Camouflage by Murray Bail Read Free Book Online

us. He and I stood there. Gordon glanced at his watch. When she came out in her white party dress he stepped forward.
    â€˜How am I?’ she asked in a small voice. She was speaking to me. The gap opened between her teeth as she smiled.
    It allowed me to place my hands under her arms. She was much heavier than I imagined, I could feel the soft swell of her breasts. She allowed my hands to remain there; she was my sister.
    I looked at her once more. ‘Are you all right?’ I was on the point of saying, ‘Is this what you want?’ Other questions reached my tongue, but her body had surrendered, and by then I had taken an interest in the whole technical question; I began gathering momentum. In an almighty heave-ho, putting my whole body into it, I let go.
    Trust and optimism were always her main characteristics. Now she tilted her chin, and dog-paddled among the stars, then clasped her hands more like an angel than my sister. Putting her trust in me she was now putting her trust in him. I concentrated on the mole near her lip, a point of focus, until it too began diminishing, along with the pale hopes of her body, gap between teeth, fringe, balanced on one foot, listening: all this blotted out by the chimney.
    I heard Mr Limb’s cough. He was setting out on his evening walk, for health reasons. I felt so much around me slipping, accelerating, beyond my grasp; for I was left with nothing. Running from my side towards the light I began calling my sister’s name, to where she had gone.