A Bright Moon for Fools Read Online Free PDF Page A

closed his eyes. Latin America ... Dust and passion and blood and poetry. Floppy-hatted peasants playing guitar and drinking rum
while you spirited away their feisty daughters. Now what was it that Emily’s grandmother used to bang on about?
Em-pan-adas
: delicious fried pastries on every street. Sunsets that
could move you to tears. Salsa. The friendliest people on earth. Surely an adventurer like himself could flourish in a land like that.
Ca-ra-cas
. Wasn’t it a fine word? Did not the
very timbre of its capital promise a city he could no longer find in Europe, one whose ‘historic centre’ had not been embalmed for tourists, one where The Rot’s flag was not
fluttering from every miserable corner?
    The plane pulled away from the earth. Once the seat belt signs were off, Christmas pressed the call button. He had already spent several minutes trying to work out whether this particular
stewardess was pretty or not and now she was approaching ... Was she or wasn’t she? Those slender legs, yes. Her shoulders, somewhat rounded, no. Her face, on balance, no, but now she was
pulling her hair back, yes, though as she was about to speak he noticed a cluster of spots on her forehead ...
    “Yes?”
    “No.”
    “
Perdona
?”
    “But yes to a drink! Do you have any decent scotch?”
    “Yes,
Señor
. If you could wait a moment we will be—”
    “I am sorry to bother you,” he said in Spanish, “but flying makes me very nervous.”
    “Oh really?”
    “Very nervous I’m afraid, I ... we ... I mean to say my wife Emily and I, we ... had a bad experience a long time ago. When she was still alive.” He looked into the
stewardess’ eyes as deeply as he could. They were light brown.
Trading on your dead wife’s memory for a drink. You’re in hell, Christmas. You are in a bar in hell
.
    “Well, why not,” he muttered. “Why shouldn’t it do some fucking good? I’ve bloody well survived a near-murder today, for fuck’s sake!” He felt the eyes
of the couple next to him. The stewardess brought him a scotch. He downed it. The stewardess brought him another. Then he had two bottles of red wine with the meal. He watched a movie about people
who evidently detested themselves treating each other terribly yet being somehow happy with the outcome. Then he had two more scotches. Then he had a beer.
    A man listening to his iPod began thrapping out a drumbeat on his fold-down table. It was annoying everybody. Christmas swung out of his seat. He lurched over to the man and thrapped out a quick
rhythm on his head. The man pulled out his earphones in astonishment.
    “Do hope you enjoyed my drumming as much as we’re enjoying yours.”
    “What – who – who the hell do you think you are?”
    Christmas paused to consider his response. “Harold Agapanthius Christmas,” he decided, “at your bloody disservice. I don’t hope you do have a pleasant flight,” and
with that he returned to his seat. Another passenger gave him a secret thumbs-up. Christmas gave a sarcastic thumbs-up back. He drank another whisky. One of the stewardesses asked him if everything
was all right. The iPod man had made a complaint.
    “I mistook his skull for the overhead locker,” he replied. The stewardess gave him a weak smile. Christmas got the sense that something was unravelling.
    The progress map appeared on the overhead screen. They were above St Lucia. He saw the word ‘CARACAS’. Christmas felt a swell of enthusiasm dampened only by heartburn.
Good
heavens
, he said to himself,
I am
roaring
drunk
.
    “Roaring drunk!” he repeated out loud and found it so funny that he let out a roar, such as a lion might make. If it were drunk.
    More people came to ask him if he was all right. Someone offered him water. He batted them away like flies. He examined the people sitting next to him. He suddenly felt as if he wanted to talk
to them, to find out about their lives. He felt a warmth for them, and that warmth started in his stomach.