Through Splintered Walls by Kaaron Warren

Author:Kaaron Warren
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780987216236
Publisher: Twelfth Planet Press

And then I met Angela.

I walked to her house because they had my car. I’d had a number of brandies: have another mate, and another.

Angela did two jobs. She was very lucky. She cleaned the rooms at the hotel and she took wedding photos.

I expected a middle-aged woman with children, aggressive, defensive, and crooked.

Then Angela opened the door.

Beautiful women have never bothered me. I know they have the same insecurities all women do, add loneliness, and they like you to talk about their personalities. Angela was beautiful and she saw right through me. The back of my head. All my secrets, and plans, all my shame.

Of course she didn’t. But she smiled, disarmed me. She said, ‘Come in,’ and I felt as if honey had dropped into my ears. I don’t know if her intention was to seduce me and make me forget about the thefts. If she brought the stuff out and laid it on my lap I’d have trouble recognising it.

‘Sorry to barge in,’ I said.

‘Don’t be silly. I invited you. I feel like I know you already.’ She smiled. I thought of my room, dirty underpants I found folded, scraps of letters, of course she knew me. She was a snoop, a spy.

‘The whole town’s talking about you,’ she said. ‘I hear you were talking to Mrs Rilke. Very brave.’ We had a small laugh at that.

‘How do you like our town?’ she asked. I had learned people didn’t want a truthful answer.

‘Very impressive,’ I said. She threw her head back and laughed, and for a moment I was appalled. She looked like a young Mrs Rilke.

‘I’m afraid I burnt your comics and books,’ she said suddenly.

‘Why would you do that?’

‘We’re not big believers in free speech and free press here. There’s some things best left unsaid, plenty of things left unread. I didn’t want to risk children getting hold of your things and being influenced.’

‘I could have just kept them in my bag.’

‘Yes, but we didn’t know what sort of man you were, did we? You may have been here to sell those things to our children.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I realise that now. And I’m genuinely sorry about your things. Maybe you’ll stay for lunch, let me make things up to you.’

‘I was just going to grab something then have a sleep. I’ve got to work tonight.’ I wasn’t sure what was happening, whether she really wanted me to stay or was just being polite. These people had taken me over too much. I felt Zed disappearing, some creature of their creation emerging.

‘You should stay,’ she said.

‘I’d love to, if you’ll give me another drop of brandy.’

I surprised her there. She laughed, and I felt it was the first genuine laugh I’d heard since arriving in Sky.

I sat on the couch. Her coffee table was covered with photo albums. ‘Your work?’ I said. She nodded. ‘None of them are very good,’ she said.

‘Let this big city boy be the judge of that,’ I said, and I started flicking through.

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