I, the quaifying noun. And I am to remain childless. Something about biology, genetics (a science, Mairtin), though once there was a hope but then an ending of late bright blood. I knew about cycles and seasons, the way of a woman with a man, the rooted mandrake. Knew about the necessity of binding oneself to earth and stone with the young, their thin limbs forever bound to the island of their birth. – It is because she will go out in boats with the men. Not right for a woman, and in trousers yet, with the cap of Seaneen and her hair underneath. Ye’d never know she was a woman. It’s unnatural, like. – And ye’ve heard, of course . . . The tongues forever knitting the stories over tea. When I sit among the harpies with my clumsy cables and impure wool, I am always given the china cup of the guest. Never crockery, like themselves, homely and plain brown, but always the china cup of the stranger, my name engraved in the common-room silence.
