(What were their names? The ones near the bottom fence?) she had planted the first year they were married, the year she lost the twins and he went to see them in their humidicribs, each tiny feature perfect, and went home to change the sheets and blankets on the bed, wet with the broken water from her womb, and those flowers, like bottle brushes, were out then and he took them to her.
They had beautiful clever children but there was no satis-faction in that, no pleasure to remember that he had bathed them and read them stories.
'Now,' the Kodak advertisement said, 'before it all changes.' He had always admired the line but never taken the photographs. Just as well, just as well. Why would details make it any better?
He could hardly write. He had to force himself to spell each word fully. He dug these words in soft cardboard: No farewell. Sorry. Operation today but could not bear to say farewell. Love you all. Fingers crossed. Bless ... Harry.
He pressed the buzzer above the bed.
'Envelope,' he asked, and waved the cardboard.
Denise came from the country. Her father and mother kept poultry. She was used to milking cows and finding eggs under bushes. She looked at Harry Joy with his ash-grey hair, his huge moustache and his piece of cardboard and couldn't imagine how he had been made.
'Wouldn't you like some paper, Mr Joy?'
'No.'
His smile was so painful it made her want to be able to do something, anything. The smile was worse than a scream. In the matron's office she found a huge Manila envelope; nearly sixteen inches long. She brought it to him gently and watched him drop the tattered cardboard inside and write in large careful letters the names of his family.
'Stamp,' he gave her money.
'I'll fix it in the morning, don't worry.'
'Now, please.'
'O.K., stamp now.' And she went plodding off in her soft white slippers and stole stamps for Harry Joy. She covered the envelope with stamps, giving him the only thing she could give. She brought him a pill too and he didn't even ask what it was, but ate it almost greedily, his hand shaking and spilling water down his front.
The pill soon reduced his world to a hazy blur, within which, in the sharpest detail, the seeds of Hell, long ago planted and recently nurtured, began to sprout and unfold their chrome-yellow petals.
Under Pentothal, he tried to name things. He tried to name the garden but could not do it properly. As he went deeper the names were lost and there were only shapes, tied with yellow string, revolving on a Ferris wheel.
He existed with white shadowy forms and sharp astringent odours. He had died again and he waited, fearfully, wondering. Lost, he felt nauseous, a floating feeling, his body without substance.
He closed his eyes, conscious of being handled with mechanisms, an object in space, without time.
Instruments were applied to him cruelly, without love.
He was split by pains, small and sharp, long and monot-onous.
He was pervaded by a full consciousness of punishment and the curious certainty of death enveloped him like a shroud.
Sometimes he cried with self-pity. Frightened as a child, he begged for mercy.
He was on a shuddering railway of merciless steel, voices echoed coldly. There were noises of silver wheels or distant thunder.
He existed nowhere in solitary terror. Visions of days before his death moved towards him and receded: his mother in that dusty street giving him the cheque. 'Now go,' she said, 'now go. I’ve won the lottery.' And in that white empty room, the Sunday School, the single sentence he had carried with him like a limpet since his youth: It is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
When he saw the shapes around him it was through grey veils. He was tormented with shifting images of his wife, his children, of Desmond Pearce. Joel circled him. With what intention?
Someone said: 'He will be confused for a while.'
Yes, he thought bitterly, I will be
They had beautiful clever children but there was no satis-faction in that, no pleasure to remember that he had bathed them and read them stories.
'Now,' the Kodak advertisement said, 'before it all changes.' He had always admired the line but never taken the photographs. Just as well, just as well. Why would details make it any better?
He could hardly write. He had to force himself to spell each word fully. He dug these words in soft cardboard: No farewell. Sorry. Operation today but could not bear to say farewell. Love you all. Fingers crossed. Bless ... Harry.
He pressed the buzzer above the bed.
'Envelope,' he asked, and waved the cardboard.
Denise came from the country. Her father and mother kept poultry. She was used to milking cows and finding eggs under bushes. She looked at Harry Joy with his ash-grey hair, his huge moustache and his piece of cardboard and couldn't imagine how he had been made.
'Wouldn't you like some paper, Mr Joy?'
'No.'
His smile was so painful it made her want to be able to do something, anything. The smile was worse than a scream. In the matron's office she found a huge Manila envelope; nearly sixteen inches long. She brought it to him gently and watched him drop the tattered cardboard inside and write in large careful letters the names of his family.
'Stamp,' he gave her money.
'I'll fix it in the morning, don't worry.'
'Now, please.'
'O.K., stamp now.' And she went plodding off in her soft white slippers and stole stamps for Harry Joy. She covered the envelope with stamps, giving him the only thing she could give. She brought him a pill too and he didn't even ask what it was, but ate it almost greedily, his hand shaking and spilling water down his front.
The pill soon reduced his world to a hazy blur, within which, in the sharpest detail, the seeds of Hell, long ago planted and recently nurtured, began to sprout and unfold their chrome-yellow petals.
Under Pentothal, he tried to name things. He tried to name the garden but could not do it properly. As he went deeper the names were lost and there were only shapes, tied with yellow string, revolving on a Ferris wheel.
He existed with white shadowy forms and sharp astringent odours. He had died again and he waited, fearfully, wondering. Lost, he felt nauseous, a floating feeling, his body without substance.
He closed his eyes, conscious of being handled with mechanisms, an object in space, without time.
Instruments were applied to him cruelly, without love.
He was split by pains, small and sharp, long and monot-onous.
He was pervaded by a full consciousness of punishment and the curious certainty of death enveloped him like a shroud.
Sometimes he cried with self-pity. Frightened as a child, he begged for mercy.
He was on a shuddering railway of merciless steel, voices echoed coldly. There were noises of silver wheels or distant thunder.
He existed nowhere in solitary terror. Visions of days before his death moved towards him and receded: his mother in that dusty street giving him the cheque. 'Now go,' she said, 'now go. I’ve won the lottery.' And in that white empty room, the Sunday School, the single sentence he had carried with him like a limpet since his youth: It is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
When he saw the shapes around him it was through grey veils. He was tormented with shifting images of his wife, his children, of Desmond Pearce. Joel circled him. With what intention?
Someone said: 'He will be confused for a while.'
Yes, he thought bitterly, I will be
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