Airship Shape & Bristol Fashion by Jonathan L. Howard, Deborah Walker, Cheryl Morgan, Andy Bigwood, Christine Morgan, Myfanwy Rodman Page A

at the lesser man. Could there be understanding in those blank eyes? Could there be a yearning for communication in that waving ephemeral brain hair? Had I been blind to everything important in my life? Could that be so?
     
    Well that was another question, and it was not one that I intended to ignore. Tomorrow, I would think about that, tomorrow, after an incredibly difficult conversation with Martha.
     
    No longer would I be silent.
     

Brass and Bone
     
    - Joanne Hall -
     
     
     
     
     
    The abyss yawned beneath her feet. Angela swayed, suddenly dizzy, clinging on to the iron balustrade as the rocks and the river swirled below her. A three-funnelled clipper swept under her feet, belching steam, heading for the port. It gave her pause for a moment. She would not risk others. That wasn’t her way, even if it was Howard’s. She waited until she was sure the ship was clear of the bridge, and took one last, long look around, saying a mental goodbye to the city, to Leigh Woods, which swept down to the abutment where they had walked when they were courting, to the elegant curving terrace where her hopes had withered and died with Charlotte. Even now, someone could be racing across the Downs to rescue her.
     
    She shook her head to clear the fantasy. No one was coming. In all the sprawling city, she had no one. No one would miss her. There was no one on the bridge, and the grey, restless water was clear. She gathered her heavy skirts up to her waist, holding them bunched in one fist while she swung one bare leg, and then the other, over the railing.
     
    The drop seemed a lot further on this side of the fence. For a moment she clung white-knuckled to the barrier, courage failing at the last, unable even to dash away the tears that blinded her.
     
    Charlotte…
     
    “Hoy, Miss! You can’t…!”
     
    Footsteps on the bridge now, but Angela was beyond any ability to respond. Cold metal dug into the flesh of her fingers, and the wind took her skirts and buffeted them around her, dragging at her, nudging at her thighs like an eager lover. She took a breath, closed her eyes, and stepped forward into empty air.
     

     
    Death was white, and agonising cramps wracked her body. Her limbs were so heavy she couldn’t lift them. There were voices, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. All was pain, blinding white light, the smell of heated copper in her nostrils, immobility fading once more into darkness…
     

     
    Angela…
     
    That had been her name, in the time before her death. She could feel something, a pressure on her chest, just below her left collarbone, and heard a voice with a strange metallic timbre. Could it be…?
     
    Her lips moved, her raw throat worked, and she managed to whisper. “My Lord?”
     
    There was a chuckle. “Hardly! Do you know where you are, Mrs Porter?”
     
    “Am I… dead?”
     
    “You were, for a few minutes. Can you remember what happened?”
     
    “I was on the bridge…” Falling, the icy wind striking her face, ripping at her skin, her stomach in her mouth, the briefest vision of Clifton swirling end-over-end, scattered like a box of child’s bricks, wind, darkness.
     
    “You’re very fortunate.” She blinked. She could see him now, this doctor who sounded so calm, so efficient. He was wearing a brown leather smock over his white coat, and he had a stethoscope slung around his neck and what looked like a hammer in one hand. He busied himself with the sheets that covered her, humming thoughtfully. “Oh yes, that’s good… The wind caught your skirts and they billowed out and slowed your descent. That saved your life. That and the fact that you hit mud at the bottom, rather than rocks. You’re a lucky woman.”
     
    “Lucky…” She thought of Charlotte, of Howard, and she squeezed her eyes tight against the tears that burned there.
     
    “We were able to save most of you.”
     
    “Most of me?” She struggled against the invisible bonds that held her,