bliss ... the ever-changing light of the sea and no dusk ... just daylight and then darkness ... amorous dark, and when we came home it went on being bliss but life does stretch on, does it not, like a great yarn ... and married people have to get to know one another's peculiarities ... one another's habits ... moods. Gerhardt was in the city in his chambers all week and then Fridays he drove home and the welcome, or should I say the host of welcomes, the two dogs, my wolfhound and his red setter, our little daft helper Aoife, and myself all rushing onto the drive, waving—Odysseus did not have such a welcome at Ithaca, far from it. A delicious dinner, roast with potato gratin, and apple fritters or charlotte russe for afters. Later, in the gloaming, we sat in the conservatory and discussed our week ... the little highlights and the little lowlights, and he smoked a cigar and I would have a taste, yes a taste, more than a puff, and Mr. Gentleman ... well he knew so much ... so much more than me and amazing how versatile even a cigar can be. Grand Marnier souffle Sundays before he took off for the city ... not a grass widow but a barrister's widow. For our holidays we never went abroad ... we sailed ... we loved sailing and with a windfall from a great aunt we bought a small houseboat and named it after her— Violet Rose. We would set out from Athlone and come all the way down along the Shannon, so beautiful, the breezes, the reeds, the quiet ... endless preparations beforehand ... rubber cushions, rugs ... the primus stove ... methylated spirits . ..a first aid kit ... straw hats and rain hats ... cream for the creepy crawlies ... s carcely speaking ...just ambling along, and the smile, the smiles ... what a lovely thing a smile is ... it speaks multitudes. I lost two children very early on ... he too was cut up—"O there above the little grave we kissed again with tears." Good lady, I confess, I am most afraid. Quite by chance I came on it, a white shoe box, tucked into the folds of a wide cedar that borders their fence and ours ... slippers ... Cinderella slippers with rosebuds, concealed in tissue paper ... they were not my size ... I have rather large feet ... the following morning they were gone ... s omeone had removed them. On that rare occasion, I did tackle him, but he would not engage ... said he wanted to hear no more outlandish stories or delusions. It was in the bedroom, in the very early morning ... I feared for my life. There are some moments, or perhaps they are mere seconds, that stay in the deep freeze of the mind forever. I might have dreamt it ... I convinced myself for a time that I did dream it ... I said Millie, put it behind you ... you have been sleepwalking ... you walked down the avenue in your sleep. I got to be an ace fisherwornan on our Shannon cruises ... G. couldn't believe it ... he said it was something to do with not just the lightness but the swivel of my wrist. I was a tad unpopular with all the other fishing folk ...a witch they called me. Of course at first I did not know how to play a fish, I rushed it and lost several ... but Gerhardt schooled me and before long I excelled, I surpassed him. In the month of May, in the dapping season, we stayed out all day ... all those millions of mayflies ... the air scudded with them Gerhardt said their courtship and their demise happened in the course of a single day ... poor mayflies ... nature's trick ... poor mayflies ... poor Dido. "O never give the heart outright"—who said that? I have read that men have cycles just like us women ... we have cycles because of the presence of the uterus—hence we are subject from time to time to hysteria—whereas men's cycles do not answer to the womb or the moon but to their own dastardly whims ... they simply go on and off the creatures they call women. Of course anyone could have left the shoe box ... any yokel or passerby. Of late he stays out in the greenhouse till all hours .. .just like my father
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