"I'm just trying to finish a story to round off another book," Ward says, shaking his head again as if that may dislodge the throbbing.

Holmes rubs his chin as if it's a magic lamp. "Sounds to me as if they aren't looking after you as you deserve to be looked after. If they haven't commissioned you to write a novel yet, I'd like to."

The rhythm in Ward's ears is becoming entangled in his thoughts. "Tell me what to write, you mean?"

"Have you a novel in mind yourself?"

"I've been thinking about one off and on." Ward doesn't mean to shout, but he has to speak up to be sure of what he's saying. "I had the notion of a story from two viewpoints, only really you're always reading the opposite viewpoint from the one you think you are. You'd realize that when you notice wrong words cropping up in each one, and then the whole meaning of the story would change completely."

Holmes gazes at him to make sure he's finished. "Sounds fascinating. A bit obscure for a first novel, don't you think? We want to put your name in as many heads as possible. I think a writer who's as much in love with words as you are has a trilogy in him. Say a trilogy about magic, the power of words. Say a professor of languages who finds he's a magician and he's needed to save humanity. Does that get you thinking?"

Ward's backing into himself, he finds the attempt to shape his ideas so threatening. "I don't know if the people at Clarion Press would want me to write for someone else."

"If you feel they've earned your loyalty that much you mustn't let me come between you. Take a look at how they're doing in the shops before you go home." Holmes changes the subject, so abruptly that Ward feels as if it has been s.n.a.t.c.hed from beneath him. As they part after lunch, Holmes says, "Think about what I said, if you like, and let me know if you change your mind."

Ward feels vulnerable again at once. The prospect of writing someone else's idea seems threateningly meaningless, as meaningless as the cadence that's repeating itself over and over in his ear, like a distant m.u.f.fled voice he's never heard yet feels he ought to recognize. It's between him and the world. He goes looking for his book in Charing Cross Road, to bring the world closer.

The first two shops sell second-hand books only. The dusty ranks of forgotten names, books like so many decaying untended gravestones, dismay him. He heads for Foyle's, the bright spines, the outstanding embossed t.i.tles. But the subdued cover of his book isn't there, nor in any other bookshop. "Whispers and t.i.tters," he mutters fiercely over the murmur in his ears, as if p.r.o.nouncing the t.i.tle will make it appear on the shelves.

He hasn't time to visit Clarion Press. He jogs to Euston so as to save money, then tries to phone Clarion before he's stopped panting, but there's no reply beyond the sound that has lodged in his ear. On the train he tries to doze, and eventually the song of the wheels lulls him: whispers and t.i.tterings, whispering t.i.tterings, waspishly t.i.ttering, waspishly whispering ... But when he lurches awake as the Liverpool suburbs speed by, the cadence he's been carrying with him fills his ears like water, and he feels as if he's drowning.

Tina's waiting for him, beaming expectantly over the spread of her computer manuals on the dining-table. "How did it go? Was it worthwhile?"

"I can't tell you yet. I mean, I don't know." He feels as if he won't know anything until his ears are clear. He can't even taste the chili con carne she has waiting for him. Nor can he make love; his sensations are on the other side of the noise in his ears, and feel as if they belong to someone else. Floppy's a disk, not an impotent d.i.c.k, his mind chants in time with the noise.

He can't sleep for more than a few minutes. Whenever he jerks awake he thinks an intruder is in the room, stooping at him in the dark and muttering. He holds himself still; it takes very little to wake Tina just now. For hours he feels as if the day will never come, as if he'll never see the doctor.

"Tinnitus," the doctor says.

Ward has waited over an hour to see him, but at once he's glad he has: there's a word for what he's suffering, and that must mean an answer, a cure. "What causes it?" Ward says eagerly.

"Deafness, possibly. You don't suffer from deafness? Catarrh, then, or wax in the ears." When he fails to find either he measures Ward's blood pressure, and frowns. "Of course there are cases where it doesn't seem to be a symptom of anything else."

