The Last Girl by Stephan Collishaw Read Free Book Online Page A

am lost.’
    At that moment somebody stumbled against me, grabbing drunkenly at my sleeve as he slipped to the floor. I gathered the papers together and put them into a plastic bag; it was not the time to read it. I filled my glass and gazed out through the window into the darkness. His words echoed softly at the back of my mind. I drank quickly, refilling my glass as soon as it was drained. I fumbled over my cigarettes.
    After the Great Patriotic War I had turned from poetry to write my first novel, struggling to bridge with narrative the fissure that had opened in our lives. I nudged the manuscript in its blue sheath. There was something haunting about the few phrases I had read, they traced their fingers through the silted backwaters of my mind, loosening earth. A light mist arose from the ground, clouding my eyes. A spasm of fear pinched my heart. I drank quickly, muffling the dull ache in my chest.
    As I attempted to pull out a cigarette, the packet dropped to the floor, scattering its contents. I bent to collect them and lost my balance. The young waiter caught me. He lifted me carefully back into my seat.
    â€˜Bring me another bottle,’ I said. He shook his head and refused to serve me more. He told me I had had enough. He was polite about it. I told him that I would tell him when I had had enough. Though he remained polite, I became belligerent.
    I staggered home to my apartment. Grigalaviciene banged on the wall. I could hear her shouting shame on me. I took out the bottle of cranberry spirits and poured a large glass. I downed the first glass too quickly, so I poured a second. Her eyes danced in front of mine. Her large, dark eyes, like ripe figs, like almonds, like black cherries hanging from the tree about to burst from their skins.
    Rachael, I shouted. Rachael, Rachael, Rachael. I opened the window and bellowed her name out into the night. I bellowed, hoping my voice would carry across the square, across the tops of the trees to Eliyahu, my friend Elijah, stony silent in his place at the top of Zydu Street. Rachael. Who else could I call that name to? Who else could I talk to but him?
    I decided then to go and speak to him. But I was not able to get to the front door. I crumpled on the thin carpet. The empty bottle of spirits smashed on the wooden floor over the carpet’s edge. I lay on the floor and listened to Grigalaviciene banging and cursing me. It was not till I awoke the following morning, stiff and ill, that I realised I had left the manuscript at the café the night before.

Chapter 9
    When I woke I could not move. I lay in my bed shivering beneath the sheets, my head thumping, nauseous. Through the scattered thoughts that blew around in my head like scraps of newspaper in a derelict house, one fact assailed me with horrible clarity, the missing manuscript. When was it that I had let go of it? Where? My mind could not put together any logical sequence of events; it could only blow around that monument, the loss.
    I watched the hours drag by on the clock by my bed. I counted them off, hoping that as they crawled on I would feel better, that the shaking would pass, the nausea would go, the thumping in my skull would soften. The sunlight rose and moved across the faded wallpaper. My neighbours stirred. The lorry came for the rubbish, its horn howling, sending my head beneath the sheets. Dusk came, resolved into darkness. I dozed, dreaming continually. Wild chaotic dreams that made my pulse race. Finally night settled onto the city once more. I managed some sleep, but by four I was awake again.
    I dragged myself from my bed and sat in an easy chair close to the window to continue my watch. So it is with the old and lonely, we sit and watch ourselves through the night in our times of sickness. When light came at last, I shuffled into the small kitchen in my bathrobe and managed to eat a small slice of bread and cheese. The cheese was old and hard, and, on examination, mould was beginning to fur