Arcadia by Jim Crace Read Free Book Online Page A

missed. He struck him on his forehead, just above the left eye’s overcliff. The key’s sharp end went in. It broke the skin and left a
fleshy pit like those left by the beaks of jays in pears. Rook struck again. This time his fist caught Joseph on the ear. Again the jay had left its mark, but raggeder this time. A tear. A bloody
one. The third blow came from Rook’s right foot and left an imprint of the street on Joseph’s suit and a crescent-shaped bruise on Joseph’s chest. He toppled forward, winded,
shocked. He crushed the cardboard pyramid. His face was pressed against the laurel leaves, though there was no marzipan to scent his fall. The laurel stems, in fact, no longer smelt. There is no
permanence in plants. Their sap, their colours, and their odours drain, disperse. The only smell was tunnel dirt. The taste was blood, and tears. He’d wake up soon. He’d find the blood
came from a forehead wound. The blood was running down his face. The tears were blood. The laughter-lines around his eye, his lips, his hair-line on one side, the lapel and shoulder of his suit,
were marked in red. The picture from the catalogue and the photograph of Rook fell from his pocket, faces up.
    Rook’s final blow was to Joseph’s hand. He kicked the knife away. That kick was delivered with a cough. Rook’s throat and chest were heaving like a gannet’s. Joseph got
up and, empty-handed, ran up the flight of stairs, into the light and safety of the street. God bless the street.
    Rook gathered up the things that he had dropped: the banknotes, the envelopes, his staff pass, the flattened box of flattened cakes. He picked up Joseph’s knife as well. He closed its
blade and dropped it in his pocket with his keys. The laurel branches were too battered now for Victor’s chair. He kicked them against the tunnel walls. He was surprised at how calm he felt,
despite his breathlessness. First, the restoration of his nebulizer. Then, champagne.
    He felt no anger for the country boy. That scrap with him had been too short and undramatic for lasting animosity. The asthmatic turbulence that Rook had suffered at the table in the Soap Garden
had done more damage than the fight. The mockery had hurt him more. If only those old friends of his – the greengrocers with whom he’d grown up – had seen the scuffle in the
tunnel and how the street in Rook had put to flight the mugger with the knife. If only they had witnessed what he’d done. Violence is the perfect repartee, he thought. More dignified, more
eloquent than words. He felt in touch again, with boyhood, streets, the town, the universe of labouring. He felt excited, eager for the day. He felt as tough and sentimental as a movie star. He
couldn’t wait to share a cake with Anna. He couldn’t wait to use his fists again.
    Rook stooped to recover one last dropped banknote from the tunnel floor. It was moist with Joseph’s blood. Next to it was the clipping from the catalogue, covered by the photograph which
Con had given Joseph. Rook looked at Rook, perplexed. He had not seen that photograph for years. How could it have fallen with his money there? Perhaps some trader, who had paid his pitch money
that day, had put the photo with the cash. Why? Some arcane rebuke to Rook, no doubt. Some accusation from the past. It was the sort of petty rebuff he’d expect from bitter, unforgiving men
like Con. Rook picked the photo up. The suit, the model, and the barmaid, which had been hidden underneath, were now on show. He took a closer look. He recognized the bar, perhaps? The
model’s face? He put both pictures in a pocket with the knife. He knocked the detritus of laurel from his coat and trousers and headed for the steps.
    Rook made his way back to Big Vic and, clumsy and encumbered though he was, he could not disguise the hint of hopscotch in his step as he walked across the coloured marble flagstones of the
windswept, empty mall. Around him, out of sight, the bankers banked,