Fairytales for Wilde Girls Read Online Free PDF Page B

snake.’
    â€˜What?’ James looked round at her. ‘What did you say?’
    â€˜Just . . . pretending something,’ she replied. He shook his head. ‘Fuck, you say such fucking weird things.’
    â€˜Is that still your favourite word?’ asked Isola interestedly. ‘I like “verisimilitude”. Tolkien said the most beautiful English phrase is “cellar door”.’
    â€˜Obviously he’d never been locked behind one.’
    Isola turned her gaze back to the python. ‘Got any mice?’
    James raised the remote, turning down the Tarantino. ‘I might,’ he replied. ‘Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?’
    Isola shook her head.
    â€˜No, nothing’s wrong, or no, you won’t tell me?’
    She didn’t answer.
    â€˜Well, what happened at school today?’
    The snake lifted its head, watching the dangling ring on her necklace as though hypnotised.
    â€˜Not much,’ she said. ‘Grape wasn’t there, obviously. I went into the chapel and had lunch under the old organ. One of the nuns actually averted her gaze when she saw me,’ she added, feigning offence.
    â€˜Probably surprised she didn’t burst into flames,’ snickered James. ‘What did that nun call you once? A wild child, right? The heathen Wilde Child of the woods . . .’
    In a breathless flash, Isola saw the trees again, heard the sorrowful creak of a cage on a rope, Alejandro’s shoes scuffling in the dirt. She heard a sparrow snap a red blood-string, an eye gobbled from a wet socket.
    She caught her breath and turned back to the tank. James hadn’t noticed; his focus was back on the film, despite the fact he’d watched it so often he could mouth the dialogue. Isola shifted the glass lid of the tank. ‘I found a dead body in the woods today,’ she said. ‘Can I take him out?’
    The movie filled the silence. Nothing but the puncture bites of gunfire.
    â€˜Isola – what?’
    â€˜Can I take him out?’ She was already reaching in, tugging the python up by his middle and draping him round her neck like some grand grotesque scarf. The snake wound itself round and round her necklace chain, seeking a comfortable place to cling.
    James lifted the remote, and this time he switched the television off. The silence stretched elastic.
    â€˜Isola,’ he said in obvious shock. ‘A dead body? Do you . . . really mean that?’
    She wouldn’t look at him. ‘Oh. Yes, I do mean that.’ She spoke more to the snake than him.
    â€˜But, are you . . . who’ve you told?’
    â€˜You.’
    â€˜Isola! I – damn, are you okay?’
    The snake’s curious little head disappeared down her shirt. Isola tried to fish him out of her bra. ‘I’m fine. She’s not. She was in a birdcage . . . strung up a tree.’
    The words hung like stockinged legs, strange and somewhat ridiculous in the context of his bedroom. She heard a long exhale, and finally turned to look at him.
    James’s ashen face seemed to relax; his glazed eyes blinked moisture back into the sockets. ‘Fuck, you nearly gave me a heart attack. And why – why do you do that?’ The shocked relief had already passed; he looked angry now. ‘Tell stories like they really happened?’
    â€˜It did happen!’ said Isola hotly. ‘There are bodies everywhere lately, first that TV suicide Sunday night and now this. The dead girl’s still in the woods, I could show you –’
    â€˜You saw that suicide? The fairground one?’ James sounded concerned.
    â€˜Yes, but –’
    â€˜Isola. Look at me for a minute.’ He formed the words with deaf lips, exaggerating the shapes. ‘Are you saying there’s really a body in the woods?’
    â€˜ Yes , and she was a princess, and –’
    James stood suddenly, the blood rushing from his face. ‘Where did you hear