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

made no attempt to touch him.
    “I heard your ship was due,” she said.
    They talked, standing there by the hedge.
    Harry wanted to know what had happened, why she had deserted him. She said it was difficult to explain. There was nothing personal in it. She had loved Harry, very much, especially when he was most sick—especially when she thought he might die.
    Harry couldn’t understand.
    Heather said she herself didn’t understand. She seemedonly able to love a man, she said, if she could see the grave in his eyes.
    Harry pondered that for a while.
    “So you don’t love me any more?”
    “Only if I close my eyes,” she said, “and remember how you were when you were sick.”
    At that point, the young man in the chair called out to her in a feeble voice. Heather’s eyes were suddenly full of love and concern, and she went to him. Harry watched them together for a moment, then he slowly walked away.
    “Well now, after that,” said Harry Greene, leaning on the rail of the
Cumnock
, “I took the first berth I could get and I was gone for a year straight. When I came back from that voyage, I heard that Heather was dead. ’Twas her new lover infected her with whatever he had. I’m sure she didn’t mind at all.” He shook his grey head. “One of those books in my cabin talks about the cold love of a saint. I can’t help thinking Heather was some kind of saint. If I’d pretended to be sick all the time, I’m certain she’d have loved me forever.”
    The parrot, Daisy, had interested me as much as Heather. I asked him what happened to it.
    “Sure now, I took Daisy with me on all my voyages after that. I could still hear Heather’s voice saying ‘Hello!’ and ‘Goodbye!’ long after she was dead. Then, one time we were sailing off the coast of Brazil and that bird took off, and didn’t come back. I’m sure it could smell home.” He laughed. “Come to think of it, I missed that bird more than I did Heather.”
    We’d been at the rail a long time and the night was dark and warm.
    “So, Andy,” he said, “that was my only attempt at being a married man. Did I tell you that old Johannes Morologussays there’s mathematics even in love? According to him, people like Heather and I are the same as two parallel lines—they can run alongside each other, but they can’t ever meet.” He sighed. “Ah, the love of a woman. ’Tis a great thing … for many reasons you’re too young to understand.”
    It was much darker now, and I was glad the darkness hid my face.
    “A woman’s love isn’t hard to win,” he said. “All you have to do is talk to her. So says a French book I read a while back. The author claims words are the brain’s love juice. He says when you talk to a woman, it doesn’t matter much what you say, you’re making love to her.” He laughed, then was serious. “I’ve never married again. I wouldn’t think of giving up my voyages and my books. How could any woman put up with that?”
    After he said that, his hand thumped down on the railing.
    “God’s rope!” he said. “Do you know, Andy my boy, this is the first time I’ve ever told anyone about my marriage? Sure now, you have a way of getting me to talk.”
    As though he really needed much encouragement, I thought.
    He reached out and squeezed my shoulder in the dark.
    “Now, I’ll let you in on something else. We have more in common than you know. The house in Stroven—the one you talked about—the house you were born in. Do you know who had it built? ’Twas Heather’s father. He lived there when he retired from the sea after her death.” He was speaking now in a quiet voice he used when he was confiding in me. “And I went there once to visit him. Yes, Andy. I’ve actually been in the house you were born and brought up in.”
    He said this as though it were incredible. Adults findcoincidences strange. But for me, at that time, the world seemed full of every kind of possibility. I only wished there was some way of