Imago Bird by Nicholas Mosley

faint noise like a dog having a dream about hunting.
    I said ‘Well, all this depends on some sort of miracle. Which is the sense of the whole. Do you think, in fact, in the outside world, after one has made one’s efforts, after one has tried to see one’s stories, the fact that one feels better—and this is a fact—means that the whatever it is that flows through you, or happens to you, in the outside world, is something that provides miracles?’
    Dr Anders looked up sharply and gazed out of the window.
    She said ‘Meaningful coincidences—’
    I said ‘Ah.’
    Then—‘Or do you think it is just to do with the twenty-one lost chromosomes?’
    She said ‘What twenty-one lost chromosomes?’
    I said ‘You know that thing about everyone having forty-two chromosomes only half of which go on to the children—’
    Dr Anders said ‘Forty-six.’
    I thought I might shout—All right, forty-six!
    I said ‘—So they have to spend their lives trying to find the other twenty-three again, or whatever it is, like Plato’s lost half of a cell.’
    Dr Anders said nothing.
    I thought—Oh all right, my mother and my father then.
    But—It is true this language is difficult!
    I said There was a day when I was about seven or eight, I suppose, and we were living in London at the time, and I had had a quarrel with my sister. And I thought I was in the right, but my mother was disapproving of both of us equally. So I went and locked myself in a bathroom. To teach people how to treat me properly, I suppose. Like Napoleon. And I swore that I would not come out until justice had been done and seen to have been done to each of us equally. I mean Napoleon, I suppose, just wanted a lot of dignity. Our house in London was a tall house with three or four storeys. The bathroom I had locked myself into was on the third floor. I was quite good at locking myself in, I had done this before; I settled down with a bathmat and a towel on the floor and made a sort of bed with my head downby the lavatory. There was a good lock on the door: they would have to break it to get in. And I would rather starve than go out. You see how politics grows from family life, don’t you. Children have such power over parents: parents feel guilty: though why they should I don’t know, since children have such power. Well there I was, on the bathroom floor; and getting a bit hungry every now and then, with my head down by the lavatory. I thought it would be better if I starved, of course, because then my parents would feel guilty: but I wished I could either starve or not starve rather quickly, because otherwise things might get uncomfortable. Well my mother and sister came and banged on the door every now and then: they asked me to come out: they even offered me food. But I didn’t come out, for what would then have been the point of locking myself in a lavatory? I had to be a sacrifice, like Napoleon. Well after a time my mother and sister left me alone: they weren’t fools: perhaps they knew after all that armies don’t have much power if they’re left alone in an empty landscape. Well that was the hard time, with nothing happening. And I was hoping the air would hurry up and give out: so I could the and be carried out and comforted. And see the beneficial effects on my parents of my suicide. If I was alive, that is: if you believe in Shakespeare’s miracles. You see, this language is not easy. After a time I began to wonder whether something more important might be happening outside: such as chocolate cake for tea, or other people coming to supper. In fact it was Aunt Mavis coming to supper: but that didn’t seem to matter much either way. Oh I know it’s all a bit more serious—or is it?—a child locked in a lavatory and thinking about dying: I was only seven or eight. What was my mother doing? Why didn’t she break the door