Sentence The Fiftyeighth
Maude felt herself to be floating, in a disembodied sort of way, as one might who was experiencing an “out-of-body” sort of, well, experience; she saw herself, as though she was viewing from just below the ceiling of The Jolly Boatman, looking down on the top of her head, and noting that she was sitting rather close against a jauntily attractive, Katherine Hepburn kind of woman, dressed as one might if one were given to hanging around harbours and boats and sailors and fishermen – not herself, the other, whom she knew to be Phemie Lauder, whom she had surreptitiously viewed from afar not so very long before; and she, Maude that is, was reading an article in the Evening News encapsulated in the Headline: “Kate Blanquette to star as Mother of Eleven in new film set in Edinburgh” and reading further, she had noticed that her own name and that of Dear Daphne was also mentioned, and linked with Dame Judy and Dame Helen, although it was unclear which Dame would play which; it was all rather a shock, for after a lovely reviving soak in the bathtub, Maude had felt herself becoming human again – her hangover had steadily worsened during the drive to Gullane, despite drinking several bottles of water – which only meant more frequent stops to pee and to consume cups of tea or coffee and different kinds of cake – her headache was quite commanding by the time she and Daphne had settled themselves into a delightful room with a view of the sea and the town spread along its shore; she could even see
The Jolly Boatman and, if the descriptions given to her by the other members of The Famous Five was accurate, she could swear she had already identified the tantalising Phemie Lauder – a strong-looking young woman, wearing working clothes of the sort which would be unsuitable for an office or shop-girl, mainly consisting of blue denim, a stripy sort of shirt, a red neckerchief and a jaunty Breton cap – she seemed to have canvas deck-shoes and and tousled hair curling out from beneath her cap, but even with the binoculars it was difficult to identify the colour; she was a busy young lady, and busty too – she moved rapidly around the town – into a chandler's, then up the street to a tobacconist's, then into a restaurant, next she went to a dairy, and a newsagent's, a pub, and after a little while seemed to be walking directly towards Maude and the binoculars showed her to have
strong cheekbones, blue-blue eyes, bright red lips and white teeth – her smile was quite delicious and infectious, for Maude found herself smiling as she watched Miss Lauder approach, seeming about to enter the room through the window until, about a hundred yards away, she turned in to The Jolly Boatman and Maude felt an irresistible urge to go for a drink; which she suggested to Daphne, who was just about to climb into the steaming bathtub, and therefore said she would pass for the nonce, but that Maude should pop along and get the lie of the land, perhaps see if she could get an Evening News, if she liked; which Maude promptly did – pop along and pick up an Evening News, but she had gone further – she had gone into The Jolly Boatman where she spotted the woman she presumed to be Miss Lauder sitting alone in a small booth; she had bought a glass of white wine and approached the booth without a thought of what she was going to say when the woman looked up, smiled, and said that she was Phemie and asked if Maude was Maude or Daphne – it seemed the Famous Four had been on the Jungle Drums and Miss Lauder had been fully briefed about the visit of the Honeymooners to Gullane,
so it was quite easy for Maude to squeeze herself in beside Phemie – it really was quite a squeeze, the bench cannot have been designed for two adults, or else it dated back to a time when people were much smaller; but it did lend a sort of intimacy to their conversation; and Phemie already knew of Maude's hope to visit The Bass – though Phemie said that it was further East than Maude had thought, off Dunbar, just where the coast began to turn away from the Forth and begin it's long stride down the North Sea; but certainly Phemie's little boat – Maude didn't catch what particular type it was – she only distinguished between Ships (such as Battleships and Liners), Yachts (they had sails), Motor Boats (they didn't), and Rowing Boats – could make the trip, she'd been on The Bass quite a lot, most summers, usually taking small parties of City Girls – and she gave Maude a look which conveyed that she meant Maude and her ilk (well, the Famous Five were pretty weel-kent among their ilk, so it wasn't such a wild shot in the dark, and Maude was never one to demur) and Maude returned the look as much as to say, and what exactly is your ilk, Miss Phemie Lauder? at which Phemie laughed and asked if Maude was ready for another drink and Maude, being a Girl Who Can't Say No, held out her glass; so it was while she was waiting for Phemie to