Experiments on Reality by Tim Robinson

Author:Tim Robinson
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241987308
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2019-09-04T16:00:00+00:00

Two Cries, Two Cliffs14

Eurydice in Hades

Last Wednesday, which is only a week ago, M and I strolled out from our flat in West Hampstead to a little second-hand bookshop half a mile away on Cricklewood Lane. Having looked along a short shelf, she picked out one book, then sat down and explored no further. On the way home she stopped on the steep part of Messina Avenue and told me she was exhausted. I said that, in view of the life-shaping decisions we had been living with for some months, this was no wonder; and I took her hand. We went on homewards, at a relaxed pace and in harmonious mood.

Arrived, I went into the kitchen, made us tea, and brought it into the living room. When I placed M’s cup before her, with some trivial remark, her response was obscure. She mouthed something, with a faint smile; I asked her how she felt, and could make nothing of her answer. I spoke again; she was obviously trying to articulate a reply but failing to bring to mind the words she needed. Her gaze was wandering, vague. I knelt before her and hugged her, pleaded with her to tell me what was wrong. There was a froth of saliva on her lips. Language had left her, like leaves blown off a tree.

At that moment the doorbell rang. It was Anna, M’s lifelong friend; she had two pots of hyacinths in her hands, one of which, it seemed, was for us. I cut short her explanations and brought her into the living room. M was lying obliquely in her chair, head flung back, mouth and eyes gaping. Suddenly she arched her back and howled. I had never heard so terrifying a sound. It was not a shriek of human pain but a long low-pitched animal roar, very loud. I seemed to see that noise as a burst of flame racing through her brain. I tried to ring our doctor’s surgery, but could not get through. Anna was already calling the emergency services on her mobile phone; when they answered she handed the phone over to me. I tried to follow the instructions a responder gave me, but it was impossible to hold M’s head as instructed and handle the phone at the same time; nor could we get M off her chair and spread her out on the floor, for by now she was convulsing, great shudders running down her arms and upper body. As she quietened I did not know if my life-long love was alive or dead. Then she partially focused her eyes on me; it was like a crack opening in a wall. But the empty speech-bubbles still clustered on her lips.

Then through the window we glimpsed figures in high-visibility vests running down the street from where an ambulance was parked. Anna let them in, and one of them, a young woman, announced that she was now in charge of the scene of the incident, so I relinquished

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