waist.
The child became aware of a stranger. He started and lifted his head to stare at Mark, and there was something hauntingly familiar in that face. The eyes that looked at him had looked at him before, he knew them so well. You should not have come, said Storm, busy with her baby, not able to lift her eyes to him. Oh God, Mark, why did you come? Mark went down on one knee and stared into the child's face, and it reached out towards him with a pair of plump hands, dimpled and pink and damp with spit, What is his name? Mark asked. Where had he seen those eyes? involuntarily, he extended his forefinger and the child grabbed it with a fat little chuckle and tried to stuff it into his mouth.
john, Storm. answered, still not looking at him.
John was my grandfather's name, Mark said huskily. Yes, whispered Storm. You told me. The words meant nothing for a moment, all he was aware of was that the hatred he felt for this little scrap of humanity slowly faded. In its place there grew something else.
Then suddenly he knew where he had seen those eyes.
Storm? he asked.
Now she lifted her head, and stared into his face. When she replied she was half proud and half defiant.
Yes! she said, and nodded once.
He reached for her clumsily. They knelt facing each other on the monkey-skin kaross, and they embraced fiercely, the child held awkwardly between them, gurgling and hiccuping and drooling merrily as it chewed Mark's finger with greedy toothless gums. Oh God, Mark, what have I done to us? whispered Storm brokenly.
Baby John woke them in the silvery slippery-grey light of before dawn. Mark was grateful to him, for he did not want to miss a minute of that coming day. He watched Storm light the candle and then work over the cradle.
She made small soothing sounds as she changed the baby, and the candlelight glowed on the sweet clean lines of her naked back. Dark silky hair hung over her shoulders, and he saw that childbirth had not thickened her waist, it still had the flared graceful line, like the neck of a wine bottle above the tight round double, bulge-, of her buttocks.
At last she turned and carried the baby to the bed, smiling at Mark as he lifted the blankets for her. Breakfast time, she explained. Will excuse us, please? She sat cross-legged in the bed, and she took one of her nipples between thumb and forefinger and directed it into the open questing mouth.
Mark drew as close as he could and placed one arm around Storm's shoulders. He watched with total fascination. Her breasts were big now, and heavy, jutting out into rounded cones. There was a pale blue dappling of active veins deep below the skin, and the nipples were'the colour of almost ripe mulberries, with the same rough shiny texture. The child's tugging induced a sympathetic blue-white drop of milk to well, from the tip of her other breast. It glistened likeke a pearl in the candlelight.
John fed with tightly closed eyes and piglet grunts and snuffles. The milk ran from the corners of his mouth, and after the first pangs of his hunger were appeased, Storm had to prod him to keep him from falling asleep again.
At each prod, his jaw worked-busily for a minute or so, and then the level of activity slowly declined until the next prod.
Storm changed him from one breast to the other and laid her own cheek gratefully against the hard lean muscle of Mark's chest. I think I am happy, she murmured. But I've been unhappy for so long that I am not quite sure. John lay in a puddle of sea water two inches deep. He was stark naked and brown all over to prove this was no unusual state. He slapped at the water with both hands, and it splashed into his face so that he gasped and blinked his eyes and licked his lips, uncertain whether to be angry or to cry. Instead he repeated the experiment with exactly the same consequences, and he spluttered sand and sea water. Poor little devil, Storm watched him. He has inherited the Courtney pride and stubbornness. He won't give up until he drowns himself. She lifted him from the puddle and there was instantly such a howl of protest that she had to return him hurriedly. I am sure if you went to the General, with John, Mark persevered. You don't really understand us Courtneys. Storm sat back and began to plait her hair over one shoulder. We don't forget or forgive that easily. Storm, won't you try it? Please go to him. I know exactly how he is, Mark. Better than you, better than Daddy knows himself, I know him so well as I do myself, because we are one person. I am he, and he is me.
If I go to him now, having done what I did, having insulted him, having destroyed all the dreams he wove about me if I go now, when I am destitute of pride and honour, if I go as a beggar, he will despise me for ever. No, Storm, you are wrong. On this I am never wron& Mark darling. He would not want to despise me, just as he does not want to hate me now, but he would not be able to help himself. He is Sean Courtney, and he is trapped in the steel jaws of his own honour. He is a sick man, you must give him the chance. No, Mark. It would kill him. I know that, and it would destroy me. For both our sakes, I dare not go to him now. You don't know how much he cares for you. Oh I do, Mark. I also know how much I care for him and one day, when I am proud again, I will go to him. I promise you that. When I know he can be proud of me, I will take him that as a gift. Oh damn you and your stiff cruel pride, you nearly destroyed us with it also. Come, Mark, she stood up. Take John's other hand.
They walked the child between them along the firm sand at the edge of the surf. He hung on their hands, leaning forward to watch his own feet appear and disappear magically below him, and he let out great shouts of triumph at his accomplishment.
The day was bright and clean, and the gulls caught the wind and rode above them on smoky white wings, answering the child's shouts with their own harsh cries. Oh, I had so many fine clothes and fancy friends. Storm watched the gulls. I sold the clothes and lost the friends, and found how little any of it really meant to me. Look at the gulls! she said, head thrown back. See the sunlight through the spread feathers. I was so busy that I never had time to see clearly before. I never saw myself, not, those around me. But now I am learning to look. I saw that in your painting, Mark said, and lifted John to his chest, delighting in the hot restless little body. You are painting different subjects. I want to be a great artist. I think you will be. That Courtney stubbornness again. We don't always get what we want, she told him, and the spent surf came sliding up the beach and creamed around their ankles.
The child slept face down on the monkey-skin kaross, exhausted with sun and sea and play, his belly bulging with food.
Storm worked at the easel under the window with narrowed eyes and cocked head.
You are my favourite model, she said. That's just because I'm so cheap And she laughed lightly.
With what I pay you, I could be rich, she pointed out. You know what they call ladies who do it for money?
