Goya'S Dog by Damian Tarnopolsky Read Free Book Online Page A

within herself.
    Back in the same room after dinner, Gorren offered Dacres a Player’s. He made a jibe about preferring to watch the icebergs from the deckchairs than the deckchairs from the icebergs. Gorren was unhappy that they were being taken north. They were silent, watching for a moment as Nelda passed. Then they were talking about the potential difficulties playing billiards would present on a boat, on a smaller boat. They didn’t ever discuss their work, though once they had a conversation consisting just of artists’ names: Furini , Dacres had said. Monet , Gorren objected. Dacres rebutted instantly with Manet , and then added Juan Gris , but then Gorren trumped him with the unexpected Duchamp .
    Dacres interrupted: “I’ve just made a brilliant deduction, Watson.”
    â€œDo tell. No don’t: I know. She wants to get married and make you a millionaire. Only it can’t happen because you won’t accept the True Cross.”
    â€œI think I know who she thinks I am.”
    â€œWho?”
    Gorren angled his long body closer and Dacres shared something that seemed to come from a dream.
    â€œWaiting for the doctor one afternoon there was an advertisement in The Field . A watercolourist’s show: hunt scenes. English hunt scenes.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œEdward Davis.”
    â€œNo—”
    â€œI swear—”
    Gorren paused. “And you only thought of it now?”
    â€œPerhaps our addresses are similar. Perhaps I was on the secondary list. Our names are—I have exhibited, you know. In spite of my present …”
    â€œYour present …”
    Dacres couldn’t think of the word, and patted his pockets in search of his hip flask, which he’d left in his cabin, and would forget there when the ship docked.
    â€œHibernation?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œEstivation?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œLassitude?”
    â€œStop. I have exhibited,” Dacres said.
    â€œEnglish hunt scenes?”
    â€œIt’s the kind of thing she would like, don’t you think?”
    Gorren smiled and in his nasal voice concluded, “I raise my glass to you, Davis.”
    He tapped ash onto a line drawing of their ship in a thick glass tray.
    â€œKeep it to yourself. Though they’d hardly cast me adrift now, not here, would they?”
    The answer was Gorren’s raised eyebrow.
    It explained a lot. It explained the bizarre notion that he might bea worthy ambassador for His Majesty. It explained his being a decade older than everyone else. It explained Lady Dunfield’s affection for him. It explained almost everything; but of course, it resolved nothing.
    In the meantime there was shuffleboard. There were stewards. And several Americans, escaping Europe before the start of the carnage. The men spent much of the voyage talking, seated in small groups, brown-suited knees touching and then parting, anxious for news from London and Berlin, and news of places they had never thought twice of before: Warsaw. The Sudetenland. War had been declared the day after they sailed from Southampton with an orchestra playing on deck, and Dacres was running from it even if he claimed otherwise. It was not a noble thing to do. At a quickly convened meeting Lady Dunfield told them it was unfortunate timing, but that the best course, now more than ever, was to see their mission through. Some of the men, Merrie and Trebs in particular, thought they should return to England immediately, and she understood, but of course the ship’s progress was out of their hands. She led them in a chorus of “God Save the King.”
    These delightful, splendid times we live in, thought Dacres, not singing.
    When they heard four nights later that the Beauregard had been torpedoed, the purser stopped the news announcements: the captain didn’t want there to be hysteria. Taking away their only source of information provoked hysteria. The lifeboats were checked,