Part 19 (1/2)

'It's not your appearance, mo-cheri. It's your type. I knew what you were like when I met you in the car park in Melcarth. Believe me.' She poked him in the ribs. 'I know your type.'

'What type?'

'Fifty plus years old, single ...'

'No, no. Let me speak.'

'No, no you're an individualist,' she said. 'There's nothing wrong with that.'

'You've got it wrong, Roxanna.'

'I'm not criticizing you.'

'No, you've seen me I've got a family. family. I've got the little boy. Let me finish. You ask the company. I stick by people. I was married to a woman fifteen years, a dog trainer. She left me. I didn't leave her. You can rely on me. I'm not some young fellow who's going to run away and leave you. I've got a proven record.' I've got the little boy. Let me finish. You ask the company. I stick by people. I was married to a woman fifteen years, a dog trainer. She left me. I didn't leave her. You can rely on me. I'm not some young fellow who's going to run away and leave you. I've got a proven record.'

She raised an eyebrow at him, trying to joke him out of all that dangerous sensitivity. 'Dog trainer?' She grinned and combed her thick straw-yellow hair back with her fingers.

He started fis.h.i.+ng in his pocket, and for a moment she thought he was going to produce a marriage certificate, but all he brought out was a second wadded lump of tissue which he patted on his injured nose.

'I know your type,' she said. 'It's just not the type I'm shopping for.'

'Do we have a roof, food, cash ... a way to make more?'

'Wally, I'm sorry. I'm grateful for the free accommodation ...'

'I know you,' he said. 'I knew you from the beginning.'

'Some s.h.i.+tty birds,' she said. (They were all the same. Lunatics dreaming of getting rich off pigeons.) 'I want peac.o.c.ks, and fountains. See you're smirking. You don't know me. You do not have a f.u.c.king clue. If we lived together for five years, you'd still be smirking.'

'Would I?'

'Yes you would.'

'We can make a decent life. I trained that parrot you liked. You know I can do it.'

'I was never decent decent, mo-cheri. You wouldn't have hit on me if I was decent. You thought I was a shooting star, admit it.'

'I thought you were beautiful.'

She looked at him, and saw a saline lens building up across his eyes.

'Well thank you,' she said. She put her hand on his wrist. 'That's very sweet of you.'

'I thought you were Irma, that's the truth.'

Did you, mo-chou?'

He nodded.

'That's sweet of you,' she said. She opened his hand and touched it with her fingertips. It was papery dry, with deep, worried lines across the palm. 'You'll find someone if you want someone,' she said. 'You're actually a very charming man.'

'The pigeons are not the point,' he said. 'The pigeons are what we have available.'

She closed his hand. 'No,' she said.

'Let me finish ... the pigeons are just what we have.'

'You don't know me,' she said, not looking up at him, her lips compressed. 'I'll cut their heads off with a pocket knife.' pocket knife.'

But when she looked up the f.u.c.king musico was grinning at her. 'It's the Efican tradition,' he said.

She sighed, then laughed in spite of herself.

'We make do with what we have.' He smiled.

'So I should make do with you?'

'Our great-grandparents fought fifteen years of wars* with the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds whose land this really was, and then all the captains and generals sailed away and abandoned them, left them with the ghosts and bones.' with the poor b.a.s.t.a.r.ds whose land this really was, and then all the captains and generals sailed away and abandoned them, left them with the ghosts and bones.'

'You're such a bulls.h.i.+t merchant.' bulls.h.i.+t merchant.' She removed his cigarette pack from his s.h.i.+rt pocket. She removed his cigarette pack from his s.h.i.+rt pocket.

'The French, the English they thought the land was worthless, but we changed it.'

'Don't you ever give up?' She accepted the light.

'If you have to be poor, better be poor here than England. You have to be sick, better pray it's not in France. You're a woman, you'll get equal pay.'

Roxanna began laughing. She could not help it. 'Look at you. You've got arms covered with cigarette burns. You sleep on a mattress on the floor. You tell me, so confident, this is the best country on earth, and we're about to have the best life imaginable. Wally, what have you got? You've been robbed. You tell me you're in paradise.'

'Look at me.' Wally held her firm little jaw between his thumb and finger.

'Ouch.'

'If you could see my past, you'd know that my life is a f.u.c.king miracle.'

'Let go, you p.r.i.c.k. You're at least sixty years old. You've got nicotine stains on your fingers.'

He released her jaw. 'You want me to stop smoking? I'll stop smoking.'

She stood up. 'Why me? What have I done to you?'

Wally stood also. He held out his hand. 'I know you like me,' he said.

'You know I like like you?' you?'