After Me Comes the Flood Read Online Free PDF Page A

after all!’ She laughed, and so did I. Then she said, ‘Was there any message?’ and began wearily pinning back her hair.
    How many times have I read of those moments when minutes accommodate years, and lives are recalled in the pouring of a drink? I’ve never believed a word of it, but in the space it took me to draw a breath the day replayed itself: I saw the branches of the pines closing over my head, the narrow path and the dying lawn, the face of the girl with the amber hair, wonderfully made and stooping over me as I sat at the table. And all the while I remembered also the last I’d seen of my flat, with its empty windows on the empty street, and the shop’s clock ticking slower than any other clock I’ve known.
    Then I heard myself say, as if it was someone else’s voice in another room: ‘Oh, nothing, it was nothing – there was nobody there.’

 
    II
    ‘Nothing,’ John said, and had the grace to meet the woman’s eye – though, certain she’d see a little of his lie, he’d quickly turned away and leant his head against the wall. Nothing will come of nothing , he thought, and didn’t believe a word of it. Hester took his sigh for weariness, and smiling said: ‘Then go up, and sleep without dreaming.’ She seemed almost to thrust him ahead of her up the stairs, though she remained there at the foot of them watching him go until he turned the corner and must have gone from view. He’d lingered awhile in the corridor – someone called up Oh, John don’t forget to say your prayers , and laughing went away – then fumbled at the nearest door. The first was locked; the second shrieked on its hinges; the third, already open, showed a room so heaped with clothes the furniture was lost. When he came to the fourth it seemed already familiar, with a particular mark on the wood; pushing it open, he saw again the narrow bed and the child’s desk where now – with a gesture of shame and distaste – he pushed the notebook away.
    A kind of painful clarity came over him: dishonest to blame confusion or drink, or claim it was a kindness to the girl who’d welcomed him in; making an account of his own deceit made it necessary to admit that no-one had forced his hand. Appalled, he said: ‘What have I done – what have I done ?’ and might have returned to the notebook and made a kind of confession if he had not heard a violent knocking on the door.
    The sound tugged him from his seat; he knocked over the lamp in his haste and the bulb broke against the bare boards. Flushing violently, feeling again the weight of Hester’s kindness, he thought: They must have known all along – we have all been lying ! He patted at his disordered clothes, preparing to meet what must surely be a furious delegation, fumbling for a means to excuse himself. But the knocking subsided to a patient tap, and the door opened, too slowly for anger, to reveal the young man who’d joined their table late. He’d combed his auburn hair into a side parting and put on a grey T-shirt on which were printed a large and unblinking pair of eyes.
    ‘Game of cards, John, unless it’s an early night you’re after? Come and join us: Walker’s been trying to corrupt Elijah all week – drinking last week; gambling this – and we could use another player.’
    And so he was helpless again, as the boy took his arm, just as if he’d done so a dozen times or more, while on his chest the blind eyes closed and opened. Speechless with reprieve John let himself be led down the ill-lit hall, and said, ‘Trouble is I haven’t played poker since college. Always folded early – I’m a terrible liar, you see.’
    ‘It won’t matter, you won’t be any worse than Elijah – you haven’t spoken to him yet, have you? You haven’t spoken to him here , I mean…’ Alex paused, and his arm in John’s tightened and withdrew. He seemed uncertain whether he’d spoken too soon, or too much, and looked quickly at John as though testing the air. Then