green sheen. Lyall’s hair was wet and his goatee trimmed
and he smelled of shampoo and aftershave. Good morning, he said, bouncing on his
heels. You keep saying you’ll let me do things around the house for you but you never
invite me up, so I’ve invited myself up anyway. After that there was a heavy silence.
Look, I’m just being a good neighbour, said Lyall, glancing around for a chair to
sit on; it’s a small town and pretty well everyone knows everyone so it’s best we
know each other too. I’m Elena, said Elena, and she stood up to shake his hand. It
was hard and callused, like an old man’s hand. I’ll get you a chair, she said. She
went inside and came back out with a chair and set it down beside the table for him.
Lyall sat on the very edge with his knees splayed and his hands gripping his thighs.
So what’s your story? he said. Everyone here’s got a story. You don’t end up miles
from anywhere like this unless you’re running away from something. Me, it was a bad
marriage and then just badness generally. What about you?
Elena told him. She told him about the situation at home then how she fell sick and
dropped out of school and didn’t know what was wrong with her. She told him about
O’Breen and described what went on in his room in great detail. She listed her allergies
and the symptoms of each. I’m allergic to the modern world, she said; not enough
to kill me but enough to stop me and the modern world getting on. Even your aftershave,
now, she said, and your shampoo; they’re making me feel not quite right. So I jumped
on a bus and came here. Maybe it’s temporary, I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.
I can go away, said Lyall, if the chemicals are bad; actually, you know, I don’t
usually wear this stuff, unless I’ve got something special to go to which I don’t
very much. Serves me right! Elena smiled. Maybe just go back a little way, she said,
on that side over there, so the breeze will take it away.
Elena and Lyall kept talking, once Lyall had moved his chair. Elena’s mention of
her allergies seemed to open up something in him. Like her, he was there to get away.
The city’s no good, goodness has fled the city, said Lyall. When was the last time
you met a good person there or saw an act of goodness or had some goodness done
to you? Lyall explained how he had tried to make the city work for him but how the
city was always conspiring against him and how it was not until he’d left and come
here that he realised that he was actually in a perpetual struggle with the city,
like Jacob with his Angel, he said, and that in fact every day lived in the city
was a struggle with the city; there was always a part of you, even a subconscious
part, fighting with it. He explained at great length how since coming in from the
plains and dwelling in houses and suburbs the human species had always been engaged
in this knock-down-all-in fight with the city which, Lyall insisted, it will never
win. The odds are always stacked in Babylon’s favour, he said. We cling to civilisation’s
veneer, the idea that once upon a time in a city somewhere someone painted a picture
or built a beautiful building or made a beautiful piece of music and that therefore
we city dwellers are closer to God, the Almighty. But no. We make paintings and palaces
and symphonies but we also make shampoo and aftershave and petrol and plastic and
pesticides and computers and computer games and pornography and chat rooms.
Elena loved listening to Lyall’s voice, the rise and fall of it, the plaintive rhythm,
like an old train chugging off into the mist. It was not so much the words she was
hearing as the soothing sound they made in the air. She let him go on; to her it
seemed somehow that his voice was tuned to perfectly match their surroundings, that
it was a voice that could as easily have been spoken by the trees, the grass, the
birds, the lake or the waves on the other side of the bar, and it was surely the
voice she
and he smelled of shampoo and aftershave. Good morning, he said, bouncing on his
heels. You keep saying you’ll let me do things around the house for you but you never
invite me up, so I’ve invited myself up anyway. After that there was a heavy silence.
Look, I’m just being a good neighbour, said Lyall, glancing around for a chair to
sit on; it’s a small town and pretty well everyone knows everyone so it’s best we
know each other too. I’m Elena, said Elena, and she stood up to shake his hand. It
was hard and callused, like an old man’s hand. I’ll get you a chair, she said. She
went inside and came back out with a chair and set it down beside the table for him.
Lyall sat on the very edge with his knees splayed and his hands gripping his thighs.
So what’s your story? he said. Everyone here’s got a story. You don’t end up miles
from anywhere like this unless you’re running away from something. Me, it was a bad
marriage and then just badness generally. What about you?
Elena told him. She told him about the situation at home then how she fell sick and
dropped out of school and didn’t know what was wrong with her. She told him about
O’Breen and described what went on in his room in great detail. She listed her allergies
and the symptoms of each. I’m allergic to the modern world, she said; not enough
to kill me but enough to stop me and the modern world getting on. Even your aftershave,
now, she said, and your shampoo; they’re making me feel not quite right. So I jumped
on a bus and came here. Maybe it’s temporary, I don’t know, I haven’t decided yet.
I can go away, said Lyall, if the chemicals are bad; actually, you know, I don’t
usually wear this stuff, unless I’ve got something special to go to which I don’t
very much. Serves me right! Elena smiled. Maybe just go back a little way, she said,
on that side over there, so the breeze will take it away.
Elena and Lyall kept talking, once Lyall had moved his chair. Elena’s mention of
her allergies seemed to open up something in him. Like her, he was there to get away.
The city’s no good, goodness has fled the city, said Lyall. When was the last time
you met a good person there or saw an act of goodness or had some goodness done
to you? Lyall explained how he had tried to make the city work for him but how the
city was always conspiring against him and how it was not until he’d left and come
here that he realised that he was actually in a perpetual struggle with the city,
like Jacob with his Angel, he said, and that in fact every day lived in the city
was a struggle with the city; there was always a part of you, even a subconscious
part, fighting with it. He explained at great length how since coming in from the
plains and dwelling in houses and suburbs the human species had always been engaged
in this knock-down-all-in fight with the city which, Lyall insisted, it will never
win. The odds are always stacked in Babylon’s favour, he said. We cling to civilisation’s
veneer, the idea that once upon a time in a city somewhere someone painted a picture
or built a beautiful building or made a beautiful piece of music and that therefore
we city dwellers are closer to God, the Almighty. But no. We make paintings and palaces
and symphonies but we also make shampoo and aftershave and petrol and plastic and
pesticides and computers and computer games and pornography and chat rooms.
Elena loved listening to Lyall’s voice, the rise and fall of it, the plaintive rhythm,
like an old train chugging off into the mist. It was not so much the words she was
hearing as the soothing sound they made in the air. She let him go on; to her it
seemed somehow that his voice was tuned to perfectly match their surroundings, that
it was a voice that could as easily have been spoken by the trees, the grass, the
birds, the lake or the waves on the other side of the bar, and it was surely the
voice she
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