The Black Peacock by Rachel Manley

Author:Rachel Manley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cormorant Books Inc.
Published: 2017-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

the black peacock

LETHE

I awoke in the middle of the night certain I’d heard a voice calling. It made me think of Jacob, of women always calling him, on the phone, across rooms, through windows at night, or to the sound of some disembodied cry. But this was Daniel’s home. Daniel reminded me of Jacob. His tendency to be secretive. I knew Blanca had liked him. So had Henny, though Daniel disagreed. He’d kept Helen a secret from me. I inadvertently observed him many times leaning intently into seemingly tender and intimate conversations with various girls at the soda fountain or the students’ union. I once saw him on campus holding hands with an Australian girl with orangey hair. He had no idea I’d seen him. Students spoke of him as a ladies’ man. Helen I discovered in a photograph. Later he’d had a brief second marriage that I would never have known of if I hadn’t come home for an operation in Jamaica. I would never have trusted him as a lover. Women often tried to contact Jacob or Daniel through me. They would become enamoured after reading one of their columns and I’d be approached for an introduction. Occasionally I have unwittingly acted as a procurer for one or the other.

Was a woman calling to Daniel now? But as I waited quietly in the dark the windmill remained silent, just softly bathing in endless night rain.

I lay in bed thinking.

Henny. I was on campus one evening studying in my room, when there was a knock on my door. On opening it there she stood all sturdy, an immovable force, her eyes that strenuously avoided me now fixed on me unblinking. She’d never visited me or spoken to me before. Now she looked like a statue planted in front of me, quite unavoidable.

She took a deep breath like a soprano preparing to sing, and spoke on a single ominous breath at my direction:

“A snail impaled upon a thorn.”

Then, as abruptly as she appeared, she left.

What the hell did that mean?

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