They clung together and whispered things to each other, both nonsensical and important. Sarah remembered something of Mallarmé’s and said the words into Mike’s ear and he moaned as though he understood her. Afterwards, he asked her what she had said.
‘La chair est triste, helas, et j’ai lu tous les livres,’ Sarah repeated, holding him as tightly as she could. ‘The flesh is sad, alas, and I have read all the books.’
‘Amen,’ Mike said.
Sarah woke early and dressed in the clothes Mike had washed and dried for her. She shook him awake.
‘You leaving?’ He squinted up with half-closed, crusty eyes.
She nodded and he sat up, rubbing his face. ‘Will I see you again?’
Sarah sat beside him and took his hand. ‘I don’t know.’
He turned her hand over and pressed the inside of her knuckles. ‘Take care of yourself.’
‘You too.’ She pecked his cheek, gave his hands a final squeeze and walked calmly out of his bedroom. Door closed behind her, she started to run.
She found Daniel on the sofa, naked, except for a pair of black socks. Stubble covered his cheeks, coarse and almost white. There was a packet of salted peanuts wedged under his left thigh. His eyes were closed. One arm was twisted at the elbow, pointing over his head to the back wall. The other arm hung over the edge of the sofa, his fingertips skimming the floor.
‘Daniel?’
He didn’t stir.
On the floor, a photo of Sarah was lying in a pool of vomit. The stomach acid had eaten away at Sarah’s face, leaving her a torso with just the swirly shadow of a head. Next to that, an ashtray with a cigarette butt balanced perfectly on the rim. A bottle of vodka, empty, and a bottle of scotch, two-thirds gone.
Sarah stepped over them, and picked up his hand. ‘Daniel?’ She understood for the first time what it was to have your heart in your mouth. Hers was blocking her windpipe and pressing up into her palate. It was pushing up against her teeth.
His hand was limp and cold. Breathing, concentrating on breathing, Sarah remembered to use her index finger, not her thumb, to touch his wrist. Her heart had left her mouth and filled her ears with its desperate pounding. Her hand was shaking too much to be of use. He is just trying to give me a scare, she thought. And then: maybe that was all Jamie had wanted to do. Sarah pressed hard on Daniel’s wrist, then harder, then gave it up and pulled on his whole arm.
The cold white arm jerked, then pulled away and tucked itself into the body.
Sarah felt everything rising up inside her. All those things that Mike had said, the things he thought she should cry over, the things he thought she couldn’t cry over and didn’t care about, all came rushing out. She had thought she was numb but that wasn’t right, she had just been anaesthetised, and now it had worn off and the wounds were screaming.
Some hours later, she stopped crying enough to raise her head. Her eyes met his and he moaned in relief and sorrow. Sarah answered in kind. Their bodies merged and more time passed.
‘You love me,’ Daniel said, and Sarah didn’t answer because it wasn’t a question. It had never been a question and answering yes or no wouldn’t make it one.
Time then, to accept certain realities. This pathetic old man smelling of piss and vomit, being the first one. The reality of him was both uglier and sweeter than she had previously admitted. More vile, and more human. But no less hers than he had ever been.
‘Someone died,’ she told him.
‘Not you though. Not me.’
‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘Not fair is it?’
‘Never has been.’
The other reality was harder to face and more important. For the twenty seconds that Sarah thought Daniel dead, she had felt fear and repulsion and regret, but also, she had known in some deep, unexamined corner of herself that she could live without him. She knew that this dark, messy, inexplicably beautiful entanglement was a choice. It was not fated, and she could leave anytime she liked. If she were to stay, she would have to do so knowing that a life with him was but one option out of a million.
But then, life is a constant withering of possibilities. Some are stolen with the lives of people you love. Others are let go, with regret and reluctance and deep, deep sorrow. But there is compensation for lives unlived in the intoxicating joy of knowing that the life you have – right here, right now – is the one you have chosen. There is power in that, and hope.
Other Serpent’s Tail books of interest
One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed
Melissa P.
Translated by Lawrence Venuti
‘A very elegantly written memoir… Her reflections on the power of sensual memory are particularly poignant, to the point of Proustian… This is a beautiful book, serious in its intent Sunday Independent
‘The sex diary of Melissa P shows she is experienced – and wise – beyond her years… [a] combination of candour and intelligence, and Melissa’s compelling mix of aggression and passivity’ GQ
‘A frank and vivid account of sexual rites of passage’Telegraph
‘A blistering bestselling Italian debut’The List
‘Melissa’s candour regarding her extreme experience offers an apprehension, however fleeting, of modern adolescence’The Times
‘A warm and erotic book, packed with intense and shocking sexual experiences’Diva
An immediate bestseller, One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed is the candid diary of a beautiful Sicilian teenager who embarks upon a quest for love but instead enters a world of eroticism and sadomasochism.
Melissa writes: ‘I want love, Diary. I want to feel my heart melt, want to see my icy stalactites shatter and plunge into a river of passion and beauty.’ She searches for love through lonely-hearts columns, internet chat rooms and even with her math tutor but the men she meets only want sex. With the pain of unrequited love comes the excitement caused by her discovery of the sexual power she has over men (and other women). Her sex life comes to define her clandestine identity, revealed only in her diary entries. When first published, it was assumed that a teenager could not write such a novel and Melissa was forced to reveal her identity to her shocked family and to the world.
Also by Emily Maguire and published by Serpent’s Tail
The Gospel According to Luke
Aggie Grey is a jaded sexual health counsellor who finds herself having to defend her abortion clinic against the attacks of a radical new fundamentalist sect. Pastor Luke Butler is young, idealistic and out to capture the hearts and minds of Sydney's disaffected youth; his first campaign is to shut down Aggie Grey’s clinic.
Caught in the crossfire is 16-year-old Honey - pregnant, battered and ready to cling to whatever hope is offered. As Aggie and Luke fight over the fate of Honey’s unborn child, they discover a deep and surprising connection. But as the war between the secular and religious intensifies, Aggie, Luke and Honey find themselves in moral and physical danger. Against a backdrop of religious terrorism and social decay, The Gospel According to Luke is a contemporary love story about belief, family, grief and hope.
‘Maguire is an energetic, often powerful writer who has once again shown us her hunger for more than most of us can chew comfortably’ The Australian Literary Review
‘Maguire has nailed it… [she] can dramatise ideological difference with realism and sympathy for all of the characters concerned’ Sydney Morning Herald
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Emily Maguire is an Australian
Title Page
Copyright Page
Part One
1
2
3
4
5
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7
Part Two
1
2
3
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6
7
8
9
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11
Part Three
>
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Part Four
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Other Serpent’s Tail books of
Also by Emily Maguire and
Taming the Beast Page 28
