The Blind Light by Stuart Evers

Author:Stuart Evers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

10

In bed they have sex. They feel further apart from each other as they do, Gwen thinks, though she intended for it to do the opposite. When he did what she likes him to do, she itched her stomach, her arms. He was impatient and she had to slow him, tell him gently, gently. She didn’t know what was on his mind, but she knew the book was distracting her. He is impatient inside of her now. He comes and quickly rolls off her body. At that moment, she misses cigarettes, the way smoking one shifts the atmosphere from mutual desire to selfish whim.

They lie in silence for some time. She goes to the bathroom, comes back, cuddles up to Drum.

‘What did Carter want?’ she says.

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Absolution. Something like that.’

‘Is he having an affair?’ she says. ‘Daph thinks he’s having an affair.’

‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘He doesn’t talk to me about that stuff any more.’

‘Was that good?’ she says.

‘What?’ he says.

‘You know,’ she says.

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s always good.’

‘I thought you were a bit distracted.’

‘No,’ he says. ‘Just a bit surprised, that’s all.’

He smiles and he looks far enough away to join Raymond Porter on his island of curiosities.

‘I hope she’s okay,’ he says.

‘Who?’

‘Annie.’

‘She’ll be fine.’ Gwen says.

‘Melissa’s mother’s a strange one. Kept washing the same dish. Over and over, washing the same dish.’

He rolls over towards her.

‘I should have called her,’ he says. ‘I should have checked everything was all okay.’

‘She’s sixteen,’ Gwen says. ‘She’ll be fine.’

‘I know she will,’ he says.

He kisses her on the cheek.

‘You mind if I read?’ Gwen says.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Go ahead.’

She turns on the bedside lamp. She looks at the book. She’s thought more about the book than her absent child. Thought more about Vanuatu than a place a few miles up the road. She’s seduced her husband and thought of the book and not her child. She says a small prayer to the huckster God and ghost of Old Nick, prays for her mortal soul.

‘Don’t stay up too long,’ Drum says.

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