ATDTDA (18): Performing, 503-504

[Paul Nightingale]

Yashmeen's departure brings the first appearance in these pages of Renfrew:
his subsequent absence is marked by the bouquet she throws overboard. By way
of contrast, Cyprian will discover at the chapter's end that "none of
'this'--whatever it was supposed to be--was quite done with yet" (504).
There is some kind of rapport, finally, between Cyprian and Times 3, for
whom he is "a useful distraction from their own melancholy": another
stand-in, he will remind them of the absent Yashmeen.

For Cyprian himself, the expectation is one of an "attack of sadness".
However, no such marker of absence appears. As in the previous section there
are expectations here, some kind of prognosis, perhaps. The previous section
ends with Yashmeen's own meandering thoughts, "eventually to the beginnings
of a roulette system" (503). Here it seems to be Cyprian's mental picture,
as though he provides some kind of ghostly accompaniment: Yashmeen "would
take the 8.40 boat-train ..." etc, "waking at each great wavethump" etc
(504). Subsequently, "[h]e would then hold off the woeful relapse long
enough ..." etc. a performance of sadness. And then, as Cyprian awaits "the
intestinal certainty that he would never see her again", in parenthesis:
"... as her train crossed canals ..." etc. Having departed she is recalled
in transit, his imagination cancelling out time and space.