by Tanith Lee
Clovis argued one whole night with me, trying to stop me from doing this. When the day broke, we had cut each other to bits with our tongues, our eyes were red and mad, our faces white, and we laughed feebly. In all the argument and the personal remarks, we managed not to mention Silver, or our reactions to him. So I suppose we are still friends. A few days ago a hundred mauve roses were delivered here with a note: “I realized only something useless would be acceptable. Clovis.”
His thoughts on Silver remain obscured. Silver. I wonder what name, what names I knew you by before.
Oh, my love.
When I finally called my mother, she accepted my voice regally, and she invited me to lunch with her at Chez Stratos up in the clouds. She guesses I want to use her. I might even eventually interest her by attempting to do that. She might even agree. She has no basic respect for the law or the poor, being above them both in all the silliest and most obvious ways.
I feel curious about seeing the house again, about being there. And very nervous. I’ll wear my most astonishing clothes. Tight-fitting slender greens and violets, bells, embroidery, beads. And my boots with the four-inch heels.
I wonder if the lift in the support will still say: “Hallo, Jane.”
I wonder if my mother will embrace me, or remain very cool, or if she’ll help me, or refuse to help. Maybe I shall find out at last if she does like me in any way.
It’s more an exercise than anything else. My abstract course is set. Possibly for all of one hundred and thirty-odd years, I have to go on. To learn, to grow, to gain experiences and sights and sounds and truths and friendships, all to take with me like presents when I catch the flyer to meet him again. If I still feel like that when I’m old. If I still feel like that in another year.
And yet, I do believe what happened. There’s a logic to it, after all. To lose him, that was the impossible, unbelievable thing. It really is so much easier to say, quietly aloud in the grey soft-roaring of the city night: My love, my love. I will see you again.
To Chelsea Quinn Yarbro,
Between picnics.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TANITH LEE was born in 1947 in London, England. She received her secondary education at Prendergast Grammar School, Catford. She began to write at the age of 9.
After school she worked variously as a library assistant, a shop assistant, a filing clerk, and a waitress. At age 25 she spent 1 year at art college.
From 1970 to 1971 three of Lee’s children’s books were published. In 1975 DAW Books USA published Lee’s The Birthgrave, and thereafter 26 of her books, enabling her to become a full-time writer.
To date she has written 58 novels and 9 collections of novellas and short stories. Four of her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC and she has written 2 episodes of the BBC cult series Blake’s Seven. Her work has been translated into over 15 languages.
Lee has twice won the World Fantasy Award for short fiction, and was awarded the August Derleth Award in 1980 for her novel Death’s Master.
In 1992 Lee married the writer John Kahne, her partner since 1987. They live in southeast England with one black-and-white and one Siamese cat.
