Game Control by Lionel Shriver

snapped and she had to walk five miles to the nearest garage, when there was no more beer, or toilet paper, or water in the taps. And just as she would not fantasize about a shower, she would not fantasize about men. She would fall asleep designing a broader-based health care clinic, because much as she might have enjoyed a hand on her cheek, she did not regard tenderness as what she deserved; it was instead one more luxury to prove she could do without. However, unlike beer or toilet paper, arms around her waist, lips to her temple would flash single frame through her day, with all the craftiness of subliminal advertising. Late Tanzanian nights, in the flicker of her paraffin lantern, figures had flitted in the shadows, and she would glimpse a whole couple intersticed behind the mosquito netting over her bed. As with all spectres, if she stared them straight down they would evanesce, but if she ever leaned her head back and closed her eyes as she was doing now, a mouth would spread over her neck.
      She opened her eyes again— smack-smack . The fingers on her shoulder had been an accident, because look, one brush and he'd dived for a polluted river across the room. She would be well behaved. But in that case it was 8 p.m, she was tired and she did not have too suffer Tijuana.
      'Calvin. I have heard nothing but demography all day. All week. Sometimes, I think, my whole life. Please. I do not want to talk about the population of anywhere on earth. Nor do I wish to discuss environmental decay, the demise of African wildlife or tiny children with machetes in Natal. Much less wellington-melting sewage in Mexico.'
      'Good gracious.'
      She had rarely seen him awkward. He shuffled his article back into its pile and shambled to the couch in silence. When he edged into the crook of the sofa he looked trapped.
      'You are still quite—pretty, did you know that?' he asked in a defeated voice.
      'No, I don't. In Dar es Salaam, I lived for two years without a mirror. It's queer, not seeing your own reflection. You become like anyone else you haven't met for a long time—you forget what you look like. Though there's something right about that. The all-lookingout. I've wondered if you were ever meant to look into your own eyes.'
    'But no one ever tells you? That you're pretty?'
    'No.'
    'I'm telling you.'
    'Thank you.'
    'Would you stay tonight?'
    'All right.'
    'Are you hungry?'
    'Yes.'
      At dinner, Calvin had a hard time adhering to Eleanor's restrictions: he would slide into toxic waste as easy as slipping in a puddle, but then wipe his feet again and apologize, nimbly sidestepping the live slave-trade in Mozambique, necklacing in Soweto. Eleanor could hear the deletions in Calvin's discourse, bleeped like Lenny Bruce on prime-time. The effort was charming, though it was alarming, once you siphoned the scum from Calvin's monologue, how little was left.
      She did get him to talk about music. Though she'd have pegged him for Wagner, he preferred Debussy and Elgar. While his recitation of his favourite pieces was a bit tedious, she was relieved to isolate at least one passion—St Matthew—outside population growth. Walton, Barber and Ravel got them through the better part of a roast chicken; Chopin, Copland and Albinoni dispatched a little rice. Yet by coffee Calvin had a constipated expression, and implored, 'You don't mind—?'
      'Oh, go ahead,' Eleanor granted.
      'Yesterday I read about a uranium mining town in East Germany called Crossen. The incidence of still births and deformed babies is ten times too high; cancer and skin diseases rife—the works, the whole village is poisoned, nobody lives past forty-five, right? You know what the company does about it? They distribute free wigs .' Calvin laughed heartily for the first time in an hour. 'Thanks,' he said, wiping his eyes. 'I needed that.'
      'Some day I'll teach you to hold forth about gardening.'
      'It's far more likely I shall teach you to hold