Free The Ecliptic by Benjamin Wood Page A

her eyes absorbing the scenery.
    There was a brilliant, flooding sunshine. On all sides, ferries were traversing the inky water in slow motion, oblivious to everything except their course between the islands. Most of the
snow-scabbed houses and apartment blocks of Heybeliada stood dormant, just a few curls of smoke from a few stubby chimneys far away. At the Naval Academy, the parade ground was vacant of marching
cadets, and the restaurants on the promenade had nobody to serve. We could see the clock tower of the Greek Orthodox church from where we were, too, and the outlines of horses in the paddock across
the bay; the old theological school, high on its northern summit, was framed by a narrow arc of sunlight that seemed to angle from the clouds like a projector beam. I expected this would remind
MacKinney of how privileged we were to be at Portmantle, hovering above the world, subtracted from it. It usually did us good to remember that the clockwork of the world never stopped, that history
was already forgetting us. But MacKinney crossed her arms and said, ‘I don’t know how much longer I can stay here.’
    I moved closer to the parapet, looking down at the moss-grown shelf over the portico, the thawing gardens and studio lodgings. It was difficult to judge MacKinney’s mood. We had eased one
another through gloomy spells so often it had become a kind of running joke between us: ‘Will you help me dig a tunnel?’ I would ask her sometimes; or if I caught her doodling on a
napkin, she might say, ‘Planning our escape.’ Now she seemed to be stricken with something more than her usual disquiet—a deeper hurt I could not reach—and she was resistant
to the normal platitudes. I wondered if it might all be related to the boy somehow. ‘There isn’t a person here who isn’t tired of it, Mac. We have to keep going. Work through
it.’
    ‘You think I’ve been sitting on my hands all this time?’
    ‘No. That isn’t what I said.’
    ‘I’ve tried everything. Nothing fits, nothing feels right. I can’t even put down a simple stage direction without questioning myself. Sooner or later, I’m going to have
to surrender. It’s clear I don’t have another play in me. Whatever talent I might have had once—it’s long gone.’
    ‘Just write what you believe.’
    ‘
What?
Is that serious advice?’
    ‘I don’t know what else to say.’
    Ardak came out from the portico beneath us, carrying his ladders back to the outhouse. As he walked, the rungs cast beautiful zoetrope shadows on the sunlit lawns and, for a moment, I lost track
of where I was.
    ‘Knell—are you even listening?’
    I turned to find Mac squinting at me. ‘Of course.’
    The intermittent shine had got me thinking of the squeezebox in the dusty space beneath my mother’s bed, the lolloping weight of the instrument in my hands, how the lamplight used to
shimmer on the metal when I took it out.
    ‘So you really don’t mind? I’ve lost all my objectivity on it now, but I think it’s the only thing worth developing.’
    ‘What is?’
    ‘The scene I’ve just been telling you about. The monologue. Jesus, Knell, you were nodding along while I was talking. Did you not hear
anything
?’
    I apologised, and this seemed to placate her. If I had known how much of the conversation had skipped by me, I would have confessed to it. ‘Sorry. It might not have been such a good idea
to come up here on an empty stomach.’ I felt totally disoriented.
    ‘Let’s go down then,’ Mac said. ‘We’ll get some
salep
and go to my room. You can read it there. It won’t take long.’
    Once I was back through the hatch, I felt better. There was a pleasant sawdust smell about the attic and a satisfying closeness to the walls. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to ask Q to read
it, or one of the other writers? I don’t know if it’s right, involving me like this. We ought to keeps things as they are.’
    Mac put her arm around me. ‘Quickman will only bring