A story Supernatural and Sublime, of Love beyond Love, of Joy beyond Joy, of Sacrifice beyond Sacrifice, of Redemption beyond Redemption, of Healing, and of Fulfilment Finally.
Once upon a time a long time ago in the faraway word of another dimension I wrote a story.
It is a very sweet, tender, nostalgic story with a happy ending which I know you will enjoy.
Here is part two for The Last Great Gentleman Thinker…
Don’t fail to check out, here in The Last Great Gentleman Thinker, the novel and fascinating proposals, though of an intellectual bent, delivered in such a unique and intriguing manner, on such a wide range of subjects, as to be truly of interest and highly informative for all –The stuff of genius!
“Human Child” (Part Two)
Come away, O human child! To the waters and the wild, With a faery hand in hand, For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand. Yeats.
Good. Come on out,’ he said, laying the babies back on the towel and getting up.
She rose out of the water stiffly, her glistening body streaming water, and stood in the shallows swaying unsteadily. He jumped over to her and caught her by an arm. She leaned against him.
‘I am so weak,’ she said, and he put his arm around her and drew her tightly into himself.
‘Come, I’ll lift you,’ he said. Leaning over, he swept her legs out from under her and carried her onto the grassy verge.
‘Try to stand here,’ he said, and put her feet on the ground.
‘I am fine,’ she said. ‘It was only when I stood up.’
He held her with one hand and reached down with the other to pick up a large towel.
‘Hold on to me,’ he said. ‘I’m going to rub you down.’ And wrapping her in the rough towel, he rubbed her briskly all over from shoulders to feet.
When he took the towel away her body was rosy and glowing.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘sit here beside the babies in the sun.’ He eased her down so she folded cross-legged onto the ground with her body bowing over her jutting knees and her head hanging above her ankles, her hands overlapped on her crotch, her hair curtaining loosely around.
After a few seconds she took a fresh towel to dry her hair, first rubbing backwards and forwards above and behind her head, her breasts bouncing and swaying, the dark patches under her arms blinking. Then with a sweeping motion she brought her hair down over her body so that it trailed on the ground beyond her feet. Leaving her head hanging forward, she rubbed the hair between the towel fabric with the palms of her hands. Finally, she threw her head back, the long black hair arcing up from her legs high over in the air to fall on her back, then wrapped it in the towel, making a neat turban that sat firmly on her head.
She sat saying nothing, looking straight ahead without focusing, concentrating on the warmth of the sun seeping into her body.
He put his arms round her, trying to warm her with his body.
‘Feeling better?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she said unblinkingly. ‘I am suddenly sad, and because I am tired the sadness is stronger than I am.’
‘It’s the aftermath, lass,’ he said.
‘I will lie down,’ she said, and lay on the grass, the towel pillowing her head, and closing her eyes she offered her face and body to the sun.
‘The sun will heal you, lass. Let it warm your soul.’
He walked up to and into the house, almost dragging his legs from the sagging relief his whole body felt, and reappeared with two silk scarves, one blue and one yellow. Arriving back at the still, lying group, he covered the first born baby with the blue scarf and the second born one with the yellow scarf.
Then he lay still beside her and held her hand.
After a few minutes he felt her breathing become regular, and looking at her face he saw that she was asleep; so, after checking the babies on her other side and seeing that they were both asleep, he closed his eyes also.
Watching the orange-red honeycomb pattern that the sunlight made as it shone through his eyelids until it faded, he drifted into that hypnotic pre-sleep state when thought thinks for itself, and found himself looking down on the four of them lying immobile on the ground with the dogs sprawling about them, hearing his mind’s voice saying... ‘A male and a female human, Mature in flesh, In lusty health and prime physique, Different races, Two faces of the beauty of Man, Tones and hues of colour mingling, And between them the palette blending newly, In the babies of their bodies...’
Trailing off, he dozed without completely losing awareness.
Thus they lay in the still warm peace of the golden afternoon while all nature dozed and the sun wheeled above the isolated glen...
Stretching, one of the dogs raised itself onto its haunches, lifted one leg and scratched its ribs. Then it yawned and groaned.
Another one opened its eyes and looked around without moving its head, which lay sideways on the ground.
Birds began to chirp again and a slight breeze gently waved the stalks of the scattered yellow dandelions.
He sat up and gazed straight ahead sleepily, looked down at the three sleeping bodies beside him, the babes hidden beneath their bright scarves, then looked all around.
Yes, it was real. Really, unreally, real.
The earth was a warm bowl in the centre of which he sat. The sky was around and above and below, the vast reaches of space beyond turning violet. And it had happened. They were born. They had materialised out of the light loving waters into the breathing breeze of the air.
Everything was buoyed on sparkling light, and he was inside himself, and everything was inside him inside everything else. The earth was inside him, the sky was inside the earth, space was a small crystal ball inside the sky, and their four bodies were one inside the crystal ball.
He smiled, feeling he would levitate, rose onto his feet and floated over to the stream. Bending over a pool his shimmering face looked back at him. He smiled again, lovingly, for in himself he saw all of creation. Then lowered his lips to the water, sucked it up and drank.
