The Immaculate by Mark Morris

Author:Mark Morris
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781428502796
Publisher: Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

9

WASPS

For an instant after seeing his old adversary, Jack was reduced to a state of almost schoolboyish alarm. A thought flared in his mind: I’ve got to get out of here. Then the adult barged in, pushing the child aside, speaking in a calm, reasonable voice. Don’t be silly, Jack, you’re a grown man now. Bates is a responsible citizen, a publican. He’s hardly likely to start beating up his customers, is he?

Jack relaxed—a little. He picked up his glass and took another gulp from it, peering at Bates over the rim. His old enemy looked older than his thirty-six years. His florid complexion and expansive gut were evidence of his love for his own beer. He had always had thick hair, but now he was balding rapidly, and what hair he did have was cropped close to his scalp. And yet strangely, for all this, Jack thought that Bates hadn’t really changed that much. He was wearing a grey Adidas sweatshirt and ill-fitting jeans, the kind that had a knee-level crotch and were low-slung at the back to reveal a bulging, hairy expanse of bum cleavage.

Tracey, sitting across from Jack, said, “Seen something interesting?”

In the last few moments he had almost forgotten she was there. Now he turned his attention back to her and thought he saw a gleam in the girl’s eyes that unsettled him. It was so fleeting he was not even sure he had seen it, and yet he couldn’t shake off the feeling that she had been gazing at him with an expression of . . . triumph? Eagerness? As if she had been relishing his shock. He considered telling her the truth, making a joke of it, but unease prevented him from doing so. He also considered, albeit briefly, wandering over to Patty Bates and saying, “Remember me?”

In the end, however, he simply shook his head and smiled. “No,” he said, “just looking around.”

She raised her eyebrows and her face slipped back into its expression of sullen arrogance, which she wore like a symbol of her youth.

Jack sighed. All at once he felt tired, impatient. He had had a lot to cope with today, and felt a need to speak to Gail, or, failing that, to be on his own. He looked at his watch, drained his glass. “Look, it’s been nice meeting you,” he said, “but I’ve got to go.”

She shrugged, striking the pose of the nihilistic teenager. “Okay,” she said as if she couldn’t care less. “See you.”

Jack felt an urge to blurt out scornful laughter at her attitude, or to shake her angrily and tell her how artificial she was, how transparent. But she would probably only have glared at him and curled her lip and sneered that he was too old to understand. Each successive generation reinvented rebellion and claimed it as their own. Jack had been there himself, fifteen years ago, during the heady, vibrant days of the Madchester scene. He’d believed then that the music of bands like

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.