Pool Read Online Free PDF Page A

foam.
    ‘Would you like a fresh glass?’ Bernadette asked.
    ‘Let him be,’ said her husband. He gave Wolfgang the exaggerated wink made famous in his Furniture King ads, then mimed drinking straight from the bottle. ‘Don’t bother with the glass, son.’
    Son. Wolfgang self-consciously lifted the bottle and had a small sip. Then, because no one seemed to be taking any notice of him, he took a long pull. He wanted to finish it as quickly as possible. Finish it and leave. The Babacans ate their soup. Spoons clinked against china, lips made soft sucking noises. He didn’t dare look in Audrey’s direction. She couldn’t see, but he knew she could see through him. Veterinary science. What had he been thinking?
    Across from him, Bernadette took a small dinner roll from the basket in the middle of the table. ‘Would you like some bread, Wolfgang?’ she asked, tilting the basket towards him.
    ‘Thanks, Mrs Babacan,’ he said politely. It would help soak up the beer, which already, after just two or three swallows, was going to his head.
    ‘How well do they pay you at the pool?’ Keith asked a minute or two later.
    ‘Eight dollars fifty an hour.’
    ‘I pay my delivery boys more than that.’
    ‘Dad!’ said Audrey.
    ‘It’s pretty easy work.’ Wolfgang took another swallow of beer, then set the bottle down very carefully on its coaster. It was less than half full – roughly three eighths. Or five-eighths empty, he thought, pleased with his agility of mind. Despite the bread – he had eaten three rolls in quick succession – he was feeling disconcertingly light-headed. But not so light-headed that he couldn’t perform mental arithmetic. ‘And I get tips from the pilgrims,’ he added.
    Keith furrowed his brow. ‘Who or what are the pilgrims?’
    ‘The people who come to be cured.’
    ‘That’s another rip off, if you ask me.’
    ‘Nobody asked you, Dad,’ Audrey said.
    Keith ignored her. He leaned forward. ‘Tell me, Wolfgang, has anyone ever been cured?’
    ‘Marceline Flavel.’
    Keith dropped his spoon dramatically against the side of his empty soup bowl. ‘I rest my case.’
    Puzzled, Wolfgang caught the eye of Bernadette, who smiled apologetically. ‘Keith is the world’s greatest sceptic, Wolfgang. He doesn’t believe Marceline Flavel was cured.’
    ‘She was in the newspaper,’ Wolfgang said. ‘I saw her on TV. She was walking.’
    ‘But who was she?’ asked Keith. ‘Where did she come from?’
    ‘France.’
    ‘Exactly. And how convenient. Nobody had ever heard of her until she blew into town in her wheelchair, and then she very conveniently disappeared back to France – to old Lourdes, perhaps? – as soon as all the fuss was over.’
    ‘Crutches.’
    ‘I beg your pardon?’
    ‘Marceline Flavel had crutches, not a wheelchair.’ Wolfgang raised the bottle to his lips but discovered it empty. ‘They’re in a display cabinet down at the pool,’ he said, setting the bottle down. ‘People take photos of them.’
    Keith reached for the empty bottle. ‘I only wish,’ he said, ‘that Shirley Lonsdale worked for me. Would you like another beer, son?’
    ‘No, thanks. I’d better go home. Mum will have tea ready.’
    Audrey surprised him by rising from her seat. ‘I’ll show you to the door.’
    It felt strange being walked to the door by a blind person. She led him back through the house as if she could see exactly where they were going. She didn’t even touch the walls. Wolfgang wondered, as he followed her bare heels down the hallway, where Campbell was.
    ‘Sorry about Dad,’ Audrey said, opening the front door.
    ‘You say sorry a lot.’
    It took her a moment to catch on, but then she laughed. She turned to face him. ‘You know, Wolfgang, I thought you were younger.’
    ‘It’s the way I talk,’ he said, emboldened by the beer. ‘I was born with a cleft palate and, you know, a harelip. Even though I’ve been operated on, it still affects my speech