"I'm one of those, am I? What can we do?"

"To be blunt, nothing except hope it goes away eventually."

"But I make my living as a writer," Ward pleads. "How can I work like this?"

"Many tinnitus sufferers have to cope with more difficult jobs." The doctor lets his face soften. "If you find you aren't able to sleep, sufferers often leave a radio playing."

Ward buys a pair of headphones, whose price dismays him. As he lets himself into the flat he's dreading Tina's sympathy, her sense of being unable to help him. He avoided telling her that he was seeing the doctor, in the hope that he'd come home cured. When he tells her why he bought the headphones she takes his hands, but even this contact seems to be taking place in the distance beyond the incessant noise. "Is there anything I can do?" she murmurs.

"Not unless you can get inside my head."

"I wish I could, believe me."

He dons the headphones and lies on the bed while she works at the table. He can tell by the way her hands creep up the sides of her face that she hears the headphones squeaking. His only chance of ignoring the tinnitus, however momentarily, is to turn the radio up loud enough to blot it out.

He has to grow used to it, he tells himself as he lies sleeplessly beside Tina. People adjust to living next to motorways or near airports. People cope with tinnitus, the doctor said so. Yet being one of many doesn't make it any easier for Ward: in fact, he thinks he might have coped better if it were unique to him, instead of something that can afflict anyone, randomly and meaning-lessly. Whenever he turns up the volume minutely on the radio, seeking to fill his head with late-night chatter, Tina stirs beside him.

When the night's darkest, exhaustion overtakes him. A silence between radio programs wakens him. For a few seconds he's alone with the noise in his ears, and as he hangs between sleeping and waking, he hears precisely what it has been trying to say, sees the glowing letters whose message has grown blurred with so much repet.i.tion. The simplicity and profundity of the message, such a secret contained in so few words, make him feel large as the night, immensely meaningful, utterly peaceful. Before he knows it, his peace turns back into sleep. He doesn't waken until daylight probes the room. He can't remember a word of the secret he heard in the dark.

His ears continue mumbling when he pulls off the headphones. The message is still there if only he can clarify it to himself. As soon as Tina leaves for the office, glancing anxiously at him as if she feels her sympathy hasn't reached him, he begins to write. He writes every phrase he can think of that fits the rhythm of the mumbling. At first he writes only phrases that mean something to him, then he makes himself relax and scribbles anything that comes to mind, scribbling larger so as not to strain his eyes. Before lunchtime he has to go out for more exercise books.

When he hears Tina's key in the lock he slaps the latest book shut and stows the pile under the bed, his head aching with the notion that he was about to stumble on the message. She wouldn't have noticed; she rushes straight to the bathroom. He strokes her head and murmurs consolingly and tries to feel the emotions he's enacting. "Don't worry about me," he mutters when she's able to ask how he is. All he wants to hear now is the mumbling.

But he has to sleep. In the darkest hours he gives up trying to hear words, only to find as he reaches to turn on the radio that Tina's still awake. "Sorry," he whispers. "Go to sleep."

"I'm trying."

"I'm not much use to you, am I?"

"I love you all the same."

"I'm serious." He pulls off the headphones and props himself against the pillow, which feels no softer than the rest of reality. "You're going to need more support than I can give you while I'm like this. Do you think you ought to move in with your folks for a while? Then you'd be able to sleep as you should."

"Would that make life easier for you?"

"It might."

"I'll call them in the morning."

He can't interpret her tone, out there beyond the tinnitus. He'll leave the radio alone and put up with a sleepless night on her behalf. Whenever he drifts toward sleep he feels close to distinguishing the words. Every time he jerks awake before he can grasp them, and realizes that Tina's still awake beside him.

In the morning, when she calls her parents, her eyes are red and moist: from sleeplessness, he a.s.sumes. He collects the mail from the downstairs hall, two bills and a letter from Clarion Press. Tina's arranging to go to her parents after work as he tears open the letter. The tinnitus seems to lurch closer as he reads the photocopied paragraphs. Clarion Press has been declared bankrupt. Not only have they ceased publishing, but even the unsold copies of his book are in the hands of the receiver.

