the
sun shines for you he said the day we were lying among the
rhododendrons on Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat
the day I got him to propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of
seedcake out of my mouth and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years
ago my God after that long kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I
was a flower of the mountain yes so we are flowers all a womans body
yes that was one true thing he said in his life and the sun shines
for you today yes that was why I liked him because I saw he
understood or felt what a woman is and I knew I could always get
round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could leading him on till
he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first only looked out
over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many things he didnt
know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and old captain
Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop and
washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front
of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor
devil half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and
their tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the
jews and the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of
Europe and Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby
Sharons and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague
fellows in the cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big
wheels of the carts of the bulls and the old castle thousands of
years old yes and those handsome Moors all in white and turbans like
kings asking you to sit down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda
with the old windows of the posadas glancing eyes a lattice hid for
her lover to kiss the iron and the wineshops half open at night and
the castanets and the night we missed the boat at Algeciras the
watchman going about serene with his lamp and O that awful deepdown
torrent O and the sea the sea crimson sometimes like fire and the
glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the Alameda gardens yes and all
the queer little streets and pink and blue and yellow houses and the
rosegardens and the jessamine and geraniums and cactuses and
Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I
put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I
wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I
thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes
to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my
mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart
was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.
