Read Online Dust and Desire by Conrad Williams - Free Book Online Page B

when she walked, which entered both ears simultaneously and came together in a hot melted knot at the centre of my head.
    ‘Hi Melanie,’ I said. ‘How’s Mengele?’
    The varicose jobs behind me audibly sucked in their breath at my mention of that name, and for the nth time I asked myself just what had been going through my head when I came to name my cat. Bitterness, probably – and the fuck-you bug that I’d been infected with since my teenage years.
    ‘Your cat ,’ Melanie said, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge the animal’s name, ‘is fine, as you well know. And he’s ready for you to pick up now.’
    ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘slight problem.’
    Dr Henriksen gave me a look over the oblong frames of her Calvin Klein glasses. A blade of brown hair swung out from behind her ear and hung alongside her deep red mouth. With a face like hers, who needs Zebra crossings?
    I could feel the wattles on the old dears behind me quiver as they strained to hear what I had to say.
    ‘Can I speak to you in private for a second?’ I said.
    I think she’s keen on me. I hope she’s keen on me. Sometimes she strikes me as someone who is merely humouring me, using me as a benchmark by which she can measure her connection to the human race, a way of keeping her oar in until such time as she feels she has spent too much time chasing the rewards of her career and decides to knuckle down and swap rings. Other times – just slivers of time, but slivers worth waiting for – she’s warm to me unlike any other woman I’ve known, including Rebecca. We’ve never made love. We’ve never even clashed teeth after a few too many Stellas at the Marylebone Bar and Kitchen. But there’s a change in her voice, her smile, the heart-stopping moments when her bottle-green eyes get tired of looking at mine and slip to check on my mouth for a beat or two. There’s some electricity between us: enough to keep me interested.
    I closed the door behind us, once she’d ushered me into her surgery. I could imagine the ecstasy of rolled eyes as I ducked past her to enter. On the operating table was a tortoise. We regarded each other for a moment – the tortoise even nodded – before it went back to looking sullen and daydreaming about lettuce, or roller skates, or whatever.
    ‘Go through to the back,’ she said. ‘My office.’
    ‘I’m in a bit of a tight spot,’ I said, as I pushed on through to a tiny room that, until Mengele had been deposited there, had been dominated by an ancient IBM computer and a pot plant.
    ‘Oh dear,’ she said. She plugged in the kettle and raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Tea?’
    ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ I said. Mengele hissed at me, then looked up at Melanie Henriksen for approval. ‘Anyway, yeah, a tight spot.’
    ‘Mm,’ Melanie said. I had only known her for six months, but it was enough for her to have learned to grade my bullshit. If there were Pyrex containers for it, mine would be in one bearing the label: Very poor .
    I blew out my cheeks and widened my eyes to illustrate just how very tight my tight spot was.
    ‘The answer’s yes,’ she said, ‘but you’ll have to ask me.’
    ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘would you be kind enough to massage my buttocks? With olive oil?’
    ‘Try the question that was on your mind first.’
    ‘Believe me, that was the que–’
    She gave me a slow blink. ‘The other question. Try the other question.’
    ‘Well, I was burgled and the flat’s in a state and I just need you to look after Der Todesengel for me – just for a few days.’
    ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘happy to. What about you?’
    ‘I’ll muddle through.’
    She shook her head. She looked pretty disgusted with me, but in a nice way, if you can believe it.
    ‘I have enough space at my flat. I have a very large sofa.’
    ‘I couldn’t impose–’
    ‘You are imposing, so you might as well take advantage. It’s no problem.’
    She jotted her address down on a pink Post-it and adhered it to my nose.