Read Online After Me Comes the Flood by Sarah Perry - Free Book Online Page A

hand: ‘I don’t think I did know you, back then, did I?’ His eyes met John’s, and for a moment he was the huddled wretched boy he’d been that morning.
    ‘Oh no, no. No – I don’t think so, I’m sure I’d remember.’
    ‘Only you see I am sometimes – sometimes not always clear…’ The graze evidently became sore; he winced, and rested his head on the arm of the chair. ‘But here it feels safe, as if nothing can make it through the forest to where we are. Do you see?’
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘Listen,’ he said, standing. ‘Would you help me with something?’
    ‘If I can, of course.’
    ‘I could do with a hand, later. Down by the reservoir.’ He looked anxious, and John remembered the tale Eve told, and saw that name again, with its familiar syllables: Eadwacer , written in the notebook upstairs and scratched into the wood on the kitchen table, and perhaps in other places waiting to be discovered.
    ‘If you think I can be any use,’ he said.
    ‘Can you swim?’
    ‘I’m not sure,’ said John: ‘I can’t remember.’
    ‘It won’t matter – was that Hester calling us to lunch?’ He put a hand on John’s shoulder where the shirt was damp with sweat growing stale, and said: ‘You’ve probably got time to change.’

 
    Dear Jon (may I call you Jon?)
    Last night I slept in your bed, and this morning I put on your clothes. I took them from one of the bags you left here: I hope you don’t mind. I’m sure they’re all wondering what a man like me is doing in a red tartan shirt with sleeves too short by an inch.
    ‘A man like me’, I said; but the point is that I must be a man like you – I must be you, and put you on when I put on these jeans (which I notice are not clean and have about them a smell a little like smoke and a little like the lawn outside, where all the grass has died).
    I’ve kept a record of what I’ve done and said in your name. Don’t be alarmed – I’ve done no harm, though I’ve done what I ought not to have done, and left undone those things which I ought to have done…
    I’ve been through your bags, and this is what I found:
    A biology textbook, hardly read.
    A joke set of plastic false teeth with pink feet attached.
    Two bottles of clear nail varnish.
    A Book of Common Prayer (marked with Elijah’s name, and an address scratched out).
    Four white porcelain dolls’ hands, and a plastic doll’s leg.
    A prescription for antihistamines made out to a Mr Williams.
    A bottle of lavender oil (empty).
    Five steel bolts, very clean.
    A thin glove packed with gauze.
    A glass eye.
    Actually, the glass eye was in the pocket of these jeans. I thought perhaps you collected marbles, and found myself rolling it between my finger and thumb, wondering if you did the same for comfort’s sake. When I took it out just now and saw the green pupil and the bloodshot white I half expected it to blink, so I put it back in my pocket to protect it from the light.
    Who are you – who are we ? What did we all do that brought us here? I only know they can’t ever have seen you, or even heard your voice – when we spoke on the phone you had an accent I couldn’t place that was nothing like mine.
    Who are you, Jon? And what are you doing with these things – that glove you could mistake for a severed hand, the limbs of a doll, the teeth you must’ve found in a joke shop on a pier? Carry on like this and you’ll have enough to make yourself a whole new man.
    I’d guess that you’re young, and as troubled as they all seem to be. You’re shorter than I am and stockier too, and from what I’ve seen on your collar I imagine your hair could do with a cut. And you’re a thief, with the names of other men on your books and papers – is the textbook even yours? What was it you wanted to know – was there no-one to ask? You’ve read the prayer book – I can see that – Elijah would never have folded down the pages till the paper cracked. And I can see the page you’ve read most,