How to Make Friends with Demons Read Online Free PDF Page B

again."

    That lacerated old heart of his. He was in love with a woman who left him on average once every three years. Seems she couldn't stand living with a genius. Last time she left him it was for a commodities broker. The time before that it was a wine importer. Before that I can't remember, but the pattern was clearly to swing from the bohemianism and chaotic brilliance of Stinx to the ultra-conservative; then after six months of life in the twin-set-and-pearls lane she would rediscover his virtues, returning to give him another spin like a favourite but chipped and scratched psychedelic album from the 60s.

    We belonged to an unofficial club, Stinx and I. A society of abandoned men. We called ourselves the Candlelight Club, I can't remember why—something to do with W. B. Yeats. There was one other member, Diamond Jaz, who'd been dumped by his male lover. The circumstances of our meeting some three years ago was strange, not to say auspicious.

     

    It was the sixth of June when Fay told me she would be leaving me. The date is burned in my brain because I'd returned early from work—no, the book thing is a hobby, not my principle employment—after an angry exchange with a government junior minister. Luckily for everyone involved I was only early enough to see a man whom I vaguely recognised leaving my house in Finchley to climb into a shiny blue soft-top BMW. Well, I did recognise him, didn't I? He was on the telly.

    Confrontation, admissions, recriminations, tears. The full shopping-list. "It doesn't matter," I tried to tell Fay. "I've been inattentive. It doesn't matter."

    Oh, but it did matter. Even my trying to take the blame was part of the problem, apparently. I was stunned to discover how over it was between us already.

    I wanted to avoid facing the children so I left the house and walked. I walked blindly until I came to my senses in Kentish Town. Then I slithered inside the Pineapple, which was pretty quiet at that time of the day. I sat at the bar and ordered a glass of wine. I must have made short order of it, because I very quickly asked for another.

    "That first one didn't touch the sides," said a gruff voice from two barstools away.

    I didn't pay him much attention. The Pineapple attracts an odd mix of trade—that's where I later met Ellis—and this hunched, tattooed brute with a shaved head was like a scary species of genie behind his cloud of curling, blue cigarette smoke.

    He tried again. "You look like how I feel," he said. He held his cigarette with the cone pointing in towards the palm of his hand, like a schoolboy smoking behind the bike-sheds. His knuckles were tattooed, old-style. I could see "LOVE" on one hand; I only guessed at "HATE" on the other.

    I met his gaze from behind the wreathing smoke. I was sure he wasn't about to grant me three wishes, but there was a sympathetic cast to his eye. I don't know why, but I blurted it out: "My wife's left me for another man."

    He sat upright and wafted a hand through all this curling smoke, as if to look at me better. "My life!" he said. "My life!"

    I thought it an odd remark. I mean, it must happen to lots of men somewhere every day. I took another nip of wine.

    "Same here exactly!" he said. "When?"

    "About an hour ago."

    "Stone me!" He chuckled. "Well, stone me!" He rotated his stool away from me, checked out the bar and sucked hard on his ciggie, still shaking his head.

    I wasn't feeling companionable, but I felt obliged to ask. "What about you, then?"

    He turned back to me. Now, as he regarded me steadily, his eyes looked sad. Huge skin-folds hung from under them, each like a miser's pouch. "What I'm saying. About an hour ago."

    I wasn't sure for a moment if he was taking the piss. Then I decided he couldn't be. We chatted a little bit, offering guarded information, and concluded that we'd been dumped by our respective spouses—spice?—within moments of each other.

    He reached a leathery hand across the bar. "Ian. Though