Anne Rice by Belinda

Author:Belinda [Belinda]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-02-01T16:15:19+00:00

I had slapped her again. She was going down on her knees, and Miss Annie had a hold of my right arm.

“Mr. Walker, stop it.” This tiny bit of a woman in a white bathrobe trying to hold onto my fist. “Let go of me!”

“Mr. Walker, you’ll kill her. Mr. Walker, she’s just a child!” I turned and doubled my fist and slammed it into the doorframe. I slammed it into the plaster. Saw the plaster give under the wallpaper. A great gaping hole broke in the pattern of leaves and roses. Stench of rottenness. Of rain and rats and rottenness.

Miss Annie was saying, “Come on, dear, come on,” to her. I could hear their footsteps. Belinda gasping.

I hit the doorframe again. Saw the smear of blood on the lacquer. Then, thank God, I heard the lock on her door turn.

[30]

FIVE days after she left, the notebook came in the mail.

I had tried to talk to her after the fight. But it had been ghastly, going into that room, trying to tell her I was sorry, so sorry, and the words sticking in my throat. There had been bruises on her face, on her shoulders, and her tender naked arms. I had said: “We’ll work it out somehow, we’ll talk about it. This can not be the end of it, not for us.” And from her nothing but the silence. The same old silence and her eyes like the eyes of a dead person staring past me, at the leaves of the trees against the glass.

the middle of the night she had left. had stayed awake as long as I could, pacing back and forth, with only Miss Annie now and then coming to say, yes, she was all right. The truth was, I’d been afraid that if she started to leave, I wouldn’t be able to stop her, that I would watch her go, unable to bring myself to say or do anything at all.

But I had stayed awake as long as I could.

I did not even remember lying down on the bed, only that when I awoke at three, it was no nightmare that woke me. And she was gone. The closets were empty, all of her things gone. The rain was coming.

in the open windows onto the floor of her room.

Through the entire house I searched for some note from her, but there was nothing. And only later that morning did I find the tape of Final Score on the marble top bedside table in my room.

She must have come in while I was sleeping and put it right beside me. If only I had awakened then.

THEN five days later, after I had called Bonnie and called that damned son of a bitch Moreschi and called Alex and called George Gallagher in New York, the notebook came in the mail.

I was sitting on the settee in Mother’s room and I was thinking how hideously old everything was, how beyond restoration. The rain was blowing right into the room through the French doors to the porch.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.