Free Hidden Symptoms by Deirdre Madden

managing to browbeat him back into college and she resented that he had proved his will stronger than hers by not yielding. She still could not see, and believed that she never would see, the virtue of his taking that brainless, pointless, futureless job. She might suspect his motivation, but she could not understand it.
    He had had an exaggerated sense of the importance of his own life. He felt so strongly that life was a huge, blank, malleable and significant thing which one had a moral obligation to use fully and properly, that he had eventually frightened himself into doing nothing at all. He dabbled in various things — painting, playing the piano, geology — but never with any great conviction, and his halfhearted plans and projects always came to nothing. Eventually he gave up, and waited for that one big thing, that one act or event which would qualify hiswhole life. It was as if by taking the job in the supermarket he was trying to hoard all his energy — trying to hoard life itself — for that one instant of action, union and justification. It was similar to the way in which all the trivialities of an artist’s life became subsumed by the grandeur of his greatest work; but Francis, she thought, had been no artist. He had, however, been happier at the supermarket than at Queen’s, there was no denying that. It all seemed so unimportant and foolish now that the fearfully conserved life was ended. The overwhelmingly significant thing now was her love for him. Even if she thought that he had been foolish or that he had shirked life, her love would have to accommodate these things because they were a part of him.
    Where was Francis now? What was Heaven? A place of total and unqualified love; a place where there was never, ever the need to say “and yet,” “in spite of,” or “nevertheless.”

Towards the end of July…
    Towards the end of July, a television documentary was broadcast concerning former terrorists who were now living in exile in America, unextradited and unrepentant. Theresa’s mother insisted that they watch it, although Theresa herself had strong misgivings. One man, wearing beach clothes and sitting on a white iron chair by a sunny terrace, deprecated with a wave of his hand the luxury in which he now lived. He spoke of the dangers of his position, and said that he was wanted by both the British Army and various paramilitary organizations. In a voice which had acquired a strong American twang, hespoke of internal organization and communication; cell structures and factions; divisions, battalions and volunteers. Then the interviewer asked him about the actions which had led him to his present exile.
    â€œDid you kill members of the security forces?”
    â€œNo comment.”
    â€œDid you kill civilians?”
    His eyes flitted left and right, looked slyly at the camera, and then looked away again.
    â€œNo comment.”
    â€œDid you ever take part in any purely sectarian killings?”
    He gave a little smile of exasperation.
    â€œNo comment.”
    As Theresa had feared and expected, her mother broke down and cried. “I knew this would happen,” she said, and switched off the television, her mother’s sobs sounding even more wretched and distressing against the sudden silence which this afforded. Her mother, her sweet, kind, thoughtful mother, who had made big scones, now lay wailing on her chintzy sofa. “I hope they rot in Hell for what they did to Francis, God curse them and their kind.”
    â€œThey’re not all in California ate’n steaks and melons,” said Theresa roughly. “The one that did Francis is probably lyin’ drunk in a gutter in Sandy Row.”
    â€œDoes that make it any better? He’s alive and doin’ what he wants. Francis is lyin’ in Milltown.”
    Theresa also began to cry then. She would never see him again in this world, never never never never never.She