Nightspawn by John Banville Page A

word, she pushed past me, stood a moment surveying my kingdom, then walked across and sat down on the bed. The little room was instantly changed, was diminished for me. Her entrance alone was enough to rob it of the tenuous links I had worked so hard to create there. I saw her shadow fall across the floor, and her critical gaze fall on my books, the sad view through the window of roof and hill, a patch of sky absurdly blue, and I no longer belonged there. Soon each part would have its separate memory of her. The room would be truly hers then, and I would be usurped. It would be she who lived there, even when she was gone.
    ‘“These fragments I have shored against my ruins”,’ I murmured, and sat down in my armchair.
    ‘What shall we talk about?’ she asked coldly.
    ‘Your mother, perhaps?’
    ‘Ha.’
    ‘What then?’
    She shrugged, and joined her hands together in her lap, saying,
    ‘I wonder if there is anything to talk about.’
    ‘But of course not. Still, we will talk, and when we stop, then we shall make a journey, perhaps. Now, ask me about my book.’
    She laughed. It was a humourless kind of sound. A rage, well caged, seethed in her eyes.
    ‘Tell me about your book,’ she said.
    ‘I’ve given it up.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because I wanted to do it.’
    ‘Why did you want to —’
    ‘No no, you misunderstand. I wanted to write it.’
    ‘Then why did you stop?’
    ‘I’ve told you.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Of course not. We’re doing very nicely here.’
    ‘What are you talking about?’ she cried, and her hair shook with the vehemence of her cry. I considered her through half-closed eyes.
    ‘Mrs Kyd, I’ll make a bargain. First, what have we? You want to know why I stopped writing while wanting to continue, and I want to know why you came here when you said you never wanted to see me again. Are you with me?’
    She stood up suddenly from the bed and started to the door.
    ‘I’m going now.’
    ‘Listen, wait,’ I cried, bouncing after her.
    She halted, and whirled about to meet me. Her eyes really could flash.
    ‘I came here,’ she said quietly, ‘I came here with the intention of … I don’t know, tearing out your eyes. You raped me, and now you play word games. Before, I thought you were very evil. Now, I think you are just a fool. So I shall waste no more of my time. But I shall say one thing. Some day you will suffer for what you have —’
    ‘Ah god,’ said I wearily. ‘Will you go away and leave me alone. I’m tired. I’ve had enough for one day.’
    Then I turned my back to her. Had I planned it like that, I could not have found a better way to hold her there. The door closed again, but when I looked, I found that she was still on my side of it, standing with her back pressed against the panels, her eyes lowered. I took a book and sank down into the armchair, my shoulders hunched. She did not move. Her presence was unsettling, if that is the word. At length I said,
    ‘If you’re preparing another speech, I don’t want to hear it.’
    She shook her head, still not looking at me. She returned to the bed, sat down, and began to pick at the blanket with her fingernails. I laid down the book with a weary sigh.
    ‘Mrs Kyd,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t know all the circumstances of what happened today. I —’
    She held up a hand to silence me, and then began to speaksoftly herself, her head still hanging.
    ‘I lied to you, Mr White. I came here because … well, you have met my husband. He’s a good man, I would not deny that, and I love him. But today you touched something in me, something which I did not know was there. It was as if …’
    Oh Jesus, I can reproduce no more of this twaddle. Did she really say all that, and expect me to take her seriously? It seems incredible. And yet, what am I saying? I took her seriously, indeed I did. I was looking through the window, laughing to myself and wondering how in the world I could imagine that I loved