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Show 305 "Yes." He didn't explain. He had sat down again beside me and his hand moved over and pressed mine down on the cold cement of the table-top. Family feeling rose up in my throat, almost choking me. I felt myself smile, happy in spite of everything. He started to say something else, but he was interrupted by shrill peevish cries. I looked up, expecting to find seagulls, but the circle of sky over our heads was empty of birds. The streamers of fog still raced inland; they looked like those insubstantial wisps of vapor that you see racing past the wings of jetliners as you climb through a cloud. The cries came nearer and began to resolve themselves into voices; they seemed to be coming up the path from the direction of the sea. Four fat women in miniskirted bathing costumes stepped into our clearing. Two were unnatural redheads, one a brunette, the last a silver blonde; under the garish crests of hair the fat faces were coarse, heavy-cheeked; lust and petulance had given them their shape. The bright skirts barely spanned flabby powerful thighs. They passed us by without a glance, pushing and jostling each other, screeching and baying, swinging their great heads forward uncertainly. "Jesus," I said to Carlo, "what a herd of dragons." "When I was sixteen," he said, "a really strange thing |
