An Evening of Long Goodbyes Read Online Free PDF Page A

good families?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter !’ she shouted. ‘God, I knew I shouldn’t have bothered trying to reason with you.’
    From outside, the querulous creak of the weathervane rose over the wind. I sighed, sat up in bed and turned back the cuffs of my pyjamas. The thing was, I wasn’t just trying to annoy her this time; I really did have the uncanny feeling that with Frank she had crossed some kind of a line. ‘Bel,’ I said earnestly, ‘I’m sorry if I’m harsh with you. You’re grown up, you’ve finished college, you can make your own decisions. But although I may not have a respectable job in a jar factory, I have seen a thing or two. And this Frank…’ I racked my brains for a more diplomatic, more palatable expression for my fears, but I couldn’t think of one. So I took a deep breath and came right out with it. ‘Are you familiar with the figure from Yiddish mythology known as the Golem?’
    Bel looked puzzled but suspicious.
    ‘The Golem, according to legend, is a creature composed entirely of clay – or in certain cases,’ I couldn’t resist adding, ‘putty, seemingly –’
    ‘Here we go,’ she declared heavily, cutting me off. ‘Here we go!’
    ‘Come back!’ I cried, stretching my arms after her. ‘Come back, for pity’s sake! I’m not joking, Bel. What I am about to tell you could be of the utmost importance to both of us!’
    She paused in the doorway, then with a slight, acidic nod of the head, coolly bade me continue.
    I am not by nature a superstitious man, and the next day I wondered if the kidney beans were to blame for the wild thoughts riding roughshod through my mind that night. Looking back on it now, though, I can see that I was part right, at least: that the coming of Frank did mark the beginning of our downfall – although each of us had many, many contributions of our own to make. ‘The Golem does not think for itself,’ I told Bel. ‘It is an automaton, animated by mystical powers – usually malevolent, it has to be said.’
    ‘Charles, it’s late. Have you a point to this, other than pretending that the reason you don’t like Frank isn’t that you’re a snob and a sociopath, but because he’s some kind of a mystical being sent to corrupt me?’
    ‘I know it sounds outlandish,’ I said. ‘But I don’t know how else to explain this sense of foreboding . None of your boyfriends ever made my skin actually crawl before.’ I shuddered, imagining the dark slab of Frank driving his van down crepuscular suburban streets, eyes gleaming emptily as he awaited the call from his master…
    Bel’s shoulders slumped. ‘Then it appears we are at an impasse.’
    ‘Almost literally,’ I said, picturing Frank moonlighting as a roadblock or a small dam.
    Bel sighed, and sank wearily on to the foot of the bed. ‘Charles,’ she said, ‘it’s quite obvious that in Mother’s absence the power has gone to your head. I don’t know what’s going to come of it, or if there’s anything I can do about it. But I know that I can’t go on like this. We have to sort something out if we’re going to keep living here with any semblance of normality. So though I do this with a bad conscience, I propose we make a pact.’
    ‘A pact?’
    ‘A pact.’ She rubbed her eyes with the edge of her hand. ‘If you let this relationship take its course, without any more complaining or allusions to Jewish mythology, I hereby promise that if – if – Frank and I then break up, I’ll – I’ll stay in for three months before seeing anyone else. How’s that?’
    ‘That sounds very cynical, Bel,’ I said, surprised. ‘I mean, I just want you to be happy.’
    ‘Charles, just tell me what it will take to get you to leave me alone.’
    ‘Hmm,’ I said. Cynical it might have been, but I was rather taken with the novelty of this arrangement. Usually my arguments with Bel ended in her hurling something breakable at me. The sad truth was that she was going to see this fellow