Fate's got the veritable pin.
But it would have made a terrible poem. One of his worst.
The Approach of the Veritable Pin
THE FAT SUN, very low, turned everything the color of forsythia - yellowed the squares of last night to fall through my window's grating, blotched my bed and my resting toes.
'He's coming, isn't he?' said Gallen.
'Any time now,' I told her.
'Graff,' she said, 'if he comes from St Leonhard, they'll see him. If he takes the road by the orchards, Graff, there's Windisch and Keff who'll be looking.'
'Well, he won't just come rolling in on the bike, will he?'
'I'll bet he drives it into town,' she said. 'Oh, he won't bring it right to the courtyard, but he's not going to walk from St Leonhard either - if he's fool enough to come from St Leonhard, and not pick a new way.'
'You figure it out, then,' I said. 'You think of the road he'll take in.'
'Graff, you're not even going to say goodbye, are you?'
'Come and sit with me, Gallen,' I said. But she shook her head and wouldn't budge from the window ledge. From down on the bed I could peek past her knees; there was a roundness to her leg where the ledge pinched her.
'Stop looking up my skirt!' she said; she drew her legs up and swung herself back-to me. She gave a look out the window. 'Someone just ran out of the garden,' she said.
Then she got on her knees an
d leaned out the window.
'Someone's up against the wall,' she said. 'Someone's scratching the vines, but I can't see.'
So I came up beside her on the ledge; we knelt together, leaning out. Her braid slid up her back and over her shoulder; it shaded her face from me. I put my arm round her waist, and she straightened a little. On all fours we were, I draped on her back.
'Oh, damn you, Graff!' she said, and gave me her elbow in my throat. It choked me up so, I had to sit and water my eyes. She sat cross-legged on the ledge in front of me.
'Oh, you Graff!' she said. 'Goodbye, you! You just go on and go.'
She was getting teary; I had to look away from her. I peeked out the window, but there was nobody there. I was still gagging; it was like swimming, my eyes were so watery.
'Oh, Graff,' she said, 'don't you cry too.' And she pitched forward at me, burrowing round me with her arms. Her face was wet against my cheek. 'I could meet you somewhere, Graff. Couldn't I? I've got wages coming, and I never buy anything.'
My Adam's apple was so fat in my throat I couldn't talk; I think she'd given it a bat that had turned it around.
'Gak,' I said.
And she dissolved; she bit her braid end and shivered herself up small against me.
'Gallen,' I managed, 'there's nobody out there.'
But she wouldn't hear it. She was still shaking when the two strange elbows and the fist-shape chin came wriggling up on the window ledge, together with animal pants and groans, and followed by the Great Greek Face of Comedy without a hair on his head - which all bore a bald resemblance to my previous Siggy-friend.
'God, give me a hand!' he said. 'My foot's caught in this frotting ivy.'
So I had to slide Gallen off my lap and drag the terribly disguised Siggy into the room.
'I'm back!' he said.
And he flopped down next to the heap my Gallen made on the floor.