and rejected, and decades of fresh invention to make it possible, including this microscope and the fibre optic lighting. The procedure was humane and daring - the spirit of benevolence enlivened
44 Saturday
by the boldness of a high-wire circus act. Until then, Perowne's intention to become a neurosurgeon had always been a little theoretical. He'd chosen brains because they were more interesting than bladders or knee joints. Now his ambition became a matter of deep desire. As the closing up began and the face, this particular, beautiful face, was reassembled without a single disfiguring mark, he felt excitement tibout the future and impatient to acquire the skills. He was falling in love with a life. He was also, of course, falling in love. The two were inseparable. In his elation he even had some love left over for the maestro himself, Mr Whaley, as he bent his massive form over his minute and exacting tasks, breathing noisily through his nostrils behind his mask. When he was sure that he had removed all the tumour and clot he strode off to see another patient. It was left to the predatory registrar to put together again Rosalind's beautiful features.
Was it improper of Henry, to try and position himself in the recovery room so that he would be the first person she saw as she came round? Did he really think that with her perceptions and mood cradled in a gentle swell of morphine, she would notice him and become enraptured? As it turned out, the busy anaesthetist and his team swept Perowne aside. He was told to go and make himself useful elsewhere. But he lingered, and was standing several feet behind her head as she began to stir. At least he saw her eyes open, and her face remain immobile as she struggled to remember her place in the story of her existence, and her wary, painful smile as she began to understand that her sight was returning. Not yet perfect, but in a matter of hours it would be.
Some days later he was genuinely useful, removing the stitches from inside her upper lip, and helping in the removal of the nasal packing. He stayed on after shifts to talk to her. She appeared an isolated figure, pale from the ordeal, propped up on her pillows, surrounded by fat law manuals, her hair in two heavy schoolgirlish braids. Her only visitors
45 Ian McEivan
were the two studious girls she shared a flat with. Because it hurt to talk, she sipped water between sentences. She told him that three years ago, when she was sixteen, her mother died in a car accident, and that her father was the famous poet John Grammaticus, who lived in seclusion in a chateau near the Pyrenees. To jog Henry's memory, Rosalind helpfully mentioned 'Mount Fuji', the poem anthologised in all the school editions. But she didn't seem to mind so much that he'd never heard of it or the author. Nor did she care that Henry's background was less exotic - an unchanging suburban street in Perivale, an only child, with a father he didn't remember.
After their love affair finally began months later, past midnight, in the cabin of a ferry on a wintry crossing to Bilbao, she teased him about his 'long and brilliant campaign of seduction'. A masterpiece of stealth, she also called it. But pace and manner were set by her. Early on, he sensed how easy it would be to scare her away. Her isolation was not confined to the neurology ward. It was always there, a wariness curbing spontaneity, lowering the excitement levels. She kept the lid on her youth. She could be unsettled by a sudden proposal of a picnic in the country, the unannounced arrival of an old friend, some free tickets for the theatre that night. She might end up saying yes to all three, but the first response was always a turning away, a hidden frown. She felt safer in those days with her law books, in the knowable long-closed matter of Donoghue versus Stevenson. Such distrust of life was bound to extend to himself if he made an unusual move. There were two women to consider, and to earn the trust of
44 Saturday
by the boldness of a high-wire circus act. Until then, Perowne's intention to become a neurosurgeon had always been a little theoretical. He'd chosen brains because they were more interesting than bladders or knee joints. Now his ambition became a matter of deep desire. As the closing up began and the face, this particular, beautiful face, was reassembled without a single disfiguring mark, he felt excitement tibout the future and impatient to acquire the skills. He was falling in love with a life. He was also, of course, falling in love. The two were inseparable. In his elation he even had some love left over for the maestro himself, Mr Whaley, as he bent his massive form over his minute and exacting tasks, breathing noisily through his nostrils behind his mask. When he was sure that he had removed all the tumour and clot he strode off to see another patient. It was left to the predatory registrar to put together again Rosalind's beautiful features.
Was it improper of Henry, to try and position himself in the recovery room so that he would be the first person she saw as she came round? Did he really think that with her perceptions and mood cradled in a gentle swell of morphine, she would notice him and become enraptured? As it turned out, the busy anaesthetist and his team swept Perowne aside. He was told to go and make himself useful elsewhere. But he lingered, and was standing several feet behind her head as she began to stir. At least he saw her eyes open, and her face remain immobile as she struggled to remember her place in the story of her existence, and her wary, painful smile as she began to understand that her sight was returning. Not yet perfect, but in a matter of hours it would be.
Some days later he was genuinely useful, removing the stitches from inside her upper lip, and helping in the removal of the nasal packing. He stayed on after shifts to talk to her. She appeared an isolated figure, pale from the ordeal, propped up on her pillows, surrounded by fat law manuals, her hair in two heavy schoolgirlish braids. Her only visitors
45 Ian McEivan
were the two studious girls she shared a flat with. Because it hurt to talk, she sipped water between sentences. She told him that three years ago, when she was sixteen, her mother died in a car accident, and that her father was the famous poet John Grammaticus, who lived in seclusion in a chateau near the Pyrenees. To jog Henry's memory, Rosalind helpfully mentioned 'Mount Fuji', the poem anthologised in all the school editions. But she didn't seem to mind so much that he'd never heard of it or the author. Nor did she care that Henry's background was less exotic - an unchanging suburban street in Perivale, an only child, with a father he didn't remember.
After their love affair finally began months later, past midnight, in the cabin of a ferry on a wintry crossing to Bilbao, she teased him about his 'long and brilliant campaign of seduction'. A masterpiece of stealth, she also called it. But pace and manner were set by her. Early on, he sensed how easy it would be to scare her away. Her isolation was not confined to the neurology ward. It was always there, a wariness curbing spontaneity, lowering the excitement levels. She kept the lid on her youth. She could be unsettled by a sudden proposal of a picnic in the country, the unannounced arrival of an old friend, some free tickets for the theatre that night. She might end up saying yes to all three, but the first response was always a turning away, a hidden frown. She felt safer in those days with her law books, in the knowable long-closed matter of Donoghue versus Stevenson. Such distrust of life was bound to extend to himself if he made an unusual move. There were two women to consider, and to earn the trust of
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