Free [Revolutions 03] The Newton Letter by John Banville

innocently into the road down which the lorry
is hurtling. A tremendous clap of thunder broke above
our heads. “By Christ,” Edward said mildly. He turned
to Charlotte. A glass of whiskey had appeared in his
hand out of nowhere.
    “Well?” he said. “What do you think?” She shook
her head. “You’ll have to sell, you know,” he said,
“sooner or later.”
    There was a silence, and once again I had that sense of them all turning away from me toward some black
awful eminence that only they could see.
    “We,” Charlotte said, so softly I hardly heard it;
“ we , you mean.”

    I listened to them fighting all evening long, doors slamming,
the radio switched full on and as suddenly silenced,
and Edward shouting between pauses in which
I pictured Charlotte in tears, her face a rain-washed
flower lifted imploringly to his. More than once I started
to go up to the house, with some wild idea of calling
him out, and then subsided helplessly, fists like caricatures
clenched before me. The rain stopped, and late
sunlight briefly filled the garden, and through the
drenched evening an incongruous blackbird began to
sing. I felt vaguely ill. A knot of nerves seethed in my
stomach. At last I heard the front door bang, and the
car bumped down the drive and sped towards town. I
drank a glass of brandy and put myself to bed. I was
still awake when there came a knock at the door. I leapt
up. But it was only Ottilie. She smiled in mock timidity.
“Am I allowed to come in?” I said nothing, and poured
her a brandy. She watched me, still smiling, and biting
her lip. “Listen I’m sorry,” she said, “about the other
day. It was a stupid—”
    “Forget it. I’m sorry I hit you. There. Cheers.” I
sat on the sofa, pressing the glass to my still heaving stomach. I nodded in the direction of the house. “Fireworks.”
    “He’s drunk,” she said. She was wandering about
aimlessly, looking at things, her hands thrust in her
pockets. “I had to get out. She’s just sitting there, doped
to the gills, doing the martyr as usual. It’s hard to have
sympathy all the time . . .” She looked at me: “You
know?”
    The light was fading fast. She switched on a lamp,
but the bulb blew out immediately, fizzing. “Jesus,” she
said wearily. She sat down at the table and thrust a hand
into her hair.
    “What’s going on,” I said, “are they going to sell
the place?”
    “They’ll have to, I suppose. They’re not too happy
with old Prunty. He’ll get it, though, he’s rotten with
money.”
    “What will you do, then?”
    “I don’t know.” She chuckled, and said, in what
she called her gin-and-fog voice: “Why don’t you make
me an offer?—Oh don’t look so frightened, I’m joking.”
She rose and wandered into the bedroom. I could hear
the soft slitherings as she undressed. I went and stood
in the doorway. She was already in bed, sitting up and
staring before her in the lamplight, her hands clasped
on the blanket, like an effigy. She turned her face to me.
“Well?” Why was it that when she took off her clothes,
her face always looked more naked than the rest of her?
    “He’s not much of a salesman,” I said.
    “Edward? He was different, before.”
    “Before what?”
    She continued to gaze at me. I suppose I looked a
little strange, eyes slitted, jaw stuck out; suspicion, anger,
jealousy—jealousy!—itches I could not get at to
scratch. She said: “Why are you so interested, all of a
sudden?”
    “I wondered what you thought of him. You never
mention him.”
    “What do you want me to say? He’s sad, now.”
    I got into bed beside her. That blackbird was still
singing, in the dark, pouring out its heedless heart. “I’ll
be leaving,” I said. She was quite still. I cleared my
throat. “I said, I’ll be leaving.”
    She nodded. “When?”
    “Soon. Tomorrow, the weekend, I don’t know.”
I was thinking of Charlotte. Leaving: it was