Then their visits became more occasional for a time, with Rob patently more uneasy—unwilling to come beyond the kitchen, shuffling his feet, throwing uneasy glances ceiling-wards if he thought he heard a noise upstairs. But Grace chaffed him about this, and soon he was behaving quite normally, at least in the downstairs of the house. Dermot was easy to forget. He was brought back to Calverley Row by an attendant at the institution, a capable-looking man who was empowered by the psychiatrist to “explain the situation.” He said that there had been a “real improvement,” but in practice this seemed to mean no more than that Dermot now had an occupation: He made rugs and would sit happily for hours with his hook and uniform lengths of wool, filling row after row on the square of rug canvas. It obviously soothed his mind, making the outbursts of self-accusation less frequent and bitter. That was the full extent of the improvement so far as his family could see. The psychiatrist never paid the promised visit, but he had written a short note with his telephone number on it.
