Some Rain Must Fall by Michel Faber Page A

before; it had a patterned carpet and the receptionist had dark-red nails. She made a telephone call to someone who seemed to be a friend of hers; she talked in a sort of code and said ‘Jesus’ and worse things, albeit under her breath. Christine kept looking at him strangely, as if she wanted him to do something, but then every few seconds she would hug herself and sniff the way she always did when she was irritated by him. Scott picked up one of the magazines lying on an empty seat. It was one of those women’s magazines about face lotions and lipsticks and bonking. He flipped through it, looking for pubic hair, but it was all hidden behind beach towels and bath sponges and big fancy lettering. There were some nipples, even a couple that were sticking out like crazy, but he couldn’t get too excited about them. He was too old for that maybe: he was ready now for what he had inside his trousers. Besides, if the receptionist caught him trying to tear a page out of one of her magazines he would die of embarrassment.
    After a few more minutes, Christine was called by a deep male voice behind a door. The look on her face as she was standing up to go was just horrible, like in horror movieswhen people smile and say they’re fine but really they’ve got an alien creature hiding inside of them.
    ‘You’ll wait for me, won’t you,’ she said.
    Of course he waited.
    She was gone for about half an hour. The waiting room was deathly still, the receptionist having run out of friends to call. Scott read all the women’s magazines; well, bits. Kim Basinger, no bimbo anymore, faces her thirties with newfound maturity and still turns heads. Aramis ignites the flame of passion. Rod Stewart says he has dipped his banana in the fruit bowl for the last time. Camille Paglia scoffs that most men don’t even know what the word ‘cunnilingus’ means. Scott made a mental note: he would have to look that one up when he got home.
    Finally Christine came out of the doctor’s room. She looked the same as before, fully dressed, no white surgical gown or anything, no bandages that Scott could see. The only thing was, she was taking very careful little steps, as if walking on eggs.
    ‘Let’s go,’ she said hoarsely.
    Out on the street, she walked beside him for a few minutes and then had to stop and lean against a brick wall.
    ‘I can’t go home yet,’ she gasped. ‘We have to go somewhere else first. Somewhere I can lie down.’
    ‘Why don’t you go to your boyfriend’s place?’ suggested Scott.
    ‘We can’t go there.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘We just can’t, that’s all.’ And she started to cry.
    Scott was moved and frightened by his sister’s distress, which was different from the tantrums he was used to at home when Mum and Christine fought about what she was and wasn’t allowed to do. He was struck, too, by the way she kept saying ‘we’ – she never said that to him usually. Hewas always the accessory, the excuse, the tool with which she could propel herself far away, into someone else’s company. He hadn’t submitted without a fight; he had refused to get dumped at the zoo or a movie theatre, he’d refused to tell her which shops he’d be in while she was off doing ‘whatever you do’; he’d demanded two pounds instead of one. But she looked fragile and small now, lost in her big white jumper as she slumped against the wall. He cleared his throat, trying to meet her half-way with the suggestion:
    ‘How about we go to the movies?’
    She laughed and a spray of clear, innocent snot came out of her pale nose. She wiped it on her sleeve and shook her head.
    ‘I can’t sit down on a hard seat,’ she said wearily. ‘I need to lie down.’
    ‘How about the picnic area in the zoo?’
    ‘Somewhere warm and comfortable, you idiot.’
    She took him to the Art Gallery, where neither of them had ever been before. Richie Fuller’s mum worked there as a cloakroom attendant.
    ‘Put your parka in the cloakroom,’