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Authors: Isobelle Carmody
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her hair falling to curtain her battered face.
When I can rise again, the bed is crumpled and evil smelling as the lair of a wild animal. I make myself a cup of tea using a new teabag. I can barely hold the cup. I decide to have it black because there is no milk until tomorrow. It is not really tea, of course.
I cross to the window and look out eagerly. The boy is there and I am pleased because I feared I had imagined him, or worse. I feared the beast had sought him out, despite its weakness. He has his back to me and he is looking up. I cannot tell which apartment holds him so rigidly attentive but I guess that he has learned somehow of that old murder and, boylike, ponders it.
The young woman comes out and smiles at him easily. This tells me that they have met and spoken while I lay ill. I am disappointed to be denied the visual revelations of that meeting.
She leans forward as he speaks, and I imagine his voice softly accented. She points away down the street and as he turns to look, I see the peach-suede curve of his cheek. Perhaps he has asked where she goes and she is making some vague reply.
He says something else and points up, tilting his head expectantly at her. I sense that he has asked a question about the murder.
It alarms her, for she steps back. She looks upstairs and shakes her head and says something. I have seen her glance up at the apartment above hers when she comes home at dusk. I had always supposed it was part of a general nervousness of men, given her lone state. But she might have got the murder story confused and think the man up there is the murderer of babies and wives. He was a suspect for a time and he has never been the same since that night. He murdered truth rather than name the beast he saw. It occurs to me he might even fear the beast will come for him eventually.
The boy is watching the young woman. He is drinking in her fear, absorbing it. What is the pale stone of her fear doing to that clear mind? I wonder, as she hurries away.
The boy gazes after her for a time, then turns his eyes fleetingly to my window.
For a while, like an Indian summer, I am well in the midst of my dying. I come to the window each morning and the boy is there clutching a bit of protein toast, or drawing in the dust. Sometimes he reads. That tells me he is educated. I wonder what he is reading as a breeze riffles the pages. Occasionally he looks up at my window.
He knows I am here. Often, he looks up at the apartments where the man upstairs lives. His attention seems divided between his upstairs neighbour and me. Two people he has never seen. Once the man in the room above him bumped the old blind as we watched from our two vantage points, that boy and I. Or perhaps it was only a breeze. The boy nodded to himself. What does he see?
A picture comes into my mind of the boy and his mother listening to the man upstairs shambling back and forwards through the yellow murk, stopping occasionally to scratch at the floor. A despair fills me at the thought of them fearing the man and fearing the beast. All this fear creates a stink that will rouse the beast and draw it to them.
That night I crossed myself, then gave the warding-off sign which my granny had taught me. A gypsy showed her. The priest had told me God could help drive off the beast if it ever came to me, but I felt my granny was a more serious contender. I wish now she had told me more about how to deal with the beast. But all she did was warn me that I could not run from what ailed me, or the world.
âItâs all linked, lad. You are the world and it is you. You canât flee from one bit of the world by going to another. You canât run away from your mouth or your feet.â
I had laughed and kissed her and swung her round till she squealed and whacked me across the ear. The red-haired girl laughed.
âOw!â I laughed too. âWhat makes you think Iâm running away and not running to something?â
She had only smiled,
When I can rise again, the bed is crumpled and evil smelling as the lair of a wild animal. I make myself a cup of tea using a new teabag. I can barely hold the cup. I decide to have it black because there is no milk until tomorrow. It is not really tea, of course.
I cross to the window and look out eagerly. The boy is there and I am pleased because I feared I had imagined him, or worse. I feared the beast had sought him out, despite its weakness. He has his back to me and he is looking up. I cannot tell which apartment holds him so rigidly attentive but I guess that he has learned somehow of that old murder and, boylike, ponders it.
The young woman comes out and smiles at him easily. This tells me that they have met and spoken while I lay ill. I am disappointed to be denied the visual revelations of that meeting.
She leans forward as he speaks, and I imagine his voice softly accented. She points away down the street and as he turns to look, I see the peach-suede curve of his cheek. Perhaps he has asked where she goes and she is making some vague reply.
He says something else and points up, tilting his head expectantly at her. I sense that he has asked a question about the murder.
It alarms her, for she steps back. She looks upstairs and shakes her head and says something. I have seen her glance up at the apartment above hers when she comes home at dusk. I had always supposed it was part of a general nervousness of men, given her lone state. But she might have got the murder story confused and think the man up there is the murderer of babies and wives. He was a suspect for a time and he has never been the same since that night. He murdered truth rather than name the beast he saw. It occurs to me he might even fear the beast will come for him eventually.
The boy is watching the young woman. He is drinking in her fear, absorbing it. What is the pale stone of her fear doing to that clear mind? I wonder, as she hurries away.
The boy gazes after her for a time, then turns his eyes fleetingly to my window.
For a while, like an Indian summer, I am well in the midst of my dying. I come to the window each morning and the boy is there clutching a bit of protein toast, or drawing in the dust. Sometimes he reads. That tells me he is educated. I wonder what he is reading as a breeze riffles the pages. Occasionally he looks up at my window.
He knows I am here. Often, he looks up at the apartments where the man upstairs lives. His attention seems divided between his upstairs neighbour and me. Two people he has never seen. Once the man in the room above him bumped the old blind as we watched from our two vantage points, that boy and I. Or perhaps it was only a breeze. The boy nodded to himself. What does he see?
A picture comes into my mind of the boy and his mother listening to the man upstairs shambling back and forwards through the yellow murk, stopping occasionally to scratch at the floor. A despair fills me at the thought of them fearing the man and fearing the beast. All this fear creates a stink that will rouse the beast and draw it to them.
That night I crossed myself, then gave the warding-off sign which my granny had taught me. A gypsy showed her. The priest had told me God could help drive off the beast if it ever came to me, but I felt my granny was a more serious contender. I wish now she had told me more about how to deal with the beast. But all she did was warn me that I could not run from what ailed me, or the world.
âItâs all linked, lad. You are the world and it is you. You canât flee from one bit of the world by going to another. You canât run away from your mouth or your feet.â
I had laughed and kissed her and swung her round till she squealed and whacked me across the ear. The red-haired girl laughed.
âOw!â I laughed too. âWhat makes you think Iâm running away and not running to something?â
She had only smiled,
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