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 her body. Her eyes were blank. There were more red marks on her arms and hands, and more food spread here and there on her clothes. She held up the trap. 'They come into the cellar when it rains,' she explained. 'I put down traps. I always catch eight or nine of them. Sometimes I find others —' She went blank then. She just stopped and went blank for nearly three minutes, holding the rat in the air. The only sounds were the rat's squeaks. You thought things couldn't get worse, didn't you? You were WRONG! '- drowned in the corners. Poor things!' She looked down at the rat and a tear fell on to its fur. 'Poor, poor things.' She closed one of her strong hands around the rat and began to squeeze. The rat struggled and whipped its tail from side to side. Annie's eyes never lost that blank, distant look. Paul wanted to look away, but couldn't; it was disgusting, but fascinating. Annie's hand closed into a fist. Paul heard the rat's bones break and blood ran out of its mouth. Annie threw the crushed body into a corner of the room. Some of the rat's blood was on her hand. 'Now it's at peace,' she said, and laughed. 'Shall I get my gun, Paul? Maybe the next world is better for people as well as for rats - and people are almost the same as rats anyway.' 'Wait for me to finish,' he said. It was hard to speak; his mouth felt thick and heavy. I'm closer to death than I've ever been in my life, he thought, because she means it. She's as insane as the husband who murders his whole family before killing himself - and who thinks he is being a good husband and father. 'Misery?' she asked, and Paul thought - or hoped - that there was a tiny sign of life in her eyes. 37 'Yes.' What should he say next? How could he stop her killing him? 'I agree that the world's an awful place. I mean, I've been in so much pain these last few weeks, but -' 'Pain?' She interrupted him. 'You don't know what pain is, Paul. You haven't any idea at all.' She looked at him with contempt. 'No, I suppose not — not compared with you, anyway.' 'That's right.' 'But I want to finish this book. I want to see what happens to Misery. And I'd like you to be here too. Don't you want to find out what happens?' There was a pause, a terrible silence for a few seconds, and then she sighed. 'Yes, I suppose I do want to know what happens. That's the only thing left in the world that I still want.' Without realizing what she was doing she began to suck the rat's blood off her fingers. 'I can still do it, Paul. I can still go and get my gun. Why not now, both of us together; You're not stupid. You know I can never let you leave here. You've known that for some time, haven't you? I suppose you think of escape, like a rat in a trap. But you can't escape. You can't leave here . . . but 1 could go with you.' Paul forced himself to keep his eyes looking straight into hers. 'We all go eventually, don't we, Annie? But I'd like to finish what I've started first.' She sighed and stood up. 'All right. 1 must have known that's what you'd want, because I've brought you your pills. I don't remember bringing them, but here they are. I have to go away for a while. If I don't, what you or I want won't make any difference. I do things, you see . . . I go somewhere when I feel like this - a place in the hills. I call it my Laughing Place. Do you remember that I told you I was coming back from Sidewinder when I found you in the storm? I lied. I was coming back from my Laughing Place, in fact. Sometimes I do laugh when I'm there, but usually I just scream.' 38 'How long will you be away, Annie?' 'I don't know. I've brought you plenty of pills.' But what about food? Am I supposed to eat that rat? She left the room and he listened to her walking around the house, getting ready to go. He still half expected her to come back with her gun, and he didn't relax until he heard the car disappearing up the road outside,