The Man Who Rained Read Online Free PDF Page A

its ears, the other itching the soft fur hanging from its throat.
    Then his grip turned a right angle and the dog’s neck snapped with a click.
    The crowd took a step back, leaving Elsa foregrounded and shocked. The man stood up, punched his hat back into shape and squashed it on to his head. He crossed himself. The crowd followed suit,
then gave him a brief ripple of applause while the dog’s corpse flopped on the flagstones.
    It lay there staring hollowly up at Elsa while she stared back in horror and disbelief. Then, as she tried to comprehend what she had just seen, a strange thing happened. Its blue eyes darkened.
Its irises changed colour like paper blistering in a fire. In seconds they had charred from sky blue to singed black. A sudden breeze passed over and she shivered from confusion and fright all at
once.
    One or two of the crowd thanked the bearded man or clapped him on the shoulder. Then they disbanded with satisfied chatter, as if exiting a theatre.
    The tall man crouched over the dead body, lifted it off the dusty floor by its ears, then hefted the carcass over his shoulder and stood up. The last of the crowd had dispersed. Elsa was alone
with him, uneasy but indignant. It was the first time she had seen someone murder an animal for no reason. The man turned towards her quizzically, dog draped around his neck.
    ‘Ma’am,’ he said, and ducked his head in a half-bow.
    ‘What ... why ...’ she began. ‘What did you just do ?’
    ‘It was wild, ma’am,’ he said, as if it were self-explanatory. He tried to step around her, but she sidestepped to block him.
    ‘You should have taken it out of town or to a kennel ... or ... or something !’
    He frowned. He seemed to her more like something blasted from rock than something that could grow up from a child. She stood her ground nevertheless.
    ‘You are distressed by this?’ He sounded confused.
    She nodded as if he were stupid, but his voice was gentler than she’d expected and he seemed to be giving serious if bemused thought to her position, all the while with the corpse lolling
over his shoulders and the dog’s changed eyes upturned in their sockets.
    ‘It was wild,’ he pronounced again.
    ‘It’s –’ she flapped her hands, ‘– it was a living thing!’
    He frowned, like he was preparing to disagree, but instead he said, ‘You are not from Thunderstown? I would know you and your family if you were. But it is a pleasure to see a new face
here.’
    She clenched her fists. ‘Where I’m from has nothing to do with it.’
    The dog’s drooping tongue and dangling legs were becoming too much, as was the man’s thoughtful face amongst all that dead fur.
    ‘My name is Daniel Fossiter,’ he said softly, ‘and I am pleased to meet you.’
    ‘Elsa,’ she snapped, then felt all the more infuriated for becoming even this familiar with this cruel man.
    ‘I should explain, Elsa, about this particular species of—’
    She raised her palm to him, defiantly. It was a gesture she hadn’t made since high school, where it meant she didn’t want to hear what he had to say, but in the wide church square
Daniel Fossiter only looked intently at her palm as if he were reading it. Embarrassed, she cringed away as fast as she could. Only at the end of the road did she look back, to see him watching her
patiently, the dog still slung over his shoulders as if it weighed no more than the air itself.
    By the time she returned to Kenneth’s house she still hadn’t recovered her cool. The stairs to her apartment passed the door to his sitting room, which he had left open as he loafed
on the sofa, watching a cricket match. He had pulled the curtains closed to keep the sun’s glare from the television screen, but the light was too strong and brightened the room regardless,
projecting the fabric’s peach hue on to every surface.
    Kenneth had kept the furnishings simple: a plain bookcase full of yellow-spined almanacs and a cushioned footstool in