Read Damascus for Free Online Page B

the table somewhere.’
    â€˜How did they get it down here?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Act of God.’
    â€˜Pool table.’
    â€˜Heard it.’
    Spencer looked at her as if he had something to say, and then he just looked at her. She touched her hair to check it hadn’t gone funny. It was nearly dry. She crossed her arms over her breasts.
    â€˜Are you alright, Spencer? You look…’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜More worried than I expected.’
    He rolled a red billiard ball towards its spot at the end of the table. ‘I’m just a worrier. I worry about what’s going to happen.’
    Hazel raised her eyebrows. ‘We could always go back to bed.’
    â€˜I mean apart from that.’
    He wasn’t looking at her when he said it, a bad habit of his which was beginning to annoy her.
    â€˜I have to go out,’ Spencer said. 'I won’t be long.’
    It’s not to take your library books back, is it?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Spencer said, ‘I have to take my library books back. You can check the date.’
    â€˜There’s something else, isn’t there?’
    'I should get a present for my niece. It’s her birthday.’
    Hazel took a deep breath, suddenly distrusting her earlier feeling that she’d always known him. How could anybody know anyone else? She took another deep breath. Then she asked Spencer if he wanted her to leave.
    â€˜No,’ he said, ‘no, of course I don’t,’ but he was looking round the pool, licking his finger and drawing a football goal on a tile, and then, as an afterthought, a football inside it.
    â€˜Is it because of last night?’ she asked, suddenly worried that sleeping with him had changed everything. ‘I thought it was amazing. It was amazing, wasn’t it?’
    Spencer blinked and for a moment his eyes stayed closed. He opened them and turned the red ball a fraction with his finger, rolling it minutely one way and then another.
    â€˜What’s
wrong?'
    â€˜I don’t know. I’m sorry. I think I’m in shock.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜I never thought something like this could happen so quickly.’
    â€˜Well, it’s happened. It’s here we are.’
    â€˜Hazel, do you believe in Damascus?’
    For the first time, across the billiard table, he looked at her directly. Clear brown eyes, most attractive. He should do that more often.
    â€˜I don’t know what you mean.’
    Spencer meant did she believe in the one moment which changed everything? But he wanted to explain it more clearly than that. Did she believe in lightning and bolts from the blue? Were there certain events which made everything look different, overnight? Could people be converted to different ways of thinking, without any warning, waking up as one type of person and then waking up as another? Was anyone singled out for enlightenment? Did miracles exist? Look. Basically. Were there signs from God, telling people what to do next?
    â€˜You want me to leave, don’t you?’
    â€˜No,’ Spencer said, ‘no I don’t.’
    â€˜You do.’
    â€˜I do not. I just have to go out. But I definitely want you to be here when I get back.’
    Forcefully, using the bottom of his fist, Spencer started to erase the drawing he’d made on the tile. Hazel walked round the table, put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the ear.
    â€˜What was that for?’
    â€˜I’ve no idea,’ Hazel said. 'It must be your birthday.’

3
    History is, in a sense, the sum of our transformations. In contemplating the evidence, though, we are as likely to be struck by ruin as creation.
    THE TIMES 11/1/93
    11/1/93 M ONDAY 08:24
    Just when you thought you were actually getting somewhere. Bam, life could change, just like that. Spencer had to go and get a woman involved.
    William faced up squarely to the front door. He straightened his braces and checked his flies. He