Read Online The End of the Alphabet by Cs Richardson - Free Book Online

mound on the table.
    A postcard featuring a muddy reproduction of an enormous Rembrandt.
    A is for a Portrait in Amsterdam, said Zipper.
    A small and smooth stone, grey and warm.
    Barbaric Berlin.
    A flattened lavender bloom, barely fragrant.
    Advertising in Chartres.
    Another postcard, this time offering a jolly watercoloured Bienvenue à Deauville .
    A honeymoon by the sea, Zipper said.
    A fat and worn copy of Les Misérables , an embossed photograph of an Italian woman in an elegant scarf, an unflattering Polaroid snap of Ambrose and Zipper by the Pyramids. A child’s blue glass bauble.
    Our Paris, laughed Zipper. Florence, Giza, Istanbul. Did I mention we missed Haifa?
    Zipper picked up the journal. Page after blank page.
    And what will I have when he’s gone? Nothing. No growing ancient together, no retiring to the pied-à-terre , no children, no grandchildren come to that. No more. No life. Nothing. Blank.
    But you never wanted children, Kitts said.
    I never wanted this. I is for I Don’t Know What to Do.
    Â 
    Kitts sat in the eye of her friend’s storm, nodded, shook her head, held tight, wiped Zipper’s dripping face, put the kettle on, wept, buttressed, agreed. Listened.
    When the worst had passed, Kitts did what she had done since the childhood meetings in front of twenty-eight. She said something smart at the precise moment when there was nothing to say.
    He’s right, the bastard. Live what’s left. Live it as large as you both can. That’s what he wants. That’s what you want.
    Zipper threw her journal on the table.
    But the words. How do I start? Where do I end?
    The words will come, said Kitts. They always do.
    Â 
    Wilkes and Zephyr met at university.
    They took a loose interest in the other’s academics: Ambrose sneaking his friend into a life-drawing class to prove that artists did not get erections; Freddie instructing his friend on the proper balance between single malts and thesis writing.
    After graduating, they shared a shoebox flat in a hard part of London and lied on each other’s CV . They began referring to each other by last name only. It sounded good, they’d explain. Something professionals might do.
    When it appeared likely they were destined to drive cabs, Wilkes passed his foreign serviceexaminations and Zephyr landed a junior position as a copywriter. Which, much later in their lives, they would characterize as ironic.
    Between distant postings and demanding clientele, the friends rarely saw each other. They never reminisced when they did. They kept every piece of wish-you-were-here correspondence and look-what-I-created souvenir each had sent the other.
    No one, least of all Zipper, could explain why they had remained friends for so long and at such distance. Or why they had even become friends in the first place.
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    Drinks? always meant the Savoy bar.
    All Ambrose would later say about his evening with Freddie was how good it had been to see an old friend. They spent the time talking mostly of each other’s work, said Ambrose. State secrets, slagged clients, that sort of thing.
    What likely occurred was that after enough kirs and enough whiskeys, Ambrose reluctantly described the circumstances. There would have been long silences, pinched glances, calls for same again please.
    After some time the friends would have found their Gallipoli courage and looked each other in the face. There would have been tears in their eyes. Stoic ones, but tears nonetheless.
    Damn, Freddie likely said, turning away for a moment.
    Ambrose probably apologized.
    The friends would have pulled themselves together. Freddie, as always, would then have said something clever and wise.
    You need to edit. Enough with A through Zed. Toss the list. You’ll end up hating half the places you go anyway. Think of Zipper. Stop dragging the woman about. Wasn’t she the one who said it was time to come home?
    At the end of the evening, the friends would have