In Our Mad and Furious City: a Novel by Guy Gunaratne

Author:Guy Gunaratne
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

SHAME

CAROLINE

I’d spent the rest of the afternoon listening to music in my bedroom. I’d made such a bleeding show of it that morning. So the less of me the better, I thought. I’d brew alone instead, picking at my toe skin and staring at cover art until my head spun. But honestly, what would I do in London? I’d already had my fair share of culchie bastards in Belfast. Not that I was looking, mind you. I’d just got back home, I thought, and now they wanted to pack me off to live and finish school among the fucken enemy.

I’d tried to flush the anger with a shower. I was folding my washed clothes and combing my hair when there was a knock at the door. I murmured a quiet come in.

It was Damian. He had changed clothes and stood there in a fresh shirt looking at me with those dark-set eyes of his.

You all right Carol? he said.

I went on folding my clothes into squares for the opened drawer. Damian hung over me for a moment and then sat on the bed with his wrists between his knees.

Ah come on, Carol, he said.

What is it you want from me? I said.

You sore at us, are you?

No, I’m fine.

Damian pulled my arm away from the folding. He had a soft expression on his face, softer than he had in the morning when he looked as stern as the others. Where was that face when I’d needed him then, I wanted to ask, but didn’t.

You sore at me?

I pulled my arm away and brushed the clothes down. The cloth felt warm under my fingertips, and clean. I glanced above him at the corpus on the far wall, stared up at it, to avoid Damian’s eye line. Even Christ wanted a look in, I thought, peering down on the both of us. Underneath it all, I felt an awful sadness about Eily. It was a thin, threadlike sadness that pierced me every so often like a needle. It took everything in me not to cry in front of Damian. But I kept seeing her, imagining her pain was my own.

I’m not sore at anyone except at Ma. I told her I don’t want to go, that I want to stay and do something about. It’s not as if you can help, anyway.

I didn’t mean to put him down, but it was the truth since Da passed. It was Ma’s way or nothing. But then I looked at Damian and saw that something else was going on. They’d been talking about me again it seemed.

But it’s not down to Ma, Carol. Or any of us. It’s your choice to make.

I looked up at him then and saw something cold in his eyes.

I felt the soles of my feet press into the floor like I was tempting the wooden boards to splinter my skin. Damian’s jaw rumbled under his beard, curled and thick on his neck. I could see he was wrestling with something. He took a deep breath.

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.