Tales from the Tower, Volume 2 by Isobelle Carmody Read Free Book Online

of an equal. He is a statesman of the poetry world, giving a helping hand to both the reader and the young, or not-so-young, aspirant. He is seldom, if ever, given the work of established modern poets to review.
    He is surprised when he hears the sound of her key in the lock, but it is a pleasant kind of surprise. He has missed her and he is glad she is back. And it means he can forget about his review, for the time being at least. And later, when she has finished telling him about her time in New York, he might talk to her about the book, because sometimes that helps him to get his ideas straight. A description might come out of his mouth in a way it never came out on the page. Or a comparison, when he tries to give her an impression of what the book is like. ‘Kindergarten Freud’ came about like that a few months ago, and the editor used it as the title of the review.
    He hears the door close and her footsteps in the hall, the pause while she takes off her coat and scarf, the thump as she drops her bag at the foot of the stairs. He comes through from his study at the back of the house into the kitchen.
    He probably won’t tell her that he doesn’t believe women should waste their time trying to write poetry. He won’t put that in his review, either, or mention it anywhere in public, though he believes it wholeheartedly. It isn’t that he thinks women are inferior. Not at all. But as far as he is concerned, poetry is about men struggling with things that come easily to women. And the things that women poets seem to write about would be better kept as gossip to pass over the garden wall to their neighbours.
    He has his face on, his eager ‘darling’ face, but it freezes when she opens the kitchen door. The shock hits him like a snake-strike in his entrails. Its venom shoots out along his nerves, stretching his scalp, even weakening his knees.
    â€˜What’s up?’ she says.
    He opens his mouth. It is not a fair question. She knows what is up because she has done it.
    He needs something light. A quip. He needs to toss it off as if it were nothing, rally the nerve-endings and carry on, buying himself a bit of time to adjust. But there aren’t any words to be found that are not obscenities. Ordinary speech has abandoned him.
    â€˜It’s not that bad, is it?’ she says.
    No. Say no. Of course not . But it is that bad. It’s worse. It’s so bad that it hurts.
    â€˜I . . .’ he says.
    â€˜Oh, come on,’ she says.
    He can see that his reaction is frightening her, but he can’t fix it. She has brought it upon herself, after all.
    â€˜I need cigarettes.’
    He can’t even pass her to get into the hall. He goes the long way, through the dining room and past the door to his study, then back through the hall and past the door of the kitchen where she stands with that frightened look on her face, watching him as he snatches a coat and scarf and goes out into the night.
    {2}
    In the jaundiced gloom of the street he turns the wrong way for the corner shop. He doesn’t need cigarettes, not yet anyway. What he needs is distance and time, to work the venom out of his system and allow some sense to come in.
    Why?
    The leaves are dropping. He hasn’t noticed until now. He thought it was still summer but it isn’t, it’s autumn.
    Why would she do a thing like that?
    The streets are wet, but it isn’t raining now. A taxi slows hopefully, then speeds irritably away. Two young women are talking under a street lamp on the other side of the road.
    Why didn’t she warn him? Or did she? Maybe she did warn him, and he didn’t notice. What was it she said in her last email? Don’t bother to come to the airport. You won’t recognise me. Should he have guessed from that?
    It’s not as if he didn’t know. She told him on the first day they met, when they found themselves squashed up against the wall together at the launch