Spring A Novel (David Szalay) by David Szalay

Author:David Szalay
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Literary, Fiction
ISBN: 9780224091268
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2011-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

*

The sound of rain splashing and trickling in the area. It was lovely to lie there in the warmth, still half asleep, holding her small body and listening to the rain. He would have liked to lie there for hours. For years. He listened to it intermittently pinging on the metal steps—sometimes it pinged several times in quick succession, sometimes there were long intervals—and whingeing quietly in the drain. She was wearing his pyjamas. He squeezed her and she whispered something. He stroked her instep with his foot.

She said, ‘What time is it?’

He did not want to move but he leaned over and looked at his watch. He had to stare at it for a few seconds in the semi-darkness. It was surprisingly late. It was nearly ten.

‘Will you make some coffee?’ she said.

He mumbled something and a minute later swung his long white legs out from under the duvet. He was pulling on his shorts when he said, ‘Oh.’

‘What?’ she said.

‘They’re…’ He stopped.

‘… stiff with spunk.’

‘Yeah.’

It was at this point, pulling on the spunk-stiff shorts, that he remembered the wash he had put on yesterday morning, and that it was still sitting wet in the machine.

The music of the rain was less lovely now that he was no longer in bed. It seemed to lay siege to the flat’s ill-lit interiors. Hugo greeted him in the hall, in the grey light that leaked through the small pane of glass over the front door. His white tail waved like a shredded flag. When he yawned the sound was like something moving on unoiled hinges. James patted his head, and scratched his ears, and in the windowless vault of the kitchenette put on the kettle. While it was heating up he opened a kilogram tin of offal and fish-meal and forked the pinkish paste into the St Bernard-sized feed-bowl. He washed the fork while Hugo set to without finesse.

‘Do you want something to eat?’ he said to her.

She shook her head.

He told her about the stuff in the washing machine. ‘I think I’ll have to wash it again.’

She didn’t seem terribly interested.

‘I might as well do that now.’

The old washing machine was in the kitchen, the hard plastic hook of the outflow pipe still secured on the edge of the sink. When he had started it, he went back to the bedroom. She was moving about, picking up her things from the floor, putting them on. ‘Are you leaving?’ he said.

‘M-hm.’

‘Why?’

‘I want to go home.’

‘Why don’t you stay?’ he said. ‘For a while.’

‘I want to have a bath,’ she said. His tiny bathroom had only the mouldy shower stall.

‘Stay for a while. It’s pissing down out there.’

‘I know,’ she said, sorting her tights out. ‘Have you got an umbrella?’

For a few seconds he said nothing.

‘Have you got one?’ she said, looking up.

‘Yes.’

‘Is it okay if I borrow it?’

‘Of course.’

He fetched it from the living room, where the rain was thrumming noisily on the skylight.

‘Why don’t you stay?’ he said, even though she was now dressed and looking for her shoes.

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