demeanour, she had that look that so many of them do – the look of defeat. She looked tired out, as though the day had been merciless to her, as though it had picked her up in the morning and left her at the end of the day wrung out like a dirty dishcloth, draped grey and wrinkled over the taps to dry.
She managed a smile for the cashier, and, as with Janice, it lit up her face – too briefly. And, like Leah, she isn’t ready for me, whoever she is. But it might only be a matter of time. I hope I will see her again. She looked as though she needs my help.
The sudden appearance of this new prospect, even if she wasn’t quite ripe, gave me a startling idea. I had been trying to work out how I could contact the newspaper and yet manage to remain completely anonymous. Of course, I could send them an old-fashioned letter – impossible to trace – but then I would miss out on the excitement of hearing their reaction. The only way to do that was to be there in person, or to speak to them on the phone.
And then I realised how I could do it. Nietzsche said, ‘The true man wants two things: danger and play.’ I played with them whenever it took my fancy, but this was no longer enough. Now, it seemed, I wanted danger too…
I had three of them at the moment, all at different stages of readiness – awaiting their agonal moment and the start of the transformation. The one who was furthest along that path, readiest, also happened to be the closest to the supermarket. I parked in the street behind the house and cut through the alleyway at the back. Nobody was around; the streets were deserted. I saw a cat twisting its skinny body around the dustbins. Besides that, nothing moved.
I made the phone call: no reply. I wondered if this meant I was too late, but as I was so close to the house I went anyway. The back door was open when I got to it, and I went inside without knocking or calling out.
She was asleep, lying on her bed, the sound of her breathing raspy, dry. I said her name, then again, louder.
‘Can you open your eyes?’
At first there was no response. Her breaths came regularly, faltered, then changed – a few deep ones, with pauses in between. She was too far gone.
I debated what to do, whether I could manage it by myself – after all, it was the location that was important, and potentially I could take the tone of my voice up to a falsetto in the name of entertainment. It was disappointing, though. From the moment I’d had the idea the excitement had been building inside me, and now I was here, so close to it, I felt almost feverish with anticipation.
But then – to my surprise – she stirred. Lifted her head, slowly. ‘Can you sit?’ I asked, helping her, my hand under her arm. She was hot, her skin papery.
It took a while to get her ready, but I only needed her concentration for a short while. Her eyes were shining, the only moist thing about her: her lips were dry, her hair hung in dry shreds around her face.
‘Here,’ I said. ‘Take this paper. Can you read it, do you think?’
She looked at the sheet of paper, confused. Her eyes clouded over. ‘I don’t understand.’
I’d expected this. She was past the point of sense.
‘Have you had anything to drink today?’
She looked at me, baffled. ‘I don’t understand.’
Oh, lord, I thought. It was the downside to this process, of taking away whatever left of the desire to strive, their effort, their activity. Everything you needed them to do after that had to be specifically instructed, moving from one model that required vague language, metaphor, using gentle anecdotes to make a point, to one that relied on direct instruction.
I went to the kitchen and ran the tap. The water clattered into the sink with a tinny, metallic noise. Already the noise of an empty house, and she was still here. She hadn’t even left, but already her presence was fading. I found a cup and half-filled it – too much and it would make her ill, would jeopardise the process – and brought it back to her.