August Is a Wicked Month by Edna O’Brien Page A

same and the day telephone number and the answering service at night in case she changed her mind suddenly.
    ‘Can I sleep downstairs now?’ she said abruptly.
    ‘Something upset you?’ he said.
    ‘No, I just can’t sleep with anyone near me.’ She could not give him anything more, not even the solace of conversation.
    ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘I’ll move into the dressing room and you…’
    But she was already out of bed and telling him truthfully that she wanted a bath and a little air and then to go to sleep on the garden hammock and be rocked by its gentle swaying. He must have guessed at her disgust because from the bedside desk he took a card and said,
    ‘Put that in your purse.’ It was the address of his house in Marrakesh and the various telephone numbers for the various hours of day and night. Reluctantly he let go of her hand and in the bathroom doorway she turned and closed her eyes and cradled her head in her hands to remind him that he must sleep.
    She took a long time over her bath and almost enjoyed it. A second door led her out on the corridor and she found the stairs straight away. She went down slowly and noiselessly, on tip toe, her hand carefully clinging to the iron banister. Anyone would think she was being watched.
    Just when she considered it light enough to leave, a violet darkness descended on the living room where she had been resting. Then suddenly there was a ponderous clap of thunder followed by lightning so stark and green that she thought it was something electrically contrived. The huge window was open. More and more thunder followed, each clap running into the previous one like an enormous belch and the forks of lightning followed upon the thunder instantly. It was near. It seemed now that it had been threatening all night ever since they saw the dead man on the roadside, his blood flowing into the soft black tar. Then the rain came. Like stones pelting on a near-by glass roof and then coming in the open window, pushing the curtain ahead of it. She thought to close the window, but the intervals between the claps of thunder and the forks of lightning were not enough for her to get across the innumerable yards between where she stood and where the window was. The curtains were oyster silk with extra panels of silk like waves drawn across the width of each curtain. Within seconds the material was drenched grey and the waves were falling down laden with wet. The floor beneath was pooled with rain. It was not his black-and-white tiles she worried for, but getting the window closed for some more important reason as if a murderer were likely to come in.
    ‘I’ll do it after this flash,’ she would say, moving a pace nearer and then ducking because of the next peal. The lightning in the room lit up a brown picture and made it sulphur green as if it were being painted anew. She’d never seen a storm like it. Half-way across the pavilion of the floor she sat down and knew that the curtains were now soaking, the floor under the window flooded and the furniture on that side of the room well drenched, so that there was nothing left to save. Remembering about metals she pushed an ashtray away from her and then pulled it back again because she was going to die anyhow. She remembered how as a child her mother had sent her sister in a storm all round the cottage shutting windows because her mother had wanted her sister to die. Her sister hadn’t died then but had died another way, becoming a liar and marrying for money. They never corresponded now. Her death would be a shock all the same. She was going to die in this place and be buried God knows where. The colossal accident of her surroundings irked. She would have liked somewhere humble in keeping with her birthplace, the small council cottage with cliché, pink roses climbing up on either side. People used to say that she and her sister would go far because of their beauty. Black eyes, pale faces. She’d married above her mental means