Years Ago
At Oxford, it is pleasant to recall, I stopped at Duvenant’s inn frequently, the rooms and meals much to my taste. Madame Duvenant, dressing like someone from an Inigo Jones’ masque, her rosy sex refreshing, greeted me with a favorable eye. Veal, shoulder of mutton, rabbit, green fish...gingerbread...strawberries...claret: she knew my favorites, sharing my meals and bed. When I arrived, tired by travel, she had someone look after me, prepare my meal; then, we enjoyed each other’s company in the dining room she kept for private use. A Londoner and play-goer, she fixed her lusty eyes on me, hand on my arm, and made me feel I had never been away. She asked no promises, required no letter-writing, no payment. “It’s late. Will, shall we go up to bed?” Why are there so few generous women?
Henley Street
July 13, 1615
I’d like one more ferry trip across the Thames, in the morning, the water dark, Sly at the oars, telling me about the latest girl, of the girls he has ferried, girls he wanted to love but could never love, old, old Sly.
“There’s one, Will, you just can’t beat. She’s about this tall, tiny around the waist, and she makes you know, before you know it, that she can be had for very little, very sweetly done too, that’s the game of it...that’s the game of her, that little one, Portia, they call her. Portia, the one with grey eyes and small mouth. When she stands up beside me in the boat to pay her fare, I groan. It’s terrible being old, Will, when you can’t do it any more. And I want to do it to her, to be young again. That Portia, she comes mostly in the evenings, I guess you know why. But she’s not always alone, but when she’s alone, we talk. That she, she is little around the waist but has melon breasts, the kind, you know how they are. I will give you her address, if you want. Shillings, now Will! But she’s not one you’ll forget, I warn ye. That mouth of hers and them eyes of hers. Faggots for her, that’s it, Will, faggots for men who see her...”
The boat shifts, Sly’s oars are cracked, his old face crisped from the sunny crossings, the winds and fogs. He’s been boatman for forty-odd years, he says. He has worn out a dozen boats, which he builds himself, to make them stout enough. Sun on his boat, the water dark...
I’d like to cross once more with him, though he’s been dead a long time, cross with other boats around, small boats and schooners, some with sails unfurled, seaward bound.