Mr Narrator by Pat Gray;

Author:Pat Gray; [Gray, Pat]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781915568038
Publisher: Bookwire GmbH
Published: 2023-04-18T00:00:00+00:00

MONDAY 6TH OCTOBER

Over breakfast the next morning Repair Man glowered. He ate it as if he were alone, and I had to keep reaching across the cluttered table for the butter, the sugar or the croissants. He immersed himself totally in the day’s edition of El Zif, plunging determinedly through the agricultural and religious pages despite their total lack of interest. Occasionally he would chuckle, or turn the pages noisily. The paper was just too far away for me to be able to read the rambling arabic script.

‘What are you laughing at?’ I asked, but he did not reply. I found myself again considering ways of transferring myself out of this situation, of changing hotels, of moving, if necessary even at night.

Eventually, when there was nothing left in the paper for him to consider, he folded it carefully and placed it on the table amongst the debris of his breakfast.

‘So,’ he said. ‘I imagine you will be seeing our Monsieur Sbiti alone today.’ In a way it was both an ultimatum and a question. We began to argue about whether he could come or not, in the way of people who are already aware of all sides of the issue, having argued them to themselves beforehand. He did not trust me, I did not think it would be helpful to have him there and so on. Then we began to annoy each other with the sheer persistence of our respective positions, as one dog barking at another will do.

‘I know. The life of my cousin it is just all business to you. He stands in the way of making money. You and your European suit and your fancy French, you’d rather sit there and suck cock with Sbiti than help out a friend who has helped you before. Mr. American. Mr. Ten Percent.’ The sudden change in his manner was shocking, the sudden abandonment of any kind of mutual trust or friendship. I realised that his deference to me was in fact conditional on my willingness and ability to help him, and stood up. As I left him, I caught a glimpse of the hotel keeper, looming in the shadows by the coat stand, looking on with one of those strangely all-knowing hotel-keeper’s smiles. It was a faint, barely discernible, mocking smile.

‘You can fuck off too,’ I said, and ran down the steps out into the street. As I walked away I could think only about the very inevitability of it, the absolutely frustrating, totally foreseeable quality of the row, the way it was constructed like an ebony box that would fit together and come apart only in certain ways, a puzzle with only one possible conclusion.

I walked on, once more in no particular direction (for the city had none), and the alleyways began to constrict, the tarmac became patchy, then became cobbles, then became mud or baked earth and the sun no longer penetrated. The way began to plunge downwards towards the unseen sound of rushing water, somewhere in the heart of the city.

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