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trap shut, see?’
    â€˜I get you yet, you see I not.’
    â€˜Not is right,’ said Les. ‘Not is the word. And now I’m taking you out of here before they throw you out.’ There was no nurse to be seen, no sister, but the negro orderly hovered, fearfully undecided. ‘We’ll come in and see you again,’ said Les, ‘if I can get her to behave. I’ll get this bloody primitive wildness knocked out of her before she comes here again, you see if I don’t.’ Tougher, less neurotic, than Jose of the opera, he dragged her out. ‘Hope you’re better,’ he called from the door.
    Edwin thought that perhaps this delegation notion of Sheila’s was not, after all, such a good idea. When all visitors had gone R. Dickie called across, chummily:
    â€˜Them relations of yours?’
    And later Dr Railton came in, massaging his lips, to say:
    â€˜You’re supposed to keep quiet after these tests, you know. Lie still, keep quiet, that’s what you’re supposed to do. I hear that you’ve been shouting the odds or something, at least that’s what one of the sisters told me. Don’t do it, don’t upset yourself. You’ll need every ounce of stamina you can find before we’ve finished with you.’ Hesat down on the bed. ‘Well, we’ve all had a good look at today’s pictures. There’s definitely something there, we think. But we’ve got to make absolutely sure by looking a bit deeper. The day after tomorrow we’re going to pump your brain full of air and take more pictures. That’ll show, that’ll be definitive.’ He laughed boyishly and slapped Edwin’s hidden thigh. Then he said good night and returned, as Edwin supposed, to his trumpet. Strumpet, trumpet, pump it full of air.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    â€˜I suppose,’ said the voice at his back, ‘you’ll be getting to know this sensation pretty well by now.’ Edwin sat in a kind of pillory, his buttocks bare, in another room of the cellar, attended on either hand by new, less boisterous, nymphs in white raiment. The doctor had already announced himself as a psychiatrist, here for a fortnight’s brush-up on his neurology, and his tones were professionally soothing. ‘A few c.c.’s,’ he soothed, ‘of cerebrospinal fluid.’ The needle penetrated deep, Edwin’s vertebrcollapsed as before, the floor became littered with knobs and discs tossed like chicken-bones at some heroic banquet, his life juice spattered everywhere. ‘Nicely, nicely,’ said the doctor. Soon a test-tube of spinegin flashed by.
    â€˜And then we restore the balance. Having taken something out of your cerebrum, we proceed to put something in. Something quite harmless. Something that costs the hospital nothing. Air. Yes, air. This air will, after the manner of air, rise from its point of entry up to the brain, circulating freely. Then the work of these charming ladies commences.’ The honied voice made Edwin drowse, while the charming ladies were heard, felt, to simper.
    The air entered coyly, eased its way up the bony chimney, split up into quiet crocodiles tramping corridors they had never seen before. Suddenly Edwin felt strong thirst and nausea.
    â€˜Keep very still now.’
    â€˜I think,’ he said, ‘I’m going to be sick.’
    â€˜No, you’re not. You’ve nothing in your stomach to be sick on. Now just keep that head still.’
    The nausea eased but the thirst persisted. Edwin had visions of the brown shaggy pierced breasts of coconuts, ice-cubes clattering clumsily into a pint of gin and ginger-beer, a running kitchen-tap and himself held under it, snow crammed into his mouth, his teeth crunching lemons. A picture clicked. Good, now another. Click.
    â€˜Now we pull your head upside-down. You’ll be able to feel the air bubbling about inside. Can you? I believe it’s a funny sort of a