THALIA - Bergotte (best book reader txt) 📗

task of explaining the tragic event to her, was quite shocked by her hysterical reaction to his news of their death. She held both her parents in great affection.

She decided she would walk along the canal tow-path towards the city and stop at the confluence of the canal and River Avon, that flowed behind the railway station. She would emerge at the Old Bridge and make her way back home through the city.

As she did so, a young lad of thirteen or fourteen came up behind her grabbing at her hair. She pushed him away, but he executed a poor rugby tackle on her, seizing her by the knees, which brought her heavily to the ground. She managed to open her legs and force his head through so as to trap his neck between her legs in a pincer movement. The boy struggled violently for some minutes, but made no sound. Thalia caught hold of his hair, pulling his head back so that he could not move. He retaliated by forcing his hand under her shirt, digging his nails into her stomach causing her considerable pain. She took her hand from his hair and caught hold of the boy’s hand, pulling it away from her body.

They remained locked together, panting heavily, unable to speak or make any sound, given the great physical effort each had exerted in trying to subdue the other. Eventually, Thalia, well aware of the undignified position she lay in, managed to regain some of her composure.
“Why are you trying to hurt me?” she hissed at the boy, who had fought against her like a wild animal.
“Because I hate you,” he hissed back at her.
“But, you don’t even know me, do you?”
“Yes, I do; you’re Megan. You used to live next door to me, above the co-op on Bear Flat.”

With these words he tried desperately to pull his head from between her legs but she instantly squeezed her thighs together more tightly to prevent him from doing so. After a few moments he realised that she was stronger than he and gave up on the attempt to force himself free.
“I will let you go,” she said, “if you promise me you will leave me alone.”
“I promise,” he moaned, humiliated by his predicament, unable to exercise his male will over what he considered a mere girl. She opened her legs and allowed the boy to withdraw his head, allowing her to pull her mini-skirt over her knees and achieve some sense of decorum. They both sat up together. Thalia looked into his eyes.
“Simon Harris,” she said, having recognised the figure in front of her.
“Yeah, that’s me,” replied the boy.
“I haven’t seen you in years. Why are you attacking me?”
“I told you, ‘cos I hate you.”
“But why on earth do you hate me?” exclaimed Thalia.
“’Cos you go to that snob school.”
“What does it matter which school I attend? It’s of no consequence to you.”
“You despise me don’t you?”
“No, not at all,” replied Thalia. “I scarcely knew you when you used to live next door to me.”
“You mean you didn’t want to know me,” shouted Simon.
“Why do you think that?”
“You never said anything to me.”
“That is because I had nothing to say. Also, you were not very pleasant to me. In fact, you were pretty horrible to everybody. No wonder that others teased you and called you names. Have you got any friends?”
“No, I haven’t… not really,” he said, rather sheepishly.

Thalia looked closely at the boy. He was short, fat, and ginger haired with a very freckled face. She felt an instinctive revulsion towards him. She found it very hard to be sitting so close to him. When she thought how intimate she had been with him a few minutes previously she squirmed with discomfort.
“If it’s any consolation to you,” she told him, “I had no friends when I was your age, except one and she went home to the West Indies.”
“You’re friends with a black girl?
“Yes, what’s wrong with that?”
“I don’t like black people,” Simon replied.
“Do you know any black people?” Thalia asked him.
“No, of course not. My dad wouldn’t allow it.”
“Well, please understand that I have no quarrel with you and I certainly don’t want to fight you. Anyway, what are you doing here so early in the morning?”

“I’ve got a paper round. I’m on my way to fetch the papers from the paper shop along the road.”
“So, following me is actually out of your way and you’re probably late?”
“Yeah, but I don’t care.”
“Well, please be on your way,” said Thalia.
“Okay,” said Simon. They both got to their feet and the boy ran off.