return from the bar that Maude flicked through the pages of her paper and soon found herself gazing at a photograph of Pru and the eleven Montelimart sisters, alongside a piece about them and another photograph of the Hollywood Star cast as her niece, and then came upon the revelation that she and Daphne were to be represented by the two Grande Dames of the British Film Industry – which was when she felt herself begin to float above and look down on the room and herself and Phemie who had rejoined her and it was the strangest of many strange sensations that Maude had ever experienced and she really wasn't sure if she liked it, so it was almost a relief when the street door opened and Daphne walked in; from above Maude could see that she and Phemie below were so engrossed – the lower Maude was showing Phemie the article and explaining about the Montelimart family (Pru was niece to both herself and Daphne, the older sister of Ginger Goldfish) and the unusual fact that the eleven girls had only three birthdays between them and only the youngest, Joan, The Bairn, had hers all to herself; Daphne meanwhile, her eyes having adjusted to the tenebrous gloom after the bright sunshine without, had just spotted the top of Maude's head over the back of the bench she shared with Phemie – who, bending over the newspaper, was out of Daphne's line of vision; the Higher Maude wanted to alert her Lower self to Daphne's arrival, but dared not call out – then she remembered that she had a feather stuck into her hair – she could see it on her head below, she reached up and took hers from her hair and reached down – she was convinced that up here she was invisible, for no-one in the place had seen her, so far as she knew – and tickled herself as with the gossamer wing of a delicate Flower Fairy – which was rather how she often regarded herself – just behind the right ear; the Lower Maude reached up and rubbed at her ear and, at the same moment saw Daphne inside the door; she waved, beckoned Daphne over, and eased herself just that little bit of space away from Phemie before standing and introducing Phemie to her beloved, actually using that word as the definiens of her deep adoration and in that instant Maude, the Lower Maude, the flesh-and-blood worldly Maude, as opposed to the idealised Flower Fairy of her dreams, became aware that she – who had briefly been two – was one, and gave a little shiver as though someone had just walked over her grave!
Maude felt herself to be floating, in a disembodied sort of way, as one might who was experiencing an “out-of-body” sort of, well, experience; she saw herself, as though she was viewing from just below the ceiling of The Jolly Boatman, looking down on the top of her head, and noting that she was sitting rather close against a jauntily attractive, Katherine Hepburn kind of woman, dressed as one might if one were given to hanging around harbours and boats and sailors and fishermen – not herself, the other, whom she knew to be Phemie Lauder, whom she had surreptitiously viewed from afar not so very long before; and she, Maude that is, was reading an article in the Evening News encapsulated in the Headline: “Kate Blanquette to star as Mother of Eleven in new film set in Edinburgh” and reading further, she had noticed that her own name and that of Dear Daphne was also mentioned, and linked with Dame Judy and Dame Helen, although it was unclear which Dame would play which; it was all rather a shock, for after a lovely reviving soak in the bathtub, Maude had felt herself becoming human again – her hangover had steadily worsened during the drive to Gullane, despite drinking several bottles of water – which only meant more frequent stops to pee and to consume cups of tea or coffee and different kinds of cake – her headache was quite commanding by the time she and Daphne had settled themselves into a delightful room with a view of the sea and the town spread along its shore; she could even see
The Jolly Boatman and, if the descriptions given to her by the other members of The Famous Five was accurate, she could swear she had already identified the tantalising Phemie Lauder – a strong-looking young woman, wearing working clothes of the sort which would be unsuitable for an office or shop-girl, mainly consisting of blue denim, a stripy sort of shirt, a red neckerchief and a jaunty Breton cap – she seemed to have canvas deck-shoes and and tousled hair curling out from beneath her cap, but even with the binoculars it was difficult to identify the colour; she was a busy young lady, and busty too – she moved rapidly around the town – into a chandler's, then up the street to a tobacconist's, then into a restaurant, next she went to a dairy, and a newsagent's, a pub, and after a little while seemed to be walking directly towards Maude and the binoculars showed her to have
