All That Man Is Read Online Free Page A

made him very woozy. He is not quite sure what is happening, what she is talking about. Everything seems unusually vivid – the sun-flooded kitchen, the pictures of kittens on the wall, the blue eyes of the footballer’s wife, her fine parchment-like skin. She is holding him with a disquieting stare. His eyes fall and he finds himself looking at her narrow, naked knees.
    Her eyes again.
    â€˜He know
nah-thing
but football,’ she says. He is looking at her mouth when she says that. ‘You understand me.’ It does not seem to be a question this time. It sounds more like an instruction.
    â€˜And you young boys,’ she says, smiling happily, taking up the brandy bottle, ‘you like sport?’
    â€˜I do,’ Ferdinand tells her.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Simon doesn’t.’
    â€˜That’s not true,’ Simon mutters irritably.
    She doesn’t seem to hear that. She says, turning to him, ‘Oh, no? What do you like? What do you like? I think I know what you like!’ And, putting her hand on his knee again, she starts to laugh.
    â€˜Simon likes books,’ Ferdinand says.
    â€˜Oh, you like books! That’s
nice
. I like books! Oh –’ she puts her hand on her heart – ‘I
love
books. My husband, he don’t like books. He is not interested in art. You are interested in art, I think?’
    â€˜He’s interested in art,’ Ferdinand confirms.
    â€˜Oh, that’s
nice
!’ With her eyes on Simon, she sighs. ‘Beauty,’ she says. ‘Beauty, beauty. I live for beauty. Look, I show you.’
    Full of excitement, she takes him to a painting hanging in the hall. A flat, lifeless landscape in ugly lurid paint. She tells him she got it in Venice.
    â€˜It’s nice,’ he says.
    They stand there for a minute in silence.
    He is aware, as he stares at the small terrible picture, of her standing next to him, of her hand warm and heavy on his shoulder.
    â€˜Your friend,’ she says to Ferdinand, lighting another cigarette, ‘he understands.’ They are in the kitchen again.
    â€˜He’s very intelligent,’ Ferdinand says.
    â€˜He understands beauty.’
    â€˜Definitely.’
    â€˜He
lives
for beauty. He is like me.’ And then she says again, unscrewing the cap of the brandy bottle, ‘My husband, he know nothing but football.’
    â€˜The beautiful game,’ Ferdinand jokes.
    She laughs, though it isn’t clear whether she understood his joke. ‘You like football?’ she asks.
    â€˜I’m more of a rugby man actually,’ Ferdinand says.
    He then tries to explain what rugby is, while she smokes and listens, and occasionally asks questions that show she hasn’t understood anything.
    â€˜So is like football?’ she asks, waving away some smoke, after several minutes of detailed explanation.
    â€˜Uh. Sort of,’ Ferdinand says. ‘Yes.’
    â€˜And girls?’ she asks. ‘You like girls?’
    The question embarrasses Ferdinand less than it does Simon, and he says, after a short pause, ‘Of course we like girls.’
    She laughs again. ‘Of course!’
    She is looking at Simon, who is staring at the table. She says, ‘You will find lot of girls in Prague.’
    Standing on the Charles bridge with its blackened statues, its pointing tourists, Simon pronounces the whole place to be a soulless Disneyland.
    In St Vitus cathedral, wandering around in the quiet light and the faint smell of wood polish, he sees a poster for a performance of Mozart’s Mass in C Minor there later that afternoon which marginally perks him up, and when they have acquired tickets, they sit down on the terrace of a touristy pub opposite the cathedral’s flank to wait.
    Unusually for him, Ferdinand is smoking a cigarette, one of Simon’s Philip Morrises. While his friend tells him how much he hates Prague, Ferdinand notices two young women sitting at a nearby