Tina blinks at the letter as if she's not sure how she feels about it. "What do you want me to do now?" she murmurs.

"What you were going to do. What else?"

"I thought you might be glad of my support, that's all. I thought you were."

"Yes," Ward says with all the conviction he can muster. He hugs her tight, willing her to leave so that he may be able to think. Everything she says now distracts him-everything she says is pulled into the shape of the tinnitus. "I'll call you," he says as he walks her to the bus, "I'll come and see you," but he thinks she can sense his imminent overwhelming relief.

He sits at the table and tries to think. Hercules Books Are The Answer For You, his mind throbs; children chanting tables in the school seem to be chanting it too. He has no chance of finding another job to support himself and Tina, not with the clamor in his ears; he can't imagine even coping with interviews. But there's still Hercules Books, still Holmes' proposal of a trilogy, and if Ward can finish the library story there will be a collection for Holmes to publish while Ward tries to work on the novels. He carries the phone as far from the chanting as the cord will stretch.

"Hercules Books? Kendle Holmes, if he's there. Sorry, speak up, I can't make out a word. Ward Smith is speaking. He asked me to call."

The rhythm's deafening. It has invaded his speech. Even if he gets through to Holmes, he won't be able to hear him. They have to meet face to face. "Coming to town now. I won't expect lunch," he shouts, and replaces the receiver gently as if that may make up for his hysteria. But when he carries the phone back to its dark square beside the bed, he finds that at some point he has pulled the plug out of the wall.

It mustn't matter. He can only go. He gathers the typescripts of all the stories he's completed for the book and stuffs them into a Safeway bag. A bus carries him through charred streets to a train that's leaving for London in five minutes. He should be there just after lunch.

He tries to doze, rocked by the train. A slowing wakens him. The chattering arable landscape is winding down; it stops outside his window. Apart from the odd timid lurch of a few feet, the train makes no further move for almost two hours.

He avoids looking at the stoical pensioners opposite him, who appear to be chanting even though their lips are pinched shut, and leafs through his typescripts. "Phosph.o.r.escent Montmorency," "Cave Maria"-the t.i.tles he worked so hard to frame no longer convey anything to him, and he can't read more than a few words of the stories. A few pages of computer printout have strayed into the pile, and the stories mean as little to him. He shoves the pile into the bag and shrinks into himself, away from the wordless clamor, the senseless framing of landscape.

At last the train jerks forward, speeds to Euston. A huge voice explains the delay as Ward runs along the platform, but even that voice can't reach him. He mustn't take a taxi, he still has time to run. Euston Road, Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross Road-he dashes past miles of signs, hugging himself to squeeze the spikiness out of his armpits. Hordes of books and commuters and vehicles jumble by, and give way to Greek Court. Ward dodges out of the crowd, taking the uproar with him, and shoulders his way into Hercules Books.

The receptionist in the melamine horseshoe mouths at him, but he hears a different rhythm. "Sorry I'm late, but my train was held up," Ward shouts. "Ward Smith, the writer. I'm here to see Holmes."

He stands his ground when she steps round the horseshoe, shaking her head and pointing at her watch. Suddenly he darts past her and flings open the door of the inner office. Holmes is alone, leaning back in his chair, reading a ma.n.u.script piled on his desk. He looks more surprised than pleased to see Ward. "Kendle, it's me," Ward says, trying not to bellow. "I've got something for you."

He hands Holmes the Safeway bag, waits while he frowns over the contents. "You'll publish these, won't you, while I compose. A fantasy trilogy, that's what you said. About time I extended myself."

When Holmes looks up, Ward hardly needs him to speak, his eyes say so much. "I can write your novels. Give me a chance," Ward pleads.

