without significance, for Bruce Curry had very definite plans for the
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
