she went to the bar and brought back a glass of water and several paper napkins, helped to wipe his face and hands. The bleeding was slight. ‘It’s the Little’s area,’ she said, ‘Lots of capillaries close to the surface. Maybe the dryness in the plane, or the changes in altitude.’
‘I had one after my farewell do from the paper. The first for ages, and then another some days later. Do you think it means anything?’
‘Nothing to worry about unless it happens frequently.’
‘And now I have my own travelling physician.’
‘I’m on holiday,’ said Georgie. ‘I’m trying not to read disease in every face I see.’
‘Thanks, though,’ Sheff said.
She dealt with the situation so calmly that others around them were scarcely aware of anything untoward, and after a few minutes he went to the lavatory, washed his face, and then the two of them walked back to the hotel in a soft drizzle that came by stealth upon them. He admired capability, and his sister’s display of it cancelled his earlier annoyance. ‘Sometimes,’ he told her, ‘I can hear liquid sloshing in my stomach. I’m just walking around normally and I hear this water or whatever slapping about in there. It can be quite loud.’
‘Everybody does. It’s nothing to worry about.’
‘A muscle starts twitching in my thigh sometimes when I’m sitting down. It can go on for a couple of minutes.’
‘Just forget it,’ she said with impatience. So he didn’t go on to seek advice concerning the small sores that sometimes appeared in his mouth, or a mole on the back of his left thigh that he could see only in the mirror.
They decided that if the rain continued, they would eat at the hotel, and if the weather cleared they would promenade, as Georgie put it. It turned out to be the latter, although to stroll past Dunedin’s restaurants wasn’t to experience the ambience of Florence, or Paris. ‘I once had a meal on the Boulevard du Montparnasse with a blind woman who could recognise the restaurants she passed by smell,’ Georgie said. Sheff felt a sudden urge to say he’d had a similar experience, but knew he couldn’t justify it.
‘I did see a black girl drop a chocolate from the Eiffel Tower,’ he said, ‘and a homosexual guy hit on me in the Luxembourg Gardens. When I was in Charlottesville I saw a horse fall down stone-dead for no reason during the Thanksgiving Day parade.’
‘Pauline Benoit was her name. She went blind as a child because ofthe trauma of seeing her father being attacked and killed in the street. She was an excellent musician and critic, and wrote reviews for a well-known classical music magazine.’
Sheff had no reminiscence of equal singularity. The girl’s chocolate hadn’t fallen on anybody’s head, the gay guy after being repulsed had offered no startling aphorism, but just walked away, and the horse in Virginia hadn’t crushed anyone, had done nothing spectacular except falling down in death.
‘The sense of smell is the most associative and evocative of all,’ said Georgie, ‘even more than sound, touch, or sight, and often our responses are so subtle, and so instinctive, that we aren’t conscious of the effect. There’s still not a lot known about the role of pheromones.’
‘Who killed the blind woman’s father?’ asked Sheff, interested in spite of himself.
‘I don’t know, but she went blind because of it. She could distinguish between moules and a paella without going inside.’
‘Inside where?’
‘The restaurant.’
‘Oh, right. So she had a sort of perfumer’s nose.’
‘It was compensatory. Her hearing and sense of smell improved when she went blind. She was the sister of a guy I went out with for a while overseas. I never kept in touch, but I remember her better than her brother. I used to be her looking glass. She would stand in front of me before we went into places and make me check her appearance. She said she trusted only a woman to do that. She said men don’t
‘I had one after my farewell do from the paper. The first for ages, and then another some days later. Do you think it means anything?’
‘Nothing to worry about unless it happens frequently.’
‘And now I have my own travelling physician.’
‘I’m on holiday,’ said Georgie. ‘I’m trying not to read disease in every face I see.’
‘Thanks, though,’ Sheff said.
She dealt with the situation so calmly that others around them were scarcely aware of anything untoward, and after a few minutes he went to the lavatory, washed his face, and then the two of them walked back to the hotel in a soft drizzle that came by stealth upon them. He admired capability, and his sister’s display of it cancelled his earlier annoyance. ‘Sometimes,’ he told her, ‘I can hear liquid sloshing in my stomach. I’m just walking around normally and I hear this water or whatever slapping about in there. It can be quite loud.’
‘Everybody does. It’s nothing to worry about.’
‘A muscle starts twitching in my thigh sometimes when I’m sitting down. It can go on for a couple of minutes.’
‘Just forget it,’ she said with impatience. So he didn’t go on to seek advice concerning the small sores that sometimes appeared in his mouth, or a mole on the back of his left thigh that he could see only in the mirror.
They decided that if the rain continued, they would eat at the hotel, and if the weather cleared they would promenade, as Georgie put it. It turned out to be the latter, although to stroll past Dunedin’s restaurants wasn’t to experience the ambience of Florence, or Paris. ‘I once had a meal on the Boulevard du Montparnasse with a blind woman who could recognise the restaurants she passed by smell,’ Georgie said. Sheff felt a sudden urge to say he’d had a similar experience, but knew he couldn’t justify it.
‘I did see a black girl drop a chocolate from the Eiffel Tower,’ he said, ‘and a homosexual guy hit on me in the Luxembourg Gardens. When I was in Charlottesville I saw a horse fall down stone-dead for no reason during the Thanksgiving Day parade.’
‘Pauline Benoit was her name. She went blind as a child because ofthe trauma of seeing her father being attacked and killed in the street. She was an excellent musician and critic, and wrote reviews for a well-known classical music magazine.’
Sheff had no reminiscence of equal singularity. The girl’s chocolate hadn’t fallen on anybody’s head, the gay guy after being repulsed had offered no startling aphorism, but just walked away, and the horse in Virginia hadn’t crushed anyone, had done nothing spectacular except falling down in death.
‘The sense of smell is the most associative and evocative of all,’ said Georgie, ‘even more than sound, touch, or sight, and often our responses are so subtle, and so instinctive, that we aren’t conscious of the effect. There’s still not a lot known about the role of pheromones.’
‘Who killed the blind woman’s father?’ asked Sheff, interested in spite of himself.
‘I don’t know, but she went blind because of it. She could distinguish between moules and a paella without going inside.’
‘Inside where?’
‘The restaurant.’
‘Oh, right. So she had a sort of perfumer’s nose.’
‘It was compensatory. Her hearing and sense of smell improved when she went blind. She was the sister of a guy I went out with for a while overseas. I never kept in touch, but I remember her better than her brother. I used to be her looking glass. She would stand in front of me before we went into places and make me check her appearance. She said she trusted only a woman to do that. She said men don’t
Similar Books
