John William Waterhouse The Siren painting

John William Waterhouse The Siren paintingJohn William Waterhouse The Lady Clare paintingJohn William Waterhouse The Awakening of Adonis painting
Somewhere around the bottom of the second whisky bottle she leaned her head on his shoulder and said boozily, "You can't imagine the relief of being with someone with whom I don't have to have a fight every time I express an opinion. Someone on the side of the goddamn angels." He waited; after a pause, there was more. "Him and his Royal Family, you wouldn't believe. Cricket, the Houses of Parliament, the Queen. The place never stopped being a picture postcard to him. You couldn't get him to look at what was really real." She closed her eyes and allowed her hand, by accident, to rest on his. "He was a real Saladin," Jumpy said. "A man with a holy land to conquer, his England, the one he believed in. You were part of it, too." She rolled away from him and stretched out on top of magazines, crumpled balls of waste paper, mess. "Part of it? I was bloody Britannia. Warm beer, mince pies, common-sense and me. But I'm really real, too, J.J.; I really really am." She reached over to him, pulled him across to where her mouth was waiting, kissed him with a great un-Pamela-like slurp. "See what I mean?" Yes, he saw.