Spin by Nina Allan Read Free Book Online Page B

awful.”
    “ I’ll be sorry not to finish the book.” He lay back against
the daybed’s padded headrest and closed his eyes. His eyelids were
blistered, the skin crusted with solidified mucus. Layla found she
could not look at him any longer. A deep ache had settled in her
gut. It was as if maggots were feeding on the lining of her
stomach, and she wondered if that was how it was for Alcander
Xenakis, not just when he was tired but all the time, the steady,
inexorable pain of being eaten alive.
     
    She went
towards him, meaning to comfort him somehow or at least tell him he
must stay alive so he could continue writing his book, but before
she could say anything the door opened and Nashe Crawe appeared.
Layla was startled by the sight of her, not just because of the
suddenness of her appearance but because of the way she was
dressed. The trainers and jeans were gone. In their place was a
calf-length black dress of the kind the gambling widows wore. The
dress was clearly hand-tailored, clearly worth a fortune. Layla
realised she had been foolish in not realising that the baggy smock
and dirty trainers had been a front, a disguise she could put on
when she wanted to move about the city without being noticed.
    Her eyes flew
to the youth on the couch.
    “ Alcander.” Her voice was sharp with panic. “I told you to
keep your door locked until I got back.”
    “ It’s OK, mum, really. Layla and I were just talking.” He
opened his eyes, blue slits in his ravaged face, and tried to
moisten his lips with the tip of his tongue. The tongue also looked
reddened, ulcerated. Layla wished Nashe Crawe would learn to rein
in her anxiety, at least when she was in the presence of her son.
She did not like to think how it must be for Alcander, burdened
every waking minute with the love of this woman when the burdens he
had to bear were already so great. The sound of his voice seemed to
relax Nashe Crawe, however. Her expression softened, her posture
became less tense.
    “ It’s time for your sleep now anyway, sweetheart. I’m going to
steal Layla away, find out what you two have been gossiping
about.”
    She turned
towards Layla, smiling tentatively. Layla understood that it was
only once she had reassured herself that her son was still alive
and in no worse a condition than when she had last seen him that
she was finally able to acknowledge the existence of another
person. “Would you like to see the garden?” Nashe Crawe said. “I’ll
tell the girls to fetch us some drinks.”
    Layla supposed
that by girls she meant servants. She nodded her assent. She stared
at Alcander Xenakis, his blistered arms straight by his sides, the
stained sheet stretched over his prone body, and wondered if she
would ever see him again. The thought that she might not brought a
stab of regret, a sense of loss that seemed more deeply rooted than
anything she had felt for John Caribe.
    “ Is there any of Panteleimon’s stuff online?” she said. “I’d
like to read some of his poems.”
    “ You’ll find some of his early Lyrics , I expect.” The youth’s voice was now close to a
whisper and Layla realised their conversation had probably
exhausted him. She remembered the way she had judged his mother,
and felt bad. What did she know, about Alcander or about anything?
“The Poems
of Exile are harder, but
the Lyrics are good,
a good starting point anyway. I’d like to know what you think of
them. I really mean that.”
    “ Then I’ll come back and tell you,” said Layla. “I mean that,
too.”
    She turned
away then. She was aware that Nashe Crawe was looking at her, but
she avoided her gaze, not wishing to know how her conversation with
Alcander had been received. She passed from the room, back into the
dim corridor. Nashe Crawe said something to Alcander, too quietly
for Layla to hear, then followed her out. She closed the door
softly behind her.
    “ He likes you,” she said. “That’s good.”
    “ I like him, too,” Layla said. She