‘Some things are better broken.’
‘I’ll not let you do it.’
‘You can’t stop me, dear . . . it’s done. Here I am, and here I stay until you have me . . . and after.’
His eyes travelled again around the room, and she smiled gently at him. ‘Do you like it?’ He made no reply, and she said, ‘Come and see the kitchen.’
In the kitchen he stared at a table set in shining whiteness for two. The kettle, startlingly new, was singing on the hob. It caused something to break in him. He closed his eyes, striving to fight the weakness. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing . . . you’ll regret it . . . your father should—’
He could say no more. She was leaning against him, her arms about his neck. The oval of her face was lost in light. ‘Hold me, John.’
His arms, telling his hunger, crushed her to him. The faint perfume of her body mingled with the acrid smell of iron ore, and in the ever increasing murmur of his endearments and the searching of his lips her words were lost:
Whither thou goest, I will go: and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.
The Fifteen Streets Page 24