SIX

Severn came early the next morning to John's room. He had been out in the cool sunlight to post a letter to Will Haslam. It had been on Haslam's recommendation that John had come here, Haslam was a true friend who would be happy to learn that the advice had proved sound, that John was stronger in body and as active as ever in mind. A hopeful letter, then, and hope was confirmed in Severn as he found John awake, sitting up in bed and scribbling. He had made a knee desk of a big old book whose faded title Severn could roughly make out – A Word of Worlds or something. John had paper and a newly cut quill. On the chair beside his bed were the penknife, the inkwell, the drained milk cup of the previous day. John's eyes were bright, his cheeks healthily, so it seemed, flushed. His redgold hair was uncombed.

"Sabrina fair, how is the Roman morning?"

"I saw a very pretty little crib outside a church whose name I forget, with a little chubby Jesus child choked in tinsel. The Romans are already thinking of Christmas. It is but two weeks to go now. You stayed out yesterday. You should have said you would not be home for dinner. As we have to pay for two I ate two. I was dyspeptic. Signora Angeletti gave me some bubbling fountain water. It helped."

"Bubbling Severn. I am bubbling too, words are bubbling. I had this mad notion yesterday of a long poem on Rome, the history of Rome and the unchangingness of the Roman. Then I woke in the night and it was, lo, revealed unto me that such a tale must be in prose. It is not for me, then."

"So what are you writing?"

"For the moment I am succumbing to madness and revelling in it. I am back to the notion of a river, though it is not necessarily the Severn. It might well be the Jordan. I am letting the river carry everything on his back, or hers. I see the river, though, as very male. See what I have done, and if you laugh I shall be pleased."

Severn took the sheet and read:

A bearded corpse, a corpse with lesser beard,

Father and son, hands death-clasped, as they feared

The river's disuniting, and, above,

Swooping through clouds, the ghost of a black dove,

And cleft by rocks a melon with black teeth,

While an old signpost rose from underneath

The joyous waters, with outlandish script

I could not read. Then, with their grey hides stripped

As from an ancient beating, bloated dogs

Sailed on their backs…

"I cannot very well laugh at something I fail altogether to understand."

"I do not understand it either," John said cheerfully. "But it is not the poet's task to be clear, even to the poet. Hens lay eggs but can say nothing of the richness of yolk and airy blandness of albumen. Talking of eggs, I think I could -" Then he started to cough. He shrugged at it, coughing, as at a transient nuisance. Then the coughing increased and became paroxysmal. John's eyes showed fear, his nails grappled A World of Words in panic. Severn breathed fast and shallow. Scarlet gushed out and John moaned, choking. He tried madly to use his manuscript as a cup. The inky quill fell from the knee desk and wrote briefly on the coverlet. Severn was quick with the cup that had held milk. John filled it and groaned "Oh God God." There was a thick bubbling in his chest, then throat. Severn opened the casement and threw the rich red out like slops. He shut it again against the mild chill and was in time to offer the vessel for another filling of crimson. Severn looked at it fascinated and said calmly:

"I must get Clark." There was no more gushing, merely a few blobs and strings of phlegmy red to lace the brimming cup. John lay back, wretched, ashamed, fearful, disappointed. "I will go find him now. Or I will ask Signora Angeletti." There was no blood, though the breathing rattled, now, two cups enough, more than. John lay back very pale.

"You fetch him. We do not want. This is our little. Play."

"I'll wait. I'll wait five minutes."

"There'll be no more. Not yet. Get him. Though what he can do I. Know not. We must fulfill. The prop prop." A World of Words fell ponderously to the floor. "I'm cold. I must have blankets. Or a."

"I'll light a fire when I get back. Huddle under the clothes. Our two greatcoats will help. I shall be back in no time."

Clark, when he came, said nothing. He shook his head sadly at John and then nodded encouragingly. Meanwhile Severn, with old newspapers, candle ends, twigs, branchlets, tried to make a fire in the small grate. "Relieve inflammation." Clark said three or four times like a cantrip. Meanwhile he got some spirit alight with a spill from Severn's fire. He swirled the spirit about in a glass cup he had taken from his bag.

"Have I not already. Lost enough. Blood to relieve."

"Rest. Dinna, don't tire yoursel, self."

Clark clamped the heated cup with its roughened edges to the skin of John's left forearm. It adhered. It cooled. The air it held contracted. Surprised at the diminution of the surface pressure, deep-seated blood rose to the skin. Clark removed the cup, took his knife, incised. Blood came royally up, richly red.

"I have proof. It is not my. Stomach. The blood that came up had. Air bubbles. Air."

"It gathered that on its journey frae the stomach. Rest." He packed his bag, grinned at Severn's smoky troubles, then said seriously to John: "Excitement. Michelangelo and wine, I doot not. Blathering aboot poetry. There'll be no more of that for a wee while. I'll be back." Then he went clattering down the marble stairs. Severn, looking up from his little flames, was very surprised to see John out of the bed, tottering, scarlet and grey phlegm on his nightshirt like paint on a smock.

"No more, Severn. This is my. Last day."

Severn was up then and with him, fighting him with some difficulty, God knew where he got the strength from, bled out as he was. "What is it you're after, what are you seeking? Back to bed, John, you've lost enough -"

The great rabid eyes lighted on the penknife and flashed. "If you won't. Let me have my." Severn got the knife first. "Laudanum. Laudanum."

"Into that bed, into it. I have no laudanum. Clark has your laudanum." John fainted, falling on the bed, then almost at once recovered. He was persuaded to lie in it. Severn added blankets from his own bed. The fire crackled feebly. John lay awake with his eyes shut.

"John, listen to me, John, you are not to think of that wickedness. I know you've thought of it before, you thought of it even on the voyage. There will be no point in your looking for the means of self-destruction, do you hear me? There will be no knives or scissors or razors about, do you hear me? You are to lie still and get well."

"I'll not get well, Severn. This day shall be my last."

"A man does not take his own life. The law of Christ and the civil codes of the world alike forbid it. Be calm. I'll bring you milk. The room will be warm soon, you will see."

"Oh, damn and bugger your civil code and your cold Christ, Severn. I want no more of this. Dying in bloody cack and sweat and shivers. I think of you as well as of myself." The clarity and energy of his articulation were surprising. Severn looked at the clear open rolling eyes with awe, penknife in his fist. "Do you want that then, weeks maybe months, wiping up shit and blood and vomit? Let me be out of it like a." He grinned viciously. "I am more an antique Roman than a. It's easy enough, the quietus, Severn. The wrist-cutting is messy, throat-cutting too much Drury Lane. I ask only laudanum. A sufficient dose and tuck me in for the night. I will pass and you will scarce notice. I will void bladder and bowels like a good boy first. Give it to me, Severn."

"I told you, I no longer have it, Clark has it."