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months. I can guess why.”
    “Does he know she found them?”
    “Sally doesn’t think so. He was lying on his side with his face away from her as she attended to the draw-sheet. She just put the handkerchief and the tablets in her pocket and went on as if nothing had happened. Of course they may have been there for a long time—he’s been on Sommeil for eighteen months or more—and he may have forgotten about them. He may have lost the power to get at them and use them. We can’t tell what goes on in his mind. The trouble is that we haven’t bothered even to try. Except Sally.”
    “But Stephen, that isn’t true. We do try. We sit with him and nurse him and try to make him feel that we’re there. But he just lies, not moving, not speaking, not even seeming to notice people any more. He isn’t really Father. There isn’t any contact between us. I have tried, I swear I have, but it isn’t any use. He can’t really have meant to take those tablets. I can’t think how he even managed to collect them, to plan it all.”
    “When it’s your turn to give him his tablets, do you watch him while he swallows them?”
    “No, not really. You know how he used to hate us to help him too much. Now I don’t think he minds, but we still give him the tablets and then pour out the water and hold it up to his lips if he seems to want it. He must have secreted these away months ago. I can’t believe he could manage it now, not without Martha knowing. She does most of the lifting and the heavier nursing.”
    “Well, apparently he managed to deceive Martha. But, by God, Deborah, I ought to have guessed, ought to have known. I call myself a doctor. This is the kind of thing which makes me feel like a specialized carpenter, good enough to carve patients up as long as I’m not expected to bother with them as people. At least Sally treated him as a human being.”
    Deborah was momentarily tempted to point out that she, her mother and Martha were at least managing to keep Simon Maxie comfortable, clean and fed at no small cost and that it was difficult to see where Sally had done more. But if Stephen wanted to indulge in remorse there was little to be gained by stopping him. He usually felt better afterwards, even if other people felt worse. She watched in silence as he rummaged about in the drawer of the desk, found a small bottle which had apparently once held aspirin, carefully counted the tablets—there were ten of them—into the bottle and labelled it with the name of the drug and the dose. They were the almost automatic actions of a man trained to keep medicines properly labelled.
    Deborah’s mind was busy with questions she dared not ask. “Why did Sally come to you? Why not Mother? Did she really find those tablets or was it just a convenient ruse to see you alone? But she must have found them. No one could make up a story like that. Poor Father. What has Sally been saying? Why should I mind so much about this, about Sally? I hate her because she has a child and I haven’t. Now I’ve said it, but admitting it doesn’t make it any easier. That handkerchief bag. It must have taken him hours to tie it together. It looked like something made by a child. Poor Father. He was so tall when I was a child. Was I really rather afraid of him? Oh God, please help me to feel pity. I want to be sorry for him. What is Sally thinking now? What did Stephen say to her?”
    He turned back from the desk and held out the bottle. “I think you had better take this home. Put it in the medicine cupboard in his room. Don’t say anything to Mother yet or to Dr. Epps. I think it would be wiser if we stopped the tablets for Father. I’ll get you a prescription made up in the dispensary before you leave, the same kind of drug only in solution. Give him a tablespoonful at night in water. I should see to it yourself. Just tell Martha that I have stopped the tablets. When does Dr. Epps see him again?”
    “He’s coming in to see Mother with