‘Suki! Suki!’
And Thomas opened his eyes, and she was there again, close.
‘Miss Vaughan,’ he thought. ‘Miss Vaughan,’ he said.
She was so near, and yet so far, so strange, so lost.
‘Miss Vaughan,’ Thomas said.
Miss Vaughan was suddenly bolder still, her hands clasped tightly and lying on her knees. She looked neither right nor left.
‘Miss Vaughan,’ Thomas said, and rose slowly out of the ground. ‘Miss Vaughan.’
And she saw him, and he was real.
Thomas got a vision of red, an explosion from the dune, and’ then she was running, madly, wildly along the shore.
‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan,’ and he was running after.
‘Poor creature,’ he said, ‘Poor Miss Vaughan. I still love her,’ and ran, and ran, and ran.
There she was, flying before his very eyes, that had been so near and yet so far.
And he ran on and on.
He saw her make wide, and more widening circles across the sand, he saw her fall.
‘Oh God,’ he said, running still.
He stood a moment, exhausted. When he fell, when he knew he was falling, he shouted at the top of his voice. ‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan,’ and watched her rise, watched her move further and further, watched the sky, and the light beginning to go.
‘If I could catch her, hold her, speak to her,’ Thomas said, and words thrust him forward again, and he ran on. His overcoat flew open, flapped like a sail, and his eye was fast upon the figure that sometimes ran, and sometimes stopped; sometimes dallied, and sometimes turned round and looked back, where, in the distance she could yet see a bridge, and behind her the shore, and more shore, and yet more shore. She did not see Thomas stumble again, fall to the ground, lie there; she did not hear him call her name. ‘Miss Vaughan,’ he shouted, came to his knees, cupped hands, cried again, ‘Miss Vaughan!’ his spirit riding behind this endeavour of flesh and bone, then rising, and shouting again. ‘Wait! Wait! Miss Vaughan!’ and the words lost, the name lost, torn to shreds in the wind.
‘I must. I must.’
Suddenly she was walking, and not running, he wondered if she would stop, if she would turn again. If only she turned, came back, came his way.
‘I knew it in the chapel that night. I know it now.’ He stopped to button an overcoat that he did not realise was holding him back, and he felt for the hat that was no longer there. And he went on, blindly, determinedly, as though this was the journey that was final. One did not turn back, but went on, and on again. He sat down, bowed his head, and he prayed quietly for the figure that was now moving out towards the sea.
‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan!’ shouting again, stumbling on. Once he thought he saw the sky and the sea meet, once stopped abruptly to listen, and heard the laughter following after. ‘The sea, the sea,’ he shouted, then fell flat on his back. He felt lost in this vastness, and emptiness, in the silence that seemed total.
‘I can’t go on,’ he said, and went on, and there on the horizon was the figure, still moving, further and further away. Or was it just another bird? The sand pulled, the wind held, and he went on, dragging his feet after him, his hands now pawing air itself, and wondered when she would stop, when he would stop. He clapped hands to his head.
‘Oh God! Perhaps I am mad.’
And went on nearer and nearer to where sea and shore would meet.
‘I cannot go on,’ he cried, ‘I cannot go on’ and went on, the roads of his life behind him, the world reduced to a moment.
‘I’m coming,’ he shouted, ‘I’m coming.’
And then he saw her stood quite still, almost as though she were waiting for him to come. And Thomas cried in his mind, ‘Wait. Wait.’ He stopped again, he closed his eyes. For a moment he seemed to sense that he was falling again, falling down, and down, and down again, and lower than that, and his hands reached out to grasp, to hold.
‘Where am I?’
His finger tips touched his eyelids, he was afraid to open his eyes.
‘Where is she?’
She was there. Motionless, her back turned on him, she was still waiting. He thought of her silent life, he was in the chapel again, under the hooded light, he felt her eyes upon him. What was she thinking? Now. Miss Vaughan was drowned in the wind, and the sea was lapping at her feet. Thomas stopped again. How small she was, and still as still.
‘If only she knew, if only she understood.’ And Thomas moved again, hoped again. He saw her close, so close, and he had spoken to her, calling her name. And she had leaped away. The look, the violent movement still shocked and frightened him. He wanted to cry her name now, wanted to shout ‘Wait, wait!’ and dared not. His heart leapt when she turned slowly round. Was she looking at him? Was she looking beyond him, was she actually waiting for him to come?
Almost without realising it he was calling her name, he was shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Wait, I’m coming, Miss Vaughan.’
Miss Vaughan moved nearer to the sea, and Thomas fell flat on his face. And then he knew that he could not move. ‘Oh Christ,’ Thomas said, hearing it and knew that he had said it, his mouth touching sand, the word falling, the word dying in it, his arms stretched out before him. And then he hammered with clenched fists, ‘What shall I do with the moment?’
As he tried to rise, as he rose, as he cried out again. ‘Wait! Wait!’ But she did not hear him, and, unlike Thomas, seemed to know what to do with her own moment as she walked further and further away, and never again looked at that staggering figure in black that came on, lurching this way and that, and never heard the words from his mouth that the wind fragmented, that the sea’s roar drowned.
‘My God! She’s walking into the sea,’ he cried, and dragged himself to his feet, and lunged, and fell again, and again rose, and the shout frantic. ‘Wait! Wait!’
He watched, he hoped again, he was anguished, he fell again. He dragged himself into a kneeling position, he leaned on his elbows, he cupped hands again, and cried at the top of his voice. ‘Miss Vaughan! Miss Vaughan. Wait! Please. Wait. Wait.’
He saw her raise her hands in the air, as she went on, further and further in, as the sea pulled, as the moment died in him, as he opened his mouth to speak and could not, as he fell flat on his face again, and lay there, inert, a black heap, and the light going fast. There was a word on his tongue, and it wouldn’t move, he knew the word that was closest to him, but it froze there, the lips mouthed air. He heard nothing, and felt nothing, and saw nothing. After a while he fell asleep.
When he woke it was fully dark, and the sea soundless. There was no wind. There seemed no sky.
‘Where am I?’
