The Last Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

now and try as I might I am not able to turn from them.
    The next day I had barely arrived at her block when she emerged without the child. She turned and walked quickly across the park towards the trolley-bus stop. I followed her. The wires clicked and whistled, a trolley bus trundled through the traffic so that we were forced to break into a run. Its doors had opened by the time we reached it, she before I. I felt sick from the exertion as I grabbed hold of the rail and pulled myself inside. The doors swung shut with a heavy thud. I closed my eyes and gasped, trying to recover my breath. The trolley bus lurched out into the traffic and immediately picked up speed, forcing me to hold tight to the rail to stop myself from falling.
    Opening my eyes I noticed she was watching me. She edged across her seat to give me space. I saw a look of concern in her eyes and realised that she saw me as an old man, frail and weak. I straightened myself up. I wanted to banish that image, but as I lowered myself carefully onto the seat beside her I was aware of the smell of spirits that clung to me. I saw the heavy thickness of my hands and the brown, old coarseness of my skin, the veins bulging up like ruts in a country road. I noticed the thin worn quality of my trousers. I tried to smooth them with my hand.
    Her hand was on her knee. As I smoothed my trouser leg her long fingers rested delicately only inches from my own. Her skin was smooth and pale. Her nails were clean and short. There was no movement in her fingers, no tremble, no shaking as there was in my own. Her leg was thin too. My eyes gazed at our two hands resting now almost side by side, only a fraction of space apart. Only a fraction and yet how great was that gulf, how many years, how many different things kept me from sliding my own blunt old finger those few inches and touching the tips of hers. It has been too long, and though she appears to me as clear as crystal each night, even though now I can close my eyes and picture her, it is not possible to reach back across the years and change that moment, to reverse it. It is done and she is gone. The distance is too great.
    â€˜Only just made it,’ she said.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said, looking up into her face. Not the eyes, I could not look into those eyes. She was still looking at me and I traced in her voice a note of concern, a delicate probing to ask if I was all right.
    â€˜I’m getting too old for running,’ I laughed.
    She laughed, ‘It’s not so easy for me.’
    â€˜You’re the picture of health,’ I said. ‘It does you good when you’re so young.’
    â€˜I don’t feel so young.’
    I dared then to look beyond the fresh pink of her flushed cheeks, beyond the smooth curve of her nose and the soft hair that downed her face. Beyond the thick, dark eyebrows to her eyes. She was smiling; smiling with her eyes, though there was barely the trace of a curve on her lips. A prickling sweat broke out on my forehead.
    My fingers trembled beside hers. Mine blunt, hers elegant. The sun shone through the grimy windows, warming them. And then, on a corner, the trolley bus rocked awkwardly, causing her to lean against me. Her thigh pressed against mine and the tips of our fingers touched as she tried to balance herself. We withdrew immediately. I smiled and she smiled too, before turning and looking out of the window. We were descending the long hill, the green banks rising on each side of us, the trees barely moving in the breeze.
    We did not speak again. The trolley bus fought its way through the traffic into the centre of the Old Town. She got up as we lurched slowly into Gedimino Prospect. I let her past me and then followed. When she turned, I looked studiously out of the window as if my getting off had nothing to do with her. She walked swiftly down Gedimino and into the department store. I stood for a moment debating then crossed the road and entered the new American