The Romantic

one away f

e was never tired enough. She lay awake, teased by the rucking of the coarse hot sheet under he

s a belt of stones grew up, like the wall of the garden. It went higher and higher and a hol

red it, that John had told her to go up and wait for

r. He was down there in the field. If she

orders and ran across the road, cold to her naked feet. She knew that something was happening to John. He had gone away an

John was standing there with a woman. She turned and showed her sharp face, the colour of white clay, her long evil nose, her eye

s of the beech trunks; they made a ring round him with their bodies, drew it in

harp like a blade of lightning screaming up to the top of the sky.

he crook of her knee fro

of a row in you

*

with her on the road from the town to the Farm. By the lime ki

pt on curling round like a snake, bringing he

er a black canal. The long, sharp-pointed road cut straight as a dyke through t

long grey walls with narrow shutters, she knew John was there. He came down the street towards the canal bridge. A group of women and children walked with him, dress

cretive, inimical faces. Terror crept in over the st

happiness and excitement were real. But as he passed her it changed; it turned on h

*

ight; the t

see or remember. She came out of blank space to the river bridge and the red town. She could see th

bove the town. The whole thing looked dangerous and unsteady, as if any minute it would top

flooded. The bridge walls made a channel for the gush. It curled over the bank and c

ld see the thin tower break and lean forward like a red crane above the houses. She had to get to the t

m behind the closed shutters. He wanted her. She could hear him calling

ann

it off and l

o the tapping and s