How the Dead Live by Will Self Read Free Book Online

rubbing a bit of Betty’s old house dress in between my thumb and finger – because she’s my security blanket too when I’m torn from her and deposited hard on the boards. ‘You bad girl! You bad, bad girl! You never ever do this again. Never. Do you understand me? Do you!’ One slap cross my tiny face, then back, then a third. My mother slapped me the way British actors playing Gestapo officers were later to slap their interrogation victims – but she wasn’t pretending. Her diamond ring drew my blood and became this little girl’s worst enemy. It was so out of proportion – the colossal violence from this petite, blonde woman – that Betty herself was stunned, left half-risen from the old rocker, her face a racist caricature of minstrel shock.
    I never kissed Betty again. She stayed with us until I was fifteen – but I never touched her again. We would talk and I would confide and she would sympathise – but we both knew we could never touch each other ever again; that for me black flesh was an anathema. An evil substance. I cannot touch black people – unless I have to. How unfair that they may have to touch me. I do so hope I’m unconscious before it happens. And I find myself saying to Sister Smith, ‘Will I know it when I die?
    ‘Hush now,’ Sister Smith puts a hand up and dabs at my dregs of hair – black women, blonde hair, my whole life has been wrapped in this skein – but draws back when she senses me stiffen. ‘Y’know, you’re not bein’ good to yourself, girl – Lily. Dr Steel, he means well, but he’s – how can I put it now – he takes a rather technical view of these things. He doesn’t explain so well – did he say what you should be expecting?’
    ‘He said that this time they couldn’t get all the tumour, that it had hypo– hypo – ‘
    ‘Hypostasised, yes, well, that jus’ means it’s spread, you see.’ ‘Anyway – that we could go on with chemo, with the ray gun, with a dancing shaman if I liked, but that he thought . . . he thought . . .’
    ‘That there was no point now. That it would be better to accept it an’ die with a little dignity – he said that?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Well, he’s nothin’ if not dependable like that, but he’s not a believer, y’know, he doesn’t have no saviour so he can’t comfort himself – poor man.’
    Saviour. That’s done it. Sister Smith is undoubtedly one of the rocks the Church is built upon. Although in her case it’s probably a small revivalist chapel. I can see the tiny building in my mind’s eye, actually shaking as Sister Smith and her sisters slam out the gospels. I notice now what I should’ve before that wedged in the brown ravine of her cleavage is a gold cross. Her saviour must be tiny, it occurs to me – probably because my sardonic voice is the one that will be silenced last-if this is big enough to nail him up on. ‘Thank you, Sister – but I’m not religious.’ It’s probably the most sisterly thing I’ve said in years – which is how long since I’ve had cause to thank my own.
    ‘That’s all right, Mrs Bloom, there’s a special place with Our Lord for the Israelites, y’know – ‘
    ‘I’m not Jewish, Sister.’
    ‘I’m sorry – I’d thought . . . the name . . .’ She wanted to say the nose – they all do.
    ‘I was married to Mr Bloom, for a time.’ The deception comes easily enough – since she made the initial mistake. ‘No, I’m not religious – I don’t believe in an afterlife, I don’t believe in Big Cosy Daddy, waiting to swing me up into the sky. When I die – I’ll rot. That’s all, Sister – that’s all.’
    For a second I’m proud of this bravado, then she says, ‘Y’know, Mrs Bloom, not all of the exoteric symbolism of Christianity should be taken literally. I can understand you’ll not be wanting to see the minister, but Mr Khan – ‘
    ‘Fuck Mr Khan.’
    ‘Mrs Bloom – ‘
    ‘Fuck him, fuck him, I don’t wanna see him – don’ wanna see