The Red Room Read Free

just like them," he said, a tremble of
rage in his voice. "You want to trap me
into saying something."
"What could I trap you into saying?"
"I dunno, I ... I ..." He started
to stammer and the words wouldn't come. He gripped the
table hard. A vein on the side of his forehead was
throbbing.
"I don't want to trap you, Michael," I
said, standing up. I looked over at 13
Furth. "I'm done."
"And?"
"He seems all right to me."
To my side I could hear Doll, like a radio
that had been left on.
"Aren't you going to ask him what he was doing
outside the school?"
"What for?"
"Because he's a pervert, that's why," said
Furth, finally not smiling. "He's a danger
to others, and he shouldn't be allowed to hang round
kids." That was for me. Now he started talking
past me at Doll. "Don't think this is doing
you any good, Mickey. We know you."
I glanced round. Doll's mouth was frozen
open, like a frog or a fish. I turned to go and
from that point on I had only flashes of
awareness. A smashing sound. A scream. A push
from one side. A tearing sensation down the side of
my face. I could almost hear it. Quickly followed
by a warm splashing over my face and neck. The
floor rising to meet me. Linoleum hitting me
hard. A weight on me. Shouting. Other people
around. Trying to push myself but slipping. My hand was
wet. I looked at it. Blood. Blood
everywhere. Everything was red. Unbelievable amounts
everywhere. I was being dragged, lifted.
It was an accident. I was the accident.
    1 15
    "And I said, "Yes, yes, I do believe
in God," but God can be the wind in the tree and the
lightning in the sky." He leaned forward and pointed
at me with his fork, this man who I wasn't going
to be going home with at the end of the evening, and whose
phone number I would lose. "God can be your
conscience. God can be a name for love. God can be
the Big Bang. "Yes," I said, "I
believe that even the Big Bang may be the name for
your faith." Can I top you up?"
That was the stage of the evening that we'd arrived at.
Six bottles of wine among eight of us, and we
were only on the main course. Sloppy fish pie
with peas. Poppy is one of the worst cooks I
know. She makes industrial quantities of
unsuccessful nursery food. I looked across
at her. Her face was flushed. She was arguing about
something with Cathy, waving her arms around
overemphatically, leaning forward. One of her
sleeves trailed in the plate. She was bossy,
anxious, unconfident, perhaps unhappy, always
generous--she was throwing this small dinner party in
honor of my recovery and my imminent return
to work. She felt my eyes on her and looked my
way. She smiled and looked suddenly young, like the
student she'd been when I met her ten years
ago.
Candlelight makes everybody look
beautiful. Faces around the table were luminous,
mysterious. I looked at Seb, Poppy's
husband, a doctor, a psychiatrist. Our
territories bordered. That's what he had once
said. I'd never thought of myself as having a
territory, but he sometimes seemed like a dog
patrolling his yard, barking at anyone who came
too close. His sharp, inquisitive features
were smoothed by the kind, guttering light. Cathy was
no longer brown and heavy but golden and soft. Her
husband at the other end was cast into secret
shadows. The man on my left was all planes
of light and darkness.
"I said to her, "We all need to believe in
something. God can be our dreams. We all need
to have our dreams.""
"That's true." I slid a forkful of cod
into my mouth.
"Love. "What is life without love?"
I said, I said,"--he raised his voice and
addressed the table at large--""What's 17
life without love?""
"To love," said Olive, opposite me,
lifting her empty glass and laughing like the peal
of a cracked bell. A tall, dark, aquiline
woman with her blue-black hair piled
dramatically on top of her head. I've always
thought she looks like a model rather than a
geriatric nurse. She leaned across and