Read Online August Is a Wicked Month by Edna O’Brien - Free Book Online Page B

of his face, but it eluded her. She searched for it frantically, in her mind, through shut eyes.
    ‘Wake up, ma’am, we’re going to have a ball,’ Bobby said. Their drinks had come. The waiter brought the
    Pernod as he had been told to: an ice filter laid into each tall glass with small chinks as tiny and as splintered as diamonds, and a jug of water. Bobby did the pouring and as the water seeped through the filter the harsh green Pernod began to cloud, and looking from one green to another, she saw his eyes like the whey of the milk, and above them the great, green, spreading tree. She looked up at the tree, still trying to recall her son’s face, and he looked too, and was softened by the sight of it, and raising his glass he said:
    ‘Marje.’
    ‘I’m not Marje,’ she said.
    ‘I know you’re not Marje,’ he said, ‘but cheers,’ and still looking at the tree he asked if she had ever heard of white peaches.
    ‘Are there white peaches?’ she asked, shaking her head with surprise, with pleasure.
    ‘You can say that again.’ He described how they grew in New England and with his hands suggested how they squelched as they touched the ground. Because of a fatal softness.
    ‘I would love to see one,’ she said, not meaning that, but meaning, ‘You are nicer and less tough than you look.’
    ‘I like you,’ she said then.
    ‘I knew you would,’ he said. ‘I can read thoughts.’ It was beginning to be an adventure. The drink warmed her. A small boy in sequins was announcing the most fabulous strip tease of the season. Sidney said they could both watch and carry on their conversation. They had been discussing an American novelist.
    ‘He’s not a nigger writing about niggers, he’s a fairy writing about fairies,’ Sidney repeated, proud of his assessment.
    ‘Don’t talk like that,’ Gwyn said, injured, and looked towards the homosexuals as if they’d been hurt. They were absorbed in each other, and testing who could touch the farthest point of his nose with his tongue. The younger boy had a very clear and very pointed tongue, which he brandished like a knife. He could touch his nose quite easily with it, but his lover who was older found difficulty in doing the trick. Afterwards the older one gulped as if the exercise had made him sick. They seemed quite happy in their relationship.
    ‘He’s writing about fairy niggers, that’s what he’s doing,’ Bobby said suddenly. He had a knack of picking up the thread wherever the talk seemed liveliest.
    ‘Big theme!‘ Jason said in his powerful voice.
    ‘You see that stole, Jason, well that’s the one I always wanted,’ Gwyn said as she pointed to a woman who wore a cape of dark mahogany-coloured fur. It was the darkest, furriest fur Ellen had ever seen. You expected it to creep, it was so like an animal.
    ‘You never said, honey,’ he replied, patting his wife as if she were some sort of patient. Then he said to the actor, ‘He’s not even a nigger, for God’s sake,’ and an elderly lady from the next table requested to get the Yanks out. Her hair which was blonde was in a plait and she waved this menacingly at them. Then the lights were switched off completely and in the darkness Ellen heard Denise say to the actor:
    ‘How ‘bout us doing the shakes out of here?’ He didn’t move. On stage a woman on tip-toe circled a double bed which had a very frilly coverlet. Bathed in mauve spotlight the woman started to undress. She wore black mesh stockings and heels so high that she looked like some sort of bird perched on long, thin legs. As she disrobed she threw each garment to the audience. The actor caught her third and innermost petticoat, smelt it, and said, ‘A nursing mother,’ loud enough for everyone to hear.
    There was laughing from various tables and a fan said his name affectionately. Sidney was pleased. When the girl was naked except for the petals over her breasts and the kerchief lower down, she took a natural-colour fox fur and