Mildew had formed in patches on the ceiling and walls and the light only served to pick it out. Tallow shrugged and moved to return upstairs again, but Pandora put her hand, on his arm.
'We'll stay for a short while,' she said. I wish she'd make up her mind, he thought glumly, now regretting the impulse which had driven him to allow the people admission. They were soft, these people, soft beyond Tallow's experience, pampered darlings to the last; slim, brittle-eyed women and fat, blank-eyed men, bewilderedly running over the surface of life, discontent with their own fear-moulded values and afraid to find new ones, fooling themselves that they were alive. Tallow could only pity them and loathe what they represented. Every second they remained, they drove him into himself, retreating into the embracing depths of his own dark soul.
He continued to stare at them from out of his skull; continued. to stare as bottles were piled on the table and Pandora was lost among the others, absorbed into their shallowness. Tallow was vaguely terrified then, but his mind refused to control his body as he stood on the stairs watching them, unable to leave or to join them. Clothes were flung in all directions and Tallow saw a blue dress and a black cape flutter outwards together. Naked bellies wobbled and naked breasts bounced, and white unhealthy flesh was a background for dark hair. Tallow felt ill. At last his feet dragged him upwards back to the bedroom. His ego had been shattered; but the pain of his loss, of his humiliation, was greater. He lay on the bed, sobbing; thoughtless and emotionful, his whole world a timeless flood of self-pity.
He lay, his head throbbing and aching, for hours; eventually falling into a fitful slumber which lasted another hour. When he eventually awoke, he was calm. He knew that he had done wrong, had destroyed part of himself in denying the barge for Pandora's love - or his own love for Pandora. He. had delayed too long, and the barge should be followed, if there was still time. That was his aim, his goal, his function in life - to follow the barge and to go where it led him, immaterial of what other things distracted him. He got a large woollen cloak from a cupboard and put it around his shoulders. Then he left, perturbed that he would have to pass through the hall on his way out.
When he readied it, he was astounded.
In the centre of the room was a pulsating pyramid of flesh; clean flesh and dirty flesh; soft flesh and rough flesh. It was ludicrous. There were limbs of all descriptions in most peculiar juxtaposition. A pair of pink buttocks seemed to spring an arm; noses lay upon legs, eyes peered from beneath genitals, faces on torsos, breasts upon toes. Such a scene might have disgusted Tallow, instead he was bewildered, for the strangest sight of all was the arm which waved at the top of the throbbing human mountain. It clutched a corruscating wineglass. The fingers were purple-painted talons; Pandora's fingers. Every so often the arm would disappear into the pile and the glass would return, less full, held like Liberty's torch, to its place above the pyramid.
Tallow swallowed, his eyes wide. On tip-toe, his bitterness surging inside him once more, he circumnavigated the heap and pulled on the door.
'Goodnight, Pandora,' he called as he left.
The wineglass waved. ' Goodnight, Jephraim, see you later!'
The voice was muffled and slurred, tinged with a false gaiety which was not like honest Pandora at all; normally she was either happy or sad or troubled, never false in her feelings.
'No you won't, Pandora,' he shouted as he at last pulled the door open and fled into the rain-sodden night, blindly running down the sandy path, towards the river. Running from something which remained inside him, which he couldn't flee from, which was destroying him and which he was powerless to combat. So Tallow fled.
The boat was still on the sand-bar, half-full of rainwater. Tallow looked at it dispiritedly. Then, with a shrug, he took off his cloak and lowered his legs into the cold, murky water. He shivered, tensed and forced himself forward. The boat's timber felt good to his hands as he hoisted himself into it. He stared through the gloom, searching for the baling pans. At last he found them and began baling the water over the side.
When he had finished, he swung into the water again and slowly made his way round the ship, inspecting it as much as he could in the dim moonlight. Then he returned to the stern and put his shoulder to it, heaving. The boat shifted slightly. He moved round to the port side and began rocking it, shifting some of the compressed sand.
Three hours later, the boat was afloat. Weary with his effort, he sank into it and lay on the wet boards, half-asleep. He eventually arose when he heard someone moving about on the shore.
Levering himself upright, he looked over the side and saw Pandora standing there, framed against the moonlight, her hair wild and ruffled by the wind, a man's dark cloak around her.
'Jephraim,' she said, ' I'm sorry-I don't know how it happened.'
Tallow, his heart heavy in him, his mind dull, said: ' That's all right, Pandora. I'm going now, anyway.'
'Because of-that?' She pointed back to the house.
'No,' he said slowly, ' at least, not just because of that. It helped.'
'Take me with you,' she repeated humbly.' I'll do whatever you want.'
He was perturbed. 'Don't, Pandora - don't lose your respect for my sake.' He was shaking out the sail.' Goodbye!' But she flung herself into the water and. grasped the side of the boat, pulling herself into it with desperate strength.' Go back, Pandora!' he shouted, seeing his doom in her action.' Go back-go back! It's finished - you'll destroy me and yourself!' She made her way towards him, flinging her bedraggled body at his feet in horrible and uncharacteristic humility. 'Take me!' she moaned.
The boat was now in midstream, making swiftly away from the bank.
'Oh, God, Pandora,' he sobbed. 'Don't make me-I must follow the barge.'
'I'll come, Jephraim, darling. I'll come with you.'
Tears painted.his face in gleaming trails, he was breathing quickly, his brain in tumult, a dozen emotions clashing together, making him powerless for any action save speech.
He gave in suddenly, ashamed for her degradation. He sank down beside her, taking her wet, heaving body in his arms and in sympathy with her grief. And so, locked together in their fear and bewilderment, they slept.
Dawn was vicious, cloudless, bright. Tallow's eyes ached.
Pandora still remained in troubled slumber, but she was on the borderline of wakefulness. As she sighed and began to struggle towards consciousness, an overpowering feeling of pity for her welled up in him. Then he looked down the river where it stretched straight into the horizon. Gold glimmered. Tallow acted. It was now or never.
He picked her up in his arms. She smiled in her sleep, loving him. He wrenched her away from him and hurled her outwards - hurled her into the river.
She screamed suddenly, in horror, as realization came.
WOLF
WHOSE LITTLE TOWN are you, friend? Who owns you here?!
Wide and strong, you have an atmosphere of detached impermanence as you sit in the shallow valley with your bastion of disdainful pines surrounding you; with your slashed, gashed earth roads and your gleaming graveyards, cool under the sun.
Here I stand in your peaceful centre, among the low houses, looking for your owner. Night is looming in my mind's backwaters.
I stop a long-jawed man with down-turned, sensuous lips. He, rocks on his feet and stares at me in silence, his grey eyes brooding.