The garden was a wreck. There were three or four upturned chairs, a splintered wooden table stained with red wine, several ashtrays full of cigarettes and rainwater; there was glass in the grass, and somebody had demolished the barbeque. The casement door was half open and a trail of muddy footprints led in and out of the living room. Every now and then the wind would catch the curtains and they would become full like sails.
The two of them were slumped together on one of the tired old sofas, the boy looking out at the garden, the girl passed out on his shoulder, her hair covering her eyes. The sofas smelt of leather and tobacco.
After a while he tried moving and the girl stirred. Without saying anything she repositioned herself and curled up with her head in his lap. Absent mindedly he picked at the arm of the sofa, and then began to trace patterns on his bare chest.
Everyone else had gone upstairs to bed or gone home. The television was on repeat in the next room, it was the exit music for some film or other. He found himself listening to it but had no idea what the piece of music was or what film had been playing, he could only make out the refrain: ‘wait until your time comes around again’.
In the hallway there was a pile of shoes and a pile of coats. And still a trail of muddy footprints – it went right through the house from the wreck of a garden to the front door. In the kitchen there were flies hovering over the dirty dishes in the sink and half a roast chicken on the side, and the door to the freezer was ajar, a small pool of water forming around its base. Somebody had been sick in the waste bin.
The wind was gathering strength now. The letterbox started to rattle on its hinges and the curtains in the living room bulged. In the garden the dead autumn leaves were picked up and turned over. The boy shivered and wanted to get up from the sofa and find his T shirt, but he stayed where he was, and the girl slept on.
No comments:
Post a Comment