Strays by Emily Bitto

Author:Emily Bitto
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Affirm Press

That evening, while Ugo and Maria cooked, Eva, Heloise and I helped Jerome unpack his books and arrange them on an empty shelf in the library.

‘Does Byron go before Baudelaire, Helly?’

‘Whoops. No,’ Heloise giggled.

Jerome rumpled her curls. He pulled stacks of books from the boxes and passed them to us, and we slotted them into alphabetical order. There were art books, some exhibition programmes, a number of Lawrence novels, books of Australian history and a few hefty law books, and many slim volumes of poetry, from the metaphysicals to Pound and Eliot.

‘Ah, here we go,’ said Jerome, straightening from the box and holding up a red-bound book. ‘The collected poems of Shelley. This is for you, Lily.’

‘Thank you.’ I placed the book on the floor to take upstairs later.

‘Why is it for Lily?’ asked Eva.

‘I said I’d lend it to her.’

‘When?’

‘We ran into each other in the garden yesterday morning,’ said Jerome. He handed another stack of books to Heloise, who frowned and began to whisper her way through the alphabet.

‘I was telling him that we read Ozymandias at school,’ I explained. ‘And he said it was the worst one.’

‘Well, maybe not the worst,’ said Jerome, smiling at Eva, who nodded.

‘What should I read then?’ she asked him.

‘Well,’ said Jerome. He reached for the glass of wine sitting on the coffee table. ‘Let’s see. I think you might be more of a modern girl, am I right?’

‘Maybe,’ said Eva, looking pleased.

‘What about some Eliot? Maybe not The Wasteland straight away, but eventually, I think you’d like it.’

‘What about me?’ Heloise asked.

‘Goodness. This is a big responsibility,’ said Jerome. ‘Here, Eva, here’s some more. Hmm. Heloise, I think you might like to start with some Blake. Maybe we can read some tomorrow when you’ve finished your lessons.’

‘Alright, let’s,’ said Heloise.

Evan appeared in the library door, bringing with him a cloud of turps. He was rubbing his paint-stained hands with a wetted cloth, and the skin of his fingers was a damaged white where he had scrubbed it free of pigment.

‘Glad to see you’re putting my girls to work, Jerome,’ he said. ‘But I have been informed that I must fetch you all for dinner.’

We put down our books and filed out of the room.

I hung back and bent to pick up the volume of Shelley’s poems. ‘Thank you,’ I said, waving the book at Jerome.

‘You’re very welcome.’ He smiled and lifted his glass before following Evan out of the room.

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