Holmes speaks then, though inaudibly to Ward. He points at the ma.n.u.script he's been reading. Surely n.o.body could have written a trilogy so swiftly, but perhaps he's claiming that the ma.n.u.script or the writer can be developed. A sense of meaninglessness more profound than anything he's experienced hitherto spreads through Ward, so profound that it feels like relief. He can do nothing for anyone, and n.o.body can need him as he is now. He swings round dizzily and heads for the streets, feeling as if he may fly.

The thought of Tina slows him. He should call her, not least to explain that Kendle Holmes will presumably be returning the typescripts, which she's welcome to sell on her own behalf if she can. He huddles in the nearest phone booth as the hordes of books surrounding him decay imperceptibly, as the commuters and the traffic do, dust of the future. All the sounds around him are decaying too, merging into a single rhythm. If anyone answers the phone he won't even know whose voice it is, let alone what she's saying.

He makes for Euston through the evening streets, the dwindling crowds. He's glad he knows his way there, doesn't have to try and read the street names. But going to Tina will only make the situation harder for them both. On the way to Euston he repeats her parents' number over and over to himself. Thank heaven it fits the rhythm. At Euston he dials it, then counts to ten. "I'm not coming back," he says. "Blame me, not yourself. All my money is yours, all my ma.n.u.scripts too. Look after the baby. I love..." He can't say he loves her, it doesn't fit the rhythm. Perhaps emotions don't. He repeats everything he's just said, then he makes for the ticket windows.

Scotland is farthest and spa.r.s.est, he thinks. Tinnitus booms in his ears and his brain. Signs all around him are chanting the chant. He must get beyond signs, the unbearable clamor, unstable changing of signs. Ten hours to Inverness, farthest of all-details he learned for an unwritten tale. Night wipes out England, the train races in. The fluorescent cradle rocks him to sleep.

Dawn is in Inverness, lighting the signs. Ward leaves the town just as fast as he can. Opticians' shops make him falter, then run. He heads for the mountains beyond the firth, for the unpeopled roads and peaks, for the comfort of names in no language he knows.

Winds and rain slash him, mists isolate him. Food he finds growing, and sometimes in bins. He no longer remembers his life or his name, he no longer washes or cares how he smells. His body is something that carries him on; he is only the chant. What remains of his voice chants it constantly now. Perhaps he is chanting words that he can't hear. Perhaps he must walk until he's understood. Should he welcome that prospect or shrink from it fearfully? The rhythm must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on, must go on. must go on, must go on,

Stages (1987).

As Ray emerged onto the pavement he heard someone approaching. Before he could retreat to the house, a shadow spilled from the side road. Its figure followed: a large man, stumping rapidly. As his shadow unrolled before him, shrank beneath him and unrolled again, it seemed that the shadow was carrying him. He bore down heavily on Ray, who dwindled within himself, withered by fear. The man knew he was tripping.

The man came abreast of the gate and glanced suspiciously at him. Beneath the streetlamp the man looked unnaturally pink, like a boiled baby; his cheeks trembled a little, gelatinously, as he walked. He was a quaking ma.s.s of flesh, contained only by a thin bag of skin. He frowned disapprovingly at Ray and was past, drawing his tail of shadow into him.

He hadn't really known Ray was tripping. That was just paranoia; Ray had had the same experience on acid. Nevertheless Ray almost ran across the bare roadway. If a fuzz should stop him, ask him why he was walking at this hour-He was sure his speech would betray him. The glare of the streetlights faded behind him, like a negative shadow.

At the park he slowed. Behind his shoulder a tower block loomed. The sky was fat with clouds; a sharpedged full moon cut swiftly through them. An avenue of trees stretched dimming into the vague depths of the park. On either side lawns gleamed, black. He walked forward, beneath the trees.

Their shadows closed over him like shutters, regular as the mechanism of a sleepy camera. Again and again he emerged into the clear pure moonlight. The September morning was warm. His trip seemed to be fading; it moved windless trees a little for him, unfurling their foliage into subtle patterns. He strolled, calm.

