Read Online Small Circle of Beings by Damon Galgut - Free Book Online Page A

me. He sits in the chair beside me, his knee bumping against mine. He pulls it
away.
    Through the five interminable hours of travel, I have thought of a great many things to ask or say. Bitter accusations filled my head. But now I find there is nothing to discuss. Perhaps we are
finally tired, he and I, after the tedious months gone by. Perhaps we have realised that words are for the young and eager.
    When we do, eventually, talk, it is about matters of no consequence.
    ‘The drive . . . ?’ he says, staring ahead of him, out of the window.
    ‘Was fine,’ I say.
    ‘Not too hot?’
    ‘Earlier. Earlier it was quite hot. But not later.’
    ‘Ah,’ he says, musing. Then: ‘David is …?’
    ‘Fine,’ I say. ‘He looks fine.’
    ‘Ah. I’m pleased to hear that. I am.’
    We look down now at our feet, those interesting objects on the floor. It has become my turn to speak.
    ‘Who . . . ?’ I begin, but my voice goes out in the darkness like a match.
    He clears his throat. ‘Gloria,’ he says. ‘MacIvor. From the school.’
    I remember the woman. She is the secretary and has an office next to Stephen’s. Though I’ve seen her no more than a dozen times, she comes vaguely to me now: a plump, floury shape,
sticky red hair pinned up behind. A necklace of fake pearls, running across her throat like a zip. Her eyelids are blue.
    ‘Gloria . . .’ I murmur and, for no reason, laugh.
    Stephen is hurt. ‘What’s funny?’
    ‘Nothing,’ I say, and we sit quietly together again.
    We have not been this close since our courtship began. Indeed, it is as if we are younger by eleven years and he is visiting me at home, with my mother in the kitchen next door, making supper. I
am tempted to stretch out a hand and touch him on the knee.
    Instead I stand up. ‘What now?’ I say, crossing to the window as casually as if we’re discussing the housework. The moon is up, and for a moment I entertain the absurd
recognition that it’s the same moon that appears each day, a lifeless white eye watching our lives.
    ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘What now?’
    I shrug but I don’t turn round. I’d imagined it would be worse than this, somehow. I’d imagined that ten years would make an awful racket and thunder when they finally tore
apart. But it’s not the case at all. They fall from us gently, those years, slipping off our shoulders like sin and melting into the dark.
    ‘Well,’ I say. ‘The house. Us.’
    He also stands and moves beside me. He puts his arm about me. It rests on my shoulders as a heavy weight. Once again there is a silence; and it seems now that the day has passed like this, in
gusts of time in which there is no sound.
    ‘Oh, Stephen,’ I say. ‘How could . . .’
    I don’t finish. I don’t have the energy. This is the closest I’ve come to bursting into tears. If I do, I know, I’ll fall into his arms and tear at his face with my
nails. There’ll be no stopping me.
    ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘You haven’t been here. The house is so empty, you can see. I don’t know.’
    ‘Ohh . . .’
    ‘We can’t seem to agree anymore. On anything. There’s a . . . a disagreement between us.’
    I am listening.
    ‘I need somebody,’ he says. ‘I can’t live alone.’
    ‘I didn’t know that,’ I say, and it’s true. I have always assumed, I suppose, that Stephen could manage quite well without me. I have regarded myself as an intrusion in
his life, though perhaps a necessary one.
    I take a breath. ‘Stephen,’ I say. ‘Listen to me. This will be over soon.’ Echoing his words said over and over, too often, to me. ‘And things will be normal again.
We’ll all come back to our senses. We haven’t been ourselves, Stephen, this last while.’
    He says nothing. My voice tapers off, becomes a whisper.
    ‘Stephen.’
    The moon is inching up the sky. It casts a light into the room in which we stand. I think of her, this Gloria MacIvor, with her pasty skin and her hair dyed