air. They had only slowed down to grin and wave, and with ultimate cries and laughs flashed off again while tears of annoyance filled her faded eyes as involuntarily she waved back, suppliantly, not socially.
The boy was not waving, she noticed, merely smiling in an impassive way with a world of unexpected something behind the blackness and the whiteness, and she remembered another time and another boy and wondered if this were the punishment at last.
They moved on together, foot in rhythm with foot, although she was tottering now and Tongoaâs slopes grew blackly closer until they were on the track itself that wound up to the crater. At this moment the rain shook more heavily onto the dust and the wind began to toss it about like white confetti. There was no time to waver or look or turn, only the obsession to reach the craterâs grey lip and watch the downpour dissipating itself on the heaving core. Sharply the insanity of it all struck her as she bent through the heavier fall of water and felt her cotton dress become skin and her skin peel away, leaving her a crazy old bag of bones stumbling towards the islandâs angry boil. Why do I do this? she kept on asking herself and the inner voice replied, Because you must, because you have come a long way for this very thing and until you have done it you will be obsessed. There is also your hurt. Andshe saw again Verna Paradiseâs face twisted the wrong way from an irritation forty years old, at last intolerant of restraint, and she heard the voice rasp and felt it rip down the tender places, the soft green lawns of friendship; and her eyes filled with tears and rain made her stop once more and appeal to the boy behind. But when she looked around her, he was gone.
Monstrously this frightened her even more, for the darkness of rain forest hemmed her in, in this last stretch before the scraped landstrips where the lava stream had moved down great jungle lanes. Thus in new-blinding rain and with wind pummelling she stumbled at last to the lagoon in front of the fissured edges of the Tongoa crater and saw no vision of the hell she had half expected but a turmoil that matched in its contained surgings the inward gusts of guilt that had been her terrible sea for half a lifetime. This was empty of even rafts. And during the moment as she stood, somehow unimpressed after all this above the tree line in vicious rain-pelt, she was filled with terror at the thought of turning back as she had to, and awash with premonitory fear of the sudden dark, the mania of palm repeating palm, the boy and the emptiness of it all.
When she had suffered another hundred yards, the disturbed glitter of water between herself and the crater lip became part of this necessary journey. She ploughed right up to the lagoon strip across the dried ash crust until she was standing with her feet in theshallows letting the water wash over her sandals, uncaring. The water was a quarter of a mile long but very narrow and once it was crossed the crater lip was accessible. She could see at a glance it wasnât deep, about two feet at the most, like a sand-soak. So she hoisted up her skirt and tucked it into the legs of her bloomers, looking for all the world like a frayed gym teacher.
As her fear spent itself after she had entered the lagoon, drawn into false safety, wild suggestions tapped away at her and she wondered if she really dared do it.
Yet she did.
She waded steadily across the lagoon to the far bank, stood on the sodden edge, and slowly and ritualistically began to undress. She pulled off her shift and stood in the rain wearing only her rather soiled white slip which she then removed. The flesh began to pray. It whitened and curdled about her thighs, and left sad hollows between the ribs and the delicate knobs of her shoulder bones. It wept in blue runnels behind the knees. When she took off the last remaining garments, she was a Modigliani figure with drooping flattened breasts and
The boy was not waving, she noticed, merely smiling in an impassive way with a world of unexpected something behind the blackness and the whiteness, and she remembered another time and another boy and wondered if this were the punishment at last.
They moved on together, foot in rhythm with foot, although she was tottering now and Tongoaâs slopes grew blackly closer until they were on the track itself that wound up to the crater. At this moment the rain shook more heavily onto the dust and the wind began to toss it about like white confetti. There was no time to waver or look or turn, only the obsession to reach the craterâs grey lip and watch the downpour dissipating itself on the heaving core. Sharply the insanity of it all struck her as she bent through the heavier fall of water and felt her cotton dress become skin and her skin peel away, leaving her a crazy old bag of bones stumbling towards the islandâs angry boil. Why do I do this? she kept on asking herself and the inner voice replied, Because you must, because you have come a long way for this very thing and until you have done it you will be obsessed. There is also your hurt. Andshe saw again Verna Paradiseâs face twisted the wrong way from an irritation forty years old, at last intolerant of restraint, and she heard the voice rasp and felt it rip down the tender places, the soft green lawns of friendship; and her eyes filled with tears and rain made her stop once more and appeal to the boy behind. But when she looked around her, he was gone.
Monstrously this frightened her even more, for the darkness of rain forest hemmed her in, in this last stretch before the scraped landstrips where the lava stream had moved down great jungle lanes. Thus in new-blinding rain and with wind pummelling she stumbled at last to the lagoon in front of the fissured edges of the Tongoa crater and saw no vision of the hell she had half expected but a turmoil that matched in its contained surgings the inward gusts of guilt that had been her terrible sea for half a lifetime. This was empty of even rafts. And during the moment as she stood, somehow unimpressed after all this above the tree line in vicious rain-pelt, she was filled with terror at the thought of turning back as she had to, and awash with premonitory fear of the sudden dark, the mania of palm repeating palm, the boy and the emptiness of it all.
When she had suffered another hundred yards, the disturbed glitter of water between herself and the crater lip became part of this necessary journey. She ploughed right up to the lagoon strip across the dried ash crust until she was standing with her feet in theshallows letting the water wash over her sandals, uncaring. The water was a quarter of a mile long but very narrow and once it was crossed the crater lip was accessible. She could see at a glance it wasnât deep, about two feet at the most, like a sand-soak. So she hoisted up her skirt and tucked it into the legs of her bloomers, looking for all the world like a frayed gym teacher.
As her fear spent itself after she had entered the lagoon, drawn into false safety, wild suggestions tapped away at her and she wondered if she really dared do it.
Yet she did.
She waded steadily across the lagoon to the far bank, stood on the sodden edge, and slowly and ritualistically began to undress. She pulled off her shift and stood in the rain wearing only her rather soiled white slip which she then removed. The flesh began to pray. It whitened and curdled about her thighs, and left sad hollows between the ribs and the delicate knobs of her shoulder bones. It wept in blue runnels behind the knees. When she took off the last remaining garments, she was a Modigliani figure with drooping flattened breasts and
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