Excerpt of A Slight Trick of The Mind by Mitch Cullin
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"You'll live with this mess for an age," said Mrs. Munro, nodding at the mail
stacks. After lowering the empty wicker basket to the floor, she turned to him,
saying, "There's more, too, you know, out in the front hall closet–them boxes
was cluttering up everything."
"Very well, Mrs. Munro," he said sharply, hoping to thwart any elaboration on
her part.
"Should I bring the others in? Or should I wait for this bunch to be
finished?"
"You can wait."
He glanced at the doorway, indicating with his eyes that he wished for her
withdrawal. But she ignored his stare, pausing instead to smooth her apron
before continuing: "There's an awful lot–in that hall closet, you know–I can't
tell you how much."
"So I have gathered. I think for the moment I will focus on what is
here."
"I'd say you've got your hands full, sir. If you're needing help–"
"I can take care of it–thank you."
Intently this time, he gazed at the doorway, inclining his head in its
direction.
"Are you hungry?" she asked, tentatively stepping onto the Persian rug and
into the sunlight.
A scowl halted her approach, softening a bit as he sighed. "Not in the
slightest" was his answer.
"Will you be eating this evening?"
"It is inevitable, I suppose." He briefly envisioned her laboring recklessly
in the kitchen, spilling offal on the countertops, or dropping bread crumbs and
perfectly good slices of Stilton to the floor. "Are you intent on concocting
your unsavory toad-in-the-hole?"
"You told me you didn't like that," she said, sounding surprised.
"I don't, Mrs. Munro, I truly don't–at least not your interpretation of
it. Your shepherd's pie, on the other hand, is a rare thing."
Her expression brightened, even as she knitted her brow in contemplation.
"Well, let's see, I got leftover beef from the Sunday roast. I could use
that–except I know how you prefer the lamb."
"Leftover beef is acceptable."
"Shepherd's pie it is, then," she said, her voice taking on a sudden urgency.
"And so you'll know, I've got your bags unpacked. Didn't know what to do with
that funny knife you brought, so it's by your pillow. Mind you don't cut
yourself." He sighed with greater effect, shutting his eyes completely, removing
her from his sight altogether: "It is called a kusun-gobu, my dear, and I
appreciate your concern–wouldn't want to be stilettoed in my own bed."
"Who would?"
His right hand fumbled into a coat pocket, his fingers feeling for the
remainder of a half-consumed Jamaican. But, to his dismay, he had somehow
misplaced the cigar (perhaps lost as he disembarked from the train earlier, as
he stooped to retrieve a cane that had slipped from his grasp–possibly the
Jamaican had escaped his pocket then, falling to the platform, only to get
flattened underfoot). "Maybe," he mumbled, "or maybe–"
He searched another pocket, listening while Mrs. Munro's shoes went from the
rug and crossed the slats and moved onward through the doorway (seven steps,
enough to take her from the library). His fingers curled around a cylindrical
tube (nearly the same length and circumference of the halved Jamaican, although
by its weight and firmness, he readily discerned it wasn't the cigar). And when
lifting his eyelids, he beheld a clear glass vial sitting upright on his open
palm; and peering closer, the sunlight glinting off the metal cap, he studied
the two dead honeybees sealed within–one mingling upon the other, their legs
intertwined, as if both had succumbed during an intimate embrace.
Excerpted from A Slight Trick of the Mind by Mitch Cullin Copyright © 2005 by
Mitch Cullin. Excerpted by permission of Nan A. Talese, a division of Random
House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or
reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
