Nemo's Almanac by Ian Patterson

Author:Ian Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Profile
Published: 2017-01-21T05:00:00+00:00

C: ___________________________________________

1.

The sky and sea are parting like an oyster shell, with a low red gape. Looking across from the veranda at it, one shivers. Not that it is cold. The morning is not at all cold. But the ominousness of it: that long red slit between a dark sky and a dark Ionian sea, terrible old bivalve which has held life between its lips so long. And here, at this house, we are ledged so awfully above the dawn, naked to it.

2.

They went to the sands, to watch the flowing of the tide, which a fine south-easterly breeze was bringing in with all the grandeur which so flat a shore admitted. They praised the morning; gloried in the sea; sympathized in the delight of the fresh-feeling breeze—and were silent; till Henrietta suddenly began again, with,

‘Oh! yes,—I am quite convinced that, with very few exceptions, the sea-air always does good.’

3.

‘Now, am I not kind to bring you here? And look.’ She led him to the side of the rampart, where a line of flat stones inserted sideways into the wall served as rough steps down to a lower walk. ‘These are the very steps that Jane Austen made Louisa Musgrove fall down in Persuasion.’

‘How romantic.’

‘Gentlemen were romantic … then.’

4.

Under the flimsiest of pretexts (this was our very last chance, and nothing really mattered) we escaped from the café to the beach, and found a desolate stretch of sand, and there, in the violet shadow of some red rocks forming a kind of cave, had a brief session of avid caresses, with somebody’s lost pair of sunglasses for only witness.

5.

The day her mother died, my mother

was on holiday. I travelled to the seaside

with bad news. She slumped over the table,

spilling wine across the telegram.

6.

The marine tendency of George IV was inherited by his brother William IV, who was known as the Sailor King on account of his readiness to create any number of piers at moments of political crisis.

7.

There on the sand not far from the lovers lay the old sheep’s skull without its jaw. Clean, white, wind-swept, sand-rubbed, a more unpolluted piece of bone existed nowhere on the coast of Cornwall. The sea holly would grow through the eye-sockets; it would turn to powder, or some golfer, hitting his ball one fine day, would disperse a little dust.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.