Over the Darkened Landscape by Derryl Murphy

worriedly. MacDonald looked on in concern, and the others watched with interest as well. Only the mad that shuffled by paid him no heed, already used to such behaviour on a regular basis.
    “Are you all right?” asked the doctor, at the same time that MacDonald asked, “What happened in there?”
    Wells waved them both off. “Nothing, nothing,” he said, “Just my claustrophobia acting up, is all. Can we get outside?” Wouldn’t do to tell them what he saw. Just be locked up like Wain and the rest of these poor mad souls.
    MacDonald nodded and marched off. The intern who wasn’t holding onto Wells and the two guards hurried to catch him, and Wells slowly followed, careful to keep his eyes down.
    The one time he did look up there were three inmates standing only a few feet away. Each man seemed to be unaware that he had a cat sitting on his shoulders, and each of the cats were intently watching Wells as he walked by. He sucked in a breath and did his best not to whimper, then looked back to the floor and picked up his pace.
    Wells said farewell to MacDonald and the doctor and then staggered away, too in shock to call a cab, first trying to understand, and then rationalize, what he saw.
    Whatever it was, he couldn’t face Jane now. He resolved to leave for his home in France that night, to join his love Odette at Lou Pidou .
    To get away from cats forever.

    France, 1927

    Jane had joined him for his lecture at the Sorbonne, and then shortly afterwards they went back to England for the wedding between their son Gip and H.G.’s best secretary, Marjorie. The day after the wedding he again returned to France.
    He spent most of his time writing, but on the tenth of May a letter from his son Frank arrived in the post.
    Jane had cancer. Had been ill when he had seen her, and had not told him.
    He set down the letter and immediately wrote a quick note to Jane, to tell her he loved her, and that he was coming home to help her. He wanted to write that he would see her through her recovery, but before the letter could get that far there was a scratching at the door of his study. He slowly looked up, hands shaking and mouth dry.
    A cat stood there, one he had never seen around the house before. Cats were not allowed in Lou Pidou , his unwavering decree. It stared at him for a moment, then arched its back, flattened its ears, and hissed at him, before turning and walking out. It was the same orange cat from two years before.
    Wells was still for a moment, then he exploded out of his chair and raced to the door. The cat was nowhere to be seen.
    He shuffled back to his study, feeling an odd combination of defeat and relief, feeling that what Wain and the cats had shown him was just about over. He went to his desk, but instead of sitting he lay down on the floor underneath, curled up much like Wain had been two years before.

    “I have had Frank’s letter today and for the first time I learned how seriously ill you have been & that you may still be very ill. My dear, I love you much more than I have loved anyone else in the world & I am coming back to you to take care of you & to do all I can to make you happy . . . My dear, my dear, my dearest heart is yours.
    Your loving Bins.”
    — Excerpt from a letter from H.G. Wells to Jane Wells.

    “ . . . my little wife has to die of cancer & I want to spend what time remains of her life with her . . .”
    — Excerpt from a letter from H.G. Wells to Margaret Sanger, written before leaving France.

    “ . . . and H.G.—H.G. positively howled. You are no doubt aware that he was not a conventionally perfect husband . . . O it was hideous—terrible and frightful . . . The way of transgressors is hard . . .”
    —Excerpt from a letter from Charlotte Shaw to T.E. Lawrence on the funeral of Jane Wells.

More Painful Than
The Dreams of Other Boys

    M ike Gordini leaned against the hood of his patrol car and watched the world go by, marvelling at the sight of families all together, children