I'd been told, and although the ankle still lagged I was prepared to give comfrey the benefit of the doubt. Anything that would restore decent mobility attracted my enthusiasm: life with brace and walking stick, still boringly necessary, made even buying groceries a pest.
We had reached a spot on a level with and Judith's house when a gust of wind took the kite suddenly higher, setting it weaving and diving in bright-colored arcs and stretching its land-line to tautness. Before anything could be done the string snapped and the dazzling butterfly wings soared away free, rising in a spiral, disappearing to a shape, to a black dot, to nothing.
What a , Pen said, turning to me with disappointment and then pausing, seeing where my own gaze had traveled, downwards to the tall cream gates, firmly shut.
Let her go, Pen said soberly, like the kite.
She'll come back.round my shoulder had mended fast,
Take out some other girl, she urged.
I smiled lopsidedly. I'm out of practice.
But you can't spend your whole life . . . She stopped momentarily, and then said, Parkinson's disease isn't fatal. could live to be eighty or more.
I wouldn't want him dead, I protested. How could you think it?
Then what?
Just to go on, I suppose, as we are.
She took my arm and turned me away from the gates to return to her house.
Give it time, she said. You've got months. You both have.
I glanced at her. Both?
and I don't go around with our eyes shut.
He's never said anything . . .
She smiled. likes you better than you like him, if possible. Trusts you, too. She paused. Let her go, Tim, for your own sake.
We went silently back to her house and I thought of all that had happened since the day stood in the fountain, and of all I had learned and felt and loved and lost. Thought of Ginnie and Oliver and Calder, and of all the gateways I'd gone through to grief and pain and the knowledge of death. So much -too much—compressed into so small a span.
You're a child of the light, Pen said contentedly. Both you and Judith. You always take sunshine with you. I don't suppose you know it, but everything brightens when people like you walk in. She glanced down at my slow foot. Sorry. When you limp in. So carry the sunlight to a new young girl who isn't married to and doesn't break your heart. She paused. That's good pharmacological advice, so take it,
Yes, doctor, I said: and knew I couldn't.
On Christmas Eve, when I had packed to go to Jersey and was checking around the flat before leaving, the telephone rang.
Hello, I said.
There was a series of clicks and hums and I was about to put the receiver down when a breathless voice said, Tim . . .
Judith? I said incredulously.
Yes.
Where are you?
Listen, just listen. I don't know who else to ask, not at Christmas . . . 's ill and I'm alone and I don't know, I don't know . . .
Where are you?
India . . . He's in hospital. They're very good, very kind, but he's so ill ... unconscious . . . they say cerebral hemor¬rhage . . . I'm so afraid ... I do so love him . . . She was suddenly crying, and trying not to, the words coming out at intervals when control was possible. It's so much to ask . . . but I need . . . help.
Tell me where, I said. I'll come at once.
Oh . . .
She told me where. I was packed and ready to go, and I went.
Because of the date and the off-track destination there were delays and it took me forty hours to get there. died before I reached her, on the day after Christmas, like her mother.
Skazhite, specialist! You do feel its presence? You had to feel! Indeed crucifix already here! Already on the planet! Finally, two most great relics will reunite, and we will be able... God! Now we can ALL!
