Nameless by Amanda Creely

Author:Amanda Creely
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: UWA Publishing

23

IT WAS THE night before. I was in the library with Rescuer and Sower. Three teachers together. Peaceful in a silence broken only by the crackling fire whose glow lit the dark room with its volcano-red heart. I was on the floor in front, back against a chair, Sower on another chair, legs crossed, Rescuer on his side on the rug, propped on one elbow, reading the book open before him.

Shakespeare.

Not an author of our country but one everyone knew. One I knew in several languages. One I had taught my students in English because that was Shakespeare’s tongue and words are never more fluent than when they are your own.

Rescuer thought Shakespeare was rubbish. So he told me, though he’d never read any of the plays. I replied with outrage at both his judgement and that it was made in ignorance and how could someone as intelligent as he make such statements without all the information?

So he read Romeo and Juliet because I asked him to. He was nearly finished and I’d flicked my gaze to him several times as he neared the climax to see if he was moved.

Judging by his expression, he wasn’t.

I met Sower’s eyes and she quirked her brows. What did you expect? He isn’t interested in the writings of one from so far away from hundreds of years ago and a society so different to ours. A society that exploited ours. Sower taught children. Language. Maths. Music. Loyalty to our country. To fight for it.

Something we only now realised was so important.

She set aside her book, stood, stretched. Said goodnight and gave me another look. You had it coming, you know. He’s going to laugh. Then she left.

I closed my book. One of Rescuer’s favourites. One hand washed the other, nothing in life is free, though I got the raw end of the deal. Three inches thick versus half an inch thick.

Language dense with script and meaning. Stories from long ago. Stories on which our nation was built.

Stories that were like wading through quicksand.

‘Why do you have that expression on your face?’ I challenged.

That face was suddenly innocent in the fire’s rich glow. ‘What expression? It’s very moving. O happy dagger! This is thy sheath; there rest, and let me die.’

‘You’re smirking.’ He was smirking at Shakespeare. It got worse when smirk became grin.

‘That was bad luck for old Romeo, wasn’t it? If he’d waited a minute before killing himself so impulsively…’

I clenched my teeth. ‘He thought she was dead and no longer wanted to live.’

‘So she thought she’d join him?’

‘Yes, because she loved him more than life.’

He shook his head. Closed the book. Lay on his back and faced the glow on the ceiling. ‘The old tales are much more sensible. They have some fire about them. Their heroes and heroines don’t just give up and kill themselves.’

‘The old tales are sanctimonious.’

‘Wise, was the word you were looking for.’

‘Actually I was looking for silly.’

He rolled onto his side. ‘And killing yourself isn’t?’

‘No. Not if there’s a good reason.

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