Midnight Lamp Read Free Page B

second solo album that his mouth went dry with excitement. Yellow Girl . It’s really her!
    ‘Go ahead. It’d better not be difficult. We have no brains.’
    ‘Why are you playing cricket, with a softball and a baseball bat?’
    He was pleased with himself for spotting the game.
    ‘Oh, tha’s easy,’ said the languid giant, planting the bat in front of his stumps—stalks of bleached tamarisk root, capped by clam-shell bails. ‘We don’t have a cricket bat, an’ if we used a smaller ball I would never hit it. I’m useless.’
    ‘He’s lying,’ said Fiorinda. ‘We found the bat. We had a proper baseball, which we bought in Ensenada, but our demon bowler, er, pitcher, managed to bury it in the Pacific. It’s over there. If you’d like to fetch it for us, we’d be grateful.’ She pointed out into the ocean, smiling at him with great charm, and chilling strangeness.
    ‘You guys are English, aren’t you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I recognised the accent. We haven’t seen many tourists from Crisis Europe, the last few years. Things have quieted down over there now, I guess?’
    ‘Much quieter,’ she agreed. ‘Practically back to business as usual. Except for Italy and, um, a few other hot spots.’
    ‘England’s still revolutionary, though, isn’t it. But you’re allowed to travel?’
    ‘As long as we promise not to eat at McDonalds.’
    ‘Okay,’ he said, nodding politely. ‘The name’s Harry. Harry Lopez.’ He held out his hand. They smiled, but didn’t take it. They didn’t offer their own names.
    He went back to the campground, and looked into one of the toilet blocks. The showers and stalls had plastic curtains, no doors, but everything was clean. He tried a faucet and leapt back, cursing. The water was boiling . A little Mexican girl had appeared at the uncurtained door to the outside, with a black and tan puppy in her arms. She stared at him, scandalised.
    ‘These are dire and troubled times,’ he said to her, shaking his scalded fingers. ‘This could be the end of days. Do you believe that?’
    He tried the other faucet. Something about F and C… Fuck! Also boiling.
    ‘This is the ladies room,’ said the little girl, in Spanish.
    ‘Do you have an office? Oficina ?’
    ‘Strange bloke,’ said Fiorinda, meaning the man in the straw hat.
    She had called a halt. Sage was obediently lying on their rug, while she sat beside him on the sand. They watched the world go by.
    ‘I dreamed of Fergal again last night.’
    ‘Oh yes?’
    Sage didn’t know what to make of this development. Fergal Kearney was the Irish musician, casualty of the lifestyle, whose dead body had been used by Fiorinda’s father as his instrument of torture. She wouldn’t talk about what had happened to her, she had never known the real Fergal, why had she suddenly started talking about him ?
    ‘He was sitting by my bed,’ said Fiorinda softly. ‘I didn’t see him, but he was there. It wasn’t a nightmare, Sage. He was on guard, keeping bad at bay. The strange thing is, I still knew he was really my father: and in my dream I didn’t mind. You know how all the people around you are really just patterns created by firing neurons in your head?’
    ‘Mm,’ said Sage.
    She laughed, cold and sweet, and took his hand with chilling deliberation.
    ‘Hey, I’m not saying you don’t exist. I’m just saying, obviously that’s what ghosts of the dead are, too. My father is dead, and I killed him—’
    ‘Er, as I recall, I killed Rufus, babe.’
    ‘I helped to kill him, and I bloody well think I had a right. But I believe I want him to forgive me. I think when I imagine Fergal by my bed, on guard, it’s my mind’s way of telling me we did okay, that night at Drumbeg. We rescued Fergal from his private hell, and he’s grateful, and we even did Rufus some good, somehow. It’s my closet soppiness, sneaking out.’
    ‘Fee, you are amazing.’
    ‘Thank you so much… Sage, what’ll I do about not wanting to be famous