Borrowed Time by David Mark

Author:David Mark
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781448304219
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2020-01-12T16:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FOUR

The Basil Pot, Bridge Street, Portsmouth

4.09 p.m.

The old man sips his glass of hot water and lights an untipped cigarette that he has extracted from a crumpled packet. When he strikes the match, Zara finds herself afraid that the strange aroma which engulfs him might be methane, and that he will explode, damply, like a compost heap.

‘You’re sure that’s all you want,’ she asks the man, and her voice is still teary, like a violin string wound to the very brink of snapping.

‘Coffee gives me heartburn and tea dries my mouth out,’ says the man, with what sounds like a London accent. ‘Hot water does me fine.’

‘Makes me think of drinking my bathwater,’ says Zara, with a girlish smile.

‘I’ve never drunk your bathwater,’ says the man. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

Zara dabs again at her eyes with the neat white handkerchief that he handed her as he picked her up off the floor and steered her to the nearest table. Her eyes are seamed red and she knows they will be puffy tomorrow. She says so to the man, as he sucks another inch off his cigarette, and then extinguishes it between forefinger and thumb.

‘You’re a looker,’ says the man, and a dribble of pinkish liquid runs down his chin. A piece of his lip has peeled off, attached to the cigarette.

‘Not today,’ says Zara.

‘Well, you’re prettier than I am.’

Zara picks up her second glass of vodka, but puts it down again before it reaches her lips. She doesn’t want to drink or smoke or eat or be held, or not be held, and she feels her skin prickle again as the enormity of it all presses down upon her.

‘Whatever it is, can be fixed,’ says the man, as he spots the dampness returning to her eyes. ‘You must have a nice young man who can make it all better.’

Zara blinks and gives in to another sob. She hates herself for showing weakness like this, but she can’t seem to stop. She feels mummified with ribbons of misery, and this big old man, with his sores and his wounds and his strange smell, seems a kindly soul who genuinely wants to listen. She felt strength in him as he picked her up. She saw tenderness in his face, and a competence, a knowledge, like a transfer stuck over the mismatched lenses, the black and white eyes. His face, almost cartoonish in its appearance, does not repulse her, but intrigues. She, with her piercings and paints, her shaved head, her short skirts, finds herself admiring his uniqueness; a compulsion to touch the shiny, gnarled skin that clings to his skull like a melted carrier bag.

So she tells him. She tells him that she has a man whom she adores in a way she didn’t think was possible, and that he has ridden in on a white charger and given her and her family everything they could wish for, but that she fears it is all becoming too much for him, and she has done the sums and knows that he can’t afford to keep looking after them all like this.

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.