Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry [127]
The band struck up Guadalajara again in the wind, and the bull bellowed, his horns caught in the railings through which, helpless, he was being poked with sticks in what remained of his testicles, tickled with switches, a machete, and, after getting clear and re-entangled, a garden rake; dust too and dung was thrown in his red eyes; and now there seemed no end to this childish cruelty.
"Darling," Yvonne whispered suddenly, "Geoffrey--look at me. Listen to me, I've been... there isn't anything to keep us here any longer... Geoffrey..."
The Consul, pale, without his dark glasses, was looking at her piteously; he was sweating, his whole frame was trembling. "No," he said. "No... No," he added, almost hysterically.
"Geoffrey darling... don't tremble... what are you afraid of? Why don't we go away, now, tomorrow, today... what's to stop us?"
"No..."
"Ah, how good you've been--"
The Consul put his arm around her shoulders, leaning his damp head against her hair like a child, and for a moment it was as if a spirit of intercession and tenderness hovered over them, guarding, watching. He said wearily:
"Why not. Let's for Jesus Christ's sweet sake get away. A thousand, a million miles away, Yvonne, anywhere, so long as it's away. Just away. Away from all this. Christ, from this."
--into a wild sky full of stars at rising, and Venus and the golden moon at sunrise, and at noon blue mountains with snow and blue cold rough water--"Do you mean it?"
"Do I mean it!"
"Darling..." It ran in Yvonne's mind that all at once they were talking--agreeing hastily--like prisoners who do not have much time to talk; the Consul took her hand. They sat closely, hands clasped, with their shoulders touching. In the arena Hugh tugged; the bull tugged, was free, but furious now, throwing himself at any place on the fence that reminded him of the pen he'd so prematurely left, and now, tired, persecuted beyond measure, finding it, hurling himself at the gate time after time with an incensed, regressive bitterness until, the little dog barking at his heels, he'd lost it again... Hugh rode the tiring bull round and round the ring.
"This isn't just escaping, I mean, let's start again really, Geoffrey, really and cleanly somewhere. It could be like a rebirth."
"Yes. Yes it could."
"I think I know, I've got it all clear in my mind at last. Oh Geoffrey, at last I think I have."
"Yes, I think I know too."
Below them, the bull's horns again involved the fence.
"Darling..." They would arrive at their destination by train, a train that wandered through an evening land of fields beside water, an arm of the Pacific--
"Yvonne?"
"Yes, darling?"
"I've fallen down, you know... Somewhat."
"Never mind, darling."
.".. Yvonne?"
"Yes?"
"I love you... Yvonne?"
"Oh, I love you too!"
"My dear one... My sweetheart."
"Oh, Geoffrey. We could be happy, we could--"
"Yes... We could."
--and far across the water, the little house, waiting--
There was a sudden roar of applause followed by the accelerated clangour of guitars deploying downwind; the bull had pulled away from the fence and once more the scene was becoming animated: Hugh and the bull tussled for a moment in the centre of a small fixed circle the others created by their exclusion from it within the arena; then the whole was veiled in dust; the pen gate to their left had broken open again, freeing all the other bulls, including the first one, who was probably responsible; they were charging out amid cheers, snorting, scattering in every direction.
Hugh was eclipsed for a while, wrestling with his bull in a far corner: suddenly someone on that side screamed. Yvonne pulled herself from the Consul and stood up.
"Hugh... Something's happened."
The Consul stood up unsteadily. He was drinking from the habanero bottle, drinking, till he almost finished it. Then he said:
"I can't see. But I think it's the bull'
It was still impossible to make out what was happening on the far side in the dusty confusion of horsemen, bulls, and ropes. Then Yvonne saw yes it was the bull, which, played out, was lying in the dust again. Hugh calmly walked off it, bowed to the cheering spectators, and, dodging other bulls, vaulted over the distant fence. Someone restored his hat to him.