"How is Jacques Alphonsine."
"O he is all right I suppose."
"Will you see him if you go back to Paris right away."
"Yes of course."
"What will you do."
"O we will go if it is Sunday perhaps for a picnic. He puts down the cover of his car. We ride with our hair flying to the Pare des Buttes Chaumont. It is there that sometimes people commit suicide off the high bridge. Sadness is always in the happiness. We lie on the grass. We play the radio. We have our apples, sandwiches, cheese and wine. Jacques takes out his pocket knife, to cut what I might want from the apple or cheese. We go then to the Champs Elysees, it is dark, we speed back and forth. We go to the cinema. We have a lot of fun."
Beefy now. Owning perhaps much freehold land soon in Sunningdale. Up to his neck in his wedding night. As Fm up to mine in sorrow. With this girl who loved the little fellow and was so good and gentle to him. With her on the grassy incline of the Dell I was never despondent and miserable. Would lurk round the shop windows. Working up my courage to walk up and say hello. Always to feel a little tortured. When she would say, ah Jacques and I will holiday on the Riviera. I have bought my new swimming costume. Jacques looks so good in his. It is brief just over here. The stomach he has is flat like steel. And soon now she'll be gone. Like cherry blossoms when they were pink. Leaving leaves all green.
"Will he meet you in his motor."
"But of course, if he can."
"It has many cylinders, I suppose."
"But of course."
"How is Jacques' dog. Does he lift his leg on the better poplar trees."
"You make fun."
"Does Jacques kiss you when you meet."
"Monsieur you have drunk far too much beer and wine tonight to ask such questions."
"Does he kiss you."
"Of course. He takes what he wants."
"Does he ask."
"Of course not. I am there for his wishes."
"O dear, Jacques with his beaucoup force. Me with only wishes. I am homesick for Paris. The tiny little lives tucked away in the cement hives. The alleys. Hallways cool in summer and cold in winter. The restaurants full of wine and talk."
"That is nice, how you say that. I think Jacques if he would get to know you. Would like you."
"Has Jacques swum the Channel yet."
"Now now you make a joke of Jacques. He is young but he thinks old. He would not do something so foolish. A man is best with a young body who thinks old."
"He can swim."
"Of course. Like a shark. Just like he drives his speed boat through the water."
"Does he steer with his toes."
"O I will not talk about Jacques with you tonight."
"Please. Do. This is the most delicious omelet."
"I should not sit here."
"Why."
"We could be noticed. That man across the street. Is always watching. You know of course he sent a note."
"No."
"Yes. He said that he could see the shadow of my under-things drying on the little line I put in my room. He asked if I mind awfully removing it. He said it is not elegant for the street. I look out last week and he is dressed as a woman going out his front door. I knew it was him."
An aircraft flying overhead. Means the wind is from the west. Moist air stream over Knightsbridge. Where big and little dogs trot down Sloane Street. Debutantes in their polka dot silk dresses. To rowing and tennis. As I was off to the Dell. Stopping, looking into the window of Cobb the butcher. With his Scotch beef of the finest quality. Cooked one Sunday so splendidly by this girl with her understanding eyes. In love with Jacques. Who said I am not pretty and beautiful like your wife. But Alphonsine you can cook carrots to taste like caviar. Or even carrots. You say you must be discreet in another woman's home. And be faithful to your Jacques. And I wish you weren't.
"Monsieur perhaps it is not the time to say but you do make me laugh. In bed at night I think about what you have said to me in the park. And I laugh to-sleep."
"I like you Alphonsine."
"You know I do like you too. You are very kind. You are too, very beautiful. I should not say that to you."
"Once you put your fingertip on my nose."
"Yes when you pinched me where you shouldn't."
"Tonight I have brought home the onions. Have more wine."
"I have had too much already."
Chimes go on the clock. My little note here, to go to the shoe maker to have my shoe tongues adjusted. These carpets fitted. All over this entire house. A shell. To keep alive with my dreams. Beefy where ere do you be. Just when you said service at your club was getting offhand and slack. Your voice so sad, spare and clear. Across clipped grasses. When England was all so new to me. Hear it still in my heart. On this London evening. Go so often to lone sad sheets. Beefy says worry makes you put on the undergarments backwards. End up standing in the gentlemen's convenience scrabbling and tearing in an unseemly fashion to grasp one's particular. And you take out under the sky one more guilt to wear among all the gay faces prancing by in vanity. Clinging by fingernails to districts, not to drop to social oblivion below. Near sighted nearly tripping so that they don't notice one. Never be without a leek or onion, the smell keeps you out of the whirlpool of dispair. Go into middle age along Pall Mall and up St. James. Downhill gliding through still air. Laugh and keep the gall bladder without grief. Explain how sorry you are that you are not good at mixing with people on all levels. Just the topmost Where bargains bring bliss to an Englishman's eyes. But if you're not booked up the whole world is against you. Loneliness makes you look at other people. And they look away. Even faster. In their own loneliness. And Beefy in his long struggle to marry said the beads of sweat freeze on the brow and drop with a metallic clank to roll into a lonely corner of one's coffin room. Will it ever be autumn again. When the yellow leaves fall curled on the deep green grass. Press my lips to the ground of Fermanagh. She lies there.
"What do you think of, looking so sad."
"Things."
"What."
"O how the geese gather together in the gloomy of St. James Park. The ones who come flying over our heads when we sit in the Dell. But there are others who fly for the night into Buckingham Palace Gardens. They have a pedigree."