The beginning of April was fine. The sun shone from a clear blue sky and it was warm enough to melt some of the snow. Mud and grass began to appear in Annie's field. Annie sometimes look Paul in his wheelchair out of the house at the back, and let him sit in the sunshine and read a book. She sang while she worked around the house, and laughed at jokes she heard on the TV. She left his door unlocked and open while she was in the house. Paul tried not to think of the snow melting and uncovering his car. The morning of the fifteenth, however, was windy and dull, and Annie changed. She didn't come into his room with his tablets until nine o'clock, and by then he needed them quite badly - so badly that he nearly got some from under the mattress. Then, when she came, she was still in her night-clothes and she brought him only the tablets, no breakfast. There were red marks on her arms and cheeks, and her clothes were messy with spilled food. She dragged her feet along the corridor. Her hair was untidy and her eyes were dull. 'Here.' She threw the pills at him and they fell into his lap. She turned to go, dragging her feet. 'Annie?' She stopped without turning round. 'Annie, are you all right?' 'No,' she said carelessly, and turned to face him. She looked at him in that same dull way. She began to pinch her lower lip between her finger and thumb. She pulled it out and twisted it, while pinching it hard. Drops of blood began to fall down her 34 chin. She turned and left without speaking another word, before his astonished mind could persuade itself that he had really seen her do that. She closed the door and locked it. He heard her sit down in her favourite chair. There was silence. She didn't switch on the TV as usual. She was just sitting there --just sitting there being not all right. Then there was a sound - a single, sharp sound which was unmistakable: she had hit herself, hard, in the face. He remembered reading that when mad people start to become deeply, seriously depressed, they hurt themselves. This signals the start of a long period of depression. He was suddenly very frightened. She hadn't returned by eleven that morning, so Paul decided to try to get into the wheelchair by himself; he wanted to try to work. He succeeded, although it hurt him a lot, and lie rolled himself over to the table. He heard the key in the lock. Annie was looking in at him and her eyes burned black holes in her face. Her right cheek was swelling up and she had been eating jam with her hands. She looked at him and Paul looked back at her. Neither of them said anything for a while. Outside, the first drops of rain hit the window. 'If you can get into that chair by yourself, Paul,' she said at last, 'then 1 think you can fill in your own stupid "n"s.' She closed the door and locked it again. Paul sat looking at it for a long time, as if there was something to see. He was too surprised to do anything else. He didn't see her again until late in the afternoon. After her visit work was impossible. At two in the afternoon the pain was bad enough for him to take two tablets from under the mattress. Then he slept on the bed. When he woke up he thought at first that he was still dreaming; what he saw was too strange for real life. Annie was sitting on the side of his bed. In one hand she held a glass full of Novril tablets, which she placed on the table next to his bed. In 35 In her other hand was a rat-trap. There was a large grey rat in it. The trap had broken the rat's back. her other hand was a rat-trap. There was a large grey rat in it. The trap had broken the rat's back. There was blood around its mouth, but it was still alive. It was struggling and squeaking. This was no dream. He realized that now he was seeing the real Annie. She looked terrible. Whatever had been wrong with her this morning was much worse by now. The flesh on her face seemed to hang as loosely as the clothes on h............