David Mitchell Quote
Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: When did the wind die down? An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it. You’ve been awake a whole hour? My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you. Idiot. She lifts her body to tell me to slide out. I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry. You’re forgiven. She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it. I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance? In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. What? Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any. I trace her cheekbones. Semiattractive? Cheeky moo. She yawns an octave. Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow. I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you. Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party. I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. No. Her hand explores my shoulder blade. No what? No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it. Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. Second? Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—with me all day. She presses her ear to my ribs. Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant? The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. If time had a pause button, I tell Holly Sykes, I’d press it. Right—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—there. Now. But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever. I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere. She murmurs, You only value something if you know it’ll end.
Still dark. The Alpine hush is miles deep. The skylight over Holly’s bed is covered with snow, but now that the blizzard’s stopped I’m guessing the stars are out. I’d like to buy her a telescope. Could I send her one? From where? My body’s aching and floaty but my mind’s flicking through the last night and day, like a record collector flicking through a file of LPs. On the clock radio, a ghostly presenter named Antoine Tanguay is working through Nocturne Hour from three till four A.M. Like all the best DJs, Antoine Tanguay says almost nothing. I kiss Holly’s hair, but to my surprise she’s awake: When did the wind die down? An hour ago. Like someone unplugged it. You’ve been awake a whole hour? My arm’s dead, but I didn’t want to disturb you. Idiot. She lifts her body to tell me to slide out. I loop a long strand of her hair around my thumb and rub it on my lip. I spoke out of turn last night. About your brother. Sorry. You’re forgiven. She twangs my boxer shorts’ elastic. Obviously. Maybe I needed to hear it. I kiss her wound-up hair bundle, then uncoil it. You wouldn’t have any ciggies left, perchance? In the velvet dark, I see her smile: A blade of happiness slips between my ribs. What? Use a word like ‘perchance’ in Gravesend, you’d get crucified on the Ebbsfleet roundabout for being a suspected Conservative voter. No cigarettes left, I’m ’fraid. I went out to buy some yesterday, but found a semiattractive stalker, who’d cleverly made himself homeless forty minutes before a whiteout, so I had to come back without any. I trace her cheekbones. Semiattractive? Cheeky moo. She yawns an octave. Hope we can dig a way out tomorrow. I hope we can’t. I like being snowed in with you. Yeah well, some of us have these job things. Günter’s expecting a full house. Flirty-flirty tourists want to party-party-party. I bury my head in the crook of her bare shoulder. No. Her hand explores my shoulder blade. No what? No, you can’t go to Le Croc tomorrow. Sorry. First, because now I’m your man, I forbid it. Her sss-sss is a sort of laugh. Second? Second, if you went, I’d have to gun down every male between twelve and ninety who dared speak to you, plus any lesbians too. That’s seventy-five percent of Le Croc’s clientele. Tomorrow’s headlines would all be BLOODBATH IN THE ALPS AND LAMB THE SLAUGHTERER, and the a vegetarian-pacifist type, I know you wouldn’t want any role in a massacre so you’d better shack up—I kiss her nose, forehead, and temple—with me all day. She presses her ear to my ribs. Have you heard your heart? It’s like Keith Moon in there. Seriously. Have I got off with a mutant? The blanket’s slipped off her shoulder: I pull it back. We say nothing for a while. Antoine whispers in his radio studio, wherever it is, and plays John Cage’s In a Landscape. It unscrolls, meanderingly. If time had a pause button, I tell Holly Sykes, I’d press it. Right—I press a spot between her eyebrows and up a bit—there. Now. But if you did that, the whole universe’d be frozen, even you, so you couldn’t press play to start time again. We’d be stuck forever. I kiss her on the mouth and blood’s rushing everywhere. She murmurs, You only value something if you know it’ll end.