For a brief moment he was at a loss to account for this pain: then he realized what it was and all his misery was upon him again. Netta! Netta!…

He had forgotten!… For a whole five minutes – while he had walked up that platform and found a compartment, and taken his book from the suitcase, and looked out of the window while he waited for the train to start – he had been somehow tricked into not thinking about Netta! A record, certainly!… And he had been reminded of her by the sight of his own shoes. It was because the brogue on his own brown shoes was exactly the same as the brogue on the new brown shoes she had begun wearing a week or so ago. He had noticed the similarity when they were sitting in the ‘Black Hart’ having gins-and-tonic that morning after that awful blind when Mickey had passed out in the taxi. A nice state of affairs, when you’re so in love with a girl that the sight of your own shoes tears your heart open! Such was the awful associative power of physical love. He took his feet down, because he knew he could no longer catch a glimpse of his own shoes without incurring the risk of being pained.

Five minutes’ respite, breathing space – well, that was something – getting on! But wait a moment – what about his ‘dead’ period? Did he think about Netta in his ‘dead’ moods? Or did that strange shutter which fell, that film which came over his brain, somehow cut him off from Netta, from the pre-occupation of his days and nights? Perhaps it did – perhaps it was a sort of anaesthetic which Nature had contrived to prevent him going dotty through thinking about Netta. But then if he had not been thinking about Netta, what had he been thinking about? And that reminded him. He had asked himself just that question as he walked up the platform, and he had promised himself to seek an answer to it.

Well, then, what had he been thinking about – what went on in his head when the shutter was down? What? What?…

It was no good. He had no idea. Not the vaguest idea. This was awful. He must try and think. He really must try and think. But what was the use of thinking? He never could remember, so why should he remember now?

When did it start, anyway? How long had he been ‘under’? It had been a long time this time, he was certain of that. It went right back into yesterday. What could he remember of yesterday – Christmas Day? He could remember lunch – ‘Christmas Dinner’ as it was called – with his aunt. He could remember that clearly. He could remember the ultra-clean tablecloth, the unfamiliar wine-glasses, the turkey, and the mince-pies. Then he could remember having coffee afterwards. And then he said he would go and ‘walk it off’ and his aunt went up to her bedroom to sleep. He could remember putting on his raincoat in the hall. He could remember going down towards the sea, and then walking along the cliff towards the Golf Course… Ah! There you were! That was it. It must have happened while he was walking along the cliff. Yes. He was sure of it. He could see himself. He could almost hear it happening in his head, as he walked along the cliff and looked out towards the sea. Snap. But what then? What?… Nothing. A blank.