Then we came back to the table. Whats after the end of the world I said to my dad. Nothing he said. Nothing at all. Thats why its called the end.
Then Daisy was sick over Daddys shoes, and we cleaned it up.
I sat by the table. We ate potato salad, which I gave you the recipe for all ready, you should make it its really good, and we drank orange juice and potato sticks and squishy egg and cress sandwiches. We drank our Coca-cola.
Then Mummy said something to Daddy I didnt hear and he just hit her in the face with a big hit with his hand, and mummy started to cry.
Daddy told me to take Daisy and walk about while they talked.
I took Daisy and I said come on Daisydaisy, come on old daisybell because she was crying too, but Im too old to cry.
I couldnt hear what they were saying. I looked up at the cat face man and I tried to see if he was moving very very slowly, and I heard the trumpet at the end of the world in my head going dah dah dah.
We sat by a rock and I sang songs to Daisy lah lah lah lah lah to the sound of the trumpet in my head dah dah dah.
Lah lah lah lah lah lah lah lah.
Lah lah lah.
Then mummy and daddy came over to me and they said we were going home. But that everything was really all right. Mummys eye was all purple. She looked funny, like a lady on the television.
Daisy said owie. I told her yes, it was an owie. We got back in the car.
On the way home, nobody said anything. The baby sleeped.
There was a dead animal by the side of the road somebody had hit with a car. Daddy said it was a white deer. I thought it was the unicorn, but mummy told me that you cant kill unicorns but I think she was lying like grownups do again.
When we got to Twilight I said, if you told someone your wish, did that mean it wouldnt come true?
What wish, said Daddy?
Your birthday wish. When you blow out the candles.
He said, Wishes dont come true whether you tell them or not. Wishes, he said. He said you cant trust wishes.
I asked Mummy, and she said, whatever your father says, she said in her cold voice, which is the one she uses when she tells me off with my whole name.
Then I sleeped too.
And then we were home, and it was morning, and I dont want to see the end of the world again. And before I got out of the car, while mummy was carrying in Daisy daisy to the house, I closed my eyes so I couldn't see anything at all, and I wished and I wished and I wished and I wished. I wished wed gone to Ponydale. I wished wed never gone anywhere at all. I wished I was somebody else.
And I wished.
CHAPTER 29: Desert Wind
There was an old man with skin baked black by the desert sun
who told me that, when he was young, a storm had separated him from his caravan
and its spices, and he walked over rock and over sand for days and nights,
seeing nothing but small lizards and sand-coloured rats.
But that, on the third day, he came upon a city
of silken tents of all bright colours. A woman led him into the largest tent,
crimson the silk was, and set a tray in front of him, gave him iced sherbet
to drink, and cushions to lie upon, and then, with scarlet lips, she kissed his brow.
Veiled dancers undulated in front of him, bellies like sand dunes,
Eyes like pools of dark water in oases, purple were all their silks,
and their rings were gold. He watched the dancers while servants brought him food,
all kinds of food, and wine as white as silk and wine as red as sin.
And then, the wine making good madness in his belly and his head, he jumped up,
into the midst of the dancers, and danced with them, feet stamping on the sand,
jumping and pounding, and he took the fairest of all the dancers
in his arms and kissed her. But his lips pressed to a dry and desert-pitted skull.
And each dancer in purple had become bones, but still they curved and stamped
in their dance. And he felt the city of tents then like dry sand, hissing and escaping
through his fingers, and he shivered, and buried his head in his burnous,
And sobbed, so he could no longer hear the drums.
He was alone, he said, when he awoke. The tents were gone and the ifreets.
The sky was blue, the sun was pitiless. That was a lifetime ago.
He lived to tell the tale. He laughed with toothless gums, and told us this:
He has seen the city of silken tents on the horizon since, dancing in the haze.
I asked him if it were a mirage, and he said yes. I said it was a dream,
and he agreed, but said it was the desert's dream, not his. And he told me that
in a year or so, when he had aged enough for any man, then he would walk
into the wind, until he saw the tents. This time, he said, he would go on with them.
CHAPTER 30: Tastings
He had a tattoo on his upper arm, of a small heart, done in blue and red. Beneath it was a patch of pink skin, where a name had been erased.
He was licking her left nipple, slowly. His right hand was caressing the back of her neck.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
He looked up. "What do you mean?"
"You seem like you're. I don't know. Somewhere else," she said. "Oh…that's nice. That's really nice."
They were in a hotel suite. It was her suite. He knew who she was, had recognised her on sight, but had been warned not to use her name.
He moved his head up to look into her eyes, moved his hand down to her breast. They were both naked from the waist up. She had a silk skirt on; he wore blue jeans.
"Well?" she said.
He put his mouth against hers. Their lips touched. Her tongue flickered against his. She sighed, pulled back. "So what's wrong? Don't you like me?"
He grinned, reassuringly. "Like you? I think you're wonderful," he said. He hugged her, tightly. Then his hand cupped her left breast, and, slowly, squeezed it. She closed her eyes.
"Well, then," she whispered, "what's wrong?"
"Nothing," he said. "It's wonderful. You're wonderful. You're very beautiful."
"My ex-husband used to say that I used my beauty," she told him. She ran the back of her hand across the front of his jeans, up and down. He pushed against her, arching his back. "I suppose he was right." She knew the name he had given her, but, certain that it was false, a name of convenience, would not call him by it.
He touched her cheek. Then he moved his mouth back to her nipple. This time, as he licked, he moved a hand down between her legs. The silk of her skirt was soft against his hand, and he cupped his fingers against her pubis and slowly increased the pressure.
"Anyway, something's wrong," she said. "There's something going on in that pretty head of yours. Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?"
"It's silly," he said. "And I'm not here for me. I'm here for you."
She undid the buttons of his jeans. He rolled over and slid them off, dropping them onto the floor by the bed. He wore thin scarlet underpants, and his erect penis pushed against the material.
While he took off his jeans, she removed her earrings; they were made of elaborately looped silver wires. She placed them carefully beside the bed.
He laughed, suddenly.
"What was that about?" she asked.
"Just a memory. Strip poker," he said. "When I was a kid, I don't know, thirteen or fourteen, we used to play with the girls next door. They'd always load up with tchotchkes-necklaces, earrings, scarves, things like that. So when they'd lose, they'd take off one earring or whatever. Ten minutes in, we'd be nude and embarrassed, and they'd still be fully dressed."
"So why'd you play with them?"
"Hope," he said. He reached beneath her skirt, began to massage her labia through her white cotton panties. "Hope that maybe we'd get a glimpse of something. Anything."