Chapters (40)
- Cover
- About the Author
- PENGUIN BOOKS
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- THE BEGINNING
Irene lifted her tumbler and hurled it against the mirror where it broke into pieces. A kaleidoscope of glass spun out from the target; pale gold liquid trickled down her thin reflected face, down the picture of her white scarred stomach. She hauled the lamp off the bedside table and, holding it by its neck, she crashed it into her naked reflection which, like a spider, scuttled towards her raising thin limbs. The lamp shattered and a web-like crack grew across the glass. In her hand she held the bulb, its bare filament, and its splintered neck that bit into her palm. She stood up, swaying slightly. Drops of blood fell onto her skin like warm summer rain. Glass caught in her feet; she felt a tepid wetness and looking down saw blood seeping between her toes, a trail of blood on the rug. She went downstairs, naked, and collected the whisky bottle and then trailed back, leaving bloody footprints behind her. She lurched into the bathroom, had a pee and drank some whisky straight out of the bottle, so it didn’t even touch her mouth. Then she went and lay down on her bed, the duvet pushed down past her stinging feet, the blood staining the sheet in great scarlet swathes. She closed her eyes. She closed her eyes but the pictures were all the same.
There was a sob. A dry racking sob like a lonely elephant bellowing; a battered seal on a rock in the ocean; some great, oily seabird shrieking far out at sea and the waves rolling endlessly past. She heard it and put her hands over her ears to block out the sound. But there it was again, again, again, hoarse and long, cracking at the edges. It filled the room and it filled her head; inside and outside was the same sound, booming and breaking, and she couldn’t get away from it.
There was salt water. She tasted it in her parched mouth and it stung her skin beneath her eyes; it ran down into her neck and, when she turned, into her ears, into her hair. Floods of salt water. Where did it all come from? She would run dry. Her body would be empty of water, empty of sound. Nothing left, just a hollowed-out place.
Her sheets were wet where her feet were still bleeding.
She opened her throbbing eyes and it was dark outside. She closed them again, let herself drift once more into the ocean of memories. Lay tossed by them on her endless bed.