Were they human, were they other than human? I felt an irrational shock that my college education was over. It was a blow. I felt the hollowness of the humanity to which I returned. My mother was an excellent swimmer. Why had she drowned? The afternoon had been blissful. She had taken our boat Tiger to sea and we were drifting lazily a mile or two off the coast. Such trips were not unusual. This was the third excursion in June 1961. Aunt Miriam was there. Five children were there including Peter and Emma, two close friends of my own age, orphaned in early childhood, who lived with Alice and me. I was there. (No! I am confused. I would have been there but was down with flu and lay in bed at Aunt Miriam’s. W. H. insists that it was he who lay in bed with flu and has another tale to tell that I shall disclose in due course.) From my bed in Miriam’s house I could see the sky and the sea. I could see Peter and Emma whose lives my mother saved. It was they who brought the news to me, messengers of the roaring laughter of the deep through which they came.
What do You think about The Carnival Trilogy (2013)?
