The Quarry Read Online Free PDF

clothes.
    He looked down. He saw that there were vivid red stains on the front of his shirt and a smear on the leg of his pants. He stared at these marks for a moment with surprise. Then he looked up at
her.
    ‘It’s because of… because of this.’
    He showed her the cut on his finger.
    ‘But you must clean that.’
    She took his hand in hers. He became aware that it was trembling violently and pulled it away.
    ‘I cut it on a piece of wire. Next to the road. When I stopped.’
    ‘It’s a deep cut.’
    ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I know. Yes, you’re right. I must clean it. I’ll do it now.’
    Still she would not leave the room.
    ‘I’m very tired,’ he said.
    ‘Don’t you have a bag? A suitcase or something?’
    ‘In the car.’
    ‘You must get it,’ she said. ‘It’s not safe there.’
    ‘I’ll get it,’ he said. He didn’t move.
    Eventually she went out, but she came back in again almost immediately with a bowl of water and a cloth and some Dettol. She set them down next to the bed.
    ‘For the cut.’
    ‘I’ll do it now,’ he said.
    A glance passed between them. She was a middle-aged woman, slightly underweight, with veins showing in her forehead. Her eyes were a crystalline blue. There was something in her movements that
was wary and watchful and he felt remotely afraid.
    ‘I’ve already eaten,’ she said. ‘But I can get something for you.’
    ‘I just want to sleep,’ he said. ‘It’s the journey.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said.
    She went out, closing the door. He sat for a long time on the bed. He remembered that she had told him to unpack the car and he knew he had to get up and do it. But from somewhere inside him a
lassitude was rising and threatening to envelop his brain. He lay down sideways across the bed with his feet still resting on the floor and his hands pillowed under his head. Just for a minute, he
thought. Just for one minute. He heard voices speaking elsewhere in the house or maybe they were speaking in him. He closed his eyes and began to breathe deeply and when he woke again it was
morning. The car had been burgled in the night.

 
8
    They had broken one of the side windows at the back. There was a half-brick lying on the seat and a fine dusting of glass. Except for a single sock that lay curled on the floor
there was nothing left in the car. All the boxes with the minister’s possessions in them, the clothes, the papers, the books, all gone. The seat looked naked. He stood there, looking at it.
He felt that he should do something, that some action was required of him, but he didn’t know what he should do.
    It was early in the day and a thin wash of sunlight came down. There were people crossing the plaza, going about their business, and one or two of them had stopped to watch him. A stranger
unexpectedly among them. He turned his back and leaned on the car. Thinking what must I do. He bowed his head and suddenly he smelled himself, sweat dirt smoke intermingled, all the complex odours
of flight. On the front of his shirt and the leg of his pants the bloodstains. He raised his head and looked up.
    She was there. She had come out of the house while he stood there. She was wearing the flannel robe still with its faded impress of flowers and she came walking across the concrete towards him
without any shoes on. His feet were also bare. She stopped next to him and both of them stood looking at the car.
    ‘I told you…’ she said.
    He said nothing. He bent down and picked up that single useless sock from the floor and twisted it round in his hand.
    ‘I’ll get Captain Mong,’ she said.
    ‘Captain Mong?’
    ‘He’s the one in charge.’
    She gestured across the plaza at the prefabricated building he had seen last night with the sandbags piled up in front of it and a flag hanging limply from a pole. He looked back at her but she
wasn’t going across the plaza. She was going back to the house.
    In a moment he followed. The door to her room was closed. He went