Opportunity Read Online Free Page A

get a cold feeling when
I'm out, and turn, and there is terrible Glenda, stooped,
pitched sideways with the strain of the blackest scowl she can
sustain without turning her face inside out.
    The tumbledown house, moody Blake, glowering Glenda,
moronic Ron, the piles of junk on Ron's trailer going back and
forth all day — all of this has unsettled me so much that I've
often thought of moving. I haven't managed to yet, even
though I've been so sorely tried.
    The Cassidys' latest trick (revenge for one of my complaints)
    is to park a couple of derelict cars outside my house so I have nowhere to
    park my own. They're always 'trailing their coat', as the Irish saying goes.
    They're always itching for a fight . . .
    ***
    It was a cold June morning. I was sitting at my desk watching
Ron Cassidy fixing a loose bit of iron on his roof. The wind
rattled the windows and the rain had bits of hail in it. Ron was
wearing carpet slippers. His feet slipped about on the iron. I
started writing: an elderly woman was sitting in her house. She
was watching her neighbour, an aggressive, unpleasant man
who, for years, had made her life difficult. She was thinking
about hate. She was thinking: there are very few people I hate,
but that man is one of them. He has made me unhappy in
my own house. And he hates me. She thought: if this were
the Balkans or Rwanda, if society broke down and that man
suddenly had the opportunity, he would kill me. Given the
chance, I wouldn't kill him, even though I hate him, because I
am a better class of person. But he would kill me.
    She watched him sliding about on the roof. He had a
hammer and a mouthful of nails and he was trying to hold
down a section of iron. The wind tore at his clothes and hair.
He slipped, threw up his arms and dropped the hammer. She
saw him catch hold of a rusty overflow pipe to steady himself.
It broke and came away. He teetered for a second, his body
twisting, his hands clutching the air. The pipe tilted with him.
There was a scattering of pieces of iron, nails, broken pipe.
The wind got under the iron and made it shriek. He fell into
the yard below. She heard his heavy body hit the concrete.
    She sat still. Some minutes went by. No one came out to help
    him. No one was home over there. She could see his legs. She waited, looking
    at his legs. They didn't move. It started raining hard. He lay in the rain.
    She felt very strange sitting there, looking at her neighbour's legs. She
    picked up her coat and umbrella and went slowly out into the street. She stood
    outside her gate, the rain drumming on her umbrella. She got in her car and
    drove away.
    ***
    The Writers' Festival was on. There had already been two
days of appearances by local and overseas writers. At three
that afternoon I was to appear in An Hour With Celia Myers,
in which I would talk about my career and read from my
work. I'd already chaired a session with three young women
novelists, and taken part in panel discussions with some
overseas writers. It had all gone well. The sessions were lively,
and I'd managed to avoid any disasters or embarrassments.
I'd been told that my Hour With session had sold reasonably
well. I enjoyed festivals. My books were especially popular
with women. After the session with the young novelists the
crowd had been enthusiastic, and I'd realised how much I
enjoyed the crush, the warmth of all those bodies pressing
towards us. I live alone. My husband died years ago, and my
daughters, Dee and Viola, have long since grown up. Mostly it
suits me, being alone. But I crave the human touch.
    I left my car in the parking building and walked down to
the Hilton. The cold rain was sheeting down, but the Hilton
was the perfect place to be on such a melancholy afternoon.
The building was at the end of the wharf and the windows
looked out onto the harbour all tossed with foam and white-
caps, and the container ships in the rain, and the ferries
crossing the water. In the late afternoon the water took on