Sex and Death by Sarah Hall

Author:Sarah Hall
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-07-24T16:00:00+00:00

VISITATION

Damon Galgut

Money had kept everything sweet for the last few years, but now it had all gone wrong. He was in bad trouble, and it was because of money. He couldn’t see any way out of the situation except to run, and so here he was, taking the train without telling anybody he was leaving, without saying goodbye.

From the moment he got on board he was reminded of what awaited him, what money had been protecting him from. Only poor people took the train these days. The other passengers were threadbare, stamped hard by life. The few white passengers in particular had something granular and common about them. He didn’t want to share a compartment with any of them.

He himself was young and attractive and liked to dress well, but he didn’t want to be noticed today. Although his suitcase was full of expensive clothes, he was wearing jeans and a green T-shirt, along with a cap and sunglasses. It was the way he’d looked when he’d first arrived in Cape Town seven years ago.

The train was quite empty and he was still alone in the compartment when the whistle blew. He took off his sunglasses and watched the city fall slowly away, though the mountain stayed visible for the first hour, a blue stain on the horizon, gradually diminishing. He was restless to begin with, lying down, standing up again, pacing the corridor. But as the train climbed away from the greener landscape at the coast toward the interior, he became more settled, and then introspective.

By the time they arrived at Laingsburg in the late afternoon, he’d been immobile in his seat for an hour, brooding on the turn that his life had taken. He was slow to become aware of a lone figure on the otherwise deserted platform, and only saw a passing glimpse of a sorry-looking old man, bald and battered, toiling with a heap of luggage toward the carriage door. Immediately he had an odd certainty that the old man would be with him in this compartment.

When the train pulled out again, the sun was going down. The reddish light gave a soft, benign look to the stony hills they were passing through, but the scrubby bushes, festooned with rags of plastic, were vibrating in a cold wind. After a few minutes nothing had happened and he started to relax.

Then came a knocking and a tugging at the compartment door.

‘Who is it?’ the young man called, though of course he knew.

‘It’s me, Corrie.’

He unlocked and opened the door. The old man was outside amidst his baggage. Two bulging suitcases, a rucksack and a plastic bag. All his life in these worn-out containers; you could see it at a glance.

‘I’m in here,’ the old man – Corrie – told him. Holding his ticket in his hand.

‘There’s lots of space,’ the young man said. ‘You could be on your own.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Don’t you want to be alone?’

He looked at the ticket, confused. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m in here.’

As he started stowing his luggage, the young man went out and down the corridor, looking into other compartments.

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.