Bar None Read Online Free PDF Page B

five a.m. and go downstairs. For a few heartbeats, walking down the massive curved staircase that winds its way to the hallway, I have no idea what I will find. The possibilities suddenly seem endless: Michael has been and gone, and he could have left anything behind. He chose to come and talk to me in the night, but perhaps he had raped Jessica, throttled Cordell, set fire to Jacqueline as she tried to scream above a whisper. None of us knew him, none of us had any idea where he had come from or where he was heading. We ate and drank together all evening, but he succeeded in telling us almost nothing of himself. Our curiosity was piqued, for sure, but somehow the food and drink, and the heat of the fire, calmed us into a sense of peace. We did not ask him about those ambiguous shapes flying above and dipping down to the dead city. We did not ask what he had seen in there. None of us truly challenged him.
    My footfall is soft on the hallway's oaken floor. I hear sounds of movement from the kitchen, and a light dances out from that door, a flame disturbed by a soft breeze. There is movement in the Manor's air however still we are, as though voices never stop whispering back and forth.
    "Who's there?" someone says.
    I walk through the door. "Only me. I couldn't sleep." It's Jessica, dressed in heavy sweatshirt and trousers, arms wrapped around her chest as she waits for the kettle to boil. We've got through three gas canisters since we've been here. Two left.
    "Nor me," she says. "Tea?"
    I nod. Should I mention Michael? I glance toward the rear of the kitchen, through the open door where he had gone to sleep the previous night. Jessica is making no attempt to be quiet. She must know he's no longer there.
    "I usually sleep really well," she says. "Keeping my days busy. Keeps my mind busy too." She adds more tea to the pot and fetches another mug from the cupboard. It's powdered milk, of course, but we've all become used to it. "I'm exhausted by the time we all crash out. And the beer helps."
    "It seems to help us all," I say. It's something we don't talk about very much, our growing dependency on alcohol to see us through. None of us has what would have been called "a problem" in times just gone—our stocks don't allow for that—but we all look forward to that communal couple of drinks each evening. We don't want to spoil the effect by talking about it.
    I think it stitches us to the past. And for a while, perhaps it helps us forget the future.
    "Last night, though . . ." The kettle boils and she pours, but I can see that she's distracted.
    "Shall I start breakfast?" I say. "Fried potatoes?"
    "He says we have to move on," she says. She stirs the tea slowly, methodically. "Cornwall."
    "Bar None," I say.
    Jessica glances up. "I was wondering."
    "And the others?"
    "Easier if he did visit them as well. But we'll see. Yes, fried potatoes sound good."
    "Don't they always?" I take the cup of tea from her hands and set it down beside the wide gas stove.
    Preparing and cooking food usually frustrates me, but today I find the process calming. The potatoes are old, so I have to cut out the eyes, and then peeling them takes several minutes. I slice them into half-inch sections, dropping them into a bowl of water to wash out some of the starch. Then I lay them out on a cloth, salt them, fire up a burner and coat a frying pan with a layer of oil. I drop in some garlic salt and a pinch of dried herbs, and as the oil starts to bubble I place the potato slices side by side. Jessica sits silently behind me, though I can feel her eyes on the back of my head. We're comfortable together, friends.
    We sit and eat, the truth hanging between us seeming to enliven the air, and as we finish the others come down. Jacqueline mentions that she could not sleep, and Cordell goes straight to the stove, firing up the burner and cooking more potatoes. He does not speak, but I know he has something to say.
    When everyone is there, making tea or eating or just