ABSTRACT
... She wakes. She is not Enid Thomas. Let’s make that dear. She is Patricia Williams. Patricia Whittaker-Williams. Author of her own story. This gift. This daughter. Wife of this worried face. This anxious questioning. Eventually she is lying back on heaped pillows listening to his breathing, the dream seeping into the room. She has never met, never even heard of an Enid Thomas. I’m telling you Daughter reality is beyond my poor comprehension. As if she didn’t have problems enough. What with a husband intent on moving to her island. And a Canada intent on giving him good reason. If she smoked this would be a good time for a cigarette. Bars of moonlight across the coffin cross, his father’s, handed to his mother before the mattress and the shovelfuls of earth and stone. Since her death passed on to him. Mysterious in grey blue light. He has begun to snore lightly. She is hot, throat sore, dry. The secret dream-life as strenuous as other rebellions. The bed is a ghostly galleon floating the moonlit sea Enid Thomas comes sailing sailing sailing Enid Thomas comes sailing up to the old Bounty