EPILOGUE

Thalia looked at the calendar on the wall. She examined the month for April 2011.
“It’s our wedding anniversary soon,” she said to her husband.
“I’ve not forgotten,” said David. “It’s also a significant birthday later this year for you.”
“Yes, I know. I shall be sixty in November. It’s also a significant birthday in November this year for you, too. You will be seventy!”
“When did we become old?” he replied.
“I don’t feel old at all. I read the other day that sixty is the new forty. I still have health and strength.”
“Yes, so do I. The year of 1968, the year I first met you, seems such a long, long time ago,” said her husband.
“It was a very long time ago,” agreed his wife, “but think of all the things that have happened since then and all the things we’ve done together.”
“Yes. I suppose so. We have brought up our two children and have two wonderful granddaughters…”
“Do you remember very much of that year 1968?”
“Yes, it was the summer of the Paris riots, of Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Rudi Dutschke.”
“I mean, do you remember very much of that year 1968 as far as we were both concerned?”
“Yes, do you?”
“Yes, of course. I have been reading through my diaries of that and the following years, and we have a great deal to be thankful for.”
“The year you became a prophetess,” said David with a chuckle.
“You encouraged me,” replied Thalia, eyeing her husband coldly.
“I thought what you were doing was very good and what you said then has come about hasn’t it?”
“Yes, I think it has. That is where I differ from the Biblical prophets whose prophecies were made hundreds of years before the events took place,” replied Thalia. “My prophecies have forecast what has happened over the last forty years. However, there are many, many things, particularly of a technological nature that I didn’t foresee.”
“Ah! I suppose you mean computers and the advent of the World Wide Web,” said David.
“Yes, amongst other things,” agreed his wife, “and the invention of mobile phones is another way in which…”
“… The old world has ended and a new one taken its place, don’t you think?” asked David
“Yes, I do and what is more to the point, the new world is not all bad, it’s just very different,” said Thalia.

David noted how they could keep in contact with their son and daughter and their families, through Skype, seeing their faces on a computer screen in real time.
“I think electric cars are going to be a big cause of change in the future,” he added, “but I don’t like satellite navigation at all. I don’t want to sit in car with a machine giving me instructions, and after all I do know how to read a map and follow sign posts. The prophecy I remember from 1968 that has particularly come true is the one about television.”
“Yes, we have satellite TV and three hundred different channels to watch, but how many do we watch?”
“About four or five, I would say. And they have gone downhill in recent years. I don’t want to watch a news bulletin accompanied by music. There’s little or no drama on television that’s worth watching.”
“We are stuck with old films and re-runs of comedy shows from the sixties and seventies.”
“Along with American crime series, like CSI and NCIS, where we can’t understand much of what they’re saying,” added David.
“The rate of technological change has been astounding … I had just got the hang of working the video machine when you came home with a DVD player,” commented Thalia.
“I think, that you ought to get your story written up,” suggested David. “I’m sure other people would be interested to read it.”
“You mean the story of Thalia the Prophetess?”
“Yes, that writer friend of Peter’s may do it,” said David, enthusiastically.
“Oh, that man with the odd-sounding name,” replied Thalia.
“Yes, Bergotte, that’s his name.”
“He writes fiction, doesn’t he?” said Thalia, in rather a sceptical tone of voice.
“Yes, what’s wrong with that?”
“Well, we’re not fictional characters are we? We really exist as flesh and blood people. I’m not sure that I want to be reduced to a fiction, a figment of someone’s imagination.”
“He could do it as historical fiction, couldn’t he? It doesn’t matter to the reader whether we exist in real life or not, does it? Anyway, he’s taken the name Bergotte from a character in Proust’s novels.”
“Has he?”
“Yes, but the interesting thing is that Proust’s Bergotte is based on a real French author, namely, Anatole France. However, Bergotte, in Proust’s work is fictional, he is Proust’s creation.”
“So, Proust, and in fact any author, creates an imaginary world, in a sense, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” agreed David, “even if you wrote it up, from your diaries, it would still be a fiction, wouldn’t it?
“Yes, I suppose so.”

Realising it was time for bed Thalia got up and drew the curtains.
"I'm going up," she said.
"I'll join you in a minute," replied David. He went into the kitchen and turned the key in the lock, making sure the outdoor light was switched off. He wandered down to the front door and repeated the process, checking the light was out and the door bolted firmly, the key turned in the lock and put back on the stand in the hall. He wondered for a few moments about the number of times over the years he had carried out this locking up ritual. Tonight was the first night for so many years that he remembered his wife's dream about the lock and key and the ensuing conversation about Freudian psychology. David smiled ruefully as he climbed the stairs. Imprint

Publication Date: 05-03-2011

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