Glass by Patrick Wilmot

Author:Patrick Wilmot [Wilmot, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Jacaranda Books
Published: 2017-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY

I was writing up my notes on Stephen, on my new laptop; it made my old one look like a bar of hard soap. Sharon was in black knickers and a tee-shirt from the hotel, practicing her German by reciting Rilke’s Duino Elegies. Rilke’s language and rhythms were complex but she was doing a fantastic job, her accent much better than mine and when I stole a glance I saw she was looking proud of herself. Then I heard the cell phone ring. I picked up my new fancy phone but let the call go over to voicemail. The message was from Winston’s throw-away cell phone. ‘Taxi. Leroy. 2day 5PM.’ I showed it to Sharon and read the couplet she was working on over her shoulder as she read the note. ‘Every brute inversion of the world knows the disinherited/to whom the past no longer belongs, nor yet the future.’

Her face was set like plaster, she said nothing as she put the book down and walked to the kitchen. Rilke was complex but he made sense, at the rate Eddy was destroying the past not even the industry and efficiency of the Chinese could ensure the future he envisioned. Moses, Cairncross and Eddy belonged to this past but Eddy maybe had a reason for denying it. Tragedy had that effect on people. We all had a past determining what we did, even if we didn’t know it. When Sharon didn’t come out, I followed and found her looking out the window at the crews building the fancy houses above my place. The first rows were complete while bulldozers cut roads above and gardeners planted beds of red, blue and yellow flowers below. I was trying to remember what that flower seller said in Streetcar. Despite the brilliance, there was something of Williams’ decay about this relentless construction of modernity.

‘What’re you upset about? You know I have to see Winston. I can’t do a book on Eddy without him.’

‘I know Winston, we grew up on the same estate. He can take care of himself. I’m not upset.’

‘You are—okay, I’ll cook lunch, I’m good at pasta and sauce. You bought that Parmesan and I took a good Chianti from Miss Robotham. After we eat we can walk, then come back and rest.’

‘I already planned what we’re having and I know when you say rest it’s the last thing I’ll get!’ Women are so much smarter. While telling her not to worry, I was making elaborate plans for the last supper and the goodbye sex. ‘Since we came to your place for lunch Elena wants those mahogany floorboards. If she tells her cousin he’ll get it done. It’s not worth it. I talked to her but if she says anything to you, say how much you love our tiles.’

‘I do love your tiles – I’ve never seen blue like this. I like mahogany but I wouldn’t change this for wood. She seems to like getting new things.’

‘She’s had a tough life. She wants something different for the future.

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