the rickety stairs.
‘I hope she breaks her neck. Her father still hasn’t fixed those stairs,’ said
Gilla calmly.
Lalo bent stiffly to pick up his palette knife. ‘She’s right…’ He took a step
towards the mutilated picture. ‘Damn him …’ he whispered. ‘He tricked me – he
knew that this would happen. May all the gods damn Enas Yorl!’
Gilla looked at the picture and began to laugh. ‘No … really,’ she gasped,
‘it’s an excellent likeness. You only saw her pretty face. I know what she’s
been up to. Her fiance killed himself when she threw him over for that gorilla
from the Prince’s guard. The vixen is out for all she can get, which the picture
makes abundantly clear. No wonder she hated it!’
Lalo slumped. ‘But I’ve been betrayed …’
‘No. You got what you asked for, poor love. You have painted that wretched
girl’s soul!’
Lalo leaned on the splintery railing of the abandoned wharf, staring with
unfocused eyes into the golden dazzle cast upon the waters by the setting sun as
if by wishing hard enough he could become one with that beauty and forget his
despair. I have only to climb over this flimsy barrier and let myself/all… He
imagined the feel of the bitter waters closing over him, and the blessed release
from pain.
Then he looked down, and shuddered, not entirely because of the cooling wind.
The murky waters were littered with obscene gobbets that had once been part of
living things – offal flushed down the gutters from the shambles of Sanctuary to
the sea. Lalo’s gorge rose at the thought of that water touching him. He turned