Anonymous

Laura

CHAPTER ONE

I know what they want-why they stare after me. The sea ruffles the small pebbles, stirs them, forgets them, and retreats. Boys run along the chain pier. I hear their boots, their clattering, the singing sound of their laughter. The lamentations of the seagulls cut the air. Come now, watch now, come.

There are watchers-I know of them-the aunts tall and lonely on the stairs, waiting for the postman who will never come. The laurel leaves grow dry, the sheets rustle. Breasts to breasts the slow coming and going of breaths.

I have watched them at daybreak in their lonely ways. They have come upon me as shadows, signs, portents. I have pasted smiles upon my lips and stared. My eyes, it is said, are brown, my thighs are long.

“Do not sway your hips, girl,” I am told. What a nonsense is this. I am the lure, the catch, the key, the lock. My arms bind as seaweed binds, as grass curls round the cutter after rain. Come now, here now, kiss.

A breeze stirs the ribbons of my bonnet. I cross the promenade and skirt the Royal Pavilion. The streets extend, the clock strikes four. Shall there be toast for tea? Jingling their harness as they trot, the horses gravely nod. The proud and the foolish note my passing. Their carriages bob upon their springs. Turning I stare towards the distant beach. Too vast the sea, too deep, too wide. I shall speak of this to others and to Julian, but they will not respond. Their memories have curled, grown brown-tired in the sun. I have watched them in their breedings under the elms, beneath the sunshades, in the summer-house. Shall I become as they? Break the mirrors into which they stare-and run.

Julian would not come with me. I wished him to. We are such a short time wed. He is self-conscious in his goings with me. How strange.

“Let the men look at you,” he remarks. How sadly surly is his tone. I wish not to speak of such matters. I disregard his eyes that search mine for denials.

“They will perhaps, yes.”

I am curt in my responses. Why do I speak of things of which I do not wish to speak? I linger at the window of a dress emporium. The brown gown, the brown gown of silk would suit me best. Reflections of the passers-by come and go like ghosts, like people who were lost at sea, far in the deep waves ever falling down. A girl laughs in passing, hanging upon the arm of a man whose hat is at a tilt. He cares not for her, I feel sure. She is but a neat appendage to his goings, his arrivals, his watch chain glittering.

“She is nice. Did you like her-like her nice?”