SUN FEB 22

I wondered if Nat’s diet might be a factor contributing to his doom-laden feelings. I got him to write out a list of his weekly intake. Alas, ambivalence prevailed. He must be one of my healthiest patients. He eats much fruit and a lot of raw vegetables. His father grows both on his several allotments, freezing much of the produce for unseasonable consumption. Then there is Nat’s own edible fungus harvest. His favourite dish is a foul smelling, but particularly nourishing caudle. All in all, there is no shortage of folic acid, a deficiency in which is currently believed to contribute to depression. Of course, he may be allergic to some of this healthy fodder. He has said that he once overcame an oversensitivity to toadstools via a course of injections. However, he is loath to give up any of it for long enough for me to tell, and I am not sufficiently enamoured of this line of enquiry to pursue it with any great zeal.

SUN MAR 8

Nat seems to be plodding along quite nicely, almost in spite of himself. From a rambling open-ended existence often encapsulating many nocturnal hours, he has evolved a routine, albeit a rather mundane one: signing on one morning every other week; spending the evenings at Greg’s; the band’s fortnightly rehearsal at Jim’s; and his pictures.

TUE MAR 10

I had my most memorable dream of late. It featured Nat, and almost put me off my breakfast.

He liberated an egg from a factory farm, a huge great sprawling mess of a place strewn with effluent, carrying inter alia the fetid corpses of chickens in various states of decomposition. Then Nat scaled a tall red brick wall and rested atop it, with the egg in his lap. The egg expanded from hen size to something an ostrich might produce; it also grew humanesque features like a grotesque humpty dumpty. Nat dropped the egg and it shattered into smithereens, in midair. He jumped after it, somehow managing to re-assemble the mad jigsaw of a monstrosity in slow motion, before landing safely on the ground. The ancient-looking egg, successfully put back together again but covered in tiny hairline cracks like a pot stuck back together from shards, then proceeded to bite Nat’s head off. Charming.

I felt mild-tempered during the dream and the most puzzling aspect, as it was unfurling, was my point of vision. I was continually circling Nat as if I were a satellite of his, completing orbit every few seconds, the rapidity of his movements unable to curtail my curving course.