Leftoverlifetokill3-2

spontaneous love and appreciation of people as themselves, of whatever class, or nationality; so naturally, as one, they worship this warming influence, and nobody wants to let her go.
     I can see her now: large, awkward, clumsy, in shapeless clump coats, and clodhoping shoes, slung all over with shaming, misshapen bags and baskets; and a stream of actual, or imagined, both equally real at the power of her presence, children, begging and clinging after her. Rolling from side to side of the street, past the snake-bite vice of clamped men, apparently blissfully disregarding them. But she assured me, with rage afterwards, that this was not so, and she suffered far more than me, who, according to her, never showed a flicker of self-consciousness. Me, gazing rigidly into the far horizon, simulating an expression of disdainful superiority; pretending to be anybody but who I was: usually a tall alabaster, voluptuously undulation creature, in a tight black velvet sheath, wit slit tiger's eyes flashing. In total contrast to myself. And, in this guise, I did my utmost to convey that I was in no way, not in the smallest degree, related to that swashbuckling character, swaying by my side. So let there be no doubt as to my desirability; not I suppose that there was. So I asked myself now, a lifetime after, what would she have done in my place?
     You can be sure she would not have sat, like the biggest fool on earth, in this same hotel bedroom, hesitating, pottering, wandering in and out, making tidying up motions, and answering her bot at random; till both of us were driven dippy. Not her - she would have been dressed, and on the go, since dawn, insisting on the right food for children, hustling them, taking themout for air (she had an indecent passion for air), whether they wanted it or not, making them feel they were something worth keeping alive. In no time we would be pleasantly organized, and there would be no yawning gaps in which to brood. With no more procrastination, I would gladly drop my niggling foibles and furbelows, and tag on to the fringe of her embracing train: my old impossible, frivolous self. It is a strain preserving this effigy of dignified, dutiful grief, that I have affected here; and in danger of becoming a permanent attire, unless I take myself with a smear of mustard. If I clowned till doomsday, that ghostly grief would still be riding high beside me. But Brigit would keep it at a presentable distance, with her no nonsense attitude, her concentration on essentials, immediate necessities: the bread and wine goodness underlying all my fancy prattling. She has the awesome gift of making you feel: and not only me to my chagrin; that she is the only person who understands the 'real' you, and knows how to bring out the best, depest, richest deposits in you: need I say, a subject of unflagging, never dull for a second, unplumbable interest to you. But to save a constant hot bath of wallowing and self-indulgence, she has a blowing sense of outdoorness about her; never stops opening windows, metaphorical and otherwise, letting in remorseless cleansing winds; brushing away beloved cobwebs; and filling with healthy eating and clatter, the listening rooms. Then, without any warning, in the middle of a delicious revelation perhaps, this paragon of a woman ups, and, with a curt, devastatingly casual Good-bye, goes. Simply disappears, and may not be seen again for a matter of years. And you feel alarmingly like a fledgling, chucked out of the nest unawares, and forced to use its own pitiable wings for the first time.
     If ever a visitor was not charmed by the panorama, the throbbing colour (hadn't noticed either to tell the truth) and the artless, guileless, effervescing spirit of the island people, it is me: not charmed. It is hard to know whether to despise or admire, that childish arrogance and ease of movement, that leisurely laisser aller, that concerns itself only with itself; it is impossible not to envy it. And those proud young women in skin-tight skirts, undeniably glued on to the eloquent thighs and hips; three inch heels; glossy raven hair; walking an interminable dusty road, with nobody but the crone-straddled asses to admire them. Except me, that is.
    One formidable step I at last took, with agonized pushing and trepidation; sent Colm to school. Had I sent him to the guillotine, I couldn't have suffered more: but, after a lot of fuss, terror at them staring at him, he had felt it too, talking gibberish to him, and fantastic bribes on my part: I got him there. It was not quite so torturous as I feared: a darling smiling Sister, I was converted there and then; and a row of dazzling, ribbon-crisp, spick and span, pink check-pinafored small boys. Instead of leaving Colm, hanging about disconsolately inthe background, as though he were nothing to do with them, as they mostly do in my experience, my beautiful Sister took him by the hand, led him to the front of the class, and presented him by name, explaining that he was English, and asking them to be nice to him.
     He was received with cries of joy and clapping, and I could see that his reception pleased him immensely. I sen up a silent prayer of gratitude, and crept back, still screwed up in knots of tension, to sit among the debris of the night.
     I should be in the fields, six hours a day, doing sweated labour; before I could sort myself out. I would willingly, but I do not seem to have the nerve to, any more, make myself an obvious freak (I am accustomed to the crank inside me, and try to camouflage it); and I do not think I could stand, just now, the open mouthed comments, the shrill exclamations!
     But my school troubles were not over, of course: the second day is nearly always more difficult, because they think they have done it, once and for all, and it is all over. So when you cajolongly suggest taking them back again the next day, then they dig the heels of rebellion in, hard and shrap, with the double weapon of tears, and there is a good old-fashioned mother and son outburst. If the mother wins this round, she is entitled to feel comparatively safe. He was worried by the prodding, and poking, and avid questioning of older girls: as if he was a fascinatingly foreign pet monkey; and I sympathized, after Wales, from the bottom of my heart. Nevertheless, I tried to reassure myself, I, and the bedroom, were infinately worse for him. And for once I was not being selfish; well not entirely. And the vision of him, in one of those always coveted, utterly disarming pinafores, hands folded, with the rest, in prayer, heads bowed, shrill voices babbling, was much too touching for even my bashed heart to resist.
     And so the monotonous piling up of the hours goes on: is it scientifically tenable that we have not yet been a week on this ugly chunk of rock? I, for one, am very sceptical. The clever procedure in a new, and especially as strange a place as this, is to lie low and bide your time, masticating more than you expectorate. Till you are, if not as canny as your protagonist - that would be over optimistic for anybody, let alone me, to aspire to; in posession of a measure of confidence, in posession of yourself is what it amounts to; and able to discriminate roughly between the sheep and the lambs, the wolves, the swan, and the ugly duckling.
     The Church would sometimes take us on his mock motor bike; the island is swarming with these perfect comical toys, and I should love to have one myself, to disappear with, if they didn't gaze so blatantly; Colm, Colombo as they call him, standing in front, bulky man planted in middle, and me perched, skirts, bags, and hair flying in all directions, behind; to cruise along the coast, on corkscrew death-trap roads, or climb the precipitous savage mountains. I was blankly immune to the imitation Old Master landscape, and nervously working out how much fear I should femininely show; and the corresponding degree of correct clutching, round the immovable backside of The Church, overshadowing me. I had been perhaps too precipitate in my first repulsive action; and was a little piqued that he did not persevere. There are times when good manners and consideration are out of place, and a 'won't-have-no-for-an-answer' insistence would be more flattering. Not that I wanted him, far from it.
     But he was so good, it made me want to cry, and he didn't even know it. It stuck out, in great beams, with every step he took, every action he made, every word he said. How could such a log of goodness be let loose among the schemers and parasites, and sitll keep his oaken integrity unmolested? But nobody seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary about him; I suspect he must have had a shrewd Italian side I knew nothing about: he was, after all, a good business man, and a capitalist for the island. But if I didn't know much about him, he certainly knew nothing about me, beyond the flimsy externals, which, I suppose, is just as well. Our conversations were confined to monosyllabic 'Questo bello's, so not much headway could be made in that direction: and there is nothing more irritating than not to have, at your disposal, the word you want.