‘I’m good with kids, you ask anyone! I’d never…’

‘You’ll be falling asleep with a cigarette burning the place down. It’s okay, I’m going. I don’t want to stay here any more and talk to you. You make promises and don’t…They booked you into Lakeview and your dad bought the plane ticket. They’re all trying to help you…All you’ve got to do is bloody go there wherever it is and stay for a while!’

‘Get lost, Seymour!’

People were turning to look. An older woman with a tired, concerned face hesitated and half rose from a bench, but he didn’t care. For the first time in his life he didn’t much care if people turned to gape at him if he were causing ripples. He felt angry enough to wish that the ripples would surge into a whirlpool large and powerful enough to swallow up the whole mess, take Angie away, cover up the frightened eyes in the garden, swirl away the whole sad, terrible business.

‘Babies can smile really early, did you know that?’ he said bitterly. ‘Yours probably won’t have much to grin about, though. Where’s it going to grow up, Angie? You haven’t even got anywhere for it to live. Oh, I forgot, there’s that posh house on Gresham Avenue, isn’t there? Or maybe in the back room of your florist shop…’

‘You rotten little creep! I never asked you to come in here and lecture me! You get the hell out of here—I didn’t want to see you, even! I never even…liked you!’

‘Well, I don’t like you much, either, Angie,’ Seymour said and turned to go, but something was dragging at his wrist. He tore at the knotted handle of the plastic bag and let it fall into Angie’s lap. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘You might as well have it. Little girls like playing with dolls.’

He went away, not looking back, not able to look back, and walked numbly through the intricate streets to the railway station. The air shimmered with heat. Waiting for the train, he found himself blinking and screwing up his eyelids, for the sky seemed to be filled mysteriously with white-hot, silver flecks. They flickered like miniature rain and dampened the backs of his hands when he touched his eyes.

No little winged horse, he thought, looking up into the sky, trapped in the numbess that wasn’t, after all, free from pain. He blinked the illusion of silver rain from his eyes. There would never be any little winged horse plunging splendidly from the sky to land at your feet and carry you away from things not to be borne. That was something you had to learn to do all by yourself.

Lakeview

Hi, Seymour!