- •I looked away, and sighed, and said quite guilelessly: 'Oh, I do wish that I might see Miss Butler again!'
- •I said, 'You shut up.'
- •I had said too much - but it was that, or say nothing.
- •Chapter 2
- •I blinked. 'To go with you? But how?'
- •I said it would be long enough; and she placed the faded rose upon the bed, and seized my hands and squeezed them hard.
- •I gazed at Kitty, and my face, I suppose, showed my amazement, for she laughed, and stroked my cheek, then seized my hand and held it.
- •I looked at my plate, and felt myself redden, until Mrs Dendy, still busy with her platter, held a piece of quivering meat my way and coughed: 'a bit of tongue, Miss Astley dear?'
- •It was in these spirits that I began to make my way back to
- •I, too, flushed at the lady's words. What she had said was strange, was shocking - and yet, I guessed, might easily be
- •I said - I didn't know what else to say -1 said, 'Am I then so - special?'
- •I was not sure that I had heard her properly. 'The morning?' I said. 'Do you mean that I should stay?'
- •I never thought to ask what happened to the beggar in the tale, once the five hundred days came to an end.
- •I did so, and Maria cried again, 'What a find!'
- •I gave her a wink. 'Come over here, and let's have a fag.'
- •I said, 'What is it you do exactly, Mrs Fryer? Some of these look very fine.'
- •I felt suffocated, all at once, by my own story, and by the meanings she was teasing from it. 'I can't explain,' I said. 'She had a power over me. She was rich. She had - things.'
- •I still held her to the bed, and Cyril still cried; but now, by some miracle, his cries began to die - and Florence, in her turn, grew slack in my arms, and turned her head against me.
- •Vjnapter 19
- •I sucked at my lip. 'Some joker is sure to shout "Hurrah" at that point, you know.'
- •I swallowed. 'You harmed me, Kitty. It was you that harmed me.'
- •I nodded. Then, 'Would you care,' I asked quietly, 'if I went?'
I nodded. Then, 'Would you care,' I asked quietly, 'if I went?'
'If you went?' She swallowed. 'I thought you'd gone already. I saw a look upon your face
'And did you care?' I said again. She gazed at the flower between her fingers.
'I made up my mind to leave the park and go home. There seemed nothing to stay for - not even Eleanor Marx! Then I got as far as here and thought, "What would I do at home, with you not there .. . ?"' She gave the daisy another twist, and two or three of its petals fell and clung to the wool of her skirt. I looked once about the field, then turned to face her again, and began to speak^ to her, low and earnestly, as if I were arguing for my life.
'Flo,' I said, 'you were right, what you said before, about that address I gave with Ralph. It wasn't mine, I didn't mean the words - at least, not then, when I said them.' I came to a halt, then put a hand to my head. 'Oh! I feel like I've been repeating other people's speeches all my life. Now, when I want to make a speech of my own, I find I hardly know how.'
'If you are fretting over how to tell me you are leaving -'
'I am fretting,' I said, 'over how to tell you that I love you; over how to say that you are all the world to me; that you and Ralph and Cyril are my family, that I could never leave - even though I was so careless with my own kin.' My voice grew thick; she gazed at me but didn't answer, so I stumbled on. 'Kitty broke my heart -1 used to think she'd killed it! I used to think that only she could mend it; and so, for five years I've been wishing she'd come back. For five years I have scarcely let myself think of her, for fear that the thought would drive me mad with grief. Now she has turned up, saying all the things I dreamed she'd say; and I find my heart is mended already, by you. She made me know it. That was the look you saw on my face.' I raised a hand to stop a tickling at my cheek, and found
472
tears there. 'Oh, Flo!' I said then. 'Only say - only say you'll let me love you, and be with you; that you'll let me be your sweetheart, and your comrade. I know I'm not Lily -'
'No, you're not Lily,' she said. 'I thought I knew what that meant - but I never did, till I saw you gazing at Kitty and thought I should lose you. I've been missing Lily for so long, it's come to seem that wanting anything must be only another way of wanting her; but oh! how different wanting seemed, when I knew it was you I wanted, only you, only you ..."
I shifted closer towards her: the paper in my pocket gave a rustle, and I remembered romantic Miss Skinner, and all the friendless girls who Zena had said were mad in love with Flo, at Freemantle House. I opened my mouth to tell her; then thought I wouldn't, just yet - in case she hadn't noticed. Instead, I gazed again about the park, at the crush of gay-faced people, at the tents and stalls, the ribbons and flags and banners: it seemed to me then that it was Florence's passion, and hers alone, that had set the whole park fluttering. I turned back to her, took her hand in mind, crushed the daisy between our fingers and - careless of whether anybody watched or not -1 leaned and kissed her.
Cyril still squatted with his frills in the lake. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over the bruised and trampled grass. From the speakers' tent there came a muffled cheer, and a rising ripple of applause.
Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D. in English literature and has published articles on lesbian and gay writing and cultural history. She has worked in bookshops and libraries and now teaches for the Open University, though she has given up full-time academic work in order to concentrate on writing fiction. She is currently working on her second novel.