look what I found in professor Goodwin’s hat! All we laughed. Sex breaking
out even then. Pert little piece she was.
He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over : then fitted the
teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on it? Bread
and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it upstairs, his thumb
hooked in the teapot handle.
Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on
the chair by the bedhead.
— What a time you were? she said.
She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on the
pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft bubs,
sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat’s udder. The warmth of her
couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the tea she poured.
A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the
act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread.
— Who was the letter from? he asked.
Bold hand. Marion.
— O, Boylan, she said. He’s bringing the programme.
— What are you singing?
— Là ci darem with J. C. Doyle, she said, and Love’s Old Sweet Song.
Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves
next day. Like foul flowerwater.
— Would you like the window open a little?
She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking:
— What time is the funeral?
— Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn’t see the paper.
Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled drawers
from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a stocking: rum-
pled, shiny sole.
— No : that book.
Other stocking. Her petticoat.
— It must have fell down, she said.
He felt here and there. Voglio e non vorrei. Wonder if she pronounces
that right : voglio. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped and lifted
the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of the orangekeyed
chamberpot.