked my way back to a proper behavior.
Six whole weeks after I'd gone up to Maltan Lees and met Watson I was well again.
Not that I was yet in the full circle of my usual life. I kept out of friends' way, didn't phone any of them, and only spoke when I was directly addressed if ever I ran into anyone I knew. Business picked up from nil, and a trickle of post came again. The phone calls started. It was a pleasure to be active and doing something useful, but I had to keep myself from regretting the lost opportunities during my holiday. There'd been an undeniable upsurge of deals in the antiques world during the previous weeks. I just had to accept that I'd done my business no good by chasing all over England looking for a needle in a haystack.
Finally, when I was really well and having to restrain myself hourly, I shook out the reins of my mind and took off.
I rang Field. He was very relieved.
"I'm sorry about your illness. What was it?"
"Oh, you know," I parried, "some virus I expect."
"Terrible, terrible things, those." After passing on some amateur therapy he told me of the replies to the advertisement.
"Were there many?"
"You've no idea!" He drew breath. "The wife nearly went off me. A mountain of letters, some really rather odd. I'd no idea people could be so extraordinary."
"Are they mostly cranks?"
"Some, but some I would say are worth your attention. You'd better come and have a look."
"I shall."
We fixed a time and I rang off. Feeling strong, I rang Tinker Dill at the White Hart.
"Tinker? Lovejoy," I greeted him. "What's new?"
"Christ!" he exclaimed in the background hubbub from the bar. "Am I glad to hear you!"
"I want ten buyers tomorrow, first thing." It was the best joke I could manage, feeling so embarrassed at his pleasure.
"Will do," he replied cheerfully. "I heard you was about again. O.K.?"
"Not bad, ta."
"When you coming into town again?"
"Oh, maybe tomorrow. I think I'll come into the arcade." I wasn't too keen on going, but I could always ring later and postpone it if I wanted.
"Everybody asks about you." I'll bet, I thought.
"Much stuff around?"
"Some," he said with sorrow in his voice. "You've missed quite a bit of rubbish, but there's been some interesting stock whizzing about."
"Ah, well."
"Tough, really, Lovejoy. A set of fairings went for nothing last week…" He resumed his job, pouring out details of everything important he could think of. It sounded lovely and I relished every word, stopping him only when his voice was becoming hoarse.
"Thanks, Tinker. Probably see you tomorrow, then."
"Right, Lovejoy. See you."
It was enough excitement for one day. I drew the curtains and gathered an armful of the sale lists that had arrived while I was ill. There was a lot of catching up to do.
As I read and lolled, lists began forming in my mind, of faces and where I'd seen them. I don't mean I stopped work, just studied on and let faces come as they wished. Tinker Dill seemed everywhere I'd ever been, practically, since the Judas pair business began. And Jane. And Adrian. Dandy Jack. And Watson, of course. And, oddly, the Reverend Lagrange, which for somebody who lived many miles north in darkest East Anglia was rather enterprising. But he said he went to Muriel Field's house, being such a close family friend and all that. Did priests get time off? Maybe he'd struck a patch of movable feasts and it was all coincidence. And then there was Margaret, Brad, Dick Barton who'd sold me the Mortimers. Plus a few incidental faces who appeared less frequently, so you barely noticed them at all.