Voices from the Past Part 109

"There's one, Will, you just can't beat. She's about this tall, tiny around the waist, and she makes you know, before you know it, that she can be had for very little, very sweetly done too, that's the game of it...that's the game of her, that little one, Portia, they call her.

Portia, the one with grey eyes and small mouth. When she stands up beside me in the boat to pay her fare, I groan.

It's terrible being old, Will, when you can't do it any more. And I want to do it to her, to be young again. That Portia, she comes mostly in the evenings, I guess you know why. But she's not always alone, but when she's alone, we talk. That she, she is little around the waist but has melon b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the kind, you know how they are. I will give you her address, if you want. Shillings, now Will! But she's not one you'll forget, I warn ye. That mouth of hers and them eyes of hers. f.a.ggots for her, that's it, Will, f.a.ggots for men who see her..."

The boat shifts, Sly's oars are cracked, his old face crisped from the sunny crossings, the winds and fogs.

He's been boatman for forty-odd years, he says. He has worn out a dozen boats, which he builds himself, to make them stout enough. Sun on his boat, the water dark...

I'd like to cross once more with him, though he's been dead a long time, cross with other boats around, small boats and schooners, some with sails unfurled, seaward bound.

St. Swithin's Day

If I knew where I was going to die I wouldn't go near the place.

Stratford

July 20, 1615

Today, warm sun and silence were mine and pain alleviated: I hoped for recovery, hoped to write again, hoped that my memory might outlive death half a year; so shall I progress, ant-wise, day by day: ants, as you creep over the woodwork, stumble against the grain, think of me and the words I summon: conviction me to another Rosalind: the Touchstone will unblacken and reveal pure, pure gold: alchemy of ruffians and angels:

Tongues I'll hang on every tree

For the souls of friend and friend...

The sword in my chimney corner has not been unsheathed for years: when I bought it I thought I had the keenest blade in London, sharper than my rapier: when I carried it I liked to give it a flick now and then, to catch the eye of a woman: I kept it polished: it saved my life in a street fracas: Hamnet liked it: he used to shoulder it and parade about: I thought it would keep me young forever: I thought it would cut across time, loosen parchment and paper, let flood a bevy of immortal words above a sea of faces...

...for Thomas Combe.

The Roebuck on the Atlantic, bucking water,

sailors topmast, Raleigh in his cabin,

one eye on the compa.s.s, another on a ma.n.u.script:

Books line the walls; a monkey chitters:

the Roebuck pitches:

Raleigh's jewels flash on his hands:

"Mermaid," yells a bow sailor.

Henley Street

July 24, 1615

I

had thirty-five days at sea with Raleigh:

How he commands, respected by his seamen, each crewman called by name. There is adequate leisure aboard his frigate. I never saw anything done "on the double" as aboard an Ess.e.x ship where the captaincy seemed insecure.

On board the Roebuck I kept at my writing, lolling and writing on deck or pa.s.sing hours in his cabin where I gave up to his booked walls: volumes in French, English, Italian, Greek, ma.n.u.scripts in Latin and Hebrew, his literary world broader than mine.

In his cabin, under his table lantern during bad weather, during squalls, I wrote an act and then, at Raleigh's urging, read it aloud. Feet propped on a mother-of-pearl chest, he listened gravely, smoking his clay pipe, brandy in reach, his comments as mellow as his drink, Oxford accent to my liking.

Ere we were ten days old at sea I had written several scenes-writing in the sun and spray, sitting on coils of rope, a gun lashed in front of me, gulls mewing.

"Mermaid...mermaid," a sailor yelled aloft, and we scuttled to the starboard rail, to see something break water and then submerge, its pearly back toward us.