Free The Tyrant's Novel by Thomas Keneally Page A

certainly take soporifics. I would take the lot.
    I drank grape juice into which Jimmy had humanely inserted a considerable quantity of vodka. I had resolved my destiny. I was, in my head, halfway in the presence of my love. Colless had kindly written up a means of exit. Comforting myself with the certainty of my own obliteration, at ease with the idea that nothing could cause me fear or delight, I was surprised by the sudden jolt of blood brought on by the sight of someone from the past, the antique times of a week or so before. Mrs. Carter wore a shawl, and was coming to comfort me. In my crazed condition, I was convinced that she carried on her face a look of awful appeasement, and was delighted to welcome me, her substitute son, into the cold ring of victimhood. She appeared to me pleased that though I had had the impudence to avoid becoming one of the lost of Summer Island like her son, Sarah's faulty human vascular system had evened the score for me. The idea of her coming touch, of her taking my hand, filled me with terror. I dropped the glass of fortified fruit juice I had held, and rushed from the tent without apology. I weaved amongst graves to make pursuit difficult, then out the cemetery gates, and into the small garden farms beyond. Andrew Kennedy caught up with me as I stood gasping by an irrigation culvert.
    Don't worry, he said. Get your breath. Everyone understands, Jimmy and Sarah's mother understand. You're lucky in your in-laws.
    I didn't have any in-laws anymore. Andrew assured me we could go back to the car from here without risking any contacts. No one expected more of me.
    Since nothing much had been demanded of me for some days, I forgot about my laptop and about drowning it, and spent the rest of the day and early evening in the Kennedys' screening room—it wasn't large, but it was curtained and had one of those huge television screens generally seen only in the international hotels in town. I watched famous soccer games, war and murder movies. I sneered at love stories, laughed bitterly at everything—every depicted human concern and demise. Andrew sat next to me for a good part of the time, drinking whiskey, and Grace brought tea and food.
    As, towards midnight on the day of the burial, we watched a rerun of the last World Cup final between Brazil and Italy, Andrew filled me in on the details of the last time we failed to make the World Cup. The Others from across the straits had beaten us 3–2 with a penalty kick and, almost instantly afterwards, a goal, after we had been ahead 2–1 with five minutes to go. When our team arrived back at the airport in town, they and their officials were collected instantly by the Overguard, even before they had claimed their baggage, and driven in a bus from the tarmac to the Winter Hill Palace. Bemused wives, girlfriends, and children, gathered to console the heroes, still waited at the airport, expecting them to emerge from Customs, even as they were ushered into Great Uncle's presence. According to Andrew's story, Great Uncle sat behind a polished table with the Minister for Sport, one of his dumber stepbrothers, Albert Jenkins. He reproached the team and its management, particularly eyeing off Red Campbell, his remote kinsman, and Tony Barker, the unpopular team manager, known for a certain close-lipped arrogance. They all felt humiliated, one of the team's young defenders told Andrew later. It was a terrible thing for any man, simply in terms of his self-regard, to be despised and chastised by his head of state. They also felt a professional weight, knowing they would need to play with unchallengeable brilliance for the next four years if they wished to contest another World Cup. One would have thought they were adequately punished by now, said Andrew.
    But then Great Uncle called in Sonny, sometimes known in our polity as Football Sonny because of his passion for the sport—though he could also have been called Cocaine Sonny or Bimbo Sonny. If Great