The withdrawal: agoraphobia, the tunnels, the workaholism — "she never leaves the grounds anymore"

pivotal · since YTSDB (2004), ongoing to YDAU

• When: a standing condition since JOI's YTSDB death, "in stages," described as of YDAU
• What: After the funeral Avril withdrew by degrees into the grounds: "Now she never goes anywhere, Boo. Now she's got the Headmaster's House and her office and the tunnel in between, and never leaves the grounds," commuting below-ground so she "never like hunches idly past the Pump Room." Per Orin (n234) it's the urban noise she can't take; "The Volvo was already up on blocks" by his college years. Mario reads the change as happiness; Hal corrects him — "Now she's just an agoraphobic workaholic and obsessive-compulsive," "a worse workaholic than she ever was." (Cf. scene 037: she planted the hillside thickets "when she'd still spent time outdoors at all.") Mario's private verdict for both of them: "She's plenty sad, I bet." A small standing riddle in the house she won't leave: the HmH living room still displays the old print "Hal correctly remembers Avril always loathing" — a photo "long pre-dated J.O.I.'s ever picking up a camera" (B.S. 1926 per MoMA's Still Photo Archive) — "four years after Incandenza's felo de se," and "it's not like anybody asked her to keep the thing up" (n381 p. 1079).