Free The Closed Harbour by James Hanley

hair and bone.
    In the distance she heard the sound of a lorry moving towards the basin, and almost at the same time the hoot of a tug. Her head lay comfortable in the crook of his arm.
    "He says he loves me, he'd marry me. They all say that sort of thing."
    She felt the light fluttering upon her eye-lids, and she woke gently to a sun-filling room. Marius was still talking, but in his sleep.
    Lucy lay back, drew up her knees, she felt a pleasurable exhaustion, her hands were clasped and lay uppermost upon the greyish-coloured sheet. Below she heard Henri shout, the mongrel starting his day.
    She planted a strong foot in the middle of Marius's back.
    "It's turned five o'clock," she cried.
    In his sleep he turned towards her.
    Gradually the eyes opened, to the light, the new landfall. He was so close to Lucy that he could see those fluttering eyelids, the gentlest movements of the long lashes, that seemed to be fanning the bright eyes below them. His strong thumb lay at the corner of her mouth. He felt her hand run the length of his arm.
    "You'd better get out," Lucy said, she gave him another push.
    Marius sat up, then reached out for his coat, hanging over the nearby chair. From this he took his wallet. He extracted some notes from it and handed them to her.
    "For you. Madame need not know."
    She took them from him with a smile, but did not speak.
    She got up and started to dress.
    "When are you coming again?"
    "Soon," Marius said, he was dressing, too. "Does that include a cup of coffee, Lucy, I've a throat like the bottom of your bird-cage?."
    She broke the day with her first laugh.
    "Henri's down. I'll go and get you some."
    She flung on a heavily flowered blue dressing-gown and went out.
    Marius finished dressing. He washed in the basin, used Lucy's comb and brush.
    "Only another bloody day," he said.
    "Here's your coffee. Drink it and get out."
    "And you?"
    He sat down by her, and she watched him drinking the thick, hot brown liquid.
    "Go out by the rear door," she said.
    "Why the rear door?
    "Go out by the rear door," Lucy said again.
    He finished his coffee, laid the cup on the floor at his feet, turned to her.
    "Lucy."
    "Hell! Not again," she said, avoiding threatening arms.
    "Shall I come again?"
    "If you like. Now get out."
    He picked up his cap and made for the door, and in a moment she was after him, a hand on his own. "I'll help you if you wish it," she said.
    "With what?"
    "You talked your head off," she said, "and when I woke up you were still talking ... "
    "Then it must be true," he said.
    "What must be true?
    "Nothing," he said, gave her a quick pat, a kiss, and then went out.
    "I believe he's still drunk," thought Lucy.
    She stood by the open door, listening to his heavy steps down the corridor, then a quick, clumsy run down the iron stairway, a banged door, and he was gone.
    "He was a little nervous, and I like that," she said, "and clumsy, too, but I liked that also. He's not a common sailor, I do know that. And he comes here and he never asks for anybody but me."
    She stood arranging her hair in front of the small mirror— hanging over the table. Through this she noticed that the night-light had gone out, and immediately she went and put in a new one. She could hear opening and closing of doors, one after another, footsteps, she recognised Madame Lustigne's high, tremulous voice, Henri's, high and flute-y, an emasculated voice, then Simone singing through her teeth, continued descendings on the iron stairs. It was time to go.
    She picked up her bag, put the money in, burst into song, a popular tune, then ran off lightly down the corridor to the stairway.
    Marius was long forgotten. Marius might well have been on the furthermost sea.

V
    "S OMETIMES I ask myself why I am here" Madame Marius said, and at once she raised her hand to silence the other. "Let me speak.
    "Sometimes I think he was lucky. Coming back like that, the place in flames, yes, it would be like that for him, he has the devil's luck, and