Long Lankin: Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

cigarette she said:
    —We started long ago.
    —Alice …
    —Leave me alone.
    Beside him the evening fields flowed silently, swiftly past. The day was fading now, and the trees were full of darkness.
    —Do you want to go home tonight? he asked, and tried to make it sound like an apology.
    —I don’t mind.
    Her voice was cold, and held a world of weariness. He made a noise with his teeth and said:
    —I was going to write a book one time. Did you know that?
    She looked at him in surprise.
    —No, I didn’t.
    He laughed.
    —O yes, I was going to write a book. A love story. The story of Stephen and Alice who thought that love would last forever. And when they found that it wouldn’t or at least that it changed so much that they couldn’t recognize it anymore, the blow was too heavy. They retreated into themselves like rabbits into a burrow.
    He stopped, and she sighed.
    —You’re too cruel, she murmured. Too cruel.
    When they came into the kitchen Lilian was by the table, bent over a cup of tea. She did not look at them. Stephen watched her, his only sister, as he took off his scarf and gloves. She was growing old, there were wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and grey in her hair. The old man’s death had wounded her deeply. Now she would have no one to care for and bully in her ineffectual way.
    —Is there any tea? Alice asked, struggling out of her coat. She blew her nose.
    —In the pot, Lilian answered, lifting a listless hand.
    Stephen left the room and the two women together in their silence. He was washing his hands in the bathroom when Alice tapped on the door.
    —Steve, I’m going to lie down for a while. I’m tired.
    —Yes. A rest will do you good. You’ll have to take it easy now until the baby comes.
    She leaned against the door, pale and drab, running a damp knotted handkerchief through her fingers.
    —I think we’ll go back tonight, she said.
    —Are you sure you’re up to it?
    —Maybe you’re right. It’s been a long day.
    —We’ll wait until morning, then.
    —Yes.
    When she had gone he went down again to the kitchen. Lilian was standing by the sink. She looked at him and opened her mouth to speak, but instead she looked away.
    —Alice looks pale, she said after a moment.
    —Yes. She’s tired. This has all been a strain on her.
    —On all of us.
    —Yes.
    She stored the cups and saucers in the cupboard, then dried her hands and said:
    —I have to feed the hens.
    —Lilian, he began, and stopped. She stood with her head bent, waiting. He went on awkwardly:
    —You’ll be lonely now.
    She shrugged her shoulders, and blushed. He said:
    —I was thinking, Lily, that maybe — maybe you’d like to come up and stay with us for a few days. It would take you out of yourself. This place — this is no place for a woman to live on her own.
    —I might, she said doubtfully. I suppose I could manage it.
    She glanced at him from under her eyebrows and smiled, a nervous, girlish smile. Then in confusion she fled out into the yard.
    He wandered restlessly about the room. The strange clarity of vision and thought which follows exhaustion now came over him. The things around him as he looked at them began to seem unreal in their extreme reality. Everything he touched gave to his fingers the very essence of itself. The table seemed to vibrate in the grains of its wood, the steel of the sink was cold and sharp as ice. It was as if he were looking down from a great height through some mysterious spiral. In the corner behind the stove a blackthorn stick leaned against the wall. When he saw it he stepped forward and put out his fingers to touch it, but halted, frowning. He stared at the knots, and they seemed to be whirling in the dark wood, each one a small, closed world. He moved back uncertainly, and dropped his hand. Then he turned and quickly left the room.
    He went upstairs to the small bedroom that looked out over the yard to the fields beyond the house. Alice lay on the bed among the shadows,