Demons by Bill Nagelkerke Page B

poor old Pentheus in The
Bacchae ?’
    ‘ Exactly like
him.’
    ‘ I remember you took it
calmly. Wisely.’
    I have to change the subject.
    ‘ Yes,’ I say. ‘So what
next? Will you go back, study some more?’
    ‘ Maybe. I’m feeling drained
right now. Jaded. But I will, probably, eventually. If I do a PhD
I’ll start it in New Zealand. Dunedin, perhaps.’
    I nod.
    ‘ What?’
    ‘ I didn’t say
anything.’
    ‘ I can read you like a book
though. It’s all over your face.’
    ‘ Well, is
it a life ?’
    ‘ I don’t live in the past,’
Chris insists. ‘I never have. Not completely. And besides, your
past is just as important to you as mine is to me.’
    ‘ Ah, but
it’s not the same thing intirely ,’ I say, putting on a mock
Irish accent. ‘Mine’s personal, family history stuff. Yours is . .
. well, different. I don’t mean it’s less important, to you, it’s
just that you can never have as much stake in it, the same
passion.’
    ‘ Who says?’
    ‘ Well, can you?’
    ‘ Of course,’ he says. ‘But
where’s the point in arguing about it?’
    ‘ Arguing? Who’s arguing?
This is a debate. I used to enjoy them at school.’
    I think: this was, still
is, the crux. We will never be able to completely understand each
other. Some-times being different is not enough.
    Chris allows himself a grin. ‘You and I did
have some passions in common. The candle vigil, remember? I think
it was the first time I really got passionate about something other
than the ancient world.’
    ‘ What about Chloe and
Daphnis?’ I ask him. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything
anymore?’
    ‘ Daphnis and Chloe,’ he
agrees. ‘But it was on a different level entirely.’
     
    Dreams
    I had weird dreams. Maybe it was because of
eating too much pizza too quickly. Or perhaps I slept restlessly
because I’d stupidly forgotten to take sun block on the walk and my
pale Irish skin got burnt as a result. Anyway, I dreamt Chris and I
were still kissing passionately in amongst the tussock when Becs
suddenly came strolling by. I was really surprised to see her
because I knew she hardly ever chose to walk anywhere and so I
guessed that she had followed us on purpose to spy. She had a
wicked gleam in her eye and, as Chris and I rolled apart, she
pulled her statuette of Priapus from her jeans pocket and waved it
under our noses. ‘What’s his like?’ she said. ‘Come on, you can
tell me.’
    I woke up in a sweat, panicking like on the
night
    Gran had died. Unlike
then, I must have gone back to sleep almost immediately because
next Gran herself appeared in my dream, running up the track like a
well-oiled athlete. She was waving something but she was still too
far away for me to see what it was.
    As she came closer we heard her shouting,
yelling at Becs to leave us alone. Becs took one look at the thing
Gran was waving and hared off in the opposite direction.
    ‘ Gran!’ I said. ‘Thank
goodness you came.’
    ‘ Don’t thank me,’ she said.
‘Thank God.’
    And then I saw she was brandishing her
rosary beads, warding off evil. She made Chris and me kneel beside
her and pray. ‘The first glorious and colourful turning point,’ she
intoned. ‘The first mystery of human attraction.’
    And then she faded away, as she had when she
died, raging against the dying of the light and I woke up a second
time, in tears.

    Dance party
    It wasn’t really a dance party, not in the
proper sense. It was a party, and there was dancing, and it was
loud and energetic and some of the people there were probably high
on the dark stuff, but it was on St Patrick’s Day, my birthday, and
there was an Irish bash.
    Now, there’s Irish and
there’s Oyrish .
The first is the real thing, the other is the equivalent of green
beer and plastic leprechauns. Most of the stuff that happens on St
Pat’s Day falls into the second category but my family has always
celebrated the day, not in any flash nightclub or synthetic Irish
bar, but in a genuine