Absolution by Patrick Flanery

Author:Patrick Flanery
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Tags: Literary, Fiction
ISBN: 9781594488177
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Absolution

Now that the terribly hot days had all but passed and the mist fell down more abundantly from the mountain, spreading its cloth of ephemeral whiteness through Clare’s garden, she gave Marie, who so rarely had a holiday, the week off for Easter.

‘I do not know how I shall cope on my own,’ Clare said, performing an exasperation she did not entirely feel. ‘I have almost forgotten how to cook.’

‘Shame, Clare. You’d think you were helpless. Listen, I’ve left meals in the freezer and all you have to do is take one out in the morning, let it defrost throughout the day, and just put it in the oven in the evening. I’ve written up some instructions for each one,’ Marie said, tying a scarf round her neck and handing Clare a printed sheet with cooking and household directions for each day of her absence. Marie was going to see a niece in Rustenburg and had plans to indulge in a little gambling, church going, and game viewing in the Pilanesberg Reserve. ‘I’m going to see a black rhino this time, finally. I’ve never seen a black rhino. And a wildehond. I can’t tell you how I long to see one of those. The countryside in that part of the world is unequalled in my mind. It is where I shall retire–’ she said, laughing, and then caught herself, a hand to the mouth in tentative regret. She was already past retirement age and for her to suggest the end of her working career was somehow also to imply the end of Clare’s life. For all that Clare knew they lacked common ground on the most basic and fundamental beliefs, Marie was a more efficient archivist and manager and all around helpmate than Clare had any hope of finding elsewhere. Mutual disagreement was part of their contract, and while she had no wish to hear Marie’s old-fashioned opinions on the majority government or blacks in general or the rights of sexual minorities, Clare could not live without her; it was impossible to conceive of going forward without Marie.

With no one else to flick switches or close cupboards, open doors or answer the telephone on the rare occasions it rang, the few sounds that did occur of their own accord were magnified, reverberating as if in an echo chamber and imposing themselves upon Clare’s ears as a tangible rush of pressure. The crunch of the freezer contracting brought Clare to her feet, certain that someone must be in the kitchen, that perhaps Marie had changed her mind and would not abandon her after all, or that an intruder had somehow managed to stride across the dry grass, disable the alarm, force the locks, and was brazenly liberating Clare’s possessions in the next room. This was how it would happen, alone, the predators of the world sensing Clare’s vulnerability, the oldest member of the pack abandoned by the others and left for dead, for nature to work its efficient illusionism in which

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