Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay Read Free Book Online Page B

pushed into the front pockets of his jeans.
    “Tracey asked me how you spell disappointment,” he said.
    His niece, she thought. “Disappointment,” she repeated softly.
    “I helped her sound it out and she got it all except for the second
p.”
    Dido made her excuses to her friend, and she and Eddy left the party together. It was midnight. A car went by, having no need of headlights despite the hour. They walked south on Franklin Avenue, uphill, for they both lived in the new part of town. A drunk in a white shirt came weaving down the hill towards them. On his way by he reached out and grabbed Dido’s arm and brought his dazed, liquored-up face to within a few inches of hers. Eddy stepped neatly between them and the man reeled off. “Incredible,” muttered Eddy, “that he’d do that when I’m right here.”
    They walked on.
    Dido was touched by his account of his niece. She could picture him sitting on the floor beside the little girl, helping her spell out her state of mind, and the girl would feel protected, cherished.
    They reached the Yellowknife Inn and Dido said she would take a taxi the rest of the way home. Eddy offered to drive her. He had a truck, his place was just a couple of blocks away—he hadn’t driven to the party, he’d ended up there, he didn’t bother to explain how. No, she smiled, this was fine. He opened the taxi door for her, and once she was safely inside he asked her where she lived, then told the driver where to go, and in the back seat Dido felt a little amused but not displeased. Eddy was looking out for her.
    The next morning she was in the bank. Another perfect summer’s day, and she was congratulating herself on having come to a part of the world that was dry and light and spacious. I understand infinity now, she was saying to her father in her head. From my base point I’ve come a huge distance to a place consisting, in itself, of infinite distance.
    She was at the side counter, signing a money order for her mother in Nijmegen, when a single red rose was set down beside her right hand. She stared at it, then turned, and there he was. Unsmiling, aggressively gallant, intent on being understood. Eddy touched his hand to his heart and held her gaze. And then he turned and walked out of the bank.
    Dido followed him with her eyes, then looked down at the long-stemmed rose. And again, from nothing, or almost nothing, her attraction grew.
    That night she lay beside Eleanor on Eleanor’s double bed, listening to music on the radio, turning the big watch on her wrist and thinking aloud “about a day on the beach when I was as close to my father-in-law as I am to you, watching all these little birds race along the water’s edge.” They’d found a sheltered place in between the sand dunes, she said, and her father-in-law had told her about the first time he made something with his hands and discovered he was good at it, and it surprised him, not that he was good, but that anyone could be who was interested enough in what he was doing. “‘Find something you’re really interested in and everything else falls into place.’ I was lying on my side, watching the light on his face, and I said, ‘Okay, what about somebody. If you find somebodyyou’re really interested in, does everything fall into place?’” Her voice dropped a little, moved into another register. “I remember the hour exactly, because he spotted this watch in the sand and picked it up and slipped it on my wrist. Half past four and he said, ‘This is what I think about at night, if you ever wondered,’ and he bent down and began to kiss me through my blouse, everywhere, not just my breasts, everywhere.
    “Like this,” and Dido demonstrated on Eleanor’s sleeve. Eleanor giggled.
    He’d drawn her blouse into his mouth, sucking it up with light puffs of air, a sort of reverse kiss, warm, amazing, the most arousing thing she’d ever felt.
    To Eleanor the demonstration felt like being vacuumed by a little