The Competition by Katherine Collette

Author:Katherine Collette [Katherine Collette]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2021-12-16T00:00:00+00:00

Keith

Keith couldn’t wait to tell someone what Roger had said. The deep satisfaction of knowing something other people didn’t was maximised if you were able to tell one other person. But who could he tell? Someone who was in the SpeechMakers world, who’d appreciate knowing—that excluded Frances—and understand the implications of what was being proposed—there went almost everyone else. It had to be someone as obsessed as he was.

He hadn’t come up with anyone when his phone began to vibrate in his pocket. Linda again. How strange, calling twice in such a short space of time. Maybe she was stuck in a lift or the car had broken down, or…She was coming to Brisbane? She might be asking where to go or what hotel he was staying in. It was what he’d been hoping for, he told himself, staring at the phone for so long it rang out.

Should he call back? Would he prefer to know Linda was coming or know that she wasn’t? What if she called a third time, during the speeches?

If he turned the phone off she’d know he was ignoring her. He’d better call back.

Keith hit Linda’s number, blocking out the noise around him with the phone pressed hard to one ear and his finger stuck in the other.

She picked up straight away and said what she’d called to say, which wasn’t what Keith had envisaged at all.

The cat was dead. Tinks, their old ginger tabby. ‘I know you didn’t like her,’ said Linda and Keith said no, that wasn’t it at all, he was allergic. The cat made him sneeze. This was a distinction he felt—though Keith knew how Linda felt about distinctions—was worth clarifying.

He added that he was sorry Tinks was dead, and it seemed for once he’d said the right thing.

Linda was different on the phone.

He couldn’t pinpoint how, exactly. Sad, yes, but also… nice? She said she wasn’t coming to Brisbane, but not unkindly, and she wished him luck. That’s all she’d ever wished him, she said.

This was all so unsettling. Keith considered telling her everything that had happened: Randall’s death, the vote, the motion…He even started to, saying this year’s championship was more interesting than last year’s because—

Linda said, ‘Well, it couldn’t be less interesting,’ and laughed harshly.

Keith had forgotten this, how she laughed at things and made them seem trivial. He’d never liked it. He couldn’t understand, himself, why a person would want to jump around to music and tell people what weights to lift—but he’d understood some people, like her, did. It struck him now as lacking in generosity, her scorn for a passion she didn’t share. It seemed miserly.

He cut the call short, telling her he’d better go otherwise he wouldn’t get a seat in the hall, though this wasn’t true. Judy was saving him one.

When he’d hung up, Keith wondered why he felt disappointed. Linda had called, they’d spoken. It was what he’d wanted, and yet he’d been itching to get off the phone.

What had changed? Something at her end, perhaps…Oh yes, it was the dead cat.

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