strong cheekbones, blue-blue eyes, bright red lips and white teeth – her smile was quite delicious and infectious, for Maude found herself smiling as she watched Miss Lauder approach, seeming about to enter the room through the window until, about a hundred yards away, she turned in to The Jolly Boatman and Maude felt an irresistible urge to go for a drink; which she suggested to Daphne, who was just about to climb into the steaming bathtub, and therefore said she would pass for the nonce, but that Maude should pop along and get the lie of the land, perhaps see if she could get an Evening News, if she liked; which Maude promptly did – pop along and pick up an Evening News, but she had gone further – she had gone into The Jolly Boatman where she spotted the woman she presumed to be Miss Lauder sitting alone in a small booth; she had bought a glass of white wine and approached the booth without a thought of what she was going to say when the woman looked up, smiled, and said that she was Phemie and asked if Maude was Maude or Daphne – it seemed the Famous Four had been on the Jungle Drums and Miss Lauder had been fully briefed about the visit of the Honeymooners to Gullane,
so it was quite easy for Maude to squeeze herself in beside Phemie – it really was quite a squeeze, the bench cannot have been designed for two adults, or else it dated back to a time when people were much smaller; but it did lend a sort of intimacy to their conversation; and Phemie already knew of Maude's hope to visit The Bass – though Phemie said that it was further East than Maude had thought, off Dunbar, just where the coast began to turn away from the Forth and begin it's long stride down the North Sea; but certainly Phemie's little boat – Maude didn't catch what particular type it was – she only distinguished between Ships (such as Battleships and Liners), Yachts (they had sails), Motor Boats (they didn't), and Rowing Boats – could make the trip, she'd been on The Bass quite a lot, most summers, usually taking small parties of City Girls – and she gave Maude a look which conveyed that she meant Maude and her ilk (well, the Famous Five were pretty weel-kent among their ilk, so it wasn't such a wild shot in the dark, and Maude was never one to demur) and Maude returned the look as much as to say, and what exactly is your ilk, Miss Phemie Lauder? at which Phemie laughed and asked if Maude was ready for another drink and Maude, being a Girl Who Can't Say No, held out her glass; so it was while she was waiting for Phemie to return from the bar that Maude flicked through the pages of her paper and soon found herself gazing at a photograph of Pru and the eleven Montelimart sisters, alongside a piece about them and another photograph of the Hollywood Star cast as her niece, and then came upon the revelation that she and Daphne were to be represented by the two Grande Dames of the British Film Industry – which was when she felt herself begin to float above and look down on the room and herself and Phemie who had rejoined her and it was the strangest of many strange sensations that Maude had ever experienced and she really wasn't sure if she liked it, so it was almost a relief when the street door opened and Daphne walked in; from above Maude could see that she and Phemie below were so engrossed – the lower Maude was showing Phemie the article and explaining about the Montelimart family (Pru was niece to both herself and Daphne, the older sister of Ginger Goldfish) and the unusual fact that the eleven girls had only three birthdays between them and only the youngest, Joan, The Bairn, had hers all to herself; Daphne meanwhile, her eyes having adjusted to the tenebrous gloom after the bright sunshine without, had just spotted the top of Maude's head over the back of the bench she shared with Phemie – who, bending over the newspaper, was out of Daphne's line of vision; the Higher Maude wanted to alert her Lower self to Daphne's arrival, but dared not call out – then she remembered that she had a feather stuck into her hair – she could see it on her head below, she reached up and took hers from her hair and reached down – she was convinced that up here she was invisible, for no-one in the place had seen her, so far as she knew – and tickled herself as with the gossamer wing of a delicate Flower Fairy – which was rather how she often regarded herself – just behind the right ear; the Lower Maude reached up and rubbed at her ear and, at the same moment saw Daphne inside the door; she waved, beckoned Daphne over, and eased herself just that little bit of space away from Phemie before standing and introducing Phemie to her beloved, actually using that word as the definiens of her deep adoration and in that instant Maude, the Lower Maude, the flesh-and-blood worldly Maude, as opposed to the idealised Flower Fairy of her dreams, became aware that she – who had briefly been two – was one, and gave a little shiver as though someone had just walked over her grave!
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