With practiced ease she found and removed the two long grips that fixed her veil in place and lifted the entire edifice off her sweat-lank hair, placing it empty and stiff on a hard chair, where it sat mutely mocking her. She subsided onto the edge of her bed to unlace her daytime duty shoes, put them neatly together far enough away to ensure that she wouldn’t kick them getting in and out of bed, then stood up to remove her uniform and underclothes.

A cotton robe of vaguely Oriental design hung on a nail behind the door; she shrugged it on and went to take a shower in the clammy cheerless bathhouse. And finally, skin clean, decently clothed in limp cotton pajamas, she lay down on her bed and closed her eyes. The Nembutal was working, giving her a sensation not unlike that following too much gin, vertiginous and faintly nauseating. But at least it was working. She sighed and struggled to abandon her grasp on consciousness, thinking, Am I in love with him, or does it have a far different name than love? Have I simply been away too long from a normal life, been subjugating my physical feelings too harshly? It could be that. I hope it’s that. Not love. Not here. Not with him. To me he doesn’t seem the kind of man to esteem love…

The images blurred, rocked, fused; she fell asleep so thankfully that she was able to tell herself it would be paradise never to have to wake up from sleep again, never, never…

4

When she walked up the ramp of X about seven that evening she met Luce just outside the door; he would have nipped by her smartly, but she stepped across his path, looking grim.

‘I’d like to see you for a moment, please.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, Sis, fair go! I’ve got an appointment!’

‘Then break it. Inside, Sergeant.’

Luce stood watching her while she removed her slouch hat with its red-striped grey band, hung it where her red cape hung during the day; he liked her better in her night gear, a small soldier all in grey.

Settled behind her desk, she looked up at him to find he was lounging against the wall by the open door, arms folded, ready for a quick getaway.

‘Come in, shut the door, and stand to attention, Sergeant,’ she said curtly, and waited until he complied. Then she continued. ‘I’d like you to explain to me exactly what was going on in the dayroom this morning between you and Sergeant Wilson.’

He shrugged, shook his head. ‘Nothing, Sis.’

‘Nothing, Sister. It didn’t look like nothing to me.’

‘Then what did it look like?’ he asked, still smiling, still, it seemed, more amused at her than perturbed.

‘As if you were making some sort of homosexual advance to Sergeant Wilson.’

‘I was,’ he said simply.

Taken aback, she had to pause for a moment to search for the next thing to say, which was, ‘Why?’

‘Oh, it was just an experiment, that’s all. He’s a fairy. I wanted to see what he’d do.’

‘That’s slander, Luce.’

He laughed. ‘Then he can sue me! I tell you he’s a great big fairy.’

‘Which doesn’t explain why you were the one making the advance, does it? Leaving Sergeant Wilson out of it, you’re not the slightest bit homosexual.’

So suddenly the movement made her draw back involuntarily, he slid his hip onto the desk and sat side-on, leaning his face so close to hers that she could see the extraordinary structure of his irises, the multitude of differently colored streaks and flecks which gave them such a chameleon quality; his pupils were slightly enlarged and lustrous with reflections. And her heart took off at a gallop, remembering his effect on her during those first two days in the ward; she felt drowsy, hypnotized, almost bewitched. But what he said next jerked her out of the spell, away from the power.

‘Sweetie, I’m anything,’ he said softly. ‘Anything you like to name! Young, old, male, female—it’s all meat to me.’

She couldn’t prevent the gasp of revulsion. ‘Stop it! Don’t say such things! You’re damned!’

His face came even nearer, his clean and healthy smell curled around her. ‘Come on, Sis, try me! Do you know what your trouble is? You haven’t tried anyone. Why don’t you start with the best? I’m the best there is, I really am—oh, woman, I can make you shiver and yell your head off and beg for more! You couldn’t imagine what I can do to you. Come on, Sis, try me! Just try me! Don’t throw yourself away on a queen or a fake Pom who’s too tired to get it up any more! Try me! I’m the best there is.’

‘Please go,’ she said, nostrils pinched.

‘I don’t usually like kissing people, but I am going to kiss you. Come on, Sis, kiss me!’

There was nowhere to go; the back of her chair was so close to the wall that it barely permitted her room to seat herself. But she pushed the chair back so sharply it whacked against the windowsill behind her, her body reared back in a convulsion of outrage even Luce could not mistake for anything but what it really was.

‘Out, Luce! Immediately!’ She clapped her hand across her mouth as if she was going to be sick, eyes fixed on that fascinating face as if she looked on the devil himself.

‘All right, then, throw yourself away,’ he said, and stood up, plucking and rubbing at his trousers to ease his erection. ‘What a fool you are! You won’t get any joy out of either of them. They’re not men. I’m the only man here.’

After he had gone she stared at the closed door with rigid attention to its construction until she felt the horror and the fright begin to ebb, and wanted so badly to weep that only a continued inspection of the door prevented the tears from coming. For she had felt the power in him, the will to have what he wanted at any cost. And wondered if that was how Michael had felt in the dayroom, impaled on those staring goatish eyes.

Neil knocked, entered and closed the door, one hand behind his back concealing something. Before he sat down in the visitor’s chair he produced his cigarette case and offered it across the desk. It was a part of the ritual that she should make a token demur, but tonight she snatched the cigarette and leaned to have it lit as if she needed it far too badly to remember to demur.

Her boots scraped on the floor as she moved her feet; Neil raised one eyebrow.

‘I’ve never known you to sit down without taking off your boots first, Sis. Are you sure you’re fit to be here? Any fever? Headache?’

‘No fever or headache, doctor, and I’m quite all right. The boots haven’t come off because I caught Luce going out just as I was coming in, and I wanted a word with him. So the boots were rather forgotten.’

He got up, came round the desk and knelt in the tiny space to one side of her chair, patting his thigh. ‘Come on, foot up.’

The buckles on her webbing gaiter were stiff; he had to work at them before they came undone, after which he peeled the gaiter off, loosened the laces of her boot enough to lever it off, and rolled her sock up over the trouser bottom. Then he performed the same service for her other foot, sat back on his heels and twisted to look for the pair of rubber-soled canvas shoes she wore in the ward after dark.

‘Bottom shelf,’ she said.

‘That’s better,’ he said, the sandshoes laced to his satisfaction. ‘Comfortable?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

He returned to his chair. ‘You still look a bit washed out to me.’

She glanced down at her hands, which trembled. ‘I’ve got the Joe Blakes!’ she said, seeming surprised.

‘Why don’t you go on sick parade?’

‘It’s only nerves, Neil.’

They smoked in silence, she looking purposely out the window, he looking intently at her. Then, as she turned to stub out her cigarette, he put the piece of paper he had been concealing down on the desk in front of her.

Michael! Just the way she herself saw him, fine and strong, eyes staring up at her so honestly and directly it seemed impossible to believe anything unmanly could ever lurk behind them.