The Last Four Things

7

It was dawn and the twites were singing raucously in the trees. The beautiful arias and choruses they sang before the sun went down were now replaced with an appalling racket that sounded like men with out-of-tune whistles having a fist-fight in the branches of the trees.

Despite the noise, the girl, Daisy, was sleeping deeply in his arms. Kleist had slept in the same room with hundreds of boys and they looked to him even uglier when they were asleep than when they were not. She looked beautiful, something that was not quite the case when she was awake. A deeply pleasant feeling swept through him as he looked at her, like the feeling in his chest after a large swig of brandy or gin.

He was both in awe and mistrustful of women. Who is not? But until recently even ignorance could not have described his lack of understanding, which is to say he had none. Now his experience was significant in parts but both partial and peculiar. His hostility to Riba, the girl whose rescue by Cale was the inadvertent cause of all his woes, was based on the numerous occasions when, through no fault of hers, she had nearly got him killed; his second source of experience was of the aristocratic beauties of Memphis, who regarded all men, and especially him, as beneath contempt; and finally the whores of Kitty Town, whose misery or coldness had eventually put him off going there at all.

Overwhelmed by the clash of sudden tenderness with the violence of his upbringing, he furiously decided that he would hunt down the remaining two members of Lord Dunbar’s gang and kill them horribly. To his surprise and mortification – he had more or less expected her to swoon with love and adoration when he explained his noble quest – she gasped with irritation and told him not to be so foolish.

‘Will it change anything?’

‘No,’ he said, reluctantly. ‘But I’d feel better.’

‘So would I,’ she said, smiling. ‘But fighting is risky. You never know what could happen. Risking your life to kill scum like that really, really, really isn’t worth it. One day we’ll come across them maybe, drunk, and when they fall asleep we’ll stab them in the back.’ She laughed and he stared at her, bewildered. If this had not happened to her he would have agreed entirely. He fell even more in love. Truth be told he would have liked a few days’ respite to get used to these new ways of feeling but Daisy was not a patient girl. Lightning moved slowly compared to her and she was on top of him and devouring every inch before he really knew what to do. As the great convulsion shook her body he thought she was dying of some sort of stroke. Nothing like this had happened during his miserable sorties to Kitty Town. When she lay back exhausted she was somewhat startled to have to explain to the deeply worried Kleist what had happened. It was a lot to take in, even or especially for such a very hard young man. He looked so surprised and thoughtful that she confused him even more by bursting into tears.

With enormous care he lifted the sleeping girl from his, now numb, left arm and made them both breakfast. Hungry, he ate his immediately and waited for her to wake up. He was so impatient to talk to her that he even tried giving her a push. But this was clearly a girl who knew how to sleep. He was so frustrated by this, and a little resentful that she could snore through something so momentous, he ate her breakfast as well.

‘Where’s mine?’ she said, softly, as he was finishing up by licking the plate.

‘I’ll make it for you now,’ he said, all irritation vanishing with her smile. The water was already boiling and in twenty minutes she was wolfing down the beans and rice they’d taken from Lord Dunbar.

‘What were you doing out here on your own?’

‘Just going for a wander.’

‘Out here?’

‘There’s not much point in wandering somewhere you’ve been before.’

‘You’re too young.’

‘I’m older than you.’

‘I can look after myself.’

‘So can I.’ They looked at each other awkwardly. ‘Usually. I was careless and got caught. It was my fault.’

This made him indignant.

‘How could it be your fault what they did?’

‘I didn’t say that. But if you try and steal a horse from bastards and ruffians you know what to expect. Besides,’ she said, ‘they didn’t kill you and I’m grateful for that.’

At this he hardly knew what to say. She smiled. ‘So maybe I won’t stab them in the back.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘The Quantocks.’

‘Never heard of it.’

‘They’re about three days from here. I want to go home now. Come with me.’

‘All right.’

He replied without a pause. He regretted it instantly, but only because it was such an alien thing for him to do. He felt as if he had become inhabited by another person and one who might do or say something very stupid.

‘Do you have a family?’

‘Of course,’ she said, and then regretted it. ‘Sorry.’

‘No need to say sorry. Your family shouldn’t let you go wandering off.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too dangerous.’

‘You’re the one who wants to go off on a killing bender.’

‘I wanted to avenge your honour,’ he said.

She laughed. ‘The Klephts, that’s my clan. They don’t really believe in things like that. We’re very curious but not very honourable.’

‘You’re making a fool of me.’

‘No, I’m not – really not. Respect and integrity and honesty – we don’t believe in all that. All the tribes around us do, they’re always getting into fights about their honour this and honour that. They kill themselves over honour and they kill their wives and daughters over it too. If I was a Deccan they’d strangle me if they’d found out I’d been raped.’ She stuck two fingers in the air. ‘That’s what I think of honour.’ She could see this had shocked Kleist, though startled would have been more like it. She laughed. ‘And they’re as stupid and lacking in curiosity as a cow. “Curiosity killed the cat” – that’s their favourite saying. My uncle Adam canoed down the Rhine for five days because he heard there was a whore in Firenze with unusually shaped genitals. I myself am famous because I taught a chicken to walk backwards.’

‘Why would you do that?’

She laughed, delighted. ‘Because the Klephts have a saying as well: “You can’t teach a chicken to walk backwards.”’