The Electrical Experience Read Free Page B

could not judge her age—thirteen?—had flagged him down. Gypsy girl. Had smiled at him in a certain way. He rather thought, self-control slipping, that … maybe … the gypsy girl … would … he had lost his self-control for that instant, she called her mother, his hand on her arm, she had called her mother, groin against her, she called her mother, and the mother was morbidly attractive too, aroused in his trousers, he wanted to offer money to lie down in the bushes with the gypsy girl … maybe an arrangement, but he could go no further than £1. They wanted, instead, to tell his fortune.
    Really, he thought, pulling himself together, he had thought really they were broken-down, needing assistance. The mother asked him to take everything from his pocket to tell his fortune, his handkerchief, his keys, his penknife, his loose change, his wallet, of course, yes, of course, to tell his fortune. She asked for the silver and he gave it to her. Instructed him to do it, and he felt rather hot and helpless. She asked for his hand, of course, he held out his hand. For the telling of his fortune. He tried to look for the young gypsy girl. For the telling of the fortune. The coming of a female figure, a child, a female dark and of a troubled nature. Thoughts of suicide. He looked for the young dark gypsy girl. Other girls in the back of the black Buicks.He had a hand which held money, through which the light did not shine.
    He became uncertain, it seemed to be getting dark, where were his possessions, who was at the car? He could not see the young, alluring gypsy girl. The older gypsy had the things from his pocket. He was prepared for her to have the silver. He wanted his things back.
    â€˜I’m sorry, I would like my things back, please return my things.’
    She asked for a £1 note for the telling of the fortune. He grabbed and took back his things, backing towards his car, she held things to him withdrawing them when he went to snatch.
    â€˜Take the change, the silver.’
    He had his wallet, she took a £1, she was putting it in her bosom.
    â€˜I thought you needed help or something.’
    â€˜Take the silver.’
    She kept mumbling and coming towards him and being close to him, and it seemed to be growing quickly dark.
    Sweating cold, he clambered into his Ford. He drove fast but stopped a mile or so along to check his things and found £2 missing from his wallet. How she’d taken it, he did not know. He saw no way of returning to them and getting his money back. He’d been a damn fool. Then he noticed that his new horn, which barked like a dog for moving cattle off the road, was also gone.
    He ran out of petrol at Jaspers Brush. They had milked his tank.
    He did not mention the stopping for the gypsies, the loss of the money, the horn, or the milking of the tank, to Thelma. Or anyone else.
    The little dark-eyed gypsy girl.
    â€˜Again?’ his wife queried, as he rubbed himself against her. ‘I feel like it again,’ he whispered.
    â€˜All right,’ she said, moving apart her legs. ‘It’s not like you.’
    He had moved that the gypsies not be permitted to enter the showground at showtime, for the purposes of fortune-telling.
    He had never been bitten by a snake. He had always taken the snake-bite as a mark of carelessness in a man.
    Fred Watts had been bitten by a snake only last week and in delirium saw all his old friends, some dead for forty years, and some he’d seen only the day before up at the Adelong Races, saw them all marching in file past his eyes, down into a black cavern. They had turned their eyes neither to the right nor to the left, and gave no sign of having seen him. They were dressed in the suits and hats of their times, some in the dress of forty years ago and some in the dress of today. Every person he had known in his life passed before his eyes.
    Fred had treated himself with nicotine, which was useless. Fred was,