STARSHINE, THE OCEAN AND THE UNICORN
Chapter Four                                                                                              Part Fifteen


                             We travelled down through Italy together and two weeks later we boarded a ship for Naples, a liner that was England bound.  George had been to a barber, a tailor and a cobbler, but still the captain was wary of our simply cut clothes and missing luggage.  We stood on the quay, me with my one small carpet bag and George with his muslin bundle.  The captain stood on the ship with his blue, gold buttoned uniform.  He leant heavily on the rail of the deck, his arms and hands spread wide to support his enormous, sagging weight.  He looked at us over the bulk of his chest and belly and his long white moustache drooped and pointed down towards us, like a walrus amazed at our impertinence in wanting to join his floating menagerie of fashion and luxury.  But when I produced the last of my money, the walrus took it without flinching and George and I were provided with the smallest cabin and a passage home.
                             That night the liner docked at a small Sardinian fishing port.  George and I sat down to dinner in the ship's grand dining room  The diners were dressed in evening dress.  The women were powdered, feathered and jewelled and the men were cumerbunded and Dickie bowed.  I could feel their eyes on me, scorning my blue, cotton dress my single string of pearls and my pale, ungloved arms.  The light glittered falsely from  crystal chandeliers on to the white, starched tablecloths and napkins.  Food was placed in front of me and my glass was filled.  I froze, I stared at my plate without seeing what was on it and all I could hear was the fizz of champagne close to my ear.  I was angry. 
                             Their scorning eyes were the eyes of crocodiles and snakes. They looked down from their high pinnacles, awaiting my answer. It was a trap.  To answer their scorn was to admit humility.  Though I had journeyed and found all my answers I did not speak, for they had no ears to hear my words.
                I looked around at my fellow voyagers. I saw thick skinned rhinoceri, their horned arrogance, accusing and ready to charge.  I saw the savage mouths and hungry eyes of big cats ready to kill.  I saw stupid, self important ostriches and I saw camels with tall, haughty necks, lowered eyelids and mouth's filled with the bitter taste of old pennies. Their wealth surrounded them but encased nothing and their possession of nothing drove them to destroy.  They sought power in destruction.  Those who broke their rules were humbled and so too were those who obeyed them.  Their disdain was unrestrained, while their eyes had never turned inward to see their own vile piety.  I hated them, I hated their hatred.
                   I looked at George, he was serene.  We looked into each other.  My anger looked at his serenity and his serenity looked at my anger.  I remembered the way he had looked in the woods and I tried to imagine how I had looked to him.  I remembered being lost and having no sense of belonging, whereas George had belonged but was dissatisfied and sad.  Only then did I realise that my being lost had meant that my journey was predestined, whereas George's was inspired by me and as I had stumbled at the very beginning of mine, so I had opened the gateway to his. Now our paths had met.  George had lost his anger on the way, but I still carried mine.  As he looked at me over our table of uneaten food and undrunk champagne, he could see that my anger would not go, that I needed his help. He took my hand and whispered,
                                                                               " Let's get off the Ark and go and find the Unicorn."
                   We walked along the harbour wall and down onto the beach.  The dusk sky turned through mauve and indigo.  The village lay quiet in its shadows, shying away from the liner's painted  metal bulk and fairy lights.  We took off our shoes, the sand was chilly and silken on the soles of our feet.  We found a little wooden boat, it looked sad, upside down and stranded, so we turned it over and dragged it down the beach to the sea's first beckoning waves that washed up around our legs.  We jumped into the boat and George began to row.  Only when we were far out into the ocean did he ship the oars and we drifted like a tiny shadow in the night.
                               There were a million stars in sky and ocean.  There were no horizons.  The night was timeless and silent.  Water lapped quietly against the sides of the boat as we rocked gently over the push and pull of the waves. 
                      George told me of his beautiful, lonely house and of his money sealed in a leaden box and buried deep in a bank vault.  We decided to live in the beautiful house with our love, and the fire it sparked would build walls of flame that would keep us warm and the rest of the world at bay.  We didn't want his money, we would keep that sealed and safe in the vault for the Unicorn.
                       We made our lover's pact.  When death comes to one, the other would fast and follow.  George unclasped the string of pearls from around my neck.  He broke them and threw them one by one into the ocean.  They floated awhile amongst the mirrored stars and then disappeared beneath the water.  The immortal tears had at last been shed, their anger and their bitterness were no longer mine, the ocean had reclaimed them.
                         So Starshine and the Ocean were one, they were reflections of each other.  There was an energy in our souls that burned like another spirit, a third presence, a ghost we both felt. We knew that the ghost was love and that it would remain with us for the rest of our lives.
                          We were no longer looking for the Unicorn.  Everything was complete. 

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