Dialogues of the Dead

I seize the haft of the knife inside the envelope and slide the long thin blade into her body.

I’ve read about the blow-under the ribs then drive upwards-but naturally I’ve had no chance to practise on living flesh. It’s the kind of thing people notice. But for all the trouble it causes me, you might imagine I came from a long line of Mafiosi.

Oh, how good it is when the word so surely conveys the deed and theory blends so smoothly into practice. The current runs along the wire and the bulb begins to glow; the spaceship balances on its tail of flame then begins to climb into the sky. Just so the blade slices under the ribs and almost of its own volition angles up through the lung to the beating heart.

For a moment I hold her there, all the sphere of her life balanced on a point of steel. The fulcrum of the planets is here, the still centre of the Milky Way and all the unthinkable intervacancies of infinite space. Silence spreads from us like ripples on a mountain tarn, rolling over the night music of distant traffic noises borne on a gusting wind, deadening all of humanity’s living, loving, sleeping, waking, dying, birthing gasps and groans, snores and sniggers, tattle and tears.

Nothing else is. Only we are.

Then she is gone.

I raise her in my arms and carry her into the bedroom and lay her down reverently, for this is a solemn and holy step in both our journeys.

The parents still watch anxiously, but now the child, with wandering step and slow, begins to move alone.

I pray you, do not let me stumble. Be the strength of my life; of whom then shall I be afraid?

Speak soon, I beg you, speak soon.

10

On Saturday morning Rye Pomona had to field so many questions about Ripley’s TV programme from her colleagues en route to the reference library that she arrived ten minutes late and found that she’d missed the beginning of a half-furious row in the office.

The furious half was Percy Follows whose angry tirade bounced off the placid surface of Dick Dee, leaving no trace but a faint puzzlement.

“I’m sorry, Percy, but I got the distinct impression you didn’t want to be troubled with anything to do with the short story competition. In fact I recall your exact words-you always put things so memorably. You said that this was such an inconsiderable task, you could see little reason why it should disturb any of the essential routines of the department and none whatsoever why you yourself should be troubled with it beyond news of its successful completion.”

Rye took a positive pride in her boss’s performance. That attention to and memory for detail which made him such an efficient Head of Reference also gave him a forensic precision in an argument. Not wanting to interrupt such good entertainment, she didn’t go into the office but sat down at the enquiry desk. The department’s morning mail had been placed there plus the all too familiar plastic bag containing the latest and (her spirits rose) presumably the last batch of short stories from the Gazette.

Lying at the top of the bag, half in, half out, was a single sheet with only a few lines typed on it. Still listening to the row, she picked it up and read.

I see thee as a flower,
so fair and pure and fine.
I gaze on thee and sadness
steals in this heart of mine