The Undefeated by Una McCormack

Author:Una McCormack
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Three

BARELY A MONTH LATER Monica and her mother were at the capital, taking their leave of Sienna. The estate would take a while to settle, at least as far as Monica understood these things at the time, but there was already money available to make the long journey to the core. Later—much later, in fact, after Monica had seen considerably more of the ways the worlds worked—she realised that this must have come from selling the bonds of their jenjer. Most of these had been her mother’s, indisputably, brought with her when she married and went from the core to the periphery, but only one made the trip back—Lucy, her longtime companion. There had been nearly a dozen others, but Monica did not think about them at the time, did not question why they were not coming and where they were going instead.

The realisation came a long time later. A few months after the whole business with the famous writer was concluded (from her perspective at least), Monica found herself drinking shots late one night in the bar of a hotel. She fell to watching the bartender. He was very young and very handsome, and his eyes were the same shade of indigo as the marks on his flesh: a fairly standard adjustment, which naturalised what might otherwise seem like tattoos or a brand. She sat, lazily, rather drunk, chin on her hand, admiring him: his looks, his manner, the whole overall effect. After a little while, he became aware of her watching him, and he turned, slightly, and smiled at her before moving on. That movement did something . . . She remembered, suddenly, the young man who maintained their boat on the lake, with whom she might well have made a stupid mistake had she remained in Torello a year or two longer. She thought, What was his name? And before she could recall (she remembered only a few hours later, just before falling asleep, that he had been called Cory), she wondered, What happened to him? This made her think of the others—the small quiet army who had tended their house and their grounds and their whole way of life—and she pictured them one by one (even if she could not always think of what they had been called), and thought, What happened to them? And: Why did I never think of this before? Her answer came quickly, defensively: Because you were a child. (A child doesn’t ask these questions.) Monica finished her drink and went upstairs to bed, where the name returned at last and she fell into deep slumber. (An adult can, and must.)

Young Monnie, as yet unequipped to form such questions, never mind try to answer them, left Sienna with her grief paramount and her conscience free. They travelled for a while—Monica, her mother, and the companion—her mother saying that this trip, their itinerancy, was good for Monica, a real education, after those long years buried in that backwater. Monica thought of the summer

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.