Fragment 25 /Whitsuntide /Prime /Sun, 31 May 1998
Gary flicks his cigarette, close to its burnt-out end, into the garden with the satisfaction of all the land before him one day passing into his hands. He steps back off the short veranda wall just as Caul comes unseen out the lounge. Gary’s face quickly displaces shock with disgruntled irritation.
“You don’t have a knife behind that back of yours do you?”
“No. Just got back from driving around watching the morning and saw you out here.”
Caul goes to sit on the veranda wall a metre or so down from Gary. He folds his hands into the crevice of his thighs and looks out into the basin with eyes cast over his shoulder. He turns back and stares hard into Gary’s eyes as if looking for answers.
“How long has it been since you planted your corpse of a career in Mae’s father’s garden?
A sullen look passes from Gary, his right foot on the wall, his hand against the pergola pole supporting a bulky frame trying to keep its swagger. Caul hones in on the weakness he perceives.
“Has it begun to sprout? Is that why you’re leaving Mae? Because it improves your career’s chances of blooming this year? Or have you just disturbed the bed you were meant to blossom in?”
“Hey Caul, let me give you a wake-up call about Mae. She froze that ground, and now she’s beginning to live up to her name. I need to move on or be devoured. Anyway, I got what I wanted.”
Gary is unable to hide a smile of glee at the thought of his new freedom as he leaves Caul alone. Dry leaves scatter listlessly on the veranda. Caul considers them.
/but you wont be able to move on will you/ /youve got pauls bubblegum on your boots/
He raises himself wearily up off the wall and looks out over the bay.
/but at least it feels like ive escaped pauls black pit/ /who led me out/ /ive been living in a kind of hell without even knowing it/ /well something has brought me out of that dungeon/ /and i must help jude escape before it gets him/ /i dont know why/ /i just must/
He turns from the view and goes back into the soporific house to his room.
[…] in greedily the distant, frayed edges of the bay carving out a hazy peninsula filled with the far, unreal city under a brown smog. Then there are the sandy flats, squatted upon by the Moor’s people, that lie between the city […]
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