by Susan Finlay
‘Look, I’m sorry to be rude but I’m meant to be Skyping someone in an hour or so, so I’m going to have to, err . . . ’ said David.
‘But I thought that you might want to have a quick game of Warhammer.’
‘Well normally I’d love to but, err . . . ’
‘Tomorrow then?’
‘Well you see the thing is that I’m actually pretty, err, busy these days and, err . . . ’
David allowed his lies to trail off and remained standing at the door, until Paul finally got to his feet and despondently sloped past him. Then he threw himself down onto his bed and pushed his face into his pillow, then rolled over onto his side and reached for the packet of nicotine gum, which he could now see had fallen between separate piles of rubbish on the floor. He popped out a piece and put it in his mouth, and began to chew, the medicinal taste making him wince with displeasure. He thought about how everyone who subscribed to his blog was either a conspiracy theorist or a teenage geek, and that, if he was going to be completely honest with himself, their comments lacked any kind of intellectual rigour.
He thought about his trip to the Cathedral, or more specifically, the conversation he’d had with Stan outside of it, Stan’s question as to whether he had lost people in the Holocaust, and his own uncertain mumblings in reply. In truth he had lost his paternal great-grandfather, two great-aunts and some of their cousins, who were also his great-cousins something removed, none of whom either he or his father had met. He knew that he had no claims to suffering, and could therefore only imagine, from the relative comfort of his not particularly comfortable flat, what such a state of being might actually entail . . . And then he thought about Meg again, who in reality had ignored his invitation to Skype and who he now decided that, for the present moment at least, he hated . . .
David spat out his nicotine gum. He got up off the bed and went back over to the desk. He logged onto his email, where there were still no new or unread messages, and then he thought well fuck you bitch, paused for a moment and clicked on ‘compose’:
Dear Professor Woźniak,
I am contacting you with regard to the recently advertised research position, which I believe would complement my current interests in post-modern magik and the role of ritual within a secular society. Please let me know if you would be free to discuss this further.
Warm Regards,
Dr Goldstein
Margaret of The Meadows Twinned with Basra and Belfast
MARGARET O’SHEA PERCHED ON THE edge of a large, overblown settee and bent her hand so that it resembled the top of a little table. She held it there for a moment or so before pulling her knuckles back until it resembled a little claw, and then she repeated each of these exercises five times. Then she took out her rosary, beginning, as always, with the Joyful Mysteries, but instead of inserting the extra prayer, as requested by the Blessed Virgin at Fatima, or even adding a quick Hail Holy Queen at the end, she whizzed straight through, put in her hearing aid, and waited.
Margaret waited for something she couldn’t quite imagine but at the same time was sure would come, and as she did so she pretended to read the Evening Post just in case Eoin came in now. The main headline said ‘More Snow Over Notts’, even though there was more snow over the whole of the UK and not just this one small corner of the East Midlands, while the subheadline stated ‘Woman Could Not Blink for Five Months’.
Margaret waited and listened to the sound of Eoin’s footsteps, which bore down through the ceiling above her, and on top of it the clock that just wouldn’t stop ticking; and as she continued to wait and to listen to both of these sounds they became jumbled up, not only with each other but also with all of the patterns and the puppies and the gilt-edged plates until she could hardly bear it anymore because surely, surely there must be other, more important things than snow or not blinking, and that surely, surely one of them must be about to break the spell and happen to her now?
Margaret stood up, shuffled slowly up the stairs to what was once again Eoin’s room, and then stood outside the door and waited. His footsteps had stopped, and in their place a faint, scratchy sound that could have been a chair being pulled back, or a pen nib against a piece of paper, or perhaps some other thing she hadn’t thought of yet even though she had racked and racked her brain in an attempt to cover every possibility; but she kept on waiting and listening, and then after a minute or so she raised her voice and said, ‘Can I come in?’
The scratching stopped and then: ‘I’m just in the middle of something Nana, but I’ll be down again soon I promise.’
‘Only I was going to make a cup of tea?’
‘Honestly Nana I’m fine.’
‘Well if you’re sure . . . ?’
Margaret stood and waited outside the door even though she now couldn’t hear any sounds at all. She wondered if Eoin was thinking about her or his mother, whose picture he had taken to carrying with him, or Kathy, whom Albertina claimed to have seen outside New College talking to an Indian woman; and then she shuffled back downstairs and went into the kitchen.
She was aware that her knees were aching less than usual and that her hand was able to grasp things better than usual and that her hearing aid, which still fizzed and crackled at all the wrong moments, was nevertheless bothering her slightly less than usual too; and then she wondered what on earth a supposedly nice, good Catholic girl like Kathy was doing talking to Muslims instead of being here with her and Eoin now?
Margaret shook her head and put the kettle on just as the clock struck twelve and then she began to say The Angelus simply because she always said The Angelus at that time of day. As soon as the water had boiled she poured it into the teapot, and as soon as the tea had brewed she poured it into her teacup – only she had forgotten about the broken spout, which made the water spurt unevenly all over her already damaged hand . . .
‘Be it done unto me according to Your Word,’ said Margaret, but did not go any further with her prayer.
Instead she picked up the kettle again, and poured the rest of its contents over the back of her other, weaker hand, while screwing up her eyes, until the whole of her body ceased to be a body and was just a vessel for the pain. Her eyelids flickered. Her broken hand twitched. And then she pressed her lips together so that what mustn’t get out stayed in.
Acknowledgements
Thank you to Hannah Westland, without whose support, encouragement and intelligent sensitivity this novel might not exist. Thank you also to the very charming Leonora Craig Cohen, Patrick Taylor, Anna-Marie Fitzgerald and all the other brilliant people at Serpent’s Tail. Likewise, thank you to my lovely agent Nicola Barr.
Thank you to Andreas Korte for being a great boyfriend and always having faith in my abilities.
Thank you to Tom Cowdrey for providing feedback on an early draft, and pointing out, quite rightly, that no one ever eats homemade custard creams.
Thank you to Meg and Vijayendra Bisineer for their advice on all things Lingayat; Katie Horwich and Caterina Lewis for their insights on being both secular and Jewish; Katy Soar for explaining just what you can and cannot get away with in a Geography Department; Omar Fazal and Tomasz John for sharing their experiences of communist Poland; and Jane Fawcett for accompanying me on my visits to the Hindu temple, and lending me the phrase ‘snakes with tits’.
Thank you to Elinor Cooper, Samantha Talbot and Mimei Thompson for their friendship in London, and to James Harding and Phoebe Blatton for their friendship in Berlin, as well as, in the latter case, introducing me to golonka and explaining all the ways her father’s name can be abbreviated.
Last but not least thank you to Tessa Baird and Jane Cheadle who have been my unofficial proof-readers, editors and life-coaches since forever and to whom, with much love, this book is dedicated.
Thanks for reading!
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