Angel of Ruin Read Online Free Page A

didn’t seem to realise what a dangerous game he was playing. What if I had been interested in his advances? What then of dear, childless Chloe in her pastel dresses? Not that I credited him with the nerve to go through with an affair. The thought made me irritated. I shook him off and took a step back.
    “I’m sorry, Neal, I’m not feeling particularly centred. I’ll practise it by myself and show you at the next meeting. Okay?”
    He backed off quickly, filled the gap between us with nervous chatter. “Yes, yes, practise it a while. It takes some time to get it right. Don’t rush, don’t rush.” And on he went, making excuses for not finishing his coffee, picking up his jacket, opening the door. He was gone in a flurry of embarrassment within twenty seconds. I hoped he wouldn’t forget about the laptop.
    All the talk about the Wanderer must have got to me, because that night I dreamed of an old woman. She was holding out a key to me, and when my hand closed over it a flood of words and letters rushed into my head. They had scratchy edges which grazed the soft tissue of my brain. I cried out in pain and she said, “And you were so sure words couldn’t hurt anyone.” I woke up feeling unsettled — scared even — though I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why. I had never been troubled by nightmares, but I was still getting used to sleeping alone. I missed Martin so much in those moments waking from the dream — missed him with a pain which was physical — that I cried until dawn broke.
    I have always liked to work in noisy places. Silence is too heavy with expectation for a writer. First thing the following Wednesday morning, I collected my notebooks and walked down to Soho, intending to claim a corner in a coffee shop before it started to fill with the day’s tourists. I found a dimly lit cafe playing Ella Fitzgerald, ordered a coffee and settled at a scarred table in a back corner. I assessed the other patrons. A few business types lingered over breakfast meetings, a group of Australian backpackers gulped down cappuccinos, and an earnest young couple shared their opinions on football teams. Everybody was smoking.
Everybody.
I wanted a cigarette so bad that my eyes watered.
    I spread out my books and papers. First to hand were all the photocopies Neal had provided, with lists of correspondences which had to be committed to memory. I put them to one side and picked up the notebook in which I had scribbled the stories I had heard so far about miraculous healings, finding lost objects,communion with spirits. I was more sceptical than I can adequately express. My own experience of the Lodge meetings offered me no insight more astonishing than the fact that grown people could act so foolishly without embarrassment. The previous Friday’s meeting had not even enabled me to talk once again of the Wanderer and her story. Whenever I brought the subject up, Deirdre would stonewall me and Neal would tell me to make sure I did my LBRPs and forget about it. Forgetting about it, though, was almost impossible. It was the most interesting lead that this magic ritual business had provided me with so far. I took out a fresh sheet of paper and played around with chapter titles and organising my ideas. As I pondered I doodled in the corner of the page, surprised when I looked down to see that I had drawn an old woman’s face. I scribbled it out and reached for a new sheet of paper. I wrote a few paragraphs, experimented with styles and voices. I drank one coffee, then another, and another, stopping after three for financial reasons. I looked at my notes, at my writings. What I had was obviously far too little information for a book, and far too much for a standard-length article. How much longer would I have to keep attending those bloody meetings? They were already becoming tedious, and with Neal turning into an octopus the whole situation had lost its charm. The only thing of any interest at all was the old woman with the