Chapter 8 Summary

August brings narcissus to Mary's garden. It also brings the radio announcement that radiation sickness is now in Sydney and Adelaide. This is bad news but the "wise person" pays no attention to it. What is important was that it is a bright and sunny day. Mary and Peter discuss their future crop of narcissus over the next couple of years.

Their baby, Jennifer, is teething and running a fever. Mary is worried it is something horrible and she frets. Peter is tired of the incessant crying of the baby and leaves for the submarine on a trumped-up excuse of work. Once there, Peter has a conversation with a Wran writer about the news at Sydney and Adelaide. "First it was months, and then it got to be weeks, and now I'd say it's getting down to days." Peter plans to talk to...