Jack sat up all night; but there was no night, midsummer swallowed the dark; at midnight the church was still glimmering and people strolled talking softly over the lawns. He had skimmed through Trollope's The Small House at Allington, and had dipped into a book of his own called With the Guerrillas in Guatemala. The name on the spine was Jack Henge, and now he wondered if he had ever told his father that this was one of his noms de plume, and he thought that if so, it showed a touching interest on his fathers part, but if not, that there must have been some special hidden sympathy shown in the choice or chance that led to its sitting here on the old man's shelves side by side with the Complete Works of Trollope and George Eliot and Walter Scott. But, of course, it was unlikely now that he would ever know... his father had not woken, had not stirred, all night. Once he had tiptoed in and the nurse had lifted her head and smiled; clearly, though the old man had gone past the divisions of day and night, the living must still adhere to them, for the day nurse had spoken aloud, but now it was night, the nurse whispered: 'The injection is working well. You try to rest, Mr Orkney.' Her solicitude for him, beaming out from the bright cave hollowed from the dark of the room, enclosed them together in the night's vigil, and when the day nurse came, and the night nurse went yawning, looking pale, and tucking dark strands of hair as if tidying up after a night's sleep, her smile at Jack was that of a comrade after a shared ordeal.
Almost at once the day nurse came back into the living-room and said: 'Is there someone called Ann?'
'Yes, a granddaughter, he was asking for her?' 'Yes. Now, he was awake for a moment.'
Jack suppressed: 'He didn't ask for me?' — and ran back into the bedroom which was now filled with a stuffy light that presented the bruised lids to the nurse and to Jack.
'I'll tell my brother that Ann has been asked for'
Jack walked through fresh morning air that had already brought a few people on to the grass around the church, to the hotel, where he found Cedric and Ellen at breakfast.
He said that no, he had not been wanted, but that Ann was wanted now. Ellen and Cedric conferred and agreed that Ann 'could reasonably be expected' never to forgive them if she was not called. Jack saw that these words soothed them both; they were comforting himself. He was now suddenly tired. He drank coffee, refused breakfast, and decided on an hour's sleep. Ellen went to telephone greetings and the news that nothing had changed to her family; Cedric to summon Ann, while Jack wondered if he should telephone Rosemary. But there was nothing to say.
He fell on his bed and dreamed, woke, dreamed again, woke, forced himself back to sleep but was driven up out of it to stand in the middle of his hotel room, full of horror. His dreams had been landscapes of dark menacing shapes that were of man's making — metallic, like machines, steeped in a cold grey light, and scattered about on a plain where cold water lay spilled about, gleaming. This water reflected, he knew, death, or news, or information about death, but he stood too for away on the plain to see what pictures lay on its surfaces.
Now Jack was one of those who do not dream. He prided himself on never dreaming. Of course he had read the 'new' information that everyone dreamed every night, but he distrusted this information. For one thing he shared in the general distrust of science, of its emphatic pronouncements; for another, travelling around the world as he had, he had long ago come to terms with the fact that certain cultures were close to aspects of life which he, Jack, had quite simply forbidden. He had locked a door on them. He knew that some people claimed to see ghosts, feared their dead ancestors, consulted witch-doctors, dreamed dreams. How could he not know? He had lived with them. But he, Jack, did not consult the bones or allow himself to be afraid of the dark. Or dream. He did not dream.
He felt groggy, more than tired: the cold of the dream was undermining him, making him shiver. He got back into bed, for he had slept only an hour, and continued with the same dream. Now he and Walter Kenting were interlopers on that death-filled plain, and they were to be shot, one bullet each, on account of nonspecified crimes. He woke again: it was ten minutes later. He decided to stay awake. He bathed, changed his shirt and his socks, washed the shirt and socks he had taken off, and hung them over the bath to drip. Restored by these small ritual acts which he had performed in so many hotel rooms and in so many countries, he ordered fresh coffee, drank it in the spirit of one drinking a tonic or prescribed medicine, and walked back across sunlit grass to the old people's house.
He entered on the scene he had left. Ellen and Cedric sat with their feet almost touching, one knitting and one reading the Daily Telegraph. Ellen said: 'You haven't slept long.' Cedric said: 'He has asked for you again.'
'What! While he had slept, his energies draining into that debilitating dream, he might have heard, at last, what his father wanted to say. 'I think I'll sit with him a little.'
'That might not be a bad idea.' said his sister. She was annoyed that she had not been ‘asked for'? If so, she showed no signs of it.
The little sitting-room was full of light; sunshine lav on the old wood sills. But the bedroom was dark, warm, and smelled of many drugs.
The nurse had the only chair — today just a piece of furniture among many. He made her keep it, and sat down slowly on the bed, as if this slow subsidence could make his weight less.
He kept his eyes on his fathers face. Since yesterday the bruises had spread beyond the lids: the flesh all around the eyes and as far down as the cheek-bones was stained.
'He has been restless,' said the nurse, 'but the doctor should be here soon.' She spoke as if the doctor could answer any question that could possibly ever be asked; and Jack, directed by her as he had been by his sister and his brother, now listened for the doctor's coming. The morning went past. His sister came to ask if he would go with her to luncheon. She was hungry, but Cedric was not. Jack said he would stay, and while she was gone the doctor came.
He sat on the bed — Jack had risen from it, retreating to the window. The doctor took the old man's wrist in his and seemed to commune with the darkened eyelids. 'I rather think that perhaps...' He took out a plastic box from his case, that held the ingredients of miracle-making: syringe, capsules, methylated spirits.
Jack asked: 'What effect does that have?' He wanted to ask: Are you keeping him alive when he should be dead?
The doctor said: 'Sedative and plain — killer.'
‘A heart stimulant?'
Now the doctor said: 'I have known your father for thirty years.' He was saying: I have more right than you have to say what he would have wanted.
Jack had to agree; he had no idea if his father would want to be allowed to die, as nature directed, or whether he would like to be kept alive as long as possible.
The doctor administered an injection, as light and as swift as the strike of a snake, rubbed the puncture with one gentle finger, and said: ;'Your father looked after himself. He has plenty of life in him yet.'
He went out. Jack looked in protest at the nurse: what on earth had been meant? Was his father dying? The nurse smiled, timidly, and from that smile Jack gathered that the words had been spoken for his father's sake, in case he was able to hear them, understand them, and be fortified by them.