She wanted to shriek: But I didn’t stop caring about you! I didn’t, I didn’t! All I wanted was something for myself for a change! There’s only so much you can go on giving without taking something for yourself, Neil! It didn’t seem a very large something at the time. My tenure in X was ending. And I loved him. Oh, God, I’m so tired of giving, giving! Why couldn’t you be generous enough to let me have something too?

But she couldn’t say any of it. Instead, she leaped to her feet and headed for the door, anywhere to get away from him. He grasped at her wrist in passing; swung her round and held her hard, grinding the bones of both her hands cruelly until she ceased to struggle.

‘You see?’ he asked softly, his grip slackening, his fingers sliding up her arms. ‘I’ve just held you a lot harder than Ben probably had to hold Luce, and I don’t think you’ll have any bruises.’

She looked up into his face, a long way further than Michael’s would have been, for Neil was very tall. His expression was both serious and aloof, as if he knew well all that she was feeling, and didn’t blame her. But as if, like a priest-king of old, he was fully prepared to endure anything in order to achieve the ultimate end.

Until this interview she had not even begun to understand what sort of man Neil was; how much passion and determination lay in him. Nor the depth of his feelings for her. Perhaps he had hidden his hurt too skillfully, perhaps, as he charged, her absorption in Michael had made it all too easy for her to assure herself Neil was not devastated by her defection. He had been devastated. Yet it had not prevented him from moving to contain the threat Michael presented. It had not stopped his functioning. Bravo, Neil!

‘I’m very sorry,’ she said, sounding quite matter-of-fact. ‘I don’t seem to have the strength left to wring my hands as I say it, or weep, or go down on my knees to you. But I am sorry. More than you’ll ever know. I’m too sorry to try to justify myself. All I can say is that we, those who care for you, our patients, can be as blind and misguided as any patient who ever walked through the door of a ward X. You mustn’t think of me as a goddess, some kind of infallible being. I’m not. None of us are!’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘But oh, Neil, you have no idea how I wish we were!’

He gave her a light hug, kissed her brow, and let her go. ‘Well, it’s done, and you know the old saying—even the gods can’t unscramble eggs. I feel better for speaking my piece. But I’m sorry too. It’s no joy for me to find that I can hurt you, even though you don’t love me.’

‘I wish I could love you,’ she said.

‘But you can’t. I know. It’s inescapable. You saw me the way I was when I first came to X, and it put me under a liability to you I don’t suppose I’d ever cancel, even if there had been no Michael. You fell for him because he started out as a man for you—a whole man. He never hid himself away, or blubbered with self-pity, or completely unmanned himself. You never had to change his pants or clean up his messes or listen for long boring hours at a time to a litany of his woes—the same woes you must have heard from two dozen men just like me.’

‘Oh, please!’ she cried. ‘I have never, never thought of it—or you—like that!’

‘It’s how I think of myself, looking back. I am able to look back now. So it’s probably a more accurate picture of me than you’re prepared to admit. But I’m cured, you know. From where I’m standing now I can’t even see why it ever happened to me in the first place.’

‘That’s good,’ she said, walking to the door. ‘Neil, please, can we make this goodbye? Right now, I mean. And can you manage to take it for what it is, not a sign of dislike or neglect or lack of love? It’s just been the sort of day I want desperately to see end. And I find I can’t end it with you. I’d rather not see you again. Not for any other reason than it would be like holding a wake. Ward X is no more.’

He accompanied her out into the corridor. ‘Then I shall hold my own wake. If you ever feel you’d like to see me, you’ll find me in Melbourne. The address is in the phone book. Toorak, Parkinson, N.L.G. It took me a long time to find the right woman. I’m thirty-seven years old, so I’m not likely to change my mind in a hurry.’ He laughed. ‘How could I ever forget you? I’ve never kissed you.’

‘Then kiss me now,’ she said, almost loving him. Almost.

‘No. You’re right. Ward X is no more, but I’m still standing in its uncooled corpse. What you’re offering is a favor, and I want no favors. Never any favors.’

She held out her hand. ‘Goodbye, Neil. All the best of luck. But I’m sure you’ll have it.’

He took the offered hand, shook it warmly, then lifted it and kissed it lightly. ‘Goodbye, Honour. Don’t ever forget—I’m in the Melbourne phone book.’

The last trek from X across the compound; one never really thought it would come to that, even after one began to long for it. As if Base Fifteen represented a segment of life as huge as life itself. Now it was over. And it had ended with Neil, which was only fitting. That was quite a man. Yet she could see the truth in his saying he had started out with a big disadvantage. She had thought of him chiefly as a patient. And lumped him in with the rest. Poor, sad, frail… Now to find him none of those things was exhilarating. He implied his cure had come out of the situation in X during the last few weeks of its duration, but that wasn’t true. His cure had come out of himself. The cure always did. So, in spite of the grief, the horror, and the pain, she commenced this last trek feeling as if ward X had existed for a purpose, a good purpose.

Neil hadn’t even bothered to ask her whether she was going to try to exact the justice he felt was already done and she felt had been miscarried. Too late by far. Thank God Michael had told her! Knowing what they had done had freed her from a large measure of the guilt she might otherwise have preserved over her conduct toward them. If they thought she had betrayed them in turning to Michael, she knew they had betrayed her. For the rest of their lives they would have to live with Luce Daggett. So would she. Neil hadn’t wanted her told because he feared her brand of intervention would liberate Michael, and because he genuinely wished to spare her a share of the guilt. Half good, half bad. Half self, half non-self. About normal, that was.

Part 7

1

When Honour Langtry got off the train in Yass there was no one to meet her, which didn’t dismay her; she hadn’t let her family know she was coming. Loving them was one thing, facing them quite another, and she preferred to face them in private. This was childhood she was coming back to, and it seemed so very far away. How would they see her now? What would they think? So she had put the moment of reunion off. Her father’s property wasn’t far out of town; someone would give her a lift.

Someone did, but he was no one she knew, which meant she could sit back and enjoy the fifteen-mile drive in peace. By the time she arrived home the family would know she was back, of course; the stationmaster had welcomed her with open arms, found her the lift, and undoubtedly telephoned ahead that she was on her way.