Tipping the Velvet (63 page)

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and sweating with panic and haste. I passed the Shafts stall I nodded. Then, 'Would you care,' I asked quietly, 'if I again - did not turn my head, this time, to see whether went?'

Diana was still at it, with her new boy - but only walked

'If you went?' She swallowed. 'I thought you'd gone already.

steadily onwards, searching for a glimpse of Florence's I saw a look upon your face

jacket or glittering hair, or Cyril's sash.

'And did you care?' I said again. She gazed at the flower At last I left the thickest crowd behind, and found myself in between her fingers.

the western half of the park, near the boating-lake. Here,

'I made up my mind to leave the park and go home. There heedless of the speeches and the debates that were taking seemed nothing to stay for - not even Eleanor Marx! Then I place within the tents and around the stalls, boys and girls got as far as here and thought, "What would I do at home, sat in boats, or swam, shrieking and splashing and larking with you not there .. . ?"' She gave the daisy another twist, about. Here, too, there were a number of benches; and on and two or three of its petals fell and clung to the wool of one of them -I almost cried out to see it! - sat Florence, with her skirt. I looked once about the field, then turned to face Cyril a little way before her, dipping his hands and the frill her again, and began to speak^ to her, low and earnestly, as of his skirt into the water of the lake. I stood for a moment if I were arguing for my life.

to get my breath back, to pull off my hat and wipe at my

'Flo,' I said, 'you were right, what you said before, about damp brow and temples; then I walked slowly over.

that address I gave with Ralph. It wasn't mine, I didn't mean Cyril saw me first, and waved and shouted. At his cry the words - at least, not then, when I said them.' I came to a Florence looked up and met my gaze, and gave a gulp. She halt, then put a hand to my head. 'Oh! I feel like I've been had taken the daisy from her lapel, and was turning it repeating other people's speeches all my life. Now, when I between her fingers. I sat beside her, and placed my arm want to make a speech of my own, I find I hardly know along the back of the bench so that my hand just brushed how.'

her shoulder. 'I thought,' I said breathlessly, 'that I had lost

'If you are fretting over how to tell me you are leaving -'

you She gazed at Cyril. 'I watched you talking with Kitty.'

'I am fretting,' I said, 'over how to tell you that I love you;

'Yes.'

over how to say that you are all the world to me; that you

'You said - you said she would never come back.' She and Ralph and Cyril are my family, that I could never leave looked desperately sad.

- even though I was so careless with my own kin.' My voice

'I'm sorry, Flo. I'm so sorry! I know it ain't fair, that she did, grew thick; she gazed at me but didn't answer, so I and Lilian will never . . .'

stumbled on. 'Kitty broke my heart -I used to think she'd She turned her head. 'She really came to - ask you back to killed it! I used to think that only she could mend it; and so, her?'

for five years I've been wishing she'd come back. For five years I have scarcely let myself think of her, for fear that 539

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the thought would drive me mad with grief. Now she has

Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a Ph.D.

turned up, saying all the things I dreamed she'd say; and I

in English literature and has published articles on lesbian

find my heart is mended already, by you. She made me

and gay writing and cultural history. She has worked in

know it. That was the look you saw on my face.' I raised a

bookshops and libraries and now teaches for the Open

hand to stop a tickling at my cheek, and found tears there.

University, though she has given up full-time academic

'Oh, Flo!' I said then. 'Only say - only say you'll let me love

work in order to concentrate on writing fiction. She is

you, and be with you; that you'll let me be your sweetheart,

currently working on her second novel.

and your comrade. I know I'm not Lily -'

'No, you're not Lily,' she said. 'I thought I knew what that meant - but I never did, till I saw you gazing at Kitty and thought I should lose you. I've been missing Lily for so long, it's come to seem that wanting anything must be only another way of wanting her; but oh! how different wanting seemed, when I knew it was you I wanted, only you, only you ..."

I shifted closer towards her: the paper in my pocket gave a rustle, and I remembered romantic Miss Skinner, and all the friendless girls who Zena had said were mad in love with Flo, at Freemantle House. I opened my mouth to tell her; then thought I wouldn't, just yet - in case she hadn't noticed.

Instead, I gazed again about the park, at the crush of gay-faced people, at the tents and stalls, the ribbons and flags and banners: it seemed to me then that it was Florence's passion, and hers alone, that had set the whole park fluttering. I turned back to her, took her hand in mind, crushed the daisy between our fingers and - careless of whether anybody watched or not -I leaned and kissed her.

Cyril still squatted with his frills in the lake. The afternoon sun cast long shadows over the bruised and trampled grass.

From the speakers' tent there came a muffled cheer, and a rising ripple of applause.

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