8. SEMAPHORE 



Semaphore Is a longshore baby. 



Two hah^es do not make a whole for Sema- 

 phore; she is half her father's, half her mother's, 

 and half mine. She was born In ray writing- 

 room, where there is a large flat white bed, 

 usually piled up with brain-babies in the shape 

 of books. Susan Jim declares that she has never 

 had a baby in such a draughty room, and I can 

 quite believe it, especially when the wind is blow- 

 ing half a gale from the sou'west and salty drops 

 ooze through the rotten old window frame. The 

 sound of the sea fills the room like the scent of 

 flowers; a scent that flows and ebbs with each 

 wave outside; but Semaphore, although she is a 

 fisherman's daughter — his thirteenth child count- 

 ing the dead ones — and as such Is In a sense an 

 offspring of the sea — Semaphore must have heard 

 her grannie's chackle long before the sea's voice 



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