He emerged into a stone glade. Paths led from the s.p.a.ce, flowing slowly away from him, like streams of luminous mercury. On the central island stood a statue of Peter Pan. Ray caressed the smooth limbs, which felt chill and clean. Around him, in the frosty light, the world seemed perfect.

He strolled toward the widening of the lake. The sky was clearer, scattered with clouds like frozen quiffs of foam, like long many-bellied trumpets of glowing white porcelain. If the clouds moved, they did so imperceptibly. Everything was still; the moon hung, a bright flawless circle, razor-keen. Ray moved amid his own stillness, so quietly he couldn't hear his footsteps.

Where the lake widened, a bat hunted. He could see each beat of its wings as it circled, a dodging tattered sc.r.a.p of darkness. Ducks bobbed together at the edge of the lake; a solitary duck, startled by his approach, plowed out into the water. Its ripples shattered the reflections of light and clouds.

He stared at the scribbling of light on the ripples. The light formed lines of symbols, changing constantly. He could almost interpret them. As he gazed, trying to open his mind to their sense, they steadied and were reflected light and clouds.

That was their meaning: but what did it mean? This new peak of the trip had taken him unawares. Was it about to lead him again into the undreamed? He waited edgily. Over the bright still lake he heard a sound like breathing. It came from a shelter on the far bank.

He gazed across the lake. Somehow the sound promised the resolution to which the whole trip had been leading. The ground and the water held still, frozen by moonlight. He walked back to a path of stepping stones and crossed the lake.

The door and the panes of the shelter were missing. Rags of paint shone white on the moon-blackened wood: the surface looked like a dead tree patched with mold. He could hear now that the sound was a woman's voice, gasping. He reached the dark gap of a window, and peered in.

In the path of moonlight from the doorway, on a coat spread over the floorboards, a woman lay. Her knees rose, her legs strained wide. Beside her, his back to Ray, knelt a man, naked from the waist down. His hand caressed her beneath her long skirt, his mouth moved over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s in the frame of her unb.u.t.toned blouse. Clothes were tangled nearby in the shadows.

Ray gazed. The couple's clothes were black in the moonlight, their bodies gleamed white. It seemed that they were performing an act for him, on the stage of light. As their limbs began to move faster, palely luminous, they seemed like animated statues: almost as if his own sculptures had come to life.

The woman's gasps were faster; her tongue ranged about her lips, thrusting them wider. Her trailing ash-blond hair swayed slightly, like moonlight on the lake. Her knees rose high, her black skirt fell softly away like a shadow, unveiling her legs. They opened, shining white; her curly mat glinted darkly. The man knelt above her; the marble club of his p.e.n.i.s plunged into shadow.

As Ray watched the man's first slow lingering thrusts, all the woman's limbs embracing him, the path and the lake receded. There was nothing but the play on the stage of moonlight. He could feel the sensations of the players. It was more than imagination. All sense of his separateness from them had receded with the world.

He could feel the soft sheath clenching, squeezing, urging him on. But simultaneously he felt the urgent thrusts of the p.e.n.i.s, throbbing snugly within him, stroking warmth to a blaze. Somehow this wasn't disturbing. He accepted it, let the quickening rhythms work together, leading him toward a resolution, a kind of unity. When it came it was an explosion of light beyond light, a prolonged shout of sensation. It had no form he could perceive, and that was its meaning.

Very slowly his old senses drifted back. In time he would know who and where he was. But something was troubling him. It wasn't worth noticing, it would spoil the perfection-but it snagged his perceptions. It was a dimly gleaming face, peering through a gap in the wood. It was his own face, watching him.

He flooded back into himself with a rush that left him gasping. He was at the window. The couple stared up at him; the man was making to rise to his feet. Ray flinched back, then saw that the man could hardly rise. Was he weakened by the experience too? Ray pushed himself away from the shelter, on which his s.e.m.e.n glistened. Light and stillness filled the park; there was no sound of pursuit.

