But most of all he missed Brent. Brent had been the other half of his soul – Jason had studied Ancient Greek at school, and knew Plato's myth – and he felt as if he was missing a limb. He couldn't get that last sight of Brent out of his mind. Brent bleeding, asprawl on the floor like a rag doll, his beautiful body ugly and incongruous in death, his liveliness and cheeky humour gone for ever. Jason hadn't cried much since he'd found the body, but now, all at once here in an alien land, he wept, great tearing sobs shaking his body. There was nowhere private to weep, here far from home. Blinded by his tears, by his deep distress, he ran across the road into the park. A taxi hooted at him, but Jason ignored it, his upset too great. In the park, he tried to hide behind the broad trunk of an elm-tree, his face pressed into the rough bark, his arms cuddling his head.
At last the storm of grief passed. Jason went and sat on the emerald lawns, and wondered what was to become of him. He knew that he had to start thinking coherently about the rest of his life. For a moment he allowed himself to be persuaded that his grief was for mankind as a whole, for everybody, for all their loss and suffering and loneliness. But a new honesty forced him to admit that he was grieving for himself as much as for the world at large.
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