And the voice saying: "I didn't know — I'm such a dope, but I should have... Simon, darling, wake up!... Simon, wake up..."
And then he was awake.
A moment of clarity drifted towards him like a child's balloon, and he caught it and held on to it and everything was quite clear again while he held it.
He said very carefully: "Avalon, I left a message for you that I'd see you tomorrow. Well, this is tomorrow. Only I can't see you. That's silly, isn't it?"
She said: "I had to put the light out again because I didn't want it to show under the door... Simon, dear, wake up! Don't go to sleep again!"
He said: "Why did you come here anyway?"
"Because that creep I was with knew Cookie, and she'd apologised, and she was being as nice as she can be, and I have to work and Hollywood came into the picture, and it seemed like the only graceful thing to do, and I can't fight the whole night club racket, and... Simon, you must stay awake!"
"I am awake," he said. "Tell me what happened."
"After Pat hit you, Cookie said that it wasn't your fault that Ferdy went after him — he went by himself, or she sent him, or something. And he was broken-hearted. So we all put you to bed, and everything broke up. Zellermann said that you'd sleep it off—"
"I bet he did. But I never had to sleep off a crack on the jaw before."