A Darkening Stain by Robert Wilson

you didn’t disappoint me. You have the look of a man who understands poetry.’
    â€˜To most people I have the look of a drunken bum.’
    â€˜These are people who are only looking at the surface.’
    â€˜Thanks,’ I said. ‘Now you’re going to tell me I’m a beautiful human being on the inside.’
    â€˜Don’t worry,’ he said, grinning. ‘I won’t tell you that.’
    â€˜Because you don’t think it’s true?’
    â€˜We all have redeeming qualities.’
    â€˜Liking poetry is a very small one.’
    â€˜I don’t think so. It shows an inclination to examine more than meets the eye. It implies intelligence and a heightened sensitivity to the human condition. These are not small things.’
    â€˜But they don’t make a man good,’ I said. ‘I’m sure you could find some celebrated psychopaths with all these redeeming qualities.’
    â€˜Such is the nature of a redeeming quality.’
    We looked at each other after that unexpected exchange to the point of uneasy silence. Then a waitress came to our table, a white girl in a loose purple shirt, braless, maybe more less. We
ordered a couple of beers and the menu. Marnier silenced the Australians to a nervous giggle by struggling past their table on his way to the toilet. Darleen farted, inadvertently, I assumed.
    The beers arrived, cold in dimpled pint mugs. The waitress hovered.
    â€˜Tu vas manger?’
she asked in an English accent.
    â€˜We’d like to,’ I replied in English.
    â€˜I thought you were Dutch, the height of you.’
    â€˜Not my brilliant French?’
    She smiled and we knew we liked each other.
    I took a gulp of the beer and ordered another instantly, and one for the waitress. She left and I took my first
pression
down to an inch from the bottom. I looked out across the beach, into the dark beyond the rim of light from the bar. The unseen ocean repeated itself against the shore. Jean-Luc Marnier was reading me easier than a kid’s nursery rhyme with pictures. Or was I still paranoid from last night’s dope. He was seeing the same things I was seeing. The fisherman’s net. The crouching jungle. Mind you, there wasn’t that much to look at. I calmed myself with the rest of the beer and blinked away the tears and the strain of having Carlo and Gio on my tail out there somewhere with Christ knows what in store. My second beer arrived.
    â€˜You got a name?’ the girl asked, startling me.
    â€˜Bruce. You?’
    â€˜Adèle,’ she said, ‘but an English one. I’d rather have that beer after I’ve finished if that’s OK.’
    â€˜Sure.’
    â€˜You could join me if you like.’
    â€˜I...’
    Marnier lowered himself into my vision. Adèle scooted off.
    â€˜Don’t drink too much, Bruce. I need you to be sharp tonight.’
    â€˜What do I have to be sharp for? I don’t want any more of your big surprises, especially ones requiring sharpness. Not tonight.’
    â€˜Big surprises? I don’t remember any big surprises.’
    â€˜You calling me at Michel’s last night.’
    â€˜A small coincidence.’
    â€˜What about the dramatic improvement in your health since last night?’
    â€˜I have good days and bad days.’
    â€˜And your breathing?’
    â€˜The country air. Cotonou is very polluted now with all those mopeds ... and I gave up smoking.’
    â€˜Twenty-four hours ago.’
    â€˜So, I act a little.’
    â€˜I noticed. That’s how we got the table.’
    â€˜A little bit of fun. I don’t get so much these days,’ he said. ‘She’s attractive, no? The waitress?’
    I still had Marnier’s money folded in its envelope in my pocket, untouched. I had a screaming need to slide it back across the table at him and go and drink beer with Adèle and sleep on a couch somewhere, but even I, with my brain of hot