He lay on his bed, content to let the trip fade. He was glad he hadn't taken it with Jane. Dawn gathered. As the trip subsided, he began to wonder what exactly had happened in the park.

Perhaps there had been no couple. Later on Sunday, after he'd slept, that seemed possible; it had been a powerful trip. He hoped Dave had synthesized a large batch, whatever the stuff was. The trip had been the most profound experience of his life. Next day, on his way to the College of Art, he made a detour to the science block.

Dave was working at a bench. His sidelong grin of greeting was unusually wary. There was n.o.body else in earshot. "Hey, about that stuff," Ray said.

Dave smiled hastily. "Right. I'm sorry about that. You haven't taken any, have you?"

"Yeah, on Sat.u.r.day. It was amazing."

"You're kidding. We took some over the weekend. It was worse than a bad trip, we were nearly screaming before we found the tranquilizers."

"Yeah? Maybe it's best to take it by yourself. Listen, I can handle it. You haven't promised it to anyone, have you?"

"I was going to push it onto Norman, the guy who gave us that bad acid."

"Hey, don't waste it. I'd really like to try some more." Couldn't Dave see how eager he was? "I'll score it tonight, okay?"

Dave turned back to the bench where he'd synthesized the drug. "You can have it for nothing," he said, shrugging.

Ray crossed the university precinct. A group of students pa.s.sed, bright and loud. A girl whose drawings he knew greeted him; he grinned vaguely. Most of the students had left for the holidays: perhaps these few had stayed to work-selling their work, like Ray, to eke out their grants. He walked along concrete paths between the white chopped-off planes of buildings. The precinct seemed swept clean of all but a few thin saplings. It interested him that Dave and his friends had had a bad trip. It convinced Ray again that there was no use tripping with others in order to get closer to them.

He'd tried. He had felt he ought to get closer to people. But acid had made his friends swollen, k.n.o.bbly, oily, sometimes dwarfish or malformed; their faces had looked stupid, spiteful, empty. They'd gazed at him, reading his irrepressible thoughts; the faces had hated him for threatening their good trip, for his contempt; they'd excluded him. Some of his friends he hadn't dared speak to again.

Surely he could trip with Jane. After all, they were living together. But the summer night had closed in, squeezing out sweat, oppressing his thoughts. As he lay encased in sweat, beside Jane's hot rubbery flesh, his mind had boiled muddily with childhood guilts, the furtive sadism of his early adolescence, the failures of young adulthood. He'd glimpsed how Jane must see him: cold, dried-up, wound into himself, a premature crone. She'd turned then to gaze into his eyes, and he had watched her smile die. She had talked; she'd wept, but he couldn't respond. Dawn had drifted toward the window, like thick mist, discoloring the end of the trip. To try to escape the depression, to act, he'd said indifferently "We'd better split up." That had been a month ago; he hadn't seen her since.

Perhaps acid wasn't right for him. But now there was Dave's invention. On Sat.u.r.day, for the first time while tripping, Ray had been hardly conscious of himself: that was worth having. He hurried into the College of Art, happy to continue his work.

The sculpture was a large white translucent plastic egg; the tapering end suggested a breast with a smooth hollow instead of a nipple. He worked quickly, anxious to catch Dave before he could change his mind, and finished by mid-afternoon. He turned the egg-breast in his hands. He enjoyed it: it was simple, pure, beautiful. He packed it carefully in a carton, and bore it away. The collector who had admired and bought a similar piece of his might like it. "Arp," the collector had said: he'd been comparing Ray's work with that of a French sculptor, not burping.

Dave's flat overlooked a police station. Pastel blue police cars lurked in the alleys. Ray's feet slashed through the gra.s.s which matted the path. Dave opened the front door, frowning. "I was coming to see you later," he said; scoring at his flat made him paranoid.

His wife Chris was breast-feeding their baby; Ray smiled nervously and glanced at Dave. "Is that some of your work?" Chris said.