immediate future, and these included Shermaine.
"Yes, I think so. There is nowhere else."
"You have relatives there?"
"An aunt."
"Are you close?" Shermaine laughed, but there was
bitterness in the husky chuckle. "Oh, very close. She came to see me
once at the orphanage. Once in all those years. She brought me a comic
book of a religious nature and told me to clean my teeth and brush my
hair a hundred strokes a day." "There is no one else?" asked
Bruce.
"No."
"Then why go back?" "What else is there to do?" she asked.
"Where else is there to go?"
"There's a life to live, and the rest of the world to visit."
"Is that what you are going to do?"
"That is exactly what I'm going to do, starting with a hot bath." Bruce
could feel it between them. They both knew it was there, but it was too
soon to talk about it. I have only kissed her once, but that was enough.
So what will happen?
Marriage? His mind shied away from that word with startling violence,
then came hesitantly back to examine it. Stalking it as though it were a
dangerous beast, ready to take flight again as soon as it showed its
teeth.
For some people it is a good thing. It can stiffen the spineless; ease
the lonely; give direction to the wanderers; spur those without ambition
- and, of course, there was the final unassailable argument in its
favour. Children.
But there are some who can only sicken and shrivel in the colourless
cell of matrimony. With no space to fly, your wings must weaken with
disuse; turned inwards, your eyes become short-sighted; when all your
communication with the rest of the world is through the glass windows of
the cell, then your contact is limited.
And I already have children. I have a daughter and I have a son.
Bruce turned his eyes from the road and studied the girl beside him.
There is no fault I can find. She is beautiful in the delicate, almost
fragile way that is so much better and longer-lived than blond hair and
big bosoms. She is unspoilt; hardship has long been her travelling
companion and from it she has learned kindness and humility.
She is mature, knowing the ways of this world; knowing death and fear,
the evilness of men and their goodness. I do not believe she has ever
lived in the fairy-tale cocoon that most young girls spin about
themselves.
And yet she has not forgotten how to laugh.
Perhaps, he thought, perhaps. But it is too soon to talk about it.
"You are very grim." Shermaine broke the silence, but the laughter
shivered just below the surface of her voice. "Again you are
Bonaparte. And when you are grim your nose is too big and cruel. It is a
nose of great brutality and it does not fit the rest of your face.
I think that when they had finished you they had only one nose left in
stock. "It is too big," they said, "but it is the only nose left, and
when he smiles it will not look too bad." So they took a chance and
stuck it on anyway."
"Were you never taught that it is bad manners to poke fun at a man's
weakness?" Bruce fingered his nose ruefully.
"Your nose is many things, but not weak. Never weak." She laughed now
and moved a little closer to him.
"You know you can attack me from behind your own perfect nose, and
I cannot retaliate."
"Never trust a man who makes pretty speeches so easily, because he
surely makes them to every girl he meets." She slid an inch further
across the seat until they were almost touching. "You waste your
talents, mon capitaine. I am immune to your charm."
"In just one minute I will stop this car and-"
"You cannot." Shermaine jerked her head to indicate the two gendarmes in
the seat behind them.
"What would they think, Bonaparte? It would be very bad for discipline."
"Discipline or no discipline, in just one minute I will stop this car
and spank You soundly before I kiss you."
"One threat does not frighten me, but because of the other I will leave
your poor nose." She moved away a little and once more Bruce studied her
face.
Beneath the frank scrutiny she fidgeted and started to blush.
"Do you mind! Were you never taught that it is bad manners to stare?" So
now I am in love again, thought Bruce. This is only the third time, an
average of once every ten years or so. It frightens me a little because
there is always pain with it.
The exquisite pain of loving and the agony of losing.
It starts in the loins and it is very deceptive because you think it is
only the old thing, the tightness and tension that any well-rounded
stern or cheeky pair of breasts will give you. Scratch it, you think,
it's just a small itch. Spread a little of the warm salve on it and it
will be gone in no time.
But suddenly it spreads, upwards and downwards, all through you.
The pit of your stomach feels hot, then the flutters round the heart.
It's dangerous now; once it gets this far it's incurable and you can
scratch and scratch but all you do is inflame it.
Then the last stages, when it attacks the brain. No pain there, that's
the worst sign. A heightening of the senses; your eyes are
sharper, your blood runs too fast, food tastes good, your mouth wants to
shout and legs want to run.
Then the delusions of grandeur: you are the cleverest, strongest, most
masculine male in the universe, and you stand ten feet tall in your
socks.
How tall are you now, Curry, he asked himself. About nine feet six and I
weigh twenty stone, he answered, and almost laughed aloud.
And how does it end? It ends with words. Words can kill anything. It
ends with cold words; words like fire that stick in the structure and
take hold and lick it up, blackening and charring it, bringing it down
in smoking ruins.
It ends in suspicion of things not done, and in the certainty of
things done and remembered. It ends with selfishness and carelessness,
and words, always words.
It ends with pain and gteyness, and it leaves scar tissue and damage
that will never heal.
Or it ends without fuss and fury. It just crumbles and blows away like
dust on the wind. But there is still the agony of loss.
Both these endings I know well, for I have loved twice, and now I
love again.
Perhaps this time it does not have to be that way.
Perhaps this time it will last. Nothing is for ever, he thought.
Nothing is for ever, not even life, and perhaps this time if I cherish
it and tend it carefully it will last that long, as long as life.
"We are nearly at the bridge," said Shermaine beside him, and
Bruce started. The miles had dropped unseen behind them and now the
forest was thickening. It crouched closer to the earth, greener and
darker along the river.
Bruce slowed the Ford and the forest became dense bush around them, the
road tunnel through it. They came round one last bend in the track and
out of the tunnel of green vegetation into the clearing where the road
met the railway line and ran beside it on to the heavy timber platform
of the bridge.
Bruce stopped the Ranchero, switched off the engine and they all sat