An Evening of Long Goodbyes Read Online Free Page A

back. ‘What do you mean?’ she said.
    ‘I mean, I’ve never laid eyes on him before today, and already he’s spending the night? Just because Mother isn’t here doesn’t mean the house can be turned into a, a bordello , you know.’
    She flushed a deep scarlet. ‘How dare you,’ she said coldly.
    ‘I’m only thinking of you,’ I said. ‘I’m just trying to stop you doing something you might regret. One of us has to keep a level head, after all.’
    ‘My head is perfectly level, I assure you.’
    ‘Well, is it, though,’ I said.
    Bel stood up. ‘What do you mean, “is it, though?”’
    ‘I mean, you’re not in good form. You said it yourself, Bel. You’re feeling bereaved. You’re ticked off because you’re not with your pals in college any more. You’ve been like this all summer. It’s perfectly understandable. But there comes a point where someone has to step in and take charge. Because the fact is that bereaved or extremely sad people often reach out for support to the wrong places. Their heads are clouded, you see, so they make these ferociously bad decisions –’
    Bel’s teeth ground audibly. ‘Charles, how dare you say what you just said and then presume to think you know how I feel. God, if anything’s pushing me to make bad decisions and do something I’ll regret, it’s –’
    ‘I’m simply thinking of your welfare. Can’t you just sit down and listen for a moment?’ I winced and pressed my hand to my side as a flame of pain shot up from my gut. ‘I mean, who is this Frank? That’s what we have to ask ourselves. What does he want with us?’
    ‘ I know who he is, I’m what he wants with us.’
    ‘Ah, but do you? I mean he could be anyone, he could be a – a serial killer, or a very well-disguised master criminal after the family fortune –’
    ‘Why do we keep having this conversation?’ She directed her question to the ceiling. ‘Why are you like this every time I bring someone home? You snipe and you complain till I can’t face it any more. It’s insupportable.’
    ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it’s because you have such uneducated tastes –’ adding hurriedly as she looked about set to hit me, invalided or not, ‘Because you’re such an exquisite creature, Bel, you deserve so much better.’
    ‘Charles, two minutes ago you basically called me a prostitute.’
    ‘No I didn’t.’
    ‘You did, you said I was turning the house into a bordello.’
    ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I said. ‘I only meant, you know, you shouldn’t be wasting your time on imbeciles. I know how hard it is to find the right person, but that’s no reason to exhaustively work your way through all the wrong people. You seem to be living your romantic life by some kind of process of elimination. It’s like matching a Louis Quatorze armchair with one of those plastic patio tables. It simply doesn’t work.’
    ‘Oh, I see,’ Bel said. ‘I’m an armchair, is that it?’
    ‘A Louis Quatorze armchair,’ I qualified.
    ‘And my boyfriends are patio tables.’
    ‘Actually,’ I remembered, ‘this one’s more like one of those self-assembly Swedish wardrobes.’
    ‘I worry about you,’ Bel said, getting up and pirouetting angrily in the pool of light thrown by the lamp. ‘I seriously do. I think you have real demons to struggle with, Charles. Every single relationship I have you do your best to destroy. You make every boy I bring home feel uncomfortable and you make me look like I come from some sort of uppity zoo . No one is good enough for you. Kevin was too badly dressed –’
    ‘The sandals? The socks?’
    ‘Liam was too Scottish –’
    ‘Oh, but so Scottish, Bel! Come on, the bagpipes ? The interminable quotations from Braveheart ? Anyone who’s proud of coming from Scotland obviously has issues –’
    ‘David?’
    ‘Duck-walk.’
    ‘Roy?’
    ‘Repressed homosexual.’
    ‘Anthony?’
    I scratched my head. ‘Picayune,’ I said.
    ‘Thomas, what about him? How did