Liz Jensen - The Rapture

And then blackness.

But my concussion doesn’t last long enough. When I come to I am still in the art studio and there’s blood everywhere. A wide smear leads to Newton, who has rolled over to the side of the room. He’s screaming and clutching his groin, which is blossoming with a red stain of blood. Rafik has Bethany pinned to the floor in an arm-lock. Through half-closed eyes, I watch her get stabbed in the buttock with a syringe. Our therapy session is over. On balance, I would not rate it a success.

The next morning, having been kept in St Swithin’s hospital overnight for supervision, I am taken home in an ambulance. I am lucky not to have been badly injured. There’s a wound on the back of my head, and another on my thigh which I can’t feel and must therefore take particular care of. Bethany is in isolation. Her hand was cut by the plastic she used to stab Newton with, but the injury was superficial and treated on the spot. Newton was less fortunate. He’s still at St Swithin’s, on the operating table, having a plastic shard removed from his scrotum. He will probably lose his right testicle.

I wonder how the loss of Bethany’s globe has affected her. How she’ll manage on 24-hour assessment for the next two days. The part of me that’s still professional cares. But the woman who has just come back from hospital with a head injury which required nurses to shave ten square centimetres of hair off her scalp, wants her to stay locked up in solitary confinement for all eternity. And while they’re at it, they can throw away the key. Sometimes it’s OK to hate mad people.

Frazer Melville arrives to cook us dinner. There were delicate telephone negotiations concerning this, at the end of which it was agreed that if I set the table and promise to wear ‘a killer frock’, he would do the rest. After I have told him the story of the fight, and the fate of his short-lived gift, and my redefinition of the expression bad hair day , we agree that the fact Bethany is being kept in isolation until further notice is advantageous. With no access to television or the internet — not that I’ve had the impression she is a fan — it’s a good way of ensuring she doesn’t surf for clues, or tune in to the weather channel, if that’s what she has been doing. Which can’t be ruled out. There is also a tacit agreement that having discussed her by phone, we will banish her as a topic of conversation for the rest of the evening. I hope we can stick to it.

Are there any sweeter pleasures in life than seeing a man cooking enticing, unusual food in your kitchen, and enjoying himself so much that he says ‘oh yes!’ and ‘magnificent’ as he chops carrots and grates nutmeg and squeezes lemon juice? If there are I don’t know of them.

‘I do envy men their colossal levels of self-belief,’ I say, watching the physicist at work.

For some reason, the killer frock I have chosen (olive green linen, with cream flecks) has a very low neckline and I have taken special care with my make-up. I have even, rather ridiculously, put on a pair of green high heels which I bought in the world of Before. They match my dress so perfectly they could have been designed especially for it. When I left rehab they told me always to wear shoes one size too large to prevent my feet getting pressure sores, but when the time came to put the green shoes in the box for the charity shop along with all the others, vanity triumphed over reason. So here I sit in my green dress with matching shoes, with my hair arranged to cover the bald patch, hoping it’s all worth it, but secretly fearing I look like a blow-up sex toy.

‘The self-belief is well-deserved in my case,’ he says breezily. ‘Your taste buds are in for a culinary extravaganza. Those wanky Michelin star chefs in London can eat their hearts out. Here, have a glass of wine. So. Has Bethany sliced off her ear yet? Actually, don’t answer that.’

While the physicist slices and mixes and tastes, I show him some of my drawings and paintings, my collection of art books, and my thunder egg.

‘It’s handed down the generations,’ I say, passing it to him. ‘Usually at weddings. Very symbolic. The story is that one day it’ll hatch.’

‘A nice specimen,’ he says, wiping his hands on his apron and examining it. ‘And it’ll crack open one day, of its own accord, you claim?’

‘And a dinosaur will emerge. Or a sea-monster according to some versions.’ He laughs and snips off a stalk from the chive-pot and pops the end in his mouth, then puts a strand in mine. We chew on them like two cows considering the merits of a certain type of pasture as he chops the rest with a chef’s expertise. ‘It’s a kind of fertility symbol, I guess.’

‘And are you supposed to — incubate this thing? Sit on it like a hen?’

‘Well, if anyone’s adapted for that, it’s me.’

‘And if it doesn’t hatch in your lifetime?’ he asks, a smile playing. ‘As I am sorry to tell you, I suspect it may not?’

‘Well I’d have to pass it on, I suppose. Or I could adopt an orphan.’

‘How about Bethany? Then you and I could get married and we’d be a family.’

He doesn’t realise what he has said. I draw in my breath, then quickly let out a laugh. ‘A turbulence expert, a psychotic murderess and the owner of a magic egg. Sounds like a winning threesome.’

‘You’re a shrink, you could keep us on a level.’ I reach across to slap his backside, an intimacy which gives me a certain thrill. ‘And I would promise to never, ever patronise you,’ he adds, patting me condescendingly on the head.

Although I am no cook, I happen to love food. The first course consists of scallops with an artichoke puke and crumbled Italian blood sausage, which I declare to be ‘mind-blowing’ because I have never tasted anything quite like it before, even in unusual dreams. Next comes venison with a cranberry and blue cheese sauce and a potato gratin. ‘You’re a dangerous man and you might well end up killing me,’ I tell him.

‘You have a strange way with compliments. But save room for my pi è ce de r é sistance . Three kinds of chocolate. A chocolate-stuffed chocolate blob known as a "torte" with chocolate sauce and a side-serving of chocolate mousse. Garnished with a sprig of mint, so if you decide you’re dieting, you can eat the foliage and I’ll scoff the rest.’

Afterwards, replete, we go out on to my little terrace where the air smells of honeysuckle and night stock and we watch the ridiculously huge sinking orb of the sun, and the physicist talks about his mother who died two months ago, in Aberdeen, of pancreatic cancer. He didn’t blame her for drinking herself stupid: the morphine wasn’t doing its job properly. He both misses her and feels relief. ‘Bodies,’ he concludes. ‘Great when they work, and terrible when they don’t.’ He reddens. ‘Oh fuck. What a stupid gaffe.’

‘It’s not a gaffe. I agree with you as a matter of fact. I won’t start telling you I wouldn’t have it any other way. It basically sucks.’

He shifts in the wicker chair. It’s too small for him. If he lived with me, I’d buy him a grandiose armchair that he could spread out in. Something physicist-sized. Expensive and expansive. A chair he can lean back in and hold forth from, Scottishly. I’d—

‘What was life like, before?’ he asks. He isn’t looking at me, and his big clumsy freckled hands seem to be comforting each other. ‘Since you’re being tolerant of my, er, emotional illiteracy, is that what you people call it?’

When our eyes meet, I realise he really does need to know. I’ve thought about this. How to tell him. But Bethany is needling at me. What does she know about me, or think that she knows? What did she tell him that afternoon at Oxsmith?