MORNING SERIAL
SO, I told her I’d seen Ceri the night before and had made him a proposition that might affect all other current propositions, if she knew what I meant. She did. She told me he’d told her. Ah, I thought, with a twinge of discomfort at my all-round slowness, that explains the tousled look and the uncharacteristic lateness then.
I had said nothing about the small suitcase she had been carrying and which sat, shabbily out of place, by the side of her chair. It was clearly not like any overnight bag she might use even if, which I doubted, she’d use one. It wasn’t even colour coordinated.
Either with her, the atrium or the present day. It was too defiantly retrogressive for the faux retro of the lobby and too rectangular and brown to play off the black-and-white steelframed pics of Manhattan and Paris and Milan with which this transient space moored its uncertain identity. The last time I’d seen the suitcase was on top of my old man’s post-war utility furniture wardrobe. I tuned back in to Bran’s insistent murmuring.
“… I understand … I really do, Billy … what you’re saying. To Ceri. To me. And maybe, because you know how well I know you, Billy – so much unforgotten between us, isn’t there? – I understand your motives. But I still want to get you to see, things have moved on, you know, to see that it would be, well, not sensible, just sentimental if I can say, to let yourself be blinded by them, and you would, really, spoil so much that is good. And necessary even. Good, certainly. We’re all convinced of that. If you pursue them.”
I pursed my lips. Not in a discouraging way, I hoped. I wanted to give the impression of hidden and unforgettable things. Things that were indeed between us still. Things I could release if I wanted, with the right persuasion. I wanted her to continue, to be persuasive. And I wanted to know what she was doing with my father’s suitcase, and what was in it.
The speech I had coming was a good one. Prepared, rehearsed maybe, certainly drafted by Ceri for shape and punch, but clear and committed in its message.
CONTINUES TOMORROW