The Reef Read Online Free PDF

honey.’
    ‘No, but it’ll help until I find one.’
    After watching with cool interest as a waitress sprung up the stairs, pausing politely for people to pass, he returned to the table with two glasses, rested them on the table with reverence. He slid one across to
    Santiago, who glanced down to the glass and back up.
    ‘Malts, from the north,’ Manolin said.
    Santiago nodded, smiled, picked up the vessel. He held it to his nose, inhaled before taking a sip, his face showing that he was savouring the taste, again cool, calm, to say, I’m not a drunk. ‘Many thanks.’ Santiago placed the whiskey back onto the table, gazed at it like usually would a woman. ‘It’s the least I can do,’ Manolin said. Then, ‘I thought you’d given up smoking? I take it you still take the white stuff, too?’ ‘I’ve said no to drugs before,’ Santiago said. ‘They just won’t listen.’
    Their colleagues sat nearby. Jefry and Arth, two old, black rumel men who were both dressed in white shirts and black breeches. Arth was one of those jerky-motioned man, who walked as if his shirts were tied around his ankles. Jefry seemed as though he never took the care to think about what he said or did, but went in wholeheartedly anyway. As loyal as a dog, and just as clumsy.
    To his left sat a middle aged woman with silver streaks, racing though dark hair. She was sitting alongside Santiago, a black cat on her lap, and she smoked a cigarette whilst gazing out of the window nervously, possibly imagining herself elsewhere. Yana was more handsome than pretty. Manolin always thought she looked like a starlet of the theatres. She was married to the rumel, Jefry, but it had occurred to him that they seemed to be more friends than lovers these days, and her husband did not seem to mind her spending so much time with Santiago. If indeed Santiago was fucking his wife, Jefry did not show such knowledge. Santiago seemed to know how make her smile. She possessed a straight nose and a firm jaw. Her eyes were silver, beacons against the dark outfits she always wore. Manolin gazed at her face, wanted a woman like that when he was older. She had laughter lines around her eyes and everything she did or said seemed almost secret, hidden, demanding more attention. Young girls looked up to her, wanting to be her. She rubbed one of the cat’s ears.
    Manolin suspected that only Santiago could possess her attention, like he did so many other women, but in Yana’s case it was because he was her boss. He never acknowledged that fact. Santiago was a true ladies man: one with a good ear. He had set Manolin up with several women throughout their working career together, and had even introduced Manolin to the one he went on to marry.
    Manolin felt frustrated at times. Santiago had been like a father to him, aiding him with his Doctorate and eventually providing him with a job for life. He felt that he owed Santiago a lot, much of what he was in fact. He still wanted more, but just what their relationship was any more , was beginning to form complex shapes in his mind. He laughed at himself at the negativities that he found he had towards his mentor. Why should he have felt this particular way when he owed so much? Manolin shrugged off the notion as a peculiarity of the human animal. It was, he had declared, an inevitable predisposition to destroy relationships of any kind wherever they can. It contrasted with the natural world. It was where relationships formed and developed never destroyed-but always transformed into new systems, and increased in stability along the way.
    ‘Becq not coming out tonight?’ Manolin said to Santiago.
    ‘No, she’s out at the theatre with her aunt,’ Santiago said. ‘She’s leaning towards the Arts these days. I despair. You know, she’s taken to making dolls in her spare time. Dolls. All that science I gave and she turns to crafts. I pour over journals and research notes, and she makes dolls.’ He smiled at his drink.