Free Dancing Girls by Margaret Atwood

good for nothing else. Morrison obeyed and Louise was thrust in, Dave holding her more or less by the scruff of the neck and Paul picking up her feet. She did not resist as much as Morrison expected. He got in on one side of her; Dave was on the other. Leota, who had waddled down belatedly, had reached the front seat; once they were in motion she turned around and made false, cheering-up noises at Louise.
    “Where are they taking me?” Louise whispered to Morrison. “It’s to the hospital, isn’t it?” She was almost hopeful, perhaps she had been depending on them to do this. She snuggled close to Morrison, rubbing her thigh against his; he tried not to move away.
    As they reached the outskirts she whispered to him again. “This is silly, Morrison. They’re being silly, aren’t they? When we get to the next stoplight, open the door on your side and we’ll jump out and run away. We’ll go to my place.”
    Morrison smiled wanly at her, but he was almost inclined to try it. Although he knew he couldn’t do anything to help her and did not want the responsibility anyway, he also didn’t want his mind burdened with whatever was going to happen to her next. He felt like someone appointed to a firing squad: it was not his choice, it was his duty, no one could blame him.
    There was less ice fog now. The day was turning greyer, bluer: they were moving east, away from the sun. The mental clinic was outside the city, reached by a curving, expressionless driveway. The buildings were the same assemblage of disparate once-recent styles as those at the university: the same jarring fragmentation of space, the same dismal failure at modishness. Government institutions, Morrison thought; they were probably done by the same architect.
    Louise was calm as they went to the reception entrance. Inside was a glass-fronted cubicle, decorated with rudimentary Christmas bells cut from red and green construction paper. Louise stood quietly, listening with an amused, tolerant smile, while Paul talked with the receptionist; but when a young intern appeared she said, “I must apologize for my friends; they’ve been drinking and they’re trying to play a practical joke on me.”
    The intern frowned enquiringly. Paul blustered, relating Louise’s theories of the circle and the poles. She denied everything and told the intern he should call the police; a joke was a joke but this was a misuse of public property.
    Paul appealed to Morrison: he was her closest friend. “Well,” Morrison hedged, “she
was
acting a little strange, but maybe notenough to.…” His eyes trailed off to the imitation-modern interior, the corridors leading off into god knew where. Along one of the corridors a listless figure shuffled.
    Louise was carrying it off so well, she was so cool, she had the intern almost convinced; but when she saw she was winning she lost her grip. Giving Paul a playful shove on the chest, she said, “We don’t need
your
kind here.
You
won’t get into the circle.” She turned to the intern and said gravely, “Now I have to go. My work is very important, you know. I’m preventing the civil war.”
    After she had been registered, her few valuables taken from her and locked in the safe (“So they won’t be stolen by the patients,” the receptionist said), her house keys delivered to Morrison at her request, she disappeared down one of the corridors between two interns. She was not crying, nor did she say goodbye to any of them, though she gave Morrison a dignified, freezing nod. “I expect you to bring my notebook to me,” she said with a pronounced English accent. “The black one, I need it. You’ll find it on my desk. And I’ll need some underwear. Leota can bring that.”
    Morrison, shamed and remorseful, promised he would visit.
    When they got back to the city they dropped Dave Jamieson off at his place; then the three of them had pizza and Cokes together. Paul and Leota were friendlier than usual: they wanted to find out