Free Small Circle of Beings by Damon Galgut

his things from the house next week. He and Gloria are moving into a flat in town, close to where he used to stay, would you believe it … He smiles at
the thought. I wonder if he ever, when we first met, spoke of me this way. Anger suddenly stabs through me like a knife in the back.
    ‘How can you be so sure you’re not making a mistake?’
    He looks surprised at my snarl. ‘I’m not,’ he says seriously, wiping at his moustache with a serviette. ‘No one can ever be sure they’re not mistaken. That
doesn’t stop anyone from acting.’
    ‘Oh,’ I cry, and the table lurches at my fury. ‘You make me so angry, you do. How can you speak this way? This isn’t you, you don’t think like this
…’
    ‘It’s Gloria,’ he tells me. ‘She’s opened up another side of me –’
    I laugh at him, braying in my anguish. People in the coffee-shop are glancing at us from behind their cups. Unabashed, I go on: ‘She has done nothing! If anything has happened to you
it’s because of me, do you hear? Me!’
    He blinks at me, his mouth open. I shake my head, trying to clear it of the sight of him and to jolt my eyes into focus. There is coffee on the surface of the table, spreading in long ungainly
fingers towards him. ‘There’s no need …’ he begins, but trails off in exasperation.
    He sighs and reaches for another serviette.
    I have surprised myself. I had no idea such forces were in me, such jealousy and desperation. But the truth of my words lingers in my head: I am also, yes, I am also proud to have exacted the
passion from this man that has been my due for so long.
    It is the last meeting I have with Stephen for some time, having stalked from the coffee-shop while he called after me. It takes me many hours to calm down, but, even then, I retain a kind of
residual pride in my solitary state, my drab brown room. I visit the hospital only in the afternoon, when Stephen has been and gone. He has, apparently, discussed the matter with David, who seems
unaffected by the news.
    ‘Will I still see him?’
    ‘Of course,’ I say. ‘Over weekends and for holidays. That sort of thing. He isn’t going far, you know, just into town.’
    ‘Do you hate him?’
    ‘Of course not,’ I say. ‘Why should I hate him?’ I wonder whether Stephen has explained to David about Gloria MacIvor, with whom he will be living.
    ‘It’ll just be us,’ says David, ‘in the whole big house. You and me.’
    ‘And your grandmother,’ I whisper, seeing, as he does, the deserted homestead and we three wandering in it. I try to laugh.
    That night I write a letter to Stephen in which I lay out my demands. What has happened, I assert, is entirely his responsibility and, if he wants a divorce, he must obtain it himself. I
don’t care what grounds he finds, but I have no wish to set foot in court. The house is mine, with everything in it that first belonged to me. I expect money from him each month. I want to
keep my car. And David, should he live, is to stay with me.
    Should he live . I add this, I confess, with deliberate intent, to remind him of what is actually taking place. We have somehow, both of us, forgotten the tragedy unfolding in our midst.
It is now only with rage that I am able to think of the part Stephen has had to play.
    It is terrible, I know, but I try to win David over. ‘Aren’t you sad,’ I ask him, ‘because he doesn’t visit you?’
    ‘He does visit.’
    ‘But when? I’m here every day, in the morning and the afternoon. Doesn’t it make you angry that he comes only for a while every two weeks or so?’
    He considers. ‘No.’
    ‘But you must,’ I persist, ‘you must want to see him more than that.’
    ‘No,’ he says, plucking at the sheet. He’s uneasy; he can sense that I’m driving at something he doesn’t understand.
    ‘Does he ever talk to you,’ I want to know, ‘about me?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Never? Does he never mention me? I can’t believe that.’
    ‘No,’ he says.
    I