Read Online Force Majeure by Daniel O'Mahoney - Free Book Online Page B

me.’
    ‘Did he teach you?’
    ‘No. I didn’t get it. If I don’t get it, it can’t be got.’
    ‘You are not,’ he told her, ‘a stupid woman.’
    ‘In spite of appearances.’ She believed she was enjoying herself. That was true. Even through the drunken fizz and tremble, she knew she was having a good time being friendly, being foolish, being nothing. She could put away Prospero and her anxieties. After a month, she was finally picking at the scab of Candida, exposing the bloody lump beneath, the humour.
    Esteban lay flat now, his cheek pressed up against a rough exposed floorboard. ‘Tomorrow,’ he crooned, ‘the very first thing tomorrow, I will fix your friend’s bicycle and she can become a bird. Better than an officer, that is.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘No sodding poetry.’ He sighed. ‘Just birdsong. Birdsong and wings.’
    More bottles. She relaxed. She felt herself unravelling. She undid the flower from her hair and tucked it into a crack in the mannequin’s scalp. Esteban taught her to understand Candida-cards, but she failed to grasp the detail; the cards were printed on a material that didn’t absorb the warmth from her skin. They chatted. She lowered her guard and, in a moment of holy hush, unfastened two of the lower buttons of her blouse and revealed her most secret, most embarrassing feature: her shallow belly-button, a faintly-impressed pucker that might have been made with the gentle point of a compass. Good-natured, Esteban laughed. Hazily, they watched the dwindling line of the final bottle, until there was nothing left.
    ‘I. Don’t. Believe. He. Was. Real.’
    ‘Why would you say such a thing?’ Esteban asked.
    ‘Because it’s true. I don’t think he was ever here. I know, I know, he lived less than 200 years ago, but even that far back he could be made up. All the details. He’s just a name. Arkadin.’
    ‘ Doctor Arkadin.’
    ‘I’ll grant you that there was an expedition. We know he lived, but we don’t really know if he founded Candida. You said yourself, parts of it are older than him.’
    ‘Maybe.’
    ‘ Yes , maybe. You know, I asked Luis if he’s got a copy of Arkadin’s journal, and he wasn’t sure. He’s read something ; heaven knows what. A journal. By Anonymous.’
    ‘By powers unknown and invisible.’
    ‘You’re making fun of me.’
    ‘By the secret masters that created the world and control our every move. By Plato’s shadowcasters, riding our dreams. By the professors of Punch and Judy with their hands in our knickers. By powers so creepily occult that they stopped existing just to spite us. By God-the-Dragon herself.’
    ‘Stop it, you git!’ she protested.
    They moved into a drunken twilight, into the age after the alcohol had run out but before they fell asleep, when sobriety could creep up on them. Kay was still dizzy in her mouth, in her stomach and in the muscles of her head. Their argument was conducted in whispers and darkness from opposite sides of the room. Esteban had given her the bed, his dreamspace, and settled down in his armchair for the night. She lay still and made a little cavity of warmth around herself.
    ‘Yes, I’m making fun of you.’
    ‘You really can’t be trusted with a responsible position.’
    ‘I’m not.’
    ‘You’re a kid. You’re a child in a man’s body.’
    ‘This is my second childhood.’
    ‘I knew so. I knew so as soon as I saw you.’
    ‘Yes, and I know something you don’t.’
    ‘And what would that be?’
    ‘ That would be Doctor Arkadin. He is real.’
    ‘How would you know?’
    ‘Because I’ve met him.’
    A part of her was telling her sleep . The pillow was dense and soft. It absorbed her head.
    ‘I don’t believe you.’
    ‘I met him when I was a boy.’
    ‘Even when you were a boy he would have been pushing 200.’
    ‘Have you thought I might be older than I look?’
    ‘No.’ Pause. ‘Go on then, what happened? What was he like?’
    ‘He spoke to me. He told me important things.