The Dragonfly by Kate Dunn

Author:Kate Dunn [Dunn, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Virginia Prize, France, prison, canals, family, boating
ISBN: 978-1-911501-04-6
Publisher: Aurora Metro Books
Published: 2017-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

Living in a state of permanent anticipation was grinding Michael down, he felt as if he was trying to second guess his own second guesses. The hobbit shop was the worst: the whispering, the sudden noise to act as a diversion, the sleight of hand – what he had mended, broken; what he had lost, found; tires slashed, air released, rags stolen, washers missing. It was unrelenting. He couldn’t believe that Belfiore, his loose-lipped, heavy-limbed colleague on the bench, could be that adroit. He ended up suspecting everyone, even the kangas, who seemed to enjoy the sport. He didn’t think he’d get a single bicycle stripped down and rebuilt. He’d be repairing his own repairs until the end of time.

“Fight back. Show ’em who’s boss.” Laroche was ruling pencil lines on a plain sheet of paper. “You don’t have to suck it up,” he looked at him darkly. “Unless of course you want to…”

“I don’t want to.”

“… maybe that’s your style.”

“I don’t have a – style.”

“’xactly. That’s your problem. Dunno how you’re going to manage when I’m gone.”

“You’re no help. You’re not there.”

“The Lord moves in a mysterious way.”

“Are you going?” Michael asked with a pang of anxiety.

“Trial coming up. All good things come to an end, Rosbif.”

“I wish,” he said, “I wish.”

After a moment, Laroche put his pencil and ruler down. He folded his arms and regarded Michael with a sardonic gaze that travelled the whole length of him. “I don’t think you did it.”

“Did what?”

“Killed your missis wot you miss so much. Don’t think you did. Don’t think you’ve got the cojones. That’s c-o-j-o-n-e-s, but the j is silent – am I right?

Tension jerked through Michael, the quick yank of it in every tendon. “You are right. The j is silent.”

“You haven’t got the ’nads, the family jewels…”

“It was a – a single moment. A loss of–”

“The bean bags… the walnuts… the dangly bits… the spunk bunkers.”

“Shut up, Laroche!”

“Have you?”

“Look, this is none of your fucking business.”

“I said the moment I saw you, you wouldn’t – hurt – a – fly.”

Michael took a breath but before he could protest, something was released inside him and he stopped anticipating, or trying to appease. Instead, he grabbed Laroche by the shoulders and hauled him upright. He didn’t hit him. He wanted to, but he didn’t. He shook him once, with all his might, and threw him back into the chair.

“Enough,” he said.

The room was full of compressed air. You could have heard a pin drop.

Laroche was the first to exhale. “That’s how you do it,” he said wryly as he set himself straight, “Like that, but rougher, yeah?” He tugged his sweatshirt back into place, then picked up the ruler that had fallen on the floor. “Could try harder, but at least it’s a start.”

~~~

There was a peculiar truce between them. The tiny space in their cell became prairie wide, the sparse furniture distant hides.

“I don’t want to talk,” said Michael, when Laroche opened his mouth to speak, “I’ve got nothing to say.

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