The fogs of London are clearing and upon me arrive the streets, faster and faster, until I can see its sea of people swelling and unswellin...
The fogs of London are clearing and upon me arrive the streets, faster and faster, until I can see its sea of people swelling and unswelling, and white gulls moving in a floating file across a cleft of horizon carved into cloud. I am alone on a sloop of familiar strangers. In the pale pond of autumnal light, I see the ghost of an abandoned woman skimming the scalloped skirts of wedding dresses in a shop-window. The ghost stares back at me.
She is a tall, plumpish ghost of twenty-six: her arms, her breasts, her buttocks, are all plumpish; her face is plumpish, with curious eyes and framed with shoulder-length hair. Men find her attractive. You’re a healthy size, they say, with a healthy appetite. You’re what women should look like, they tell her. Only, the ghost has never believed herself to be attractive.
I watch Sujata emerge from the ebbing crowd at the bus stop. She crosses the road to avoid a boy on roller-skates. She crosses it back again to avoid the berry-fruiting brambles.
In the brambles are bees which might sting, and Sujata is afraid of bees. She meets me at the worn-looking bridal shop which is offering discounts for...
