thing alone. Smack. And until the needle had been plunged into the vein, and released its longed-for load, she could think of nothing else.
Lying contentedly in her bed that night, Alice began to look at the newspaper. The whole of the front page was again taken up with coverage of the abduction of a little boy, a huge colour photograph of the child staring back at her. Inside, three more pages were devoted to him, and the entire editorial. The story was considered from every possible angle: the nature of the police investigations andthe particular difficulties encountered by them, profiles of any likely suspects, the precise circumstances leading up to the boy’s disappearance and so on. Even the psychological effects of the loss of a brother on a younger sister merited comment by a well-known child psychologist. Alice read it all, appalled, sympathising with the parents’ plight, recognising their utter desperation but deliberately choosing not to imagine herself precisely in their shoes. It would be a painful yet completely pointless exercise. Her heartache would assist no-one, remedy nothing. Below the rambling leader, her eyes were caught by a short paragraph headed ‘Yangtse River Dolphin Now Extinct’.
‘A rare river dolphin, the baiji, is now thought to be extinct. The species was the only remaining member of the Lipotidae , an ancient mammal family that separated from other marine mammals, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, about twenty-five million years ago. The baiji’s extinction is attributable to unregulated finishing , dam construction and boat collisions. The species’ incidental mortality results from massive-scale human environmental impact.’
Reading it, for a second she felt a wave of despair wash over her. The only supposedly rational species on the entire planet, the one with the fate of the rest of the natural world in its epicene hands, thought the matter so unimportant. The possible, not definite, loss of one of the billion upon billion of members of its own species merited four whole pages of newsprint, whereas humanity’s unthinking obliteration of an entire class of unique creatures deserved only a tiny footnote. Tomorrow more would be written about the boy’s abduction, but nothing further about the end of the baiji. Then again, tomorrow , like everyone else, she would consume the coverageavidly. Possibly she would read it while eating a yellow-fin tuna sandwich from a polythene carrier bag and, certainly, having done nothing for the next species perched precariously on the edge of extinction. Like everyone else, she was too busy living her day-to-day life, her good intentions simply paving on the road to hell.
Sleep was hard to come by, but just as she dropped off the phone rang. Alice woke, and in her dozy state hoped that Ian would answer it before remembering that he was away, visiting his mother. She clamped the receiver to her ear.
‘Ali… eh, Alice?’ Miss Spinnell, her neighbour, warbled . ‘I need your help. Can you come down straight away?’
The World Service was still on the radio. Six pips at two o’clock.
‘It’s only two, Miss Spinnell. It couldn’t possibly wait until the morning?’
‘No. It’s a drama… an emergy… a crisis. We may even need a doctor.’
Dragging herself out of bed, head still longing for the pillow, Alice shivered in the cold, searching around in the darkness for a jersey to put over her nightie. The recent spell of plain-sailing in her dealings with her elderly neighbour had seemed too good to be true. After all, Alzheimer’s did not stop, had no second thoughts about the casual destruction it wrought on its victim’s mind and personality. She had watched as, before her eyes, it had transformed a bright independent old lady into a suspicious eccentric, obsessed with the theft of her possessions by unseen intruders. Alice herself was now treated as asuspect, although her dog, Quill, remained the light of the old lady’s
Lying contentedly in her bed that night, Alice began to look at the newspaper. The whole of the front page was again taken up with coverage of the abduction of a little boy, a huge colour photograph of the child staring back at her. Inside, three more pages were devoted to him, and the entire editorial. The story was considered from every possible angle: the nature of the police investigations andthe particular difficulties encountered by them, profiles of any likely suspects, the precise circumstances leading up to the boy’s disappearance and so on. Even the psychological effects of the loss of a brother on a younger sister merited comment by a well-known child psychologist. Alice read it all, appalled, sympathising with the parents’ plight, recognising their utter desperation but deliberately choosing not to imagine herself precisely in their shoes. It would be a painful yet completely pointless exercise. Her heartache would assist no-one, remedy nothing. Below the rambling leader, her eyes were caught by a short paragraph headed ‘Yangtse River Dolphin Now Extinct’.
‘A rare river dolphin, the baiji, is now thought to be extinct. The species was the only remaining member of the Lipotidae , an ancient mammal family that separated from other marine mammals, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, about twenty-five million years ago. The baiji’s extinction is attributable to unregulated finishing , dam construction and boat collisions. The species’ incidental mortality results from massive-scale human environmental impact.’
Reading it, for a second she felt a wave of despair wash over her. The only supposedly rational species on the entire planet, the one with the fate of the rest of the natural world in its epicene hands, thought the matter so unimportant. The possible, not definite, loss of one of the billion upon billion of members of its own species merited four whole pages of newsprint, whereas humanity’s unthinking obliteration of an entire class of unique creatures deserved only a tiny footnote. Tomorrow more would be written about the boy’s abduction, but nothing further about the end of the baiji. Then again, tomorrow , like everyone else, she would consume the coverageavidly. Possibly she would read it while eating a yellow-fin tuna sandwich from a polythene carrier bag and, certainly, having done nothing for the next species perched precariously on the edge of extinction. Like everyone else, she was too busy living her day-to-day life, her good intentions simply paving on the road to hell.
Sleep was hard to come by, but just as she dropped off the phone rang. Alice woke, and in her dozy state hoped that Ian would answer it before remembering that he was away, visiting his mother. She clamped the receiver to her ear.
‘Ali… eh, Alice?’ Miss Spinnell, her neighbour, warbled . ‘I need your help. Can you come down straight away?’
The World Service was still on the radio. Six pips at two o’clock.
‘It’s only two, Miss Spinnell. It couldn’t possibly wait until the morning?’
‘No. It’s a drama… an emergy… a crisis. We may even need a doctor.’
Dragging herself out of bed, head still longing for the pillow, Alice shivered in the cold, searching around in the darkness for a jersey to put over her nightie. The recent spell of plain-sailing in her dealings with her elderly neighbour had seemed too good to be true. After all, Alzheimer’s did not stop, had no second thoughts about the casual destruction it wrought on its victim’s mind and personality. She had watched as, before her eyes, it had transformed a bright independent old lady into a suspicious eccentric, obsessed with the theft of her possessions by unseen intruders. Alice herself was now treated as asuspect, although her dog, Quill, remained the light of the old lady’s
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