Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow and Farewell - Closing

Perhaps because of that, and also because I am usually perfectly content, I sometimes sing or hum to myself at times, as she does, and I have a tendency to sing or whistle that song of many titles, from Ireland or the Wild West ('Nanna naranniario nannara nanniaro,' that's how the melody goes), 'The Bard of Armagh' who forecats: 'And when Sergeant Death's cold arms shall embrace me'; or 'Doc Holliday' who first justified himself by saying: 'But the men that I killed should have left me in peace' and then lamented: 'But the men that I killed should have left me in peace' and then lamented: 'But here I am now alone and forsaken, with death in my lungs I am dying today'; or 'The Streets of Laredo,' which is the version whose words I know best and which is therefore the one I sometimes sing out loud or to myself, perhaps, who knows, as a reminder, especially the last verse that ends by asking: 'But please not one word of all this shall you mention, when others should ask for my story to hear.'

'No,' I said, 'nothing bad.'

May 2007