The Voice from the Bridge
Jon Stallworthy, 7 February 1991
“... about, regarded Avila’s saint with devotion, recited me mournful poems in French, and stared for hours at the wide blue ocean. And I, a lost soul, familiar only with the bodies of whores and the lash of the sea, listened in ecstasy, as to a saint, and found a child’s joy in her company. I gave her a cross to wear round her ... ”