Page 80 of A Good Heart is Hard to Find
‘Don’tyoustart trying to mother me too!’ he snapped.
‘I’m not. I’m hungry, but I’m not going to tell Rosetta I wolfed all the sandwiches down while you sat there starving,’ I said, and picked one up. They were good. So was the coffee, although it could have been hotter.
After a couple of minutes Dante picked a sandwich up too, thoughhe seemed to eat like he’d lost the habit.
‘So,’ he said, after some silent chewing, ‘can I turn all that into a book? Or should I start again?’
‘You don’t need to turn it into a book,’ I told him. ‘It already is one. Each notebook is dated, and headed with the place you wrote it from, and these will be your chapters. It’s sort of a framework, and you can rove back and forwards in time and memorieswithin that structure. I think it’ll work, because it’s different. The journal-cum-memoir of a trip across America, slowly heading for Alaska. In fact,’ I added enthusiastically, ‘I think you ought to call itTravelling To Alaska!’
‘You do? I thought you were going to say it was useless, and I’d have to get someone to write it for me!’
‘No, all you need to do is type it up in the date orderof the journals, finishing with Alaska. Then it will just need tidying and checking through. You can type, can’t you?’
‘Of course – and pretty fast, too.’ He sat back. ‘But do you really think the publishers will go for it? Won’t they think it’s a bit rambling and out of sequence?’
‘From the bits I’ve read it seems to be fairly straightforwardly told, only relating to places you were at on yourjourney, and with occasional flashback memories to happiertimes. I think they’ll love it because it’s just that bit different. You have a way with words.’
‘I should hope so – Iwasa foreign correspondent, don’t forget.’
‘OK, then double space, indent your paragraphs, and get on with it,’ I said helpfully.
We’d finished the sandwiches, I noticed, and I only hoped I hadn’t eaten most of themmyself.
Dante’s sombre expression seemed to have lightened a bit, so perhaps hunger had made him bad-tempered? Low blood sugar or something. Why didn’t he eat more? Did he have to carry on starving, just because he made it out and Paul didn’t?
‘You’re going to feel so much better when you’ve written the book,’ I assured him. ‘I certainly did when I started exorcisingmydemons through my novels,and you’re doing the same, only in a different genre.’
His aquamarine eyes lifted to my face and he asked abruptly, ‘So what’syourdemon?’
‘Me? Oh, Iamthe demon – Satan’s Spawn, according to my father,’ I said lightly. ‘My parents, my four brothers and even Jane are all blond, medium-sized and blue-eyed like a lot of Dutch dolls. I take after a gypsy great-grandmother, hence the mind-readingstuff, though I’ve never worked out quite why that should make me inherently evil.’
‘It doesn’t,’ he said. ‘Are you serious?’
I didn’t see why he should think he had a total monopoly on suffering just because he’d taken it to extremes, so I told him about my strange childhood, and being Seed of the Devil, and my time-out with the ghosts in the cupboard. ‘Which is why I have the recurring nightmareabout trying to get away from a cupboard, I suppose,’ I added.
He looked slightly stunned. ‘It’s not surprising … I had no idea! But you’re free now, aren’t you? You’ve got away from them?’
‘I don’t see Ma and Pa any more, not since I took up with Max, which was the final, unforgivable offence. Jane’s done worse, but they never found out about that. And the boys, too – but somehow their sinsare forgivable and mine aren’t. But Pa often phones me to remind me I’ll burn in hell, and stuff like that. Which I probably will, because Max’s poor wife was an invalid and our affair put her through torments of jealousy, although I didn’t really understand that until recently, when I got a letter she left to be sent on to me after she died. I let myself believe it was all OK, because I wanted itto be: so you see, I’m guilty about that, too. Ma never speaks to me, but she never liked me as much as any of the others anyway. I couldn’t understand it, but Charles says sometimes that just happens in families, and it isn’t my fault.’
‘Your parents sound delightful!’
‘Well, Ma just mostly ignored me, and even Pa wasn’t too bad until he started drinking more and more on the quiet. He let hisbrother adopt one of the boys – George – in return for a lot of money, and he started a sort of self-sufficient commune-cum-church up in Scotland. He’s a Charismatic Preacher,’ I added.
‘And I thought my mother-in-law was bad enough, hounding and blaming me for Emma’s death!’
‘Does she still do that? But that’s so unfair!’
He shrugged. ‘Life’s unfair – and death’s even more so.’
‘Yes … doyou have nightmares, too, Dante?’ I asked him. ‘Mine get worse and worse. I was nearly in the cupboard the other night when you woke me up and—’
Then I remembered the consequences and did the fluctuating hot and cold thing again. I don’t think my thermostat was up to dealing with Dante in near proximity.
‘Out of the frying pan into the fire?’ he said with that quirk of the lips. ‘I’m sorry –you were vulnerable, and I didn’t realize it.’
Sudden tears came to my eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter: it was just the brandy really – I’m not used to it. We can forget it, can’t we?’
‘No, I don’t think we can do that, but we could start again? Get to know each other? Especially if you can remove your idiotic brother from my house and my sister’s life!’ he added acidly, sounding suddenly much morelike himself.
