Downfall
Angela Dunford Wood
Aunt Lucy had an obsession. She walked along the High Street towards the Patisserie, and as she looked in the window she saw lots of cream cakes of all descriptions. Her mouth watered. She entered the shop and ordered half a dozen assorted cakes, and as she left the shop she started eating one. She had a backward glance into the shop window in case she had missed a different type.
Aunt Lucy was a modest, mousy little person who lived by herself in a bungalow surrounded by uninspiring flowerbeds in a small, neat garden. She sometimes gave tea parties for her friends and always had more cream cakes on the table than would be eaten. She put the remainder away afterwards, but within reach, so that she could have one whenever she wanted. When the supply was finished she would go shopping for a fresh batch.
The obsession had started when she gave up smoking for Lent. She was a deeply religious lady and a regular Church-goer. She needed a substitute for her cigarettes and soon found cream cakes were the answer and a welcome change. She noticed that she was putting on weight as her clothes began to feel a little tighter as time went on. These were mostly loose-fitting garments, but she had to leave the top button of her grey skirt undone under her navy cardigan.
When Lent came round again she reluctantly relinquished the cream cakes, and this made her feel pleasantly self-righteous. Aunt Lucy sometimes went to the communion service in her local church, and one morning she noticed that there were fewer worshippers there than usual. When she knelt at the altar, there were only two other people behind her. She noticed how much wine remained in the cup, and instead of the usual sip, she had a good swig which she found very satisfying to her senses as well as to her soul. She sang a hymn to herself as she walked home.
That was a big mistake. The taste of the wine lingered on her palate for a considerable time, and when it wore off, she found that she had a craving for more; so the next day she called in at the local wine shop and inspected the shelves. She had no knowledge of wine as it had not become a daily feature of her life so far. The rows of red and white bottles looked very tempting, standing to attention to await her choice. She sought the help of the senior assistant, explaining that she wanted a bottle of medium red wine. She didn't say that it should be similar to the wine supplied to the church, as she felt the slightest twinge of guilt, especially as it was Lent. Having been offered a bottle at a reasonable price, she laid it at the bottom of her trolley and carried on with her shopping. She passed the Patisserie with her head high, eyes to the front, feeling virtuous.
When she got home, she took off her coat and hat, put away her shopping, and drew up her beige Dralon easy chair and side table in front of her electric fire, which she switched on. She fetched a pretty glass on a stem from her corner cupboard, dusted it off and set it on the table. She found a corkscrew in a drawer, lovingly unwrapped the bottle of wine, uncorked it and poured herself a liberal measure. She sat back, took a generous drink and sighed contentedly. Then she closed her eyes and dozed.
All of a sudden, there was a loud banging at her front door. She sat up with a start, flinging out her arms and knocking over the glass and bottle, which she had unfortunately left uncorked. The wine spilt all over her new fawn carpet, its red stain spreading like a pool of blood. She froze with horror. The knocking was repeated. She staggered to her feet and made her way unsteadily to the door, which she opened cautiously. There stood the verger, holding her furled umbrella in front of him like a soldier presenting arms.
‘Good afternoon, Lucy. I believe this is yours,’ he said. ‘It was found in your pew after the service last Sunday.’ Aunt Lucy gulped and took the umbrella with a shaking hand, thanking the verger profusely, who hurried on his way.
Lucy closed the door and using the umbrella as a walking stick to steady her, returned to the sitting room to survey the damage. The carpet was ruined. She would never get that stain out, and the beautiful glass was shattered too. She hadn't the strength to cope with this now. She sank to her knees. She knew these were her just deserts after her fall from grace in church.
Aunt Lucy eventually claimed on her insurance for her carpet and she chose a new one with garlands of roses which brightened up the room. The next time she went to church she prayed for forgiveness for her transgression. After the service she approached the church warden and volunteered to clean the brass every week.
She kept several tins of liquid polish in stock, as she rather liked the smell.
ANGELA DUNFORD WOOD was born in Buckinghamshire, the daughter of a country doctor. When young, Angela trained as a physiotherapist at Guy’s Hospital, evacuated during WWII, dodging the bombs. She married an army officer in 1946, was widowed in 1971 and has two sons and a daughter. Angela was a keen sailor and enjoyed living by the sea. She loved acting in amateur dramatics and has developed an interest in writing in later life.
Keeping Pigeons
Shakti Puja
Michael returned from the war in 1946 with just the clothes he had on and his naval hat box.
He found himself that spring morning amongst familiar streets but unfamiliar faces. Knocking on the door of number one Ledbetter Street, he discovered that his dad has sold up. Gone and married a woman from the other side of town was all the neighbours knew.
