Girl A(21)

‘What’s this?’ Mother asked.

‘Where Mr Greggs went,’ Ethan said. ‘I’ve read about it. It’s just a way of talking about the American Frontier, when people first got to that part of the country. There weren’t any laws, just cowboys and pioneers, and saloon towns. It’s different today, but you can still go. You can go to Texas or to Arizona or to Nevada, or to New Mexico, which is where Mr Greggs went.’

Father set down the glass and leaned back in his chair.

‘So,’ Father said. ‘What you’re saying is that you and Mr Greggs are much cleverer than me. Is that it?’

I swallowed, hard; I thought that a bite of the kidneys might have lodged between my throat and my stomach.

‘No,’ Ethan said. ‘What I’m saying is that you were wrong about the Wild West. It is a real place, and Mr Greggs wasn’t making a fool out of me.’

‘What are you talking about, Ethan?’ Mother said.

‘Aren’t you listening?’ Father said. ‘He’s talking about how much better he is than the rest of us.’ To Ethan: ‘And what else would you like to teach the family? Please – do tell us more.’

‘I can tell you about the cowboys,’ Ethan said. ‘And one thing I read was about life as a pioneer. They received these letters, from other people on the frontier – from friends and family – telling them to go west—’

Father was laughing.

‘Do you know the problem with thinking that you’re so clever?’ Father said. ‘You become very boring, Ethan.’

Tears shook in Ethan’s eyes.

‘You just don’t like it,’ he said, ‘because I was right, and you were wrong.’

The way that Father moved reminded me of crocodiles in the nature documentaries that I liked at the time, their bodies placid until prey touched the water. Father stood up, lunged across the table, and slapped Ethan with the back of his hand, hard enough to knock him from the chair and send a dash of blood across the table. Delilah, woken by the clatter, started to cry. ‘I’m going to be sick,’ I whispered to Mother, and made it only a few steps from my chair. Father stepped past me – crouched on the carpet, and faced, yet again, with the kidney pudding – and opened the front door. He didn’t close it behind him, and the damp night air stole into the house and settled there.

Mother cleaned Ethan’s face, and my vomit, and Delilah. Already, little disappointments had tugged at her jawline and her breasts. She was becoming sullen; the sharp eyes of her childhood photographs were hard and resigned. She finished the leftover liquor in Father’s glass, then waited for him to return. She felt the tapping of the fresh child in her womb. The Parade marched on.

Some time deep in the night, Ethan returned. I could hear him downstairs, talking to Horace, and I fell asleep. When I woke up next, he was at the threshold, the hallway light behind him. I remembered another doorway, at Moor Woods Road; how he had filled that, too. In silhouette, he hadn’t changed.

‘Can we talk?’ he said.

The exposure of somebody awake while you’re sleeping. I wore thin, cheap pyjamas, purchased at the station. They had bunched at the stomach and between my legs. I wrapped the sheets up to my neck, and squinted into the light. ‘Now?’ I said.

‘You’re my guest. Aren’t you supposed to entertain me?’

‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I think it’s the other way around.’

He closed the door behind him. Into the room came the smell of tired wine. For a moment, before he found the light switch, we were in the dark together.

‘How did it go?’ I said.

He was leaning against the wall, smiling like he knew something I didn’t.

‘The best part of it,’ he said, ‘is watching them trying to decide if they want me to succeed or to fail.’

He paused, back in the hotel bar. I could see from his face that he was pleased. Had known exactly what to say. He had lobbed his slights, and they hadn’t yet landed; they would hit the governors in bed, midway through the night.

‘Anyway. How was your evening? You and Ana.’

‘It was nice.’

‘Nice. Nice how?’

‘What do you want, Ethan?’

‘I’d like to know what you talked about,’ he said. ‘For starters.’

‘Nothing. The wedding. Her dress. The island. Nothing very exciting.’

‘Moor Woods Road?’

‘It’s not really Saturday-night conversation. Is it?’

‘I’d like you to know,’ he said, ‘that things are good for me, now. But I can’t deal with interference, Lex. I can’t deal with your stories, at a time like this.’

‘My stories?’ I said. I was starting to laugh.

‘I’ve had to be selective,’ he said, ‘with what I’ve said to Ana. You understand that. I don’t want to upset her. There are things – certain things – that she doesn’t need to know.’

‘Are there?’ I said. Laughing harder, now. ‘Certain things?’

‘Stop laughing, Lex,’ he said. ‘Lex—’

He crossed the room and took me by the throat. Palm crushed against the cram of tubes and bone. Just for a second; just long enough to show me that he could. As soon as he let go, I clambered from the bed, coughing with the shock of it.