Authors: Rupert Thomson
‘How are you, Martin?’
‘You know, you were right,’ I said. ‘You were right all along.’
There was a silence, one of Visser’s famous silences, but I knew that, if I’d been granted a moment’s vision, if I could have seen him, just for an instant, standing there in his overcoat (if indeed he wore an overcoat!), he would’ve been smiling down at me, with pride.
At the same time, though, now that he was here, in the village, it was hard to rule out the possibility that he might simply have discontinued the experiment. Just kind of disconnected me. Brought the whole thing to an end. Out of pity. Believing, finally, that I’d had enough.
It was possible, surely.
After all, on the far side of the moon, there are intelligent life-forms who are keeping us under constant observation.
And there is always somebody behind you, with a gun.
RUPERT THOMSON
is the author of eight highly acclaimed novels, of which
Air and Fire
and
The Insult
were shortlisted for the Writer’s Guild Fiction Prize and the
Guardian
Fiction Prize respectively. His most recent novel,
Death of a Murderer
, was shortlisted for the 2008 Costa Novel Award. His memoir
This Party's Got to Stop
was published in 2010.
Fiction
Dreams of Leaving
The Five Gates of Hell
Air and Fire
Soft
The Book of Revelation
Divided Kingdom
Death of a Murderer
Non-fiction
This Party’s Got to Stop
First published 1996
Copyright © 1996 by Rupert Thomson
This electronic edition published in 2012 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
All rights reserved
You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise
make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means
(including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying,
printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable
to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
The moral right of the author has been asserted
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP
eISBN: 978-1-4088-3319-3
www.bloomsbury.com/rupertthomson
Visit
www.bloomsbury.com
to find out more about our authors and their books
You will find extracts, author interviews, author events and you can
sign up for
newsletters
to be the first to hear about our latest releases and special offers