He went to digest the news in the park. Sitting by the War Memorial, he watched everyone hurrying through their days – women pushing prams, old men with sticks.
He wondered if his dad still kept pigeons. He remembered their release as a surge of light and air, and exploding joy. Then came the anxious hours and days of their return. Their bid for home was focused and uncomplicated.
‘They’ve made it lad. They’ve made it!’
Tears in his dad’s eyes. Michael felt that nothing in his life had ever matched that moment.
He shifted on the bench. It was getting cold. Who was this new woman? And did his dad hit her when he’d had a few? The sun was dropping red behind the moor – time he made a move.
He sat on.
SHAKTI PUJA came to Lyme Regis for the day and stayed thirteen years! Place is important to her, both as an imaginative canvas and as a keeper of memory. She loves the land and walking through it; the sea and swimming also. Along the way, she’s worked as a teacher, community worker, manager and cleaner. In her thirties, she lived in a spiritual community. But the most significant thing so far has been caring for and learning from her daughter.
Water
Norah Henschel
‘Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the flood drown it...’ The words from the Book of Proverbs, used by the Minister at the funeral, came frequently into her mind now that she was living by the sea. She had always wanted to live by water. Her house was all that she wished, with a white-painted bay window looking out over the ocean.
When people told her she should visit the old mill by the bridge, she was eager to see it. The grief of loss had so quickened her senses that she perceived all things very acutely, and now her feet sounded loud on the bare wooden stairs, although the ancient mill was curiously quiet, as if in suspended activity. Under one hand she felt the rough wooden rail while her other hand brushed the dusty stones of the wall. She waited for a sound, pausing on the stairs to look through a dust-dimmed window on to a patch of unkempt garden below, where a seat lay overturned among the weeds.
She went on up the stairs and came eventually into a room with a trap door in the floor through which passed a chain and a rope; a great stone mill wheel was propped in a corner, and, in the centre of the room was a massive post like a giant’s thumb, with a great toothed wooden wheel around it. She hardly noticed these things, as her gaze was held at the far end. Beyond a rail was the gigantic water-wheel – still – poised – at rest. Below it, the water was black and deep. A man stood near, and as she approached he nodded, made a movement and set it going.
There was an unseen gush, and the ancient building shuddered into life as the water pushed the great wheel into movement. It turned with slow grace, the water pouring in silver sheets off the paddles, and from some, green weed hung like locks of hair. The splash and rhythm, the turning ledges of water, the troubling of the darkness below, all fascinated her. At last the sound she had waited for: the comforting clacking of the cogs and spindles driving the wheels that ground the flour, all turning, turning, obeying the force of the water driving the huge wheel. She gazed at it, leaning over the rail. She shut her eyes and listened to it, and had no will to leave...Until someone came to tell her the mill was closing for the day.
Sleeping that night, her dreams were in company with the turning wheel. She felt the water-laden paddles continually coming towards her, dipping down to the dark water, moving through the darkness to emerge beyond her into the light, and fresh baptism, to begin the cycle again: round and round on the Wheel of Life. She woke with a start – where had she heard that line? She got up and went to the window where the moon was shining full on the sea. Tomorrow I’ll go to the shore and watch the sun go down, she thought. She slept again and had no dreams.
Bad weather kept her indoors for nearly a week. Each day the water wheel seemed to be part of her existence. In the rain on the garden she saw the dripping water falling from the paddles; in the wind pushing the tree tops she heard the moment of power as the wheel stirred into movement. The sea was rough, and she watched it from the window – the white horses leaping and tossing their manes as they galloped towards the shore. She picked up the shell that she kept on the sill and held it to her ear to listen to the sea whispering in its chambers. Not a shell from this shore which were chipped and flung by the waves, but a perfect conch from the Indian Ocean, with a pure marble-white interior, shaped, she thought, like a harp. She loved the sound of the sea-music in it, rising and falling, round and round. It occurred to her that the shell was a replica of her own whorled and chambered ear, and that it was listening to – echoing – the sound of her own inner waters.
The day it cleared, the sunset was brave, as it often is after storms, and she finally went out. The sun was gone by the time she went down to the shore, leaving only the embers glowing in the west where the sea was luminous with a palest yellow on the water. To the east grew a sombre darkness, the hill above it nearly umber under a deep grey-blue sky. On the shingle three fishermen in big coats and woollen hats were conferring in low voices. Their rods had red lights like fireflies on the top; the lines vanished into the sea. Further along was a boat, blue in the dusk, and a figure in a blue jersey and heavy boots leaning over it with a rope in his hands. She began to walk along the shore, watching the sea in the fading, creamy light – the long waves, black and serpentine as they slowly swelled, pale and transparent as they emptied themselves on the shingle.
