Nightspawn by John Banville Read Free Book Online

flames, two oddly pathetic creatures, and looked vacantly around them. The lamb licked its lips. Panting and shuffling, the cripple loosed the cord from the animal’s neck, and, grasping its haunches between his knees, he pulled back its head. (Look, it was not I who arranged this particular farce, so do not blame me if the leading players are hams, the script unspeakably banal, the whole shebang played out years ago — personally, I despise such shoddy trappings.) A knife appeared in his hand, the cripple’s hand, yes, he had only one, and with one swift stroke he opened the fleecy throat. The little pipe sent up a shivering cry.
    Sweaty pencils poised, panting hunters of the symbol? There is wealth in store.
    The animal’s hoofs were still twitching in the dust when the cripple swept it up in his arm and scattered its black blood into the fire. The flames roared a note in harmony with the pipe, and the other instruments broke out into a wild dance. The young men leapt to the whine of drum and strings, whirled and turned, sweeping low to smack their palms on the ground, yelping, groaning, weirdly gasping. I found myself leaning forward on the crate where I sat. One arm hung down, and my fingers tore the roots of grass. Helena lifted her hand to her forehead, and the gesture seemed extraordinarily slow and graceful, a branch lifting in the wind, a flower falling. The cripple now wasdancing in his way, leaping and hopping among the dying embers of the fire. I rose unsteadily and wobbled across the plateau, climbed blindly to the summit of the hill, and stood there a moment to survey the night. A hint of the sea came up, and a cool wood wind. I saw towers falling, and for all I know heard voices too, speaking out of exhausted wells. Then, with a sigh, I leaned out toward the welcoming darkness and calmly threw down the side of the hill my day’s remains, salts and acids, blood, wine, and the shadow of murder, all went flying out into the void in a black and burning stew. Then, as they say, I must have fainted.
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    To be honest, I did nothing of the kind. I puked for a while, and coughed, and wiped my nose on my sleeve, felt very sorry for myself, groaned, and began the process all over again, until there was nothing left inside me but bad air and spleen. Why do I make drama from a fit of drunken vomiting? Because the drama was not there.
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    After the climb down the broken slopes in the dark, under the stars that gave no guidance, after the thorns, the stones, I came to a little grove of pines, and sat down exhausted with my back against a rock. Far below, through the trees, there was the faint glimmer of water. The night had turned cold. My bones were stiff. With my arms around my shivering knees, I nodded, nodded, waves of sleep carrying me down to the sea, the weeds and the wild water. I thought I wanted to die, but I knew nothing yet of that black wish. Twigs crackled behind me, and soft steps approached through the wood. My teeth chattered with fear. Cautiously I peered around the rock, and squeaked in terror to find before my eyes a pair of knees.
    ‘Mrs Kyd? Jesus Christ.’
    She moved past me without a word, and took a step or two to the other side of the clearing. I could barely see her slim outline against the murmurous trees, though she was not more than six feet away from me. A wind sprang up.
    ‘You frightened me,’ I said.
    ‘Did I?’
    Her voice had changed. I listened vainly for it to come again, and tried to think of some question to provoke it. We were silent, not moving, catching faint words in the wind. At last I asked,
    ‘Is that the sea down there?’
    ‘Yes. The channel.’
    ‘The channel?’
    ‘Yes.’
    I sighed.
    ‘A channel. Not even the ocean, not even that. It’s always the same with me, always second best. If it was the ocean now I might have indulged in a soliloquy. A word about the fish. Pisces my sign. The fish is a noble animal, and recognized as such is given, like man, a singular