Chapter 19
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I'm going to be a psychiatrist” Joan spoke with her usual breathy enthusiasm. We were drinkingapple cider in the Belsize lounge. “Oh,” I said dryly, “that’s nice” “I've had a long talk with Doctor Quinn, and she thinks it’sperfectly possible.” Doctor Quinn was Joan’s psychiatrist, a bright,shrewd, single lady, and I often thought if I had been assigned toDoctor Quinn I would be still in Caplan or, more probably, Wymark.Doctor Quinn had an abstract quality that appealed to Joan, but itgave me the polar chills. Joan chattered on about Egos and Ids, and I turned my mind tosomething else, to the brown, unwrapped package in my bottomdrawer. I never talked about Egos and Ids with Doctor Nolan. I didn’tknow just what I talked about, really. “.._ I'm going to live out, now’ I tuned in on Joan then. “Where?” I demanded, trying to hide myenvy. Doctor Nolan said my college would take me back for the secondsemester, on her recommendation and Philomena Guinea’sscholarship, but as the doctors vetoed my living with my mother inthe interim, I was staying on at the asylum until the winter termbegan. Even so, I felt it unfair of Joan to beat me through the gates. “Where?” I persisted. “They're not letting you live on your own,are they?” Joan had only that week been given town privileges again. “Oh no, of course not. I’m living in Cambridge with NurseKennedy. Her room-mate’s just got married, and she needs someoneto share the apartment.” “Cheers.” I raised my apple cider glass, and we clinked. In spite ofmy profound reservations, I thought I would always treasure Joan.It was as if we had been forced together by some overwhelming 198 | Chapter 19 circumstance, like war or plague, and shared a world of our own.“When are you leaving?” “On the first of the month” “Nice.” Joan grew wistful. “You'll come visit me, won't you, Esther?” “Of course.” But I thought, “Not likely.” “It hurts,” I said. “Is it supposed to hurt?” Irwin didn’t say anything. Then he said, “Sometimes it hurts.” I had met Irwin on the steps of the Widener Library. I wasstanding at the top of the long flight, overlooking the red brickbuildings that walled the snow-filled quad and preparing to catchthe trolley back to the asylum, when a tall young man with a ratherugly and bespectacled, but intelligent face, came up and said, “Couldyou please tell me the time?” I glanced at my watch. “Five past four’ Then the man shifted his arms around the load of books he wascarrying before him like a dinner tray and revealed a bony wrist. “Why, you've a watch yourself!” The man looked ruefully at his watch. He lifted it and shook itby his ear. “Doesn't work” He smiled engagingly. “Where are yougoing?” I was about to say, “Back to the asylum”, but the man lookedpromising, so I changed my mind. “Home.” “Would you like some coffee first?” I hesitated. I was due at the asylum for supper and I didn’t want tobe late so close to being signed out of there for good. “A very small cup of coffee?” I decided to practise my new, normal personality on this manwho, in the course of my hesitations, told me his name was Irwinand that he was a very well-paid professor of mathematics, so I said,“All right,” and, matching my stride to Irwin’s, strolled down the long,ice-encrusted flight at his side. It was only after seeing Irwin’s study that I decided to seduce him. Irwin lived in a murky, comfortable basement apartment in one of
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