Long, winding roads gave birth to long, winding thoughts. The drive to the Community lulled Rupert into reminiscences of Matthew. Occasionally, Rupert checked himself, not wanting to tempt fate, but a part of him feared that Matthew would die soon, and Rupert’s mind was already moving into its own particular therapy and its need to begin at the beginning.
The hotel’s doors were wide open to let in the summer breeze or, it seemed to Rupert, to let out the stale, yeasty smell of old and newly spilt beer, cigarettes and the bodies that consumed both. The voices that swam out to the street on the tide of odours were particularly merry on this Friday afternoon. Final examinations had been completed, the university year was over, and the first-year students now were unleashing their more reckle
