Yeats. Chapter 5

Link to Chapter 1 

Since her wedding and his departure were roughly a week apart, he dropped by to her on the day before he was leaving from Bombay harbour on a ship called Patience, which would briefly berth at Singapore on its way to Dublin. They sat at the back of the house, where after the tailor birds hushed their song, he promised to send her a wedding present from Dublin. She nodded. Somehow she didnt seem all that keyed up about her own nupitals. She touched the earth on which they were sitting. This, she remembered, is where she had painted him. This was where they had discovered a wry, invincible affinity for each other. Could she have ever become the artist she was today if he hadn't sat for her with heart-melting patience? As he was telling her something, she interrupted him with a sigh of ineffable regret: "Some days I'd give my arm to start over. Clean slate and all. I only want to be safe. I only want to be safe. How did we go so askance ? And wham into the path of other people's violations. Only to get blown into pieces that'll need several lifetimes to collect"

"Thats why you're knotting down with Percival ? Safety !?"

She looked away.

"Here,"he said, taking her hand and putting it upon his chest.

"This is my heart.. Just so you know"

She listened with her skin. Memorised that beat. Its abiding sincerity.

"Remember the first time you came to this house ? Did you know someone died inside of it ? Waiting for

love."

"There was a book in your hands. Red gown. Anuradha hollered out for you.Aw, you were so nasty to me. He died for waiting love. Which never came, right ?

"I was not! And it was a play of Ibsen, if i recall it right. Yes his love never came. I almost banishd you from the house, didnt I ?"

He laughed. Maybe she was right. His mind raced to what she had told him ages back: Miss god put me down to bring joy and sunshine into the lives of millions. Was she ?

"I didnt know better ,"she owned up a minute later."We do what we see. But I'm standing on my two lovely legs, and most mornings I dont ask for more."

He said that his ship was leaving the dock at seven the following morning, and his mother, for one, was eager about returning to Dublin. She said that she was quite 'looking forward' to married life - and all that it entailed. Byt their lame, haphazard talk was a hedgegrow of syllables. Formal. Divisive. Because neither knew how to bid farewell to such sweeping innocence. Like shutting your eyes to the broad blue sky for its beauty is too much. How could you part from someone who loved you not for your secrets but in spite of them?

Before their exchange acquired any burden, he got up to leave.

She followed.

At the water fountain, he takes the tips of her fingers and presses them into his palm.

"Will you watch for me, Irishman ?"

What is the thing next to love? Or above it ? She feels that for him

"Always. And with the Yeats."

"Promise me you will do something about your hair?"The despair in her voice was liquid, the bravery of her gaze formidable. "Try hair wax. Or a salon. Something. Look at this way, We will probably never save our souls - but hell, at least we will get our hair sorted."