The Blade Artist by Irvine Welsh Read Free Book Online Page A

clapped. Melanie and Jim sat in a stupor, realising something significant had just happened. He whispered in her ear, — Do they do salsa dance classes in town?
    — Yes, Melanie said. — I’m sure we’ll find something.
     
    It had to be Harry the police department sent along. Lonely, sad-eyed Harry Pallister, whom she’d first encountered in seventh grade at Goleta Valley Junior High School. Melanie’s thoughts flashed back to those days. Some boys she could scent lusting after her, their pheromones filling the air. And with some of them, she’d reciprocated their ardour. But Harry lurked in the shadows pining silently, occasionally catching her with his sad, longing stare. Then, when Melanie began freshman year at Santa Barbara High School, as she stepped onto the campus of that Spanish colonial building, flushed with excitement, the first familiar face she saw was Harry’s.
    Her joy evaporated.
    Now he stands on the front porch, and even with the sun behind him making her squint, Melanie can see his thin, sincere face, that quietly martyred expression of his, as if the world was too much for him, but he was nonetheless valiantly and uncomplainingly fighting on. Then, as now, it seemed to be the harbinger of great disappointment. — A bit of news, about those men you called about.
    Already she is wishing she hadn’t made that call about being menaced by those guys. Why had she? Jim had gottenrevenge, of a sort, by blowing up the vehicle. She knew the real reason had been the rape ordeal suffered by her friend, Paula Masters, at the hands of two other men. The culprits weren’t drifters, they were students, but that didn’t matter. Men dangerous to women were just that. — Hey, Harry, come in, she forces herself to sing, stepping into the house. He follows her, looking blankly at the art on the walls, into the lounge and, at her behest, sits down on the sofa.
    Harry digs into his leather document case, producing two photographs, placing them on the table in front of her. — Was this them? The two men who harassed you?
    There is no mistaking the duo. The criminal mugshots make them look even more like who and what they are; they could have been taken yesterday. The dark one, silent and menacing: the fair one, his face still set in that sneer. Melanie swallows, wishing she’d taken Jim’s advice. Why, why, why had she made that call? But all he’d done was blow up their car . . .
    She nods in acquiesence. — Have they been causing more trouble?
    Harry acts as if she hasn’t spoken, going back into his document case, pulling out a typed sheet of paper. From where she sits, Melanie can’t make out what it pertains to, far less its specific contents. He lets the silence hang as he reads it. She interprets his behaviour as some kind of domin-ance statement.
    Melanie had never been frightened to embrace who she was. She saw no need to apologise for her beauty or her wealthy background. She simply acknowledged that her family’s liberal values had bestowed on her a magnanimityand concern for others who navigated life in less ostentatious comfort than her, understanding that this relative affluence had also given her the breathing space to indulge her calling. Aware that her good looks got her both positive and negative attention, she had learned, with a calm assertiveness, how to deal with jocks and nerds and everything in between. You didn’t get sucked into the agendas of others. Ever.
    But Harry’s mute longing had always grated on her. Like he was just hanging around, waiting on Melanie to validate his life with a smile or a ‘hello’ or even an ‘I love you’. Now he is silent again.
    Melanie urges him to speak. — Harry?
    — You said they were threatening, he coughs, taking out a small notebook from his trouser pocket.
    She is getting it now. Harmless Harry with the notebook. They’re never harmless, ‘the polis’, Frank, no, Jim called them, commenting in glacial reserve after the first time