Jesustown by Paul Daley

Author:Paul Daley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2022-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

My mood oscillated from anxiety to excitement at Arbutus, my regular stomping ground. The chances of bumping into an acquaintance were moderate-to-high. I had no contingency to deal with that. I often wonder why I took her there. We could have gone somewhere quiet and discreet. Perhaps I wanted to be caught. I chose a table at the restaurant’s furthest reach, in the shadows. In a thin attempt at anonymity I sat with my back to the room and ruffled up my hair.

I picked at a bowl of pasta. She devoured a plate of turbot, potatoes and salad then started on the breadbasket.

I ordered a second bottle of wine. I gulped at it as soon as the waiter poured.

Merridy was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever been with. She was clearly intelligent, if a little odd. Well, more than odd, if I was honest with myself. Weird? No, that implied eccentricity. Strange. Yes. I decided she was strange—especially with that family back-story of her father’s suicide. And unpredictable. She was that, too. But there was also something curated rather than impulsive about her edginess and carefully cultivated patois that, on balance, alluded more to emotional control than crazy. Which all added to the mystique. And made her elating—if somewhat terrifying. As the second bottle of wine took hold I started to relax. I began to wonder how I might make a more permanent arrangement with Merridy.

I didn’t know what to talk about. I could ask her more about her father. Would I know his literary books? Was he famous? How did he kill himself? No. Best not go back there. I was about to ask her about my performance in the four-poster back at Hazlitt’s when she took the initiative.

She said, ‘You know, Patrick, you have quite a talent. You have a gift for communicating and you have lots of readers.’

‘Thank you. I know.’

I blushed. Just like Cate, she also thought I was a great writer—even if the world hadn’t yet come to conclude it.

‘But,’ she went on—oh why the fuck did she have to ruin it all with a but?—‘I do feel like you sell yourself rather short with the stories you choose to tell. All heroes and villains, you know—I mean your explorers and your soldiers are all so … well, good. Mono-dimensional. Your history, well it’s not really history, it’s more a veneer of …’

‘It’s story-ism. It’s the choice I made. And you do know I’ve sold hundreds of thousands of books, don’t you?’

I could feel the colour rising in my cheeks. How the fuck dare she? I thought of leaving.

‘Patrick, hear me out. You know I love history and I’m doing my masters—librarianship. Why do you think I know your writing and love working in the archives? But I’m self-aware enough to realise I’ll never be able to write as … accessibly as you do. That’s your skill. I just think you should apply it a little more ambitiously.’

‘Do you now?’

‘Yes, I do. That’s why I told you.

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