Goya'S Dog Read Online Free PDF Page B

as marble temple. There was a stone in his belly and he wondered what Windsor would be like. Someone had said they would be going past London; not that London. Dacres didn’t look in through the train windows. He could breathe here, much more easily. Though he was unwilling, the shapes of passengers through glass impressed themselves on him, made him shiver. He couldn’t bear to think any further about his future, about the next stop, about the journey.
    So perhaps it was then that the whim took him.
    He flicked the full white cigarette down into the train’s trench and turned on his heels. Quickly he pulled himself back up into the carriage and marched down to his compartment. He burst in on Lady Dunfield, who was still looking for him out of the window like a Sicilian widow. His cheek pulsed, but he had both the case from the floor and the one from above in his grasp before a puzzled whimper could escape her. Then he was out in the corridor.
    He was at the door. The crowd had thinned.
    â€œThis is madness,” he said.
    The guard he’d argued with earlier watched him from the platform.
    â€œAll set, sir?”
    How had Dacres not noticed his white half-moon moustaches?
    Dacres nodded, feeling futile, and the guard slammed the door shut tight in his face.
    A whistle blew, and then slowly, reluctantly, the train heaved, groaned, and shook. The platform began to move.
    Sweating again, and heart pounding, Dacres looked down the corridor and then lurched forward to grip the metal door handle. Then he stood on the steps, one suitcase below him and one above. A voice called out to him but he ignored it, he was elsewhere, he was watching the motion of the earth, waiting.
    â€œMr. Davis!” Harsh shrieking. And there she was, the black harpy, claws out to pull his soul back; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen such rage. Dacres mumbled a frightened apology and leaped. His ankles held, one case waved out into the air, the other crashed into his shin. The door swung open as the train moved away, and the guard set off racing after it, blowing his whistle wildly. Soon all Dacres could see were flecks through the window. Gorren, Nelda, Pear, flecks. Bury and Trebs and Webster, flecks. Like Sisley. Then the train was gone.
    Dacres looked left and right. There were specks in the air too. At first he fancied it was snow and was delighted; but it was only ash and soot.

CHAPTER TWO
    Initially it felt like success. Dacres wandered the city dazed, unaware of himself for the first time in years, absorbing. Toronto waited for him each morning like a fresh pair of socks. The weather was warm if slightly muggy, and the American voices grated on him, and there wasn’t even an underground, but it was all new to him: for a week, he simply explored. He walked, and read the newspapers. Close to the lake were red brick warehouses; far from the lake he found leafy enclaves. He took streetcars for twenty-five cents and discovered that it didn’t take too long to reach the end of the line and come back into the downtown again. He wasn’t thinking much: he was spongy, he scouted like a spy. He noticed things: the list of preachers in the Saturday paper; an advertisement on a street hoarding for a Proms concert. Milling in the streets, Canadians seemed never to be in any hurry. As Dacres studied a raspberry neo-Romanesque monstrosity, the municipal buildings, gentlemen twice approached to ask if he needed directions. So very helpful. He bared his yellow teeth to scare them away. British men eighteen to forty-one had been conscripted, he learned from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This war would be no little show, a man on King Street said.
    Dacres was amazed by the number of people wearing smoked glasses. But the harshness of the light affected him too, and he thought about buying a pair. He let his eyes open only narrowly, and wondered where all the clouds were. This country was primary