Marlene said she didn’t understand a thing at the moment, and Kovacs said that wasn’t a problem.
He sat there, his hands around his glass, taking the odd sip of beer. Beside him two girls were chattering away, one with a green mohican, the other who did not go to school. Marlene was waiting for her coffee and was silent. On the railings in front of them a bullfinch was working away at something with its beak, the remnant of a cake or a seed.
*
He imagined the girl sitting in an aeroplane, looking out of the window, drinking orange juice and reading the in-flight magazine. He imagined her looking at her passport and boarding card again and again, and being pleased with herself because she had kept her seat-belt fastened the whole time. Then he imagined her seeing the town for the first time, and saying “Dabhol, Dabhol”, as if she had to give it a new name. Finally he imagined her taking the bus into the town centre, and the bus stopping to let her off, and her walking the last bit to the beach.
“What are you thinking about?” Marlene asked.
“Why?”
“You look so strange.”
“I’m thinking about a pelican,” he said.
The Mattress House: A Kovacs and Horn Investigation (Kovacs & Horn 2) Page 24
