Atdtda37: Her picture was speaking, 1061-1062

[Paul Nightingale]

The previous section has raised the issue of 'different tracks ... other
possibilities', or 'forks in the road' (1060), and the new section opens
with just such a divergence. Roswell acts in accordance with 'his habit most
every night' (1061), while Merle tries something different: 'Though it was
usually enough ... tonight he decided ...' etc.

Above the section break Merle is reminded of his own past; and Troth's
speech ('Was that her voice he'd heard?') is followed, before the end of the
chapter, by that of Dally (1062). If Lew imagines Troth's voice and follows
by believing it possible that she can see him (the 'mathematical mists'
[1061] include the balance that is an equation), Dally's phone call and
voice might also be imagined. For Lew, Troth remains elusive because the
film narrative excludes him; subsequently, for Merle, the film narrative
does include him, the film spectator exposed or reader exposed as another
character in the fiction. This is the world he lives in: '... he thought he
recognised a Bethenod-Latour alternator'. On 1046 Erlys produces the
scrapbook of Dally's London career, where it seems Dally has returned; yet
she is now ('this very evening', 1061) seen in Paris, which raises questions
about her fate after she left the narrative in Ch62.


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