Even from the back I knew. Even after ....

Even after .... How long was it? Eighteen years and more. Eighteen years, nine months, eight days, three hours for those who like to be exact.

Eighteen years of regret. Of reliving the moment. Of wishing it were otherwise. Until the pain was too great.

And now there she was. About ten paces in front of me. A slim figure, dark hair falling onto her shoulders. Dark hair whose caress had once played across my face. Dark hair into which I had once breathed, lost in the intoxication of the perfumed mystery of her femininity.

I had been twenty then. When I had first glimpsed her. As now, walking in front of me down a shadow dappled street. And I think I may have known then. Known that nothing would ever be the same again. That that moment would for ever define for me perfection. A perfection that I would for ever seek to replicate. Seek to find again the movement of cool shadow on pale stone, on bare shoulders; the shifting light that makes magical an ordinary street where a boy and a girl meet.

And there was a happy ending. Just for a short time. Just for that summer.

I met her again a few days later. We had mutual friends. She was a fellow student. It was almost inevitable. And in those sun kissed days of summer we fell in love, deeply, deeply, in love. Oblivious to all else, to all others.

Then the present and the future, our present and future, merged into one. It seemed inconceivable that it should not be so. We were meant for each other. All our friends said so. Envied us. We knew it. With a certainty that brooked no questioning. How could it be otherwise? I have never before or since opened my soul to anyone as I did then. We had but one soul in truth. Revelled in the delight of sharing. Each thought struck a chord with the other; found an answering echo, a confirmation, sparked a further exploration, a refining and conclusion.

When term finished it was natural that we went away together. I was even then a loner with no strong family ties. But she had parents. Loving, conventional parents whom she deserted that summer to be with me. We went on holiday together. To Ireland. In the mutual opening of our minds we had discovered a romantic appreciation for Yeats' poetry. So we went there. First to Dublin and then west to Clare and the coast.

We stood hand in hand on the Cliffs of Moher. Gazed out across the Atlantic. Watched the puffins and choughs wheel below us, skimming the white flecked green of the sea far below us. Lay amidst the springy turf amongst the grey seal backed rocks and watched the clouds scud over us, sweeping in from the west, from over the Atlantic, their shadows echoing on a larger, wilder, scale those of that dappled street where it had all begun.

And then we turned North, towards the twelve pins of Connemara. Through Oughterard, and on to Clifden and beyond, again searching the sea. And on some silver sanded beach we made love. For the first time. Without words. Because in the truest sense it was a consummation of all that we were. One to the other. Why we had not done it before I do not know. There were plenty of opportunities. All our friends did. Perhaps we were naive. I do not know. Only that for us we had been so complete in ourselves that it seemed irrelevant, unnecessary. Until then. Until that nameless deserted beach. Until then when it seemed that it was right.

Finally to Sligo. To the "Land of Heart's Desire." Although in truth our land of heart's desire was within us. That we had already found. Already were. So we went to the little churchyard in Drumcliff and left wild flowers on his, Yeats', grave. Together, holding hands, we knelt and thanked him for the pleasure, he had given us. For the wonders he had revealed.

I have said that we were as one. That we had but one soul. But of course it was not true. I lied to myself. To her. There is perhaps always something, always a serpent in the darkest shadows. With me it was something that I dare not tell her lest it spoil our paradise. Lest I be banished from our Eden.

I had tried. God how I had tried. On that beach where we first made love. Afterwards, lying there in the completeness that we had found, I had turned to her trying to find the words that would clear for ever the final barrier. And she had smiled at me and laid a silver sanded finger on my lips.

"Not now. No words now. We don't need words now."

And in my cowardice I had acquiesced.

Had smiled back, lost in the beauty of her.

"No. No need for words."

Had smiled back. Had not wished to spoil it. Had thought there would be a next time. A better time to tell. A next time.

But there never was. I was never brave enough. Never dared risk breaking the spell. Would never put her love to the test. Never believed enough in our love perhaps.

And finally, and to my shame, preferred to leave our Eden rather than risk it being only perhaps an impossible dream.

We parted at the airport. Bags at our feet. Just a gentle kiss.

"Only a week," she had said. "But I shall miss you so. But only a week and then .... I shall write every day. Promise you will too ...."

And I had promised.

But I never did. Never saw the letters she must have written. Never did go back to University.

I had fled West. Over the white flecked Atlantic seas. Too high this time to see the puffins and the choughs. Seeing nothing. Feeling nothing. Just a great sickening emptiness within me.

Because I had not told her. Had had not enough faith in our love.

And afterwards I had never stopped travelling. Never again finding peace. Always pursued by the demons of my own failings, of my own rejection of happiness.

Always nothing but the ache of emptiness within me.

Never again able to read Yeats without the tears coursing down my cheeks and emotion welling up in my throat shortening my breath.

'Autumn is over the long leaves that love us.' She had known it by heart. Relished its sweet melancholy. "So deliciously sad", she had said. "The poor darlings. Our love could never wane like that."

And in that she was right. That love burns as fiercely as ever. For me anyway. No waning of love. Not for me. Just a terrible yearning that tears at the heart.

And now there she was. In front of me. Eighteen years later.

And suddenly she turned. There she was ten paces away. The years had been kind to her. Her beauty undiminished by the eighteen long years. And the radiance of her smile too ....

My heart lurched, soared again as her smile lit up the world as it had all those years ago. And the years fell away as she moved towards me, her hands coming up in greeting, coming up preparatory to a fond embrace. Six .... four .... two steps ....

And she swept passed me, and I, turning, saw her go into the welcoming arms of a young girl. A young girl just as she had been all those years before. About eighteen, with dark hair falling on to her shoulders. I could see over her shoulder the girl's face smiling in greeting. Could hear her voice.

It was like a double image .... and it tore my heart. There was, could be, no possible doubt. The likeness was uncanny.

Her daughter looking just as she had been all those years before. And I could not move. Could not speak.

I took a step towards them. Wanting to cry out. To tell them. To ....

But I could not.

Because I had already wronged them enough. Or perhaps because I dare not. Did not want them to see. So I turned away. And walked on down that sun dappled street with the tears running down my face. Running down my face, streaking my mascara. Rivulets of tears that coursed down over powdered cheeks, that I tasted on the lipstick in the corners of my mouth, as I blindly fumbled in my handbag for a handkerchief to dab them away.

Running away as I had once before run away. The click click of my heels echoing in the now empty street.

Echoing, click click, in the emptiness of my life.