Getting up he moved softly over to the pile of towels. Taking up a towel he carried it over to the three sleeping beings and lovingly spread it over her sleep softened and soothed body, and sat down.
She rolled away from him onto her side, taking the towel with her in her arms and curling up her legs.
Fulfilled, he looked at her curving back and round, swelling buttocks, with that dark triangular patch disappearing between the behind tops of her thighs.
Rolling again onto her back, leaving the towel behind, she looked up into his eyes and they smiled warmly and lazily at each other.
Lifting her arms up, she rolled the back of her head against the grass, arched her neck up, and stretched her whole body.
‘I am like new after that siesta,’ she said, relaxing her body again. ‘Now, let me see my babies.’ And on hands and knees she crawled over and on top of them.
‘Look, you have covered them so beautifully with my scarves. Very good.’
‘Yes,’ he said back. ‘I didn’t want them to get sunburned. Your brown skin can take it, but theirs is too new.’
‘I will make shade for them with my body. Now, let me peek at them,’ she said as she pulled back the blue scarf covering one of the little bulks.
‘Ay, que lindo!’ Yes, it is the little, dark one. See how he looks at me with those enormous eyes. And the skin so white, and that hair so black standing up on his head. He is so pure.’
She bent and rubbed her nose against his. ‘My love, my love,’ she crooned.
‘I think he will have blue eyes like yours. Now, let me see my other love,’ she said, and slowly peeled back the yellow scarf covering the other little bulk.
‘No! no! no!’ she said. ‘How precious he is. Look, he sleeps. Like a little hero. So strong. So colourful. Copper skin and gold hair. I will stroke his fuzzy head.’ And placing an elbow on the ground at either side of his face, she rubbed his head with both hands.
Standing up she tied a scarf round the top of each of her knees so that they trailed down the outside of her calves, brightening her presence and making her every move like little lightning flashes.
‘Now I will feed them,’ she said, getting down over the babies, one hand supporting her from the outside side of each of their heads, moving her swinging breasts forward over their faces.
Holding her body up on her right arm, she used her left hand to guide the nipple of her right breast into the dark baby’s mouth, who took it gingerly and began slowly sucking, at last shutting his eyes.
Next she balanced on her left arm and with her right hand moved the nipple of her left breast towards the light baby’s mouth. He continued sleeping, so she poked his lips with the nipple, then, tickled his mouth with it. But still he did not wake, so she grasped her breast and squeezed it, forcing a jet of warm milk to spray down on his face. At this his eyes shot open and she was able to see them for the first time.
‘I think this one will have black eyes,’ she said, holding the nipple off for a moment, then letting it be sucked into the baby’s mouth, as he closed his eyes again.
Holding herself up on one hand she took the towel off her head, tossed it aside, let her head hang down to rest her neck, and her hair fell like a curtain over the babies.
Through the hair he watched the two babies suckling from the hanging breasts of their mother on all fours above them and thought: ‘Romulus and Remus.’
As though having read his mind, she asked from inside her hair, ‘How are we going to call them?’
‘Lass, you read my mind, didn’t you?’
‘I think so.’
‘But you didn’t read the words.’
‘No.’
‘Well, lass, I had thought we should wait to get to know them a bit before deciding, like I do with my dogs. But seeing you feeding them like that, the names Romulus and Remus came straight into my mind, and when something like that happens, so freely, it should be considered. What do you think?’
‘Romulo y Remo,’ she said softly in Spanish, savouring the sounds. ‘Romulus and Remus of Rome, who were suckled by a she-wolf. Romulo y Remo. I like them much. Remember, we the Gitanos are the people of Romany. It is like a sign from this marvellous day.’
‘Well, we don’t have much else to do with Rome... but then what do Scottish-Spanish, Highland-Gitano have to do with each other anyway? That’s settled, then,’ he said, laughingly. ‘Romy and Remy!’
She raised her head and looked round at him, her hair falling apart to reveal her nose and eyes, and asked him, ‘Will anything ever be so perfect again?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It never will. But there will be other moments which will be heartfelt in their way.’
‘It frightens me,’ she said. ‘Can it be we will have to pay for being so happy today?’
‘I know how you feel,’ he said. ‘All we can do is revel in the now. Leave it all in heaven’s hands, lass, and be happy.’
‘Amen,’ she said. Then gaily again: ‘Papi,’ she said. ‘You are now a Papi.’
‘And you are Mother.’
‘Mami. I am Mami. We are a Papi and a Mami. That is how I called my father and mother when I was a little girl,’ she said, and after a pause... ‘And I still do.’
‘My father used to call my mother “Mother”, he said. ‘But my mother always called him by his first name. Pity they can’t be here. I think I will go over and pay my respects,’ and he got up.
‘Wait. We are all going to go so that your parents can see their grandchildren.’
She gently released her nipples from the baby’s mouths and sat beside them.
‘I will take one,’ he said.
‘No. You will take both of them, so you can present them in an appropriate manner, and with pride.’
He held out his arms and she placed the dark baby in his right arm. ‘This one is Romulus, Romy,’ she said, ‘because he came first.’
Then she placed the light baby in his left arm and said, ‘And this is Remus, Remy.’
