The next morning she brought

him a bowl of soup, which was his usual food these days. She told him she had read forty pages of his typescript. She told him she didn't think it was as good as his others. 'It's hard to follow,' she complained Jingling the change in his hand he shook his head. 'It keeps jumping from one time to another.' 'Yes,' said Paul. 'That's because the boy is confused. So the changes in time reflect the confusion in his mind.' He thought she might be interested in a writer's ways. 'He's confused, all right,' replied Annie. She was feeding him soup automatically and wiping the corner of his mouth with the tip of a cloth, like a true professional; he realized that she must once have been a nurse. 'And he swears all the time. Nearly every word is a swear-word.' 8 'That's true to life, Annie, don't you think?' Paul asked. 'People do talk that way in real life.' 'No, they don't,' she said, giving him a hard look. 'What do you think I do when I go shopping in town? Do you think 1 say, "Now, give me some of that swear-word bread, and that swear-word butter"? And does the shopkeeper say, "All right, Annie. Here you swear-word are"?' Her face was as dark as a thunderstorm now, and she was shouting. It wasn't at all amusing that she couldn't bring herself to say the real words; this made the situation all the more threatening. Paul lay back, frightened. The soup bowl was at an angle in her hands and soup was starting to spill out. 'And then do I go to the bank and say, "Here's one big swear-word cheque and you'd better give me fifty swear-word dollars"? Do you think that when I was in court in Denver-' A stream of soup fell on to the blanket. She looked at it, then at him, and her face twisted. 'Now look what you've made me do!' 'I'm sorry.' 'I'm sure you are!' she screamed, and she threw the bowl into the corner. It broke into tiny pieces and soup splashed up the wall. Paul gasped in shock. She turned off then. She just sat there for maybe thirty seconds. During that time Paul's heart seemed to stop. Gradually she came back. 'I have such a temper,' she confessed like a little girl. 'I'm sorry,' he said out of a dry throat. 'You should be. I think I'll finish Misery's Child and then return to the other book afterwards.' 'Don't do that if it makes you angry,' he said. 'I don't like it when you get angry. I . . . I do need you, you know.' She did not return his smile. 'Yes, you do. You do, don't you, Paul?' She came back into the room two hours later. 'I suppose you want your stupid medicine now,' she said. 9 'Yes,' said Paul, and then remembered. 'Yes, phase.' 'Well, you're going to have to wait for me to clean up this mess,' she said. 'The mess you made.' She took a bucket of water and a cloth over to the comer and started to clean up the soup. 'You dirty bird,' she said. 'It's all dried now. This is going to take some time, I'm afraid, Paul.' Paul didn't dare to say anything, although she was already late with his medicine and the pain was terrible. He watched in horror and fascination while she cleaned the wall.