‘Don’t do that,’ Rooker had said quietly to Edith’s new friend.
The man tried to smile. ‘Hey, I’m real sorry. I just thought…’ There were beads of sweat in the bristles above his top lip.
Rooker felt as though he was standing beside himself, watching his own actions in boredom and disgust. His hands dropped back to his sides.
‘Come on,’ he said to Edith.
Outside, she moved up against him. She was lithe and taut, like a cat. ‘Hey,’ she breathed in his ear. As always, his aggression excited her.
The evening that had begun badly grew steadily more evil. There were more bars, much more drinking. They found themselves in a place where there was lap dancing and the next thing that happened was that Edith was dancing too, out of her mind and out of her stretchy top and tiny skirt. There was a man whose thick red arms were matted with coarse gingery hair, and Rook saw one of these arms slide between Edith’s thighs. With a weight of sadness on him Rook grabbed her by the back of the neck, just as if she really were a cat, and pushed her out of reach. Then he squared up to the red man, seeing out of the corner of his eye the bar’s security staff heading towards them.
‘Fag,’ the red man sneered.
‘Outside,’ Rook answered.
The night was thick and hot. At first Rook could hardly move against the pressure of ennui and disgust, but when the man’s fist smashed almost casually into the corner of his eye the pain lit a phosphor-white blaze in his head. He hit out, and hit again. The man went down instantly and when Rook looked at him he saw that his face was split wide open. There were teeth and bone in a mess of blood, and Rook was certain that he had killed him. Sick horror and a wash of memories rose up in him and he staggered backwards, hands up in a vain effort to shut out the sight.
He left the man lying on the ground. He left Edith still inside the bar somewhere and he made his way home in painful and blurred slow motion. On the floor of the bathroom were the prints of Edith’s feet outlined in talcum powder. He rubbed them out with the side of his fist as the floor seemed to tilt sideways and the man’s smashed face stared out at him from the mirror on the wall.
When Rooker woke up again he was lying fully dressed on the bed with Edith asleep beside him. He squinted at her, because he could only open one eye. There were black pools of mascara darkening her eye sockets and her breath bubbled through her slack lips. The light in the room was dirty grey and the air was hot to breathe. He sat up very slowly, wincing with pain. There was dried blood on the pillow where his head had rested. Sour-tasting saliva flooded his mouth.
I have to get away from here, from this, he thought.
Before he could move again, Edith stirred. She blinked at him and briefly focused. ‘Dear Jesus,’ she muttered.
Rooker stood up and slowly turned his head to the mirror on her dresser. His left eye was puffed up, the skin crimson and shiny. His eyelashes were crusted black spikes embedded in the bruised tissue. A ragged cut with oozing margins ran from the centre point of his cheekbone to the corner of his eye. The man must have been wearing a heavy ring. He put his fingers up to touch the place, memories of the night before coming back to him in small unwelcome fragments. Edith lay motionless.
‘What happened?’ he mumbled. He meant what had happened to the man he had killed.
‘You ran off and left me in some shitty bar with a bunch of creeps, that’s what happened.’
‘The guy, Edith. Is he dead?’
She coughed and then groaned. ‘Dead? No. But he needed some help getting home. So did I, but you’d gone.’
Rooker gathered his thoughts.
Of course the man wasn’t dead. Of course not. Immediately he felt reprieved. He had a chance after all, provided he grabbed it immediately. Leave now. The words pulsed in his head, taking on neon-bright colours that hurt the insides of his eyes. Just leave, get out of here and away from this.
He went to the closet and took out his old canvas holdall. He began stuffing clothes and books into it.
Edith raised herself on one elbow. ‘What are you doing?’
‘You can see what I’m doing.’
‘Where are we going?’
It came into his mind how much he hated we. All the bars and street corners, all the beds and apartments in different cities that were contained in that small word, all the arguments and reconciliations and half-hearted bargains struck and reneged upon, not just with Edith but with other women, and to what end?
‘We aren’t going anywhere. I am.’ He flung the last handful of his belongings into his bag and zipped it up.
‘Fuck you, Rook.’
‘Whatever you say.’ His wallet was missing, he realised. Somewhere between the bar and his bed last night he had lost it, or more likely someone had stolen it. It didn’t matter. Edith sat up. Tears started in her eyes and spilled out, running down through the black patches of yesterday’s make-up. Even when she was looking ugly Edith was beautiful.
“Bye,’ he said, hoisting his bag.
‘Wait,’ she shouted, but he was already at the door. ‘I hate you,’ Edith screamed at his back. ‘I hate you.’
Rooker had gone first to Miami, where a friend of his from back in Christchurch had a small airfreight business. He was doing well. Rook stayed with him as his eye turned from red to black and then faded through purple as the cut healed, although raggedly, because he hadn’t bothered to have it stitched. He had the idea that Ken might also give him some work, but instead he pointed out quite accurately that Rook hadn’t logged any flying hours in three years and he would need some refresher training before any outfit could take him on.
‘Back to pilot school?’ Rook frowned. ‘I’m forty-six years old.’
‘Listen, mate. We both know you can fly. But this business is one hundred per cent above board and without current certification you don’t step inside one of my planes. Get it?’
‘Thanks.’ Rook shrugged.
‘Don’t mention it. And you might consider throttling back on the booze as well.’
From Miami Rooker went to Rio, mostly because he had never been there before. After Rio he went to Buenos Aires, but restlessness gnawed at him and he found himself moving further and further south, as if he was being driven away from the populous centre of the world and out to the margins, where he belonged. He didn’t try to swim against the current. He passed through Rio Gallegos and then, because there was still somewhere further to go, yet more remote, he drifted on down to Ushuaia. The southernmost town in South America clings on to the world between the tailbone of the Andes and the mountainous seas of the Drake Passage.
Now Edith had found him.
‘Would I have come all this way if I didn’t care about you?’ she murmured. She touched the tight red scar that linked his eye to his cheekbone. ‘Rook?’
‘I don’t want this.’
Her fingers were unpicking the tongue of his belt from the heavy buckle.
‘Not even for old times’ sake?’ Her lips and eyelids looked a little swollen and he remembered they always used to thicken this way when they made love. It was an unwelcome recollection, but it still excited him.
Edith’s fingers travelled downwards. ‘But you do, don’t you?’ she