[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.But she drowned.You never said anything.''You are talking shit, Munro.That is a bunch of shit.' Her voice was quaking, filled with knives.'No.Pol was adamant.'I heard her breathing as she tried to control her rage.'Helen? What's wro-''Where did you go after you'd seen Pol?' Her voice was seeking normality but there was too much distress.'I went to meet Eve.''Why?''Why not?''She's poisoning you.'There's a phrase involving a pot, a kettle and the colour black.Do you know it?''God David, you've become a vicious swine.''I've been taught by an expert.''I don't want to fight with you,' she sighed.Of course not, not when it seemed I was winning for once.'I'll see you tonight.Please come.'What about this drowning?' But she'd hung up.I put the phone down.Once the receiver was cradled, it rang.'Hello?' There was still a little gruffness about my manner so I hoped it was Helen calling back to rake over some more ashes.'David, it's Eve.I missed you this morning.When did you leave?'I felt instantly revitalised, more alive than I could understand.It was as instant and invigorating as ducking into a shower after the enervation of a sauna.Despite the fact that so many people expected of me and my fear that I was unequal to their demands, I was able to summon more cheer and optimism than I believed I owned.'Eve, yes.I'm sorry but I left after making sure you were okay.I didn't feel too good myself.I didn't want to hang around and give you the breakfast-time spectacle of me with my head down the bog.''Okay.' But in that word I noticed an entire spectrum of suspicion and regret.'Perhaps we should call this off.I mean, every time I talk to you, I see Helen in your eyes.'A fat bubble of pain burst behind my eyes; my throat was sucked dry of moisture.Suddenly, everything looked dim and shaded, like the deep cross-hatchings in a cartoon by Robert Crumb.'No,' I said.'Not after last night.You made me happen last night.It was like cracking open a barrier and pulling out the real me…' I imagined myself saying this to Helen and almost barked laughter-Helen would have torn me apart.'I need you.You… you're opening doors for me.'I probably couldn't have admitted it then, but I don't think I'd have been able to carry on without Eve being there.Although she was now my lover, I found it difficult to see her as something other than my guardian.NINEIN VINO VERITASWe arranged to meet at lunchtime.'By the lighthouse, why not?' Eve had said.The wind was up, as it always seemed to be whenever I got near the sea.The coastline opposite was teased from cast iron; burnished cavities, like those in a steel drum, were pitted with house-scars.Like a brief pencil scoring, smoke from a chimney linked hill with heaven.I strained to see people but other than the odd glint of light on a car window, there were none of the usual signs.Fingers clasping the frigid railings at the pier end, I looked into the water.The sea worked like a muscle beneath my feet, clenching and squirting the water away in slow, massive spasms.I checked my watch.Eve was late and I was hungry.Leaning back against the railing, I watched the traffic hug the shopfronts.Funny how it remained constantly busy while the numbers of people shrank.Christmas was spreading across the awnings like slow fire but its promise seemed empty, all exterior, just like the shops its strange, tinsel ivy clung to.I took out a sketch book and opened it to the most recently used page, a quick drawing of Salcombe harbour choked with boats.I'd spent last summer there and though the weather had been sullen, seeing this representation was enough to fill me with a cloying, immediate nostalgia.It felt like a part of me so much more distant, like a holiday enjoyed as a child, shaped by the simplest of pleasures, like a scoot around an unremarkable funfair, an icecream on a freezing beach, flying a kite.I turned the page and pressed the stub of my pencil to the textured paper, waiting until their alien marriage felt less stifling.Quickly, I outlined the basic pattern of the street, growing bolder as my affinity with the graphite returned.The Midland Hotel looked suitably shoddy, as did the corrugated prow of the leisure centre.When I'd finished, I made a few notes about colour and turned my attention to the peeled boats gulping in the bay.I sketched them too, looking back down the pier to see if Eve was approaching.Sometimes the bay would be visited by scaups and bar-tailed god wits, plovers and whimbrels.But I'd never seen any.Perhaps because I didn't know what the hell they looked like.And Eve was forty minutes late.Well, fuck this for a game of soldiers.Moving alerted me to the force of the wind.It made my mouth misshapen and flapped my cheeks like astronauts pulling G.I looked down and felt my hair spread until the crown was bared.My suede boots were tanned with sand, blasted with craters of dried salt.Rain fell just as I walked on to the main road.I ran to the cafe and nestled into a chair, hanging my coat on its back and wiped my sketchbook free of water.'Be?' asked the owner [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]