Free Juggling the Stars by Tim Parks Page A

his father’s to give him a certificate which said he had an ulcer. Mamma had had an accident which made her deaf in one ear, Antoneila was studying law, Paola had a crush on a married man and wanted to go away for a year to get over it but Mamma …
    It really wasn’t too difficult at all, Morris thought. As long as the absence of that bra wasn’t supposed to be a signal for something or other. At eleven, he said quite abruptly that he had to be going to Vicenza next morning. In fact, he’d have to be making a very early start. Very.
    Better get to sleep now then, she said. She had found his brush and was brushing out her long black hair, which under the spotlamps had strange reddish lights in it. Should she, she asked, sleep on the sofa, or would he? He would, Morris said, rather too quickly, too gallantly.
    Where would you find a nice girl like that in England? he asked his stolen statue, undressing. All he could remember from university parties were vamps and sluts who ignored you when you couldn’t dance and then rediscovered you later when you were the only one free or sober and tried to drag you back to their rooms as if you were so much hot meat. Obviously there was something to be said for the Catholic provinces after all. He had chosen well.
    Though not so well with the sofa perhaps. For eight hours he had half slept, huddled into a question mark, waking occasionally to the dog’s barking, his teeth clenched, tongue sore.
    Now, with the first morning light streaming in like a great boiling white girder against the red material of that sofa, Morris rotated his head to chase out the cricks from his neck.
    â€˜How much is there?’ he asked involuntarily, knowing he shouldn’t. But the idea was already there. And ideas, like weapons, can’t be uninvented. (Speaking of weapons, Morris had a nasty habit, an illness he sometimes thought, of seeing them everywhere. He could hardly butter his toast of a morning without respectfully fingering the handle of the knife, inescapably aware of its terrible potential.)
    â€˜Two million. That’s all I had in my account. But if we live cheaply we can last a while I think, untill one of us gets a job or something.‘ She stopped. ‘Don’t you have to go to Vicenza today though?’
    â€˜Look Mimi' - it was the first time he had used the diminutive form of her name, ‘it’s only going to take them about one hour to call all your friends and work out you must be with me, right? Then about another hour to contact my school and get my address and they’ll be over here determined to take you away.’
    She was silent.
    â€˜So if you want to stay with me, we'll have to go on a trip, otherwise they’ll force you home. They could even arrive any minute.’
    â€˜Yes,’ she said dubiously. ‘The only thing is, though, I should stay in Verona in case Grandma gets any worse. They had to take her to the hospital yesterday.’
    He swallowed the coffee she had made for him and looked at her, making sure that that new little smile didn’t play about the edge of his lips.
    'It’s one or the other,’ he said tenderly. ‘Home or the trip. But we can’t stay here. Grandma or no Grandma.’
    If she says home, he thought, then fine, well and good. But if she goes, for the trip … Morris suddenly felt his whole body swimming and tingling with blood, his trousers tight round the crotch.
    â€˜You can always,’ he said, ‘phone as soon as we’re away and then come back if she gets really bad.’
    â€˜Yes,’ and she smiled brightly. ‘Yes.’ She leaned down from where she was standing by the table with the sculpture and photograph of his mother, and ruffled his blond hair with her fingers. ‘Let’s go on a trip then, Morri. Let’s! That would be marvellous,’ and she bent down to kiss his mouth.
    â€˜Right.’ Morris was already standing