Free Free Fall by William Golding Page B

breakdown of our integrated simplicity. The hero is overthrown, remains whimpering and defenceless, a nothing.
    How long should I have lasted? Should I have lived up to Tinker? He was frequently threatened with some elaborate form of extinction if he refused to tell. But I was saved at that time from any suspicion of my own inadequacy; for suddenly I wanted to go home and lie down; and then even going home seemed an impossible exertion. The universe bored into my head, the milky way swam past, the green lights of the singing stars expanded and were everything that was.
    My memories of that time are confused as mountainous country in misty weather. Did I walk home? How could I? But if I was carried, what arms held me? I must have reached Rotten Row somehow. I went to school next dayas usual, I remember that clearly. Perhaps I was not quite as usual. I seem to remember feeling as if I had been drizzled on for a long time and had reached the crisis of whimpering; but there was no rain. There was warmth instead on my right side and a deep throbbing in my right ear. How many days? How many hours? Then, at the end, I was sitting in a classroom and it must have been late afternoon because both the naked lights on their long flexes were switched on. I was tired of the throbbing, tired of school, tired of everything, wanted to lie down. I looked at the paper in front of me and I could not think what I had to write. I heard whispering and knew without understanding, that I was the centre of excitement and awe. A boy in front of me and to the left had his coat pulled and looked round. There was more whispering so that the master moved at his desk. Then Johnny Spragg who was sitting to the right of me got out of his seat and put up his hand.
    “Please, sir! Sammy’s crying.”
    Ma and Mrs. Donavan knew about earache. There were rituals to be performed. For a while I was an object of interest to all the women in the row. They would gather and nod and look down at me. It comes to me now with faint surprise that we never used our upstairs after the lodger died in it. Perhaps Ma was hoping for another lodger; or perhaps her neglect of the bare room was a symptom of her decline. We had lived and slept downstairs, just as if he were still ticking and fuffing above the whitewashed boards; so I had my earache near the stove which was as comfortable a place as any. Ma kept up a good fire in the centre hole. The lady with the green leathery plant brought in a bucket of coal and some advice.They gave me bitter white pills to swallow, aspirin perhaps; but the universe kept boring in, bringing the earache with it. Things became more than lifesize. I kept trying to get away from the pain but it went with me. Ma and Mrs. Donavan took council with the plant lady and they decided to iron me. Mrs. Donavan brought an iron—perhaps Ma always borrowed?—and it was black, with a piece of brown cloth round the handle. It was really iron too, deeply pitted with rust, and only shiny on the bottom part. The plant lady put a piece of cloth over the side of my head while Ma set the iron on the fire. When she took it off she spat on the shiny side and I saw the little balls of spit dance, dwindle and vanish. She sat by me and ironed the side of my head through the cloth and the plant lady held my hand. Then while I was still accepting the warmth with good faith and hoping the pain would go away, the door opened and the tall parson bowed himself through. Ma took away the cloth and the iron and got up. The pain was worse if anything so that I began to turn on this side and then on that and then lie on my face; and every time I happened to see the tall parson he was still standing in the door with his mouth open. Perhaps they moved and spoke, but I have no memory of it. To my hindsight they seem motionless as a ring of stones. Just then the pain began to knock on the door where I was, my own private, inviolable centre so that I made noises and flung myself about.