They walked down the beach together. The sea was light and mutinous.
"How untransparent it is," he said, "lapis lazuli and turquoise and chrysoprase—no emeralds or aquamarines, or sapphires."
"How are we to get in our purple without an amethyst?"
"I don't know."
"That is what comes from not reading the Book of Revelations," she said.
They saw big, dissolving, poisonous jellyfish in the sea, mysteriously without lines—and tidy slabs of jellyfish on the beach. They found a starfish, and wondered who came to dance a sword dance round it. They picked up shells that looked as if they had fallen out of fading sunsets or glimmering dawns—they looked into pools of shutting and opening sea anemones.
They never noticed a sardine box or an old boot.
They were happy.
Over her head was a scarlet paper sunshade. It looked like a huge tropical flower.
"Paula," he said—and his eyes opened to her like a magic trap door.