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the body on top of him, he tried to evoke a suitably senior and respected profession. It was obviously something far removed from the frivolity of the arts, from mere entertaining – the law, perhaps. The Church did not feel quite right. A public-school headmaster was a possibility, or the Navy. Captain Miles Green, Royal Navy, had a very plausible sound – yet brought no more precise and clinching echo. It crossed his mind that the theatrical profession might just, after all, fit the bill, since there did seem something spellbound, as also something half hidden in darkness, about this blurred, yet definite, sense of an audience. On the other hand actors were not socially responsible people, as he felt more and more certain the true Miles Green was.
    For what his equally blurred yet definite real self rose against, as abruptly as Nurse Cory herself, suddenly erect, a knee on the bed on either side of his chest, was the idea that it would, in its right mind, ever have allowed any of this to happen. A further inspiration breathed upon him. Was it not actually most likely, he thought, as the black girl, having seized his hands, now led them up, like lifeless flannels or sponges, over her smooth stomach to ablute the cones of dark-tipped flesh above, that he was a Member of Parliament? A determined opponent of the forces of evil and permissive morality in society?
    And what had the wretched doctor said about inability to face up to the realities of life? Was not that just the sort of snide, childishly malicious remark the general public liked to make about their elected representatives? He felt a thrill of intuitive certainty that he was very warm… and then another thrill, for something else she had said still worried him. Why indeed had he not left the room at once? But wait: suppose he truly was a Member, stumbled on a flagrant medical malpractice of import far beyond the walls of this one hospital? Then it was clear. Between personal repugnance and public duty, there was only one choice, as Gladstone had so amply witnessed in his work with prostitutes.
    Gladstone – he had remembered Gladstone! He felt a third
frisson
of incipient self-discovery; for not only the memory of Gladstone, but that of more recent public figures selflessly braving the sex-hells of Hamburg and Copenhagen on behalf of their constituents returned to him. He felt profoundly relieved. Albeit unconsciously, he had, in not leaving this room, chosen the right, the responsible thing, and was doing what he began to feel sure he was elected to do.
    If that were so – my God, a day would come when he would arraign doctor, hospital, treatment, all, in terms that would settle their hash for good. Now a hand was led down and invited to explore between the splayed thighs of the kneeling nurse. No silent Member, he: he would catch Mr. Speaker’s eye and rise, nothing could stop him rising, with aplomb and dignity and full force, to his most solemn and convincing height. “Is the Minister aware of the increasing incidence of gross sexual abuse of mentally incapacitated patients by nymphomaniacal and multiracial members of staff in a certain major hospital? Does he realize that their hapless victims…”
    Alas, further composition of his speech became impossible, for Nurse Cory’s attention must have been caught by something else rising behind her. Her hand released his, felt back.
    “Mr. Green! You done it!”
    The next moment she had sunk upon him. His mouth was briefly but violently kissed, then she seemed to writhe and slither down his body, like a snake. He felt his own nipples being licked, and gave up trying to imagine how this appalling scene might end.
    “That’s enough, nurse. Nurse!”
    The nurse lay still, at the second and sharper admonition, her cheek couched against his stomach. He opened his eyes. Dr. Delfie was standing by the side of the bed, her arms folded, eyeing her prone assistant with more than a hint of the disapproval hitherto