All hope is abandoned — all vitality drained away . .the rain that drives against the window is no more than. . evaporation, condensation, caused by fluctuations in temperature, air pressure. . all eminently, tediously discoverable . .no mystery: he is not. Adeline binds the wound, returns it to the writing case. She pulls the plaited cord of sisal and, when Flossie enters, asks for whisky, soda and the cigarette box. When they have come Audrey sips fire and smoke, then rises from the settee to flick brimstone on to the fire and lifts her skirt to dry her petticoat. Adeline says, Forgive me, I should’ve proposed a hot bath and a change of clothes when you arrived, most remiss —. — Thass orlright, Addyline — she slurs and cockneyfies deliberately — you ’as made the hoffer now, an’ I ’umbly accepts. — The bath is over six feet long, with sides so high that as she lies in the puddle of hot water at the bottom of it the enamelled rim gravemouths above her I fell inter a box of eggs, All the yeller run down me legs, All the white run up me shirt, I fell inter a box of eggs . .She and Adeline arelodged together in the amber effervescence of the whisky and soda. Looking through steamy zephyrs at the imprint of green willow leaves upon the creamy drapes, Audrey quietly sing-songs, Is it girt or is it sere? Should you be thee and me be thy, or thy be you and me be thee? They had laughed, Gilbert and her, at the daft mummery of the guild socialists, with their shprat shuppers held to raishe fundsh for their minishcule editionsh of hand-printed booksh — they had been certain, Cook and Death, that the future belonged solely to those who could not only control the existing engines of production but make new ones. And here she was, utterly fagged out in a rich woman’s bathtub, looking up at the motto some floppy-tied aesthetical craftsman had chiselled into the wood panelling: When Adam Delved and Eve Span Who was then the Gentleman? In the adjoining dressing room she can hear Adeline playing at being my maid — and no doubt looking out something serviceable that had been obtained ready-made from Liberty’s, worn once for a country walk, mothballed, and is now hatching out again after its long hibernation . .When, however, she is dressed in Adeline’s fine linen underthings and her own dried-out alpaca, when she is seated back down in Adeline’s tomb with another glass of her husband’s whisky and soda, and another of his cigarettes, when she hears the motor car being brought around from the stables, its engine snarling through the storm, Audrey can no longer maintain such disagreeableness in the face of Adeline’s overwhelming grief: she sobs, she laughs hysterically, she makes as if to tear her clothes — for wont of any other course, Audrey takes the other woman in her arms, strokes the hair that he did . . — In the gale, under the crazed lamplight, Flossie stands with several parcels in a net. Please do not refuse me, Adeline says, they’re only a few comforts — some brandy and fruitcake, a box of cigarettes. . My pride, Audrey tells her, runs still and cold and deeper than any patronage. She takes the net from Flossie, who says, Excuse me, miss, but ma’am says that you’re at the Arsenal — is it true, that you’re a munitionette? The girl’s frank face, yellowed only by the lamplight, slides away into that of her mistress, addled and blotched. They are not, Audrey says succinctly, hiring — then she allows the chauffeur to hand her up. Everything slides away: the peculiar old — young house, its chatelaine’s teary goodbyes, the sweet-smelling stillness of her flowery tomb. As soon as the motor car picks up speed, Audrey’s ticcing resurges, at first it is only a fidgeting at the stuff of her skirt, soon enough she is typing invisible orders in her lap, and by the time she is handed down on to the rainswept forecourt of the station it is all Audrey can manage not to circle the wheel, pull the lever and rotate the headstock. . circle the wheel, pull the lever and rotate the headstock . .She allows the chauffeur to hand her up and she settles in the seat immediately behind the one she supposes he will sit in — it’s the first vehicle of any description she has been in for half a century but she recognises most of the controls — gear and brake levers, the steering wheel. She wonders — if her recovery continues — whether she’ll be allowed to drive — or at least pretend to do so, a rusty old Enigmarelle, prompted by pokes in its back to do the trick for the cockney crowd . .Not that there’s much of one, only the two shonk doctors, Long nose, ugly face, oughta be put under a glass case. . their two favourite blackies, and four or five of my fellow sleepyheads. The fat one has been left upstairs, beached, her crabby little husband scuttling around her . .Helene, who Audrey has always quite warmed to, is there, and also the three old monkey men, who have to be pushed and pulled up into the charabanc . .Busner, standing beside Doctor Marcus, watches as Mboya and Inglis coax the enkies into the Ford Strachan, which is parked on the back road alongside the Upholstery Workshop. It’s good of you, he says, to come along. Marcus laughs: The sun has got his hat on, so I’ve come out to play! I mean, an outing — wouldn’t miss it for the world! Busner looks askance at his retired colleague. Marcus is sporting an unexpectedly snazzy short-sleeved shirt, which is vertically striped chocolate and ultramarine, Granddad takes a trip . .his trendy appearance compromised, though, by soup stains? He wonders whether Marcus’s myopia precludes him from seeing the full extent of his ironic stain — irony that’s within irony, which in turn is stranded, this ironic citadel, rusting in a desert of dryness. It took, Busner tells him, an awful lot of pressuring on my part before Whitcomb would allow me to take them out of the hospital at all —. Marcus snorts, Ah, Whitcomb, your bête noire — the Professor Moriarty to your Sherlock Holmes. What d’you imagine, Busner, he’s going to do to frustrate your investigations, when you don’t really know what it is you’re investigating? Busner wants to say something about the micro- and macro-quantal character of the post-encephalitics’ ticcing, about his analyses of their metronomic states, about how he believes the dissolution — and now the reintegration — of their physical wholeness suggests an order within their chaos — wants to, but is leery of Marcus’s contempt — and besides, there’s plenty of time for that. For assertiveness, he calls over to Dunphy — the heavyset porter who’s approved to drive the minibus — Are they all aboard? Dunphy sweeps his cap from his Milo O’Shea head, gives a mock-bow and twirls his free hand, inviting them to roll up for the mystery tour . .Bring me sunshine in your smile, Dunphy sing-songs in an undertone, Bring me laugh-ter, all the while. . The minibus isn’t mini enough, the tiny congregation from Ward 20 is lost in its angled pews — Ostereich sits to attention in the middle row to the left, behind him cluster Voss and McNeil, scared bunnies. At the very back Mboya and Inglis are kept apart by a wall of sound: the irrepressible volubility of Helene Yudkin, who, as Busner oofs aboard, is saying, Look at these, what would you call ’em? Sort of nozzle thingies — but nozzles for what, they aren’t going to squirt us with water, are they —? Of all the awakened enkies she’s the least shocked by now — back up on the ward she’ll stand for hours flicking the light switches on and off, unremittingly delighted by the photons’ discharge. It’s magic! she crows, I do honestly believe it to be magic! Everywhere she goes novelty entrances her — now she runs her hands over the electrified checks of the seat cover, Lovely, she coos, such a beautiful fabric. . Busner sits down beside Miss Death, who perches behind the driver’s seat, and they are joined by Marcus, who, awkwardly folding his drop-leaf body, slots it in behind them. Well, he hales her, good morning to you, madam, and how’re you feeling —. Perfectly all right, she chops him off, and remains with her face averted to the window. Busner thinks: What does she see there, up and to the left? Or is it the onset of an oculogyric crisis? It’s one-two-three. . ten days since her reawakening, but — he counts on — sixteen since her last, so one is due! Then, as they rock over a pothole, it strikes him: We’re moving, and she sees a vista that’s utterly novel — the long façade of the hospital contracting, the brickwork beneath its dulled windows