Read Online The Last Girl by Stephan Collishaw - Free Book Online Page B

through the cobbles, pushing them up. Whilst the street had been smartly plastered and painted, these courtyards remained untouched. They lay in sad neglect, falling slowly to pieces as the whole city, only a few years before, had been.
    Jonas ducked inside a doorway. I stood on the uneven cobbles, waiting, relieved. The next day opened rosily before me. We would lunch at the new café opposite the Filharmonija. I would be able to give her my opinion of her husband’s writing. I would be able to watch her across the table. The way her dark hair fell over her shoulder when she let it loose. The way her elegant fingers rested on the table. And those eyes. I would feel the slight pressure of our feet under the table.
    Jonas reappeared from the café doorway, grinning hideously. In his hand he held a large plastic bag with a semi-naked woman printed on the side. He held it up to me with a flourish, his good eye glinting in the dull light of the courtyard. ‘There!’ he declared.
    â€˜That’s not it!’ I cried, sagging with disappointment. The idiotic grin on his face made me angry. He regarded me nervously, noticing my anger and disappointment.
    â€˜No?’ he said, crestfallen.
    â€˜No!’ I shouted at him. I took the bag from him and emptied its contents with one fierce shake. A pair of old shoes bounced on the cobbles and lay among the weeds. Jonas looked at them stupidly.
    In my disappointed fury I felt like beating him, and if I had been younger I might have given in to the impulse. He hobbled around in his old ripped shoes, red-faced. It took only moments for him to recover, however, and then he swore and shook his fist in my face. I demanded he tell me where he kept lost property. It soon became clear that it was dealt with according to its value. If it was something he felt to be useful he took it home, the rest was thrown away. I had little doubt as to the fate of my bag.
    â€˜No, no.’ He shook his head. ‘Describe it again,’ he said. ‘A blue bag, the other morning.’ He shook his head again. ‘I certainly didn’t throw it into the bin. I would have remembered.’
    I left him scratching his scar ruminatively.
    â€˜If I come across it,’ he shouted after me, ‘who should I call?’
    I stopped. There was little hope of it appearing. I turned, though, and taking a pencil from my jacket pocket wrote my telephone number on a scrap of paper. Holding it up in front of his good eye he examined it, then nodded.
    â€˜I’ll look around today,’ he assured me. ‘You never know, it might turn up.’ He tucked the scrap of paper into his shirt pocket. I turned then and left with no hope.
    Be that as it may, for the rest of the day I did not go out. I hung around the apartment, my ear cocked for the telephone. The minutes dragged like hours and the hours were endless. The telephone sat like a squat, dark toad in the corner but failed to croak. By nine p.m. he had not rung. I kicked around the kitchen drinking brandy from the bottle, taking measured sips despite my desperation.
    Had I really expected he would call? At nine thirty I approached the toad and grabbed it firmly. I dialled the number on the small menu sheet.
    The receiver buzzed in my ear. On the third buzz it was snatched up. Distantly I heard the sound of shouting. A young woman’s voice came on the line. It was the same girl I had spoken to earlier. I asked for her father. Dropping the receiver onto a hard surface, causing it to echo sharply in my ear, she shouted. Moments later Jonas grunted into the phone. I noted at once that he was drunk.
    â€˜Daumantas,’ I said.
    â€˜Who?’ he shouted down the line, aggressively.
    â€˜Daumantas,’ I repeated, enunciating each syllable with pedantic care. ‘We spoke this morning. The bag?’
    â€˜What?’ Jonas shouted back, stupidly. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ He turned his mouth