I had come to a place I knew: the corner where Baker Street crossed Marylebone Road, a pant of London forever associated in my mind with Gracia.
The rain was intensifying, and the traffic threw up a mist of fine droplets that gusted around me in the cityducted winds. I remembered the cold moor wind of Castleton, the passing lorries.
It was hours since I had last eaten, and I felt the mild euphoria of low blood sugar. It made me think of the long summer months of the year before, when I had been so intent on writing in my white room that sometimes I went two on three days without propen food. In that state of mental excitation I always imagined best, could perceive the truth more cleanly. Then I could make islands.
But Jethra and the islands paled before the reality of London's damp awfulness, just as I paled before my own. For once I was free of myself, for once I looked outwards and thought sorrowfully of Gracia.
At that moment, when I did not hope for her, Seri appeared.
She came up the steps and out of the pedestrian subway on the far side of Marylebone Road. I saw her fair hair, her straight back, the bobbing walk I knew so well. But how could she have entered the subway without my seeing her?
I was standing by the only other entrance, and she had not passed me. I watched her, amazed, as she walked quickly into the booking hall of the Undenground station.
I ran down the steps, slipping slightly on the rain-glossed treads, and hurried through to the other side. When I reached the booking hall she had passed the ticket barrier and was at the top of the stairs that led down to the Metropolitan Line. I went to follow her, but the inspector at the barrier asked to see my ticket. Angrily, I returned to the ticket office and bought a single fare to anywhere.
A train was standing at one of the platforms; the indicator board said it was going to Amersham. I walked quickly along the curving platform, looking through windows, looking towards the carriages ahead. I could not see her, even though I walked the whole length of the train. Could she have caught another? But this was the evening; there were departures only at ten-minute intervals.
I rushed back as the guard shouted that the doors were about to close.
Then I saw her: she was sitting by the window in a carriage near the back of the tnain. I could see her face, turned down as if she wene reading.
The pneumatic doons hissed loudly and slid towards each other. I leapt aboard the nearest carriage, forcing myself through the closing pressure of the doors. Late commuters glanced up, looked away. Bubbles of isolation surrounded them.
The train pulled away, blue-white discharge sparks flashing on the wet rails as we crossed the points and moved into the long tunnel. I walked to the back of the carriage to be at the door nearest to Seri when we stopped at the next station. I leaned against the heavy, shatterproof window set into the door, watching my reflection against the black wall of the tunnel outside. At last we reached the next station, Finchley Road. I pushed through the doors as soon as they opened, and ran down the platform to the carriage where I had seen her. The doors closed behind me. I went to the place where she had been sitting, but she was no longer there.
Now the train was on the surface, clattering through the crowded, decrepit suburbs of West Hampstead and Kilburn; here the line ran parallel to the street where my old flat had been. I walked the length of the open carriage, looking at all the passengers, making sure Seri had not changed her seat. At the end I looked through the windows of the two connecting doors to the next carriage, and saw her.
She was standing, as I had done, against the sliding doors and Staring out at the passing houses. I went through to her carriage--a cold blast of damp air, a moment of swaying peril--and passengers looked up, thinking I must he a ticket inspector. I went quickly to where she had been standing, but once again she had moved. There was no one there who looked even remotely like her, that I might have mistaken for her.
While the train rushed on to the next station, I walked to and fro in the aisle of the carriage, preferring the illusion of doing something to the tensions of idleness. Outside, the rain ran in quick diagonals down the dirty windows. At Wembley Park there was a delay of a few minutes, as here was the interchange with the Bakerloo Line and a train was expected on the other side of tile platform. I walked the length of my train, searching for Seri, but she had vanished. \Vhen the Bakerloo train arrived she was aboard it! I saw her step down, cross the platform, and climb into the carriage I had first been in.
I returned to the train, but of course she eluded me again.
I found a seat and stared down at the worn and slatted floor, littered with cigarette ends and sweet wrappers. The train moved on, through Harrow, through Pinner, heading out into the countryside. I again felt myself moving into a passive state of mental laziness, content to know that I was supposed to he following Seri. I was lulled by the warmth of the carriage, the motion of the train, and peripherally aware that passengers were getting off as we stopped at stations on the way.
The train was almost empty when we came to a station called Chalfont & Latimer. I glanced out at the station as we drew in, seeing the wet platform and shining overhead lamps, the familiar advertisements for films and language schools. Passengers waited by the carriage doors, and amongst them was Seri.
In my somnolent state I barely realized she was there, but when she smiled at me and stepped outside I knew I was to follow.
I was slow and clumsy, and only just got through the doors before they closed. By then, Seri had slipped through the ticket barrier and was again out of sight. I followed, thrusting my ticket at the collector and moving on before he could check it.
The station was next to a main road; as I came out, the train I had been on went noisily oven the ironwork bridge. I looked to left and night along the road, seeking Seri. She was already an appreciable distance away, walking briskly along the road in the direction of London. I hurried after her, pacing myself with short bursts of running.
The road was lined with modern detached houses, set back from the traffic with concrete drives, neat lawns and flowerbeds, and flagstoned patios. Lighted reproduction carriage lamps glittered their reflectioiis on the rainy ground. Behind curtained windows I could glimpse the hand blue glare of television screens.
Seri stayed effortlessly ahead of me, maintaining her brisk walk without seeming to hurry, yet however much I ran she was always the same distance ahead. I was getting out of breath so I slowed my pace to a moderate walk. It had stopped raining while I was on the train, and already the air was milder, more in keeping with the season.
Seri reached the end of the lighted section of the road, and moved into the strip of countryside between Chalfont and Chorleywood. I lost sight of her in the dark, so I ran again. In a minute or two I had also passed into the darkness, but I could see Seri whenever cars passed with their headlights on.
Farmland lay on either side of the road. Ahead of me, in the south-eastern sky, the sodium radiance of London was lighting the clouds.
Seri halted and turned back to face me, perhaps to he sure I had seen her. Cars passed, throwing spray and light in drifting veils. Thinking she was waiting for me I ran again, splashing in the puddles of the unmade verge. When I was within distance, I shouted: "Seri, please stay and talk to me!"
Seri said--You've got to see the islands, Peter.
There was a gate where she had waited, and she passed thnough as I came breathily up to her, but by the time I followed she was already halfway across the field. Her white shirt and pale hair seemed to drift in the dank.
I staggered on again, feeling the turned soil clogging around my shoes.
I was tiring, there had been too many upheavals. Seri would wait.