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besides, she was remembering that she had made a discovery, found a new thought-rather a thought had floated in with the silly words and bits of music: that somewhere in one’s mind was a wave-length, a band where music jigged and niggled, with or without words: it was simply a question of tuning in and listening. And she had made the discovery, and then forgotten it, that the words, or tunes, were not all at random: they reflected a state or an emotion. Because the words of the songs, or the phrases, had a relevance: one could learn from them, if one did not shy off, indignant, annoyed, because of the banality, the silliness, the jumble of this band of sound just behind (beside?) the empty space. For, as Martha had told the wave-length, or the station, before tonight (and had forgotten that she had), you have a very poor sense of humour, you have no taste at all. For instance, a couple of weeks before, walking by the river, first achieving the quiet, then reaching or being afflicted by the band of sound, she had discovered that far from not caring about having no money, and reaching the end of what she had, she was worried, frightened in fact, because the tune that jigged there was ‘the best things in life are free’ over and over and over again, like a sardonic, squalling baby, grinding into her day-time consciousness that she must stop now, must look for work, must get back a condition of earning money. And because night after night she had reached this place, and been informed over and over again by this appallingly frivolous and silly voice that she was in fact scared stiff, she had taken the decision to put her life into responsibility, to leave the drifting and floating. So why resent the method if the information was of use? How did she want useful information to be given? In crashing chords no doubt, or with trumpets? That particular part of her brain did not work like that, and if she resented it, shied off, fled away, made a decision to descend, resisted, she also lost information she needed. The most interesting discoverings were made through banalities. Now, jiggling away there on the edge of the empty space was the announcement that she was tired and wanted to go home. True:but her feet had been telling her that loudly for more than an hour. It was not her feet, her body that were tired-but another part of herself: she understood that in fact she was under great strain: and in a flash of foreseeing, realized the plunge into inert exhaustion that would follow this height. But who, what, was tired, that she needed to be told she was?
    She walked on: in a few minutes she would be at Jack’s house. That is, she would be if she did not take a great loop through surrounding streets; she did not want to get to Jack’s place yet no matter what price she would have to pay for being, as she was now, at a height in herself. When she got to Jack’s, well, that would be a very different place in herself again; and once in it-but suddenly she understood that there was only one person she knew in London, who could allow her to go on living as she was now, rootless, untied, free. That was Jack. No pressures there. And she understood just why he lived as he did. She had ‘understood’ it before; but she understood it differently now that she was in that area of the human mind that Jack also inhabited. Yes. But in that case, why did she shy so strongly away from Jack, from what he stood for-or at least, with a good part of herself? That part whose name was Self-preservation. She knew that. He was paying too high a price for what he got . She knew that. What was the price? The jiggling wave-length was telling her: Jack fell down and broke his crown, Jack fell down and broke …
    Yes. He could not go on as he was now, he’d fall. And so would she if she did not move out of this high stretch of herself. Ah, but not yet, please not yet: she could spend time with him, in his area, just a short time, before moving on to