The man in the blue jersey was starting to push the boat towards the water. As she came past, he turned his head towards her.
‘Hullo. Grand evening, isn’t it?’
‘Going out fishing?’
‘Yep. Fancy a trip?’ She hesitated, but only for a moment.
‘Could I really?’
‘Course you can. No problem. Come aboard.’
As he pushed the boat into the water, she took off her sandals, tucked up her trousers and then climbed into the boat as he steadied it. She felt the water begin to lift and carry it, then rock and sway as he jumped aboard. He tossed her a life-jacket and they travelled over the water, silent except for the splash of the oars, until the lights on the shore were distant, and then he busied himself with his lines.
‘I feel as if I’m on Charon’s boat,’ she murmured.
‘Charon? Who’s he? Friend of yours?’
‘Ferryman of the Dead.’
‘Crikey! Don’t talk like that! You’ll scare off the fish.’
She laughed and sat quiet. She was untroubled by the image. Let the Ferryman take her where he would. The rocking of the boat made her feel cradled, and she let her mind drift, as if following his line through the water. She was fishlike and pre-human; she was a seed suspended in water, changing, taking form, pushed towards living by the turning of an invisible mill wheel. Neither awake nor dreaming she drifted, until the slapping of fish on the bottom of the boat roused her. There was a pale light at the eastern horizon. She could see his face now, his hat pushed back on his head, and his arms as he leaned over to reel in the line. The sea was grey in the early dawn, and she shivered slightly.
‘Seen that old Ferryman?’ he queried, smiling. ‘I guess you’ve been asleep while I’ve been catching my dinner.’
She stretched her arm to dip her hand in the water and splash her face.
On shore again, they pulled the boat up on to the shingle and he lifted the creel full of fish. Half in a dream still, carrying her sandals, she followed slowly up the slope of stony beach to a shack at the top.
‘Welcome to my palace,’ he said as he unlocked the door. ‘I think a cup of char...’
Inside, it smelled like driftwood and seaweed. The wood of the walls was bleached pale and hung with fishing nets in loops and folds, like tapestries, she thought. Fishing rods stood in a corner, and a long-handled net. A bare wood table was at the side, with three china mugs and a tin kettle on it, milk in a bottle, and a blue and red biscuit tin. There was a simple bench beside the table and a kitchen chair with a worn cushion.
‘Sit down,’ he invited, as he took off his boots, filled the kettle from a gallon jar and lit a camping stove on a ledge under the window.
It was quiet in the shack – nothing to hear but the faint hushing of the sea and the cry of an early gull. She didn’t want to talk, but observed him as he sat relaxed on the bench, his feet in thick red socks stretched out in front of him. He had thrown off his cap and she could see now that he was not young. His face was tanned and lined under white hair rumpled by his hat, and he had the eyes of a sailor, blue and far-seeing. Holding the warm mug in her hands, she gazed around her. The surroundings made her think of fairy-tales half-forgotten – tales of mermaids and castles under the sea; the basket of silver fish on the floor seemed like treasure, magical. She began to smile to herself.
At last she stirred herself to say her thanks and get ready to leave.
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Come again. Whenever...’
He saw that she was smiling. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
She was thinking that she had gone to sea in Charon’s ferryboat and come ashore to the palace of the Fisher King.
At home again, she stood by the window. The sea was beautiful, not flat, but ruffled and ruched like silk. The house was still. She also was still, gathering into her centre the images that were transforming her: the turning wheel, the ceaseless cycle of the sea, the primeval waters, the Fisher King and the Waste Land healed.
‘Eternal Return,’ she murmured. ‘Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the flood drown it.’
Comfortable words. Watching the ocean now, other words came back into her remembrance – seen once carved on a stone at Dartington. She’d copied them to keep for herself:
‘HERE ROLLS THE SEA AND EVEN HERE LIES THE OTHER SHORE WAITING TO BE REACHED. YES HERE IS THE EVERLASTING PRESENT. NOT DISTANT. NOT ANYWHERE ELSE.’
NORAH HENSCHEL lives where she can watch the sea, in a small house too full of things and books half read. Married 51 years and widowed for nine, as a child in wartime life was very home-centred, uneventful. University was a journey which finished with a degree in History and a fiancé who became a teacher and later a headmaster. As a Head’s wife, her job was to mop up the spills from other tables, and it was her good fortune to be required to teach a whole variety of subjects, including World Mythology – it was, and is, her deepest interest. A quiet life has given her a taste for the varying colours of ordinariness.