Leaning back slightly, he hugged the babies into his chest with their heads on his shoulders in his hands. And, when he turned, their faces looked back at her - dark, slight Romulus staring all around, and light, large Remus sound asleep.
‘They look so divine,’ she murmured.
‘Right, let’s go to our own little graveyard,’ he said. And they wandered, alive and free in their nakedness along the grassy verge of the stream, the scarves around her knees blinking brightly, the dogs, looking dressed by comparison, trailing lazily along behind...
Babies and Boys...
Thus, then, were born Romy and Remy.
The night of their birth, in their shared crib, in the dark, John and Emilia find Romy and Remy glowing, an effervescent green semicircle covering them both, but closer, from their faces, a blue like the deep sky from Romy, and a yellow like the fiery sun from Remy, and the effect of ecstatic delight caused by the lights on John and Emilia makes silent tears of bliss spill out of their eyes and run down their cheeks.
They grow up with each other in the beautiful isolation of the glen and surrounding highlands: Romy, dark of hair, dark blue of eyes and white of skin, slight and slim, sensitive and spiritual; Remy, fair of hair, black of eyes and burnished of body, burly and physical, aware and protective. They speak Spanish and English equally as easily.
For their christening Emilia’s Gitano family clan come from Central Europe in horse and ox-drawn vehicles, with much flurry and excitement at their arrival several weeks after.
All kinds of events and festivities take place, both Gitano and Scottish: Flamenco dancing on tapping shoes and Highland flings on toe tips, bagpipes and swirling kilts, guitars and clapping and swirling dresses, horses prancing, border collies herding sheep, bonfires and fireworks, wrestling and caber tossing, put shots and javelins, flame throwers and jugglers, all ending in the great celebration of the christening itself , with full Gitano Catholic garb, in the stream at the place where Romy and Remy were born.
Romy shows early signs of being unusual. He is uncannily intelligent, comprehending and caring, with sage and hermit like ways. He won’t eat meat and is overwhelmed by saddening things, which make him hysterical and pass out.
Remy is Romy’s protector and takes into himself the pains Romy can’t bear, often bringing Romy back from unconsciousness, holding him in his arms on the floor until both boys are in a trance like state of total concentration, absolutely isolated from their surroundings. Frozen in each other’s clutch, their concentration becomes so fierce that John and Emilia know they are no longer with them. They have gone into their own world far away, an invisible shield enveloping them.
So they lie there, stiff in each other’s embrace, eyes closed.
John looks over at Emilia.
‘We must wait,’ she says tensely.
‘How long?’ John asks.
‘I don’t know. For a few minutes,’ she whispers.
As they watch on in the loud silence, they start to feel their tension ease. Their muscles begin to relax and sleepiness overcomes them. With drooping eyelids they stare straight ahead. Their heads begin to nod and their eyes close.
John struggles against the force that has been draining his consciousness from him. He tries with all the power of his will to open his eyes but cannot.
Then, as though a light has been turned on, he is suddenly fully awake. The room has come back to life. Emilia is looking around and Romy and Remy are now lying side by side.
Romy looks at them with large shimmering eyes. ‘Hola, Papi,’ he says. ‘Hola, Mami. Remy has taken it. It is all right now’
When they are ten years old Romy and Remy go to a small coeducational school within driving distance occupying a castle looking out over the dark, thrilling North Sea.
The school is an expensive one, tough and harsh for Romy, but with every facility for learning, as well as for sports and games - rugby, cricket, hockey, squash, fencing, boxing, swimming, and there is small boat sailing on the sea
Desperately and profoundly they want to disappear, to run away, to be anywhere but there, to do anything other than this. Never have they felt so strongly the desire for something as they do for this. It is the first time they truly want something, the agonising yearning for this cup to pass from them. But they know there is no choice. Like an execution it will proceed.
Here they meet the very self-willed, determined, temperamental, beautiful, sensitive, devoted Cherry, of their own age, who is the daughter of the headmaster and his wife.
There is a woman talking earnestly to a little girl who is standing on the arm of a large sofa.
‘Now, Cherry,’ the woman is saying. ‘Stop all this fuss. You will go to school no matter what you say or do, so get down from there.’
The woman is Fiona, her mother and the headmaster’s wife.
Cherry puts her hands on her hips and stamps her right foot on the arm of the sofa. ‘I will not go. I will never go. I know more than any of the others. They are all ugly and stupid and I’m not going near them. Never!’ And she looked down her nose at her mother defiantly.
‘Cherry, you’re driving me crazy. Get down from there. If you won’t go by yourself I will carry you.’
Cherry stamps her foot on the sofa arm again, her face flushing, and says, ‘How dare you humiliate me in any such way,’ her small delicate nose scrunching up, her full lips pouting, her large green eyes flashing from within long light eyelashes, her dark red eyebrows furrowing and her glossy deep red hair tossing about as she throws her head around arrogantly.
Romy and Remy watch her in fascination. They have never thought to contradict adults and don’t believe it can be done, yet here it is.
With Romy and Remy, Cherry becomes the third member of the sublime, spiritual ‘Human Child’ trinity
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