The Last Girl Read Free Page A

softly. For a moment I considered sitting with her, but I knew from experience that once she started talking there was no stopping her and I was in no mood for conversation. I nodded and, buttoning my jacket, moved on briskly.
    The air in town was fresh. It was a pleasant day for a walk, the sky was beautifully clear. The colours seemed to palpitate under the sun’s warm fingers. I had half a mind to sit in a café, but the amount I had already drunk put me off. I walked quickly, feeling the movement relax me. I tried to divert my mind from my writing. As I paced down the narrow lanes I played a game that I have played for years. Looking out for a notable person I tried to decide which novel they were from. Almost immediately an old man hurried up the street towards me. He kept to the shadows as though he wished nobody to see him. He looked sixty or more, though perhaps, upon closer inspection, he might have been younger. He had a doleful, careworn face. He presented me with no difficulties at all. This was obviously Balzac’s poor Goriot. In his pocket was some jewel he was hurrying to sell to raise money for his daughters. A man being slowly killed by his love. Love’s monstrous, plump fingers beckoning him on, always on, to his death. I shook my head. I love you with darkness and death.
    The church seemed empty when I came to it. I allowed its cool darkness to swallow me. I crossed myself, fingers following the worn, ancient ritual, finding in it a certain comfort. For so many years we were denied this. I sat on a pew at the back of the church, my head bowed. Though I could not pray, the church in itself, in its silent space, created an atmosphere of prayer. Just to sit there in silence was to be in communion with something greater, even if that greatness was only the purity of the silence and the way that the sunlight cut through the stained glass of the window.
    As I sat with my head bowed I heard footsteps entering the church behind me. A woman’s heels clicked on the flagstones and the church door thudded softly. The clicks stopped momentarily and I heard, not far behind me on my left, the soft rustle of a dress as she genuflected. In the silence, also, the delicate breath of a child as it sighed. The heels clicked past me, and from where I sat, head bowed to the floor, I saw her legs stride by. The muscles in her calves tensed beneath her stockings. I watched as she walked down the aisle to the altar. She sat the small child on the front pew and approached the altar alone. She knelt before it and crossed herself and buried her head in her hands as she prayed.
    I watched her as any might that sat in that silent space, alone. She knelt before the altar for at least five minutes and perhaps the thought that was uppermost in my head was one of wonder at the young child who through this entire period uttered not one sound.
    *
    She turned then and picked up the child. She hugged it to her and kissed it. She did this in such a natural way as if they two were alone in that space, as if she had not noticed my presence. Tucking the child onto her hip she turned back up the aisle. In the dimness of the church it was difficult to discern much of her appearance from the back pew. To make it more difficult she was wearing a collar that rode up high around her face, obscuring it. She was about five feet from me when she stepped into a pool of light that fell from a high window.
    Her face was illuminated with the suddenness of a revelation. My heart froze and my hand flew to my mouth. She heard my stifled groan and noticed me for the first time. There was a look of surprise in her eyes. Our eyes met and her step faltered for the smallest part of a moment. That look was fifty years old. It cut me to the quick. In that moment the madness of my photographic craze became clear.
    She walked quickly past. I remained in the pew, my heart racing. My face burned and my thoughts scattered across the decades. I faintly heard