Angela Dunford Wood
Aunt Lucy had an obsession. She walked along the High Street towards the Patisserie, and as she looked in the window she saw lots of cream cakes of all descriptions. Her mouth watered. She entered the shop and ordered half a dozen assorted cakes, and as she left the shop she started eating one. She had a backward glance into the shop window in case she had missed a different type.
Aunt Lucy was a modest, mousy little person who lived by herself in a bungalow surrounded by uninspiring flowerbeds in a small, neat garden. She sometimes gave tea parties for her friends and always had more cream cakes on the table than would be eaten. She put the remainder away afterwards, but within reach, so that she could have one whenever she wanted. When the supply was finished she would go shopping for a fresh batch.
The obsession had started when she gave up smoking for Lent. She was a deeply religious lady and a regular Church-goer. She needed a substitute for her cigarettes and soon found cream cakes were the answer and a welcome change. She noticed that she was putting on weight as her clothes began to feel a little tighter as time went on. These were mostly loose-fitting garments, but she had to leave the top button of her grey skirt undone under her navy cardigan.
When Lent came round again she reluctantly relinquished the cream cakes, and this made her feel pleasantly self-righteous. Aunt Lucy sometimes went to the communion service in her local church, and one morning she noticed that there were fewer worshippers there than usual. When she knelt at the altar, there were only two other people behind her. She noticed how much wine remained in the cup, and instead of the usual sip, she had a good swig which she found very satisfying to her senses as well as to her soul. She sang a hymn to herself as she walked home.
That was a big mistake. The taste of the wine lingered on her palate for a considerable time, and when it wore off, she found that she had a craving for more; so the next day she called in at the local wine shop and inspected the shelves. She had no knowledge of wine as it had not become a daily feature of her life so far. The rows of red and white bottles looked very tempting, standing to attention to await her choice. She sought the help of the senior assistant, explaining that she wanted a bottle of medium red wine. She didn't say that it should be similar to the wine supplied to the church, as she felt the slightest twinge of guilt, especially as it was Lent. Having been offered a bottle at a reasonable price, she laid it at the bottom of her trolley and carried on with her shopping. She passed the Patisserie with her head high, eyes to the front, feeling virtuous.
When she got home, she took off her coat and hat, put away her shopping, and drew up her beige Dralon easy chair and side table in front of her electric fire, which she switched on. She fetched a pretty glass on a stem from her corner cupboard, dusted it off and set it on the table. She found a corkscrew in a drawer, lovingly unwrapped the bottle of wine, uncorked it and poured herself a liberal measure. She sat back, took a generous drink and sighed contentedly. Then she closed her eyes and dozed.
All of a sudden, there was a loud banging at her front door. She sat up with a start, flinging out her arms and knocking over the glass and bottle, which she had unfortunately left uncorked. The wine spilt all over her new fawn carpet, its red stain spreading like a pool of blood. She froze with horror. The knocking was repeated. She staggered to her feet and made her way unsteadily to the door, which she opened cautiously. There stood the verger, holding her furled umbrella in front of him like a soldier presenting arms.
‘Good afternoon, Lucy. I believe this is yours,’ he said. ‘It was found in your pew after the service last Sunday.’ Aunt Lucy gulped and took the umbrella with a shaking hand, thanking the verger profusely, who hurried on his way.
Lucy closed the door and using the umbrella as a walking stick to steady her, returned to the sitting room to survey the damage. The carpet was ruined. She would never get that stain out, and the beautiful glass was shattered too. She hadn't the strength to cope with this now. She sank to her knees. She knew these were her just deserts after her fall from grace in church.
Aunt Lucy eventually claimed on her insurance for her carpet and she chose a new one with garlands of roses which brightened up the room. The next time she went to church she prayed for forgiveness for her transgression. After the service she approached the church warden and volunteered to clean the brass every week.
She kept several tins of liquid polish in stock, as she rather liked the smell.
ANGELA DUNFORD WOOD was born in Buckinghamshire, the daughter of a country doctor. When young, Angela trained as a physiotherapist at Guy’s Hospital, evacuated during WWII, dodging the bombs. She married an army officer in 1946, was widowed in 1971 and has two sons and a daughter. Angela was a keen sailor and enjoyed living by the sea. She loved acting in amateur dramatics and has developed an interest in writing in later life.
Keeping Pigeons
Shakti Puja
Michael returned from the war in 1