First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women by Eric McCormack

Macarenes.…”
     … he turned twenty-five the day after they docked. He took his usual room in the Sailor’s Mission, down by the docks. But then something unusual happened: he became very ill. He couldn’t keep down food, and could barely move his arms and legs. The doctor hoped it was only a severe case of dengue fever—“Break Bone Fever,” as the sailors called it. Those giant mosquitoes on the Macarenes had surely infected him.
    Whatever it was, Harry could tell from the way the doctor looked at him that he was afraid that what he had might be deadly.
    A woman who was a part-time nurse at the Mission, and who had a spare room in her house, said she’d take Harry in and look after him. He would either recover or die there.
    Her name was Heather.
    The house was big and old, with dark wood panels on the walls. It was a gloomy place except for a red-and-yellow parrot called Daisy. Heather’s father was a sea captain and he’d brought the bird for her from a voyage to Rio. Its cage was in the kitchen and she’d taught it to say “Hello!” and “Goodbye!”
    Heather herself was a small woman, full of energy, withfrizzy ginger hair she tried to contain in a bun. She would sit patiently by Harry’s bedside for hours each day, devoting herself to his every need. No one had ever paid such attention to him. Inevitably, in the process of recovering from one fever, he fell helplessly into another. Love.
    Soon, he was able to get out of bed and limp around the house. Then he could climb the staircase, and after that, he could walk the length of the street without feeling too tired. All the while, he was falling more and more in love with Heather. She had saved his life and she loved him back. He was sure of that. He could see it in her eyes.
    After two months of this convalescence, he told her his feelings. He asked her to marry him, right away. She seemed to hesitate, which he took for modesty. He pestered her, she gave in.
    Her reluctance to marry him should have worried him, but he was too thrilled at feeling well again, and maybe at being in love.
    The wedding was a small one. Her father was on a voyage at the time, so he wasn’t there. The following week, Harry Greene himself was offered a berth on a ship headed for West Africa. Heather didn’t object. It was good, she said, for a man to follow his profession. He said he’d take Daisy with him to keep him company and remind him of her. She agreed.
    The voyage lasted two months, and all through it, Harry never stopped thinking about Heather. Whenever Daisy said “Hello!” or “Goodbye!” in Heather’s voice, he thought his heart would burst with love.
    Those were the two longest months of his life. But they passed, and one day in June, the ship sailed into Glasgow heavily laden with mahogany and Harry Greene’s love.
    The house was empty, with a For Sale sign on the lawn. Harry Greene looked through the windows. All the furniture was gone.
    At the Mission, they said she didn’t work for them any more. They gave him her new address.
    A taxi took him to a district where the City melts into the country, and where, in summer, marauding bands of wild flowers ambush the cultivated lawns of the houses. Harry got out of the taxi at the end of one of the little streets and walked along it.
    He saw her before she saw him. She was standing on the lawn of the only old house in the street—the original farmhouse, fieldstone, ivy-covered. He almost called out, but instead, he stood behind a hedge and watched.
    She wasn’t alone. She was talking to someone who was sitting in an old wooden lawn chair. Harry could see him clearly—a young man in a housecoat, his face lined and grey from illness. She was looking at him with great tenderness.
    All at once, she stiffened. She turned towards the hedge where Harry was standing. She looked and looked.
    “Harry?” she called.
    He came out from behind the hedge, and she walked slowly to meet him. She didn’t smile and she