Free A Case of Knives by Candia McWilliam Page B

Flo, plain and regnant. What I then saw was what I had wanted – Hal talking to Cora, his pale head inclined over the white and black and silver to her dark one. Her mouth was as loose as though he had only just let it go. I was as jealous as sin.

Chapter 8
    At midnight, Tertius left; he was drunk. He said he would drive Cora home, but this made Daniel offer to do so. His car had been adapted to his hands. The head of the gear stick was a gel-filled knob, so that his metal fingers could have purchase. Cora said goodbye to Anne, smiled brokenly at Hal, and came to stand next to me in the cold doorway.
    ‘Thank you so much. Perhaps I could do something for you?’ and she kissed my cheek. She did not have to strain up to do so, as most women do, but gave a little lift because she was wearing her grey slippers, no snakes or telephones.
    Would Hal stay with me? If I could have my desire that night, it would be to sit and discuss the evening with him. I miss this joy. My parents had it. They gave it to me.
    ‘Well, that was a good enough feed, Luke,’ he said. He spoke to me in this caricature of buddyspeak for Anne’s benefit, as if she had not thought out the nature of my love for him.
    ‘It was lovely, Lucas,’ she said. ‘And now let me stretch out.’ I saw that she had decided to stay, that it was with her I would have to go through the evening. I did not mind so much.
    ‘I’ve got to ease now, Lucas, in fact, as I said I’d meet a couple of friends. Who was the tall one in the great clothes anyway? I could favour her.’
    I felt as though I had to eat the tip of my own tongue, cut off. In choosing the girl for Hal was I cutting off my nose to spite my heart? I thought I was ensuring that he went to someone whom I could make certain was a cypher, so that I could keep him all mine.
    ‘She’s a friend of mine, actually, she’s been up to Stone,’ said Anne, saving me and saving Cora the slur in Hal’s eyes of having been procured by me. ‘And now off you go like a nice boy please.’
    She was sparing me pain yet I could have slapped her for it. I knew that had Hal stayed to talk he would not have stayed to sleep with me, yet I said to myself that I was angry because I wanted to trail more bait towards the gingerbread house of marriage to Cora.
    ‘Well, you two look set fair for a cosy and I must fly,’ he said, putting his hand into the silky dark tunnels of his greatcoat’s arms. He buttoned up. Dressing, the fastening and knotting and tying and lashing, the closing of gaps, must be for a child the first test of dexterity unconnected with the body’s feeding. Hal pulled from his pocket a pair of black leather gloves; he inserted his hands and pulled at the wrists to install every digit. They moved like crabs. ‘I’ll ring you,’ he said. ‘I’d like the big one’s number.’
    He left the flat. I followed him out into the hall, its cold floor the colour of brawn. There was a lavatory smell of disinfectant, no longer the warm scent of my safe flat.
    ‘More your turn-on out here, is it not?’ said Hal. He had not done this before, directly referring to how I spent my lust for him on others. I was shocked, and then told myself that it was after all quite natural for a young man contemplating marriage to be sickened by my life. If only he would let me explain.
    ‘Hal, darling . . .’
    He opened the outside door and looked at the mounting clouds, high in the sky. His hair streamed straight. The low barges on the canal swung at their moorings. The water reprimanded the sides of the canal.
    ‘Lend me an umbrella, please, would you, and thank you more than I can say for a good evening,’ he said, like a boy leaving a children’s party. I gave him my best umbrella, shining silk, shining wood, shining metal, taking it from the tall stand by the door. I hooked it over his left forearm, insinuating it and letting its ferrule hang against his side. It is not normal after six years to perceive in such