Golly it's Darlene. So, out in search of limes for her landlady, the fruit beginning to jog and spill from her straw basket and roll yellowgreen back down the street, young Darlene comes running in her nurse's cap, her breasts soft fenders for this meeting on the gray city sea. Tire tracks in the slush have turned to pearl, mellow pearl.
Gulls cruise slowly against the high windowless brick walls of the district.
Mrs. Quoad's is up three dark flights, with the dome of faraway St. Paul's out its kitchen window visible in the smoke of certain afternoons, and the lady herself tiny in a rose plush chair in the sitting-room by the wireless, listening to Primo Scala's Accordion Band. She looks healthy enough. Since he passed away I've had to become all but an outright witch, in pure self-defense. From the kitchen comes the smell of limes freshly cut and squeezed. We help each other, you see.