Free Goya'S Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky Page B

tomorrow.”
    â€œWhat about the lessons?”
    â€œI know you are in your troubled times,” Edelweiss said, and Dacres thought he must have this speech ready. “Go tonight. Pack up your things, I will have the room cleaned, and we say nothing more about it. You are an artist, after all. But if you are still here in the morning …”
    Something in Dacres stirred.
    â€œEdelweiss, it is bloody raining you know.”
    They looked at each other.
    Dacres wanted to say, who are the great Swiss painters anyway? But he let it pass.
    â€œWell. Is there anywhere you can recommend?”
    Edelweiss said, “Go east. Five blocks. You’ll find some small hotels. Not quite what you’re used to but you will be comfortable.”
    â€œOh, doubtless.”
    Dacres’s throat was heavy and glum. He listened to the music and then gestured in the pianist’s direction: “You really should do something about him.”
    Edelweiss permitted himself a small smile.
    â€œWhere do you live, Edelweiss?”
    â€œWhere do I live?”
    â€œI’m not going to move in with you, I’m just curious. It’s odd I don’t know, I mean.”
    â€œWhy I live here—in the hotel.”
    â€œNo family then?”
    â€œNo family.”
    How was it, Dacres wondered, that in the weeks he’d known this man he hadn’t asked the most basic questions? Now this was probably the last conversation they would ever have. Dacres wanted to tell Edelweiss about his own past.
    â€œOr you can rent a room in a private house. That will be cheaper. Depending on how long you plan to stay, of course. You can pay two weeks at a time, with deposit.”
    Dacres thought of his bedsit in Broadhurst Gardens and rejected the idea.
    He smoothed the tablecloth to erase his scratches.
    He was already keen to be off.
    And then outside in the rain walking east he felt oddly jovial. He carried his cases with him two by two. He walked under neon through the drizzle humming a waltz. He must have taken a wrong turn, however, because he saw no hotels. Turning left off King Street there was a shabby row of pawnbrokers, which gave him pause—his wristwatch was suddenly heavy at the bottom of his arm. He walked closer: he saw violins and fur coats through the holes in the iron grates over the windows. Did I turn too soon? he asked himself. Had Edelweiss said right or left? A couple walked by, arguing in French about money; they were arm in arm, but gesticulated with their outer fins. Dacres felt the damp on his hands. He’d been too excited and angry to listen to Edelweiss’s directions properly (but then, he never listened to directions properly). He’d been too full of spirit and indignation. He’d also had the feeling that there was icing sugar on Edelweiss’s betrayal: it was good to be free and wandering, carrying your house upon your back. That was what life was supposed to be.
    But within an hour he was cold and tired and hungry and alone and miserable. Following streetcar tracks, assuming that they must eventually lead to a built-up area (the way if you follow a river you surely come to the sea—don’t you?), he had walked down a deadly looking empty avenue whose name he couldn’t ascertain. He had to keep his toes clenched to keep his feet dry, and there was a wet squelch with each uncomfortable step of his right foot. He was ready to retreat, cap in hand, to beg Edelweiss to reconsider, except all of a sudden he wasn’t sure which direction the hotel was in and didn’t want to ask. He couldn’t see a soul, it was as if a child’s great fishing net had scooped them all away. Except for the cars. One passed him now: its tires on the wet street sounded exactly like fabric ripping. The red lights on either side of the spare tire were reflected in the slick roadway: they gouged down into it like bloody scars on a seal’s back.
    â€œI should have stayed