The Eye in the Door Read Free Page A

his throat. Carefully, he lowered Manning’s legs and sucked him off. He was so primed he was clutching Prior’s head and gasping almost before he’d started. ‘I needed that,’ he said, when it was over. ‘I needed a good fucking.’
    You all do , Prior thought. Manning went to the bathroom. Prior reached out and turned the looking-glass towards him. Into this glass they had looked, half past five every morning, winter and summer, yawning, bleary-eyed, checking to see their caps were on straight and their hair tucked away. He remembered his mother telling him that, in the house where she’d worked, if a maid met a member of the family in the corridor she had to stand with her face turned to the wall.
    Manning came back carrying the whisky bottle and glasses. He was limping badly. Despite Prior’s efforts the position couldn’t have done the knee any good.
    ‘Where d’you get it?’ Prior asked, nodding at the wound.
    ‘Passchendaele.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Your lot were in the assault on the ridge?’
    ‘That’s right.’ Manning poured the whisky and sat atthe end of the bed, propping himself up against the bedstead, and stretching his left leg out in front of him. ‘Great fun.’
    Prior said, ‘I’ve just had a Board.’ He didn’t want to talk about his condition, but he was incapable of leaving the subject alone. Manning’s silence on the subject, when a question would have been so much more natural, had begun to irritate him.
    ‘What did they say?’ Manning asked.
    ‘They haven’t said anything yet. I’m supposed to be Permanent Home Service, but with things the way they are…’
    Manning hesitated, then asked, ‘It is neurasthenia, isn’t it?’
    No, Prior wanted to say, it’s raging homicidal mania, with a particular predilection for dismembering toffee-nosed gits with wonky knees. ‘No, it’s asthma,’ he said. ‘I was neurasthenic, but then I had two asthmatic attacks in the hospital, so that confused things a bit.’
    ‘Which hospital were you in?’
    ‘Craiglockhart. It’s up in —’
    ‘Ah, then you know Rivers.’
    Prior stared. ‘He was my doctor. Still is. He’s… he’s in London now.’
    ‘Yes, I know.’
    It was Prior’s turn not to ask the obvious question.
    ‘Are you still on sick leave?’ Manning asked, after a pause.
    ‘No, I’m at the Ministry of Munitions. In the…’ He looked at Manning. ‘And that’s where I’ve seen you. I knew I had.’
    Manning smiled, but he was very obviously not pleased. ‘Just as well I didn’t call myself “Smith”. I thought about it.’
    ‘If you’re going to do that I’d remove the letters fromthe hall table first. They aren’t addressed to “Smith”.’ Prior looked down into his glass, and gave up the struggle. ‘How do you know Rivers?’
    Manning smiled. ‘He’s my doctor, too.’
    ‘Shell-shock?’
    ‘No. Not exactly. I… er… I was picked up by the police. About two months ago. Not quite caught in the act, but… The young man disappeared as soon as we got to the police station. Anyway.’
    ‘What happened?’
    ‘Oh, we all sat around. Nobody did anything unpleasant. I sent for my solicitor, and eventually he arrived, and they let me go. Wound helped. Medal helped.’ He looked directly at Prior. ‘Connections helped. You mustn’t despise me too easily, you know. I’m not a fool. And then I went home and waited. My solicitor seemed to think if it went to court I’d get two years, but they probably wouldn’t give me hard labour because of the leg.’
    ‘That’s big of them.’
    ‘Yes. Isn’t it? Then somebody said the thing to do was to go to a psychologist and get treatment and and… and that would help. So I went to Dr Head, who has quite a reputation in this field – I was actually told in so many words “Henry Head can cure sodomites” – and he said he couldn’t do me, he was snowed under, and he recommended Rivers. So I went to him, and he said he’d take me on.’
    ‘Do you want to