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Oscar takes the train back to London and starts asking around about Roby.
A person buying a book mentions that Randolph Carter had known Roby, and the next morning he can set up some time to talk to him.
Huh, wasn't that the guy Terrence talked to at the party? He seemed a bit much. But that's like 40% of his customers; he has a lot of experience in this area.
"He's... I wouldn't say he's 'fine,' but if we can convince his brother to pay for his medication, he could live outside the asylum. That's what his doctor is working towards, too."
"Oh, that would be wonderful. We parted on bad terms but no one deserves to be in an asylum."
"It is just a bit frustrating that the only thing keeping him in has nothing to do with him, or his doctors."
"Is there anything I can do to help? I do still-- care for him, in spite of everything."
"If you can somehow convince his brother to pay for his care, that would solve almost all the problems. ...or you could probably send letters, he'd probably appreciate that. I'm not sure he'd be able to reply, but he'd probably read them."
"I could pay for his care, I'm not sure if you've noticed but my family is absurdly wealthy and my brother will pay for everything I want because he feels so bad that I'm tragically unable to fight in wars or play cricket, which surely I would long to do were I physically able."
"If you'd be willing to pay for a ridiculous amount of laudanum-- and I do mean ridiculous-- and could convince Dr. Aarons you would be willing to do this long term... that might get him out."
"I feel I should make it clear that he is, uh, a deeply strange, in some ways? Not dangerously insane, and there's no reason he needs to stay in the asylum. Just. deeply strange and uncomfortable to talk to, at times. I don't know what he was like before, but I feel like I should warn you about that."
"He was before, that's why we broke it off. When we first met he wrote lovely poetry and liked the occult-- and I was in my occult phase, darling, so we had a common interest. Very useful for the work, the occult is."
"Abominable. There was something wrong about them. They also hung around with this fellow called Coombs, who was violent-- not that I dislike rough trade, darling, but there's trade and there's trade."
He nods knowingly. "Difference between being strong and maybe hitting other people, and hitting you. --It sounds like a bad crowd, overall. I can see why you broke it off."
"We broke it off in late December of 1924," Ruby says. "He'd gotten-- worse than usual. They were going to meet at a hill in Suffolk-- Clare Melford, I think? He wanted me to go with him. See the 'nine teeth'. He thought it would inspire my art, it was so beautiful. I told him he had to explain to me what the nine teeth were first. He said I had to see for myself."
"No, I told him I never wanted to see him again and he begged me to forgive him and I said 'only if you love me more than you love Carcosa' and he said he would never love anything in his life more than Carcosa."
"Firstly, that sounds very much like what I know of Roby, and secondly, oh my god, what a cad."
"It's a shame things had to get broken off, but also, what the hell Roby. Men. Can't live with them, can't live without them."
"I'm going to go live on the isle of the queens and we will fuck all day and do no useful work. The fruit will drop into our hands. --I still have his book around here somewhere, I think--"
"I look forward to it. Terrence might be able to get some use out of that."
Ruby gets up and starts to look. She returns in a few minutes with a copy of Der Wanderer.
The title page has an annotation: June 1924. To Nigel all my love Alexander.
"I'll give it back as soon as I can." It would be the rudest thing ever to lose a book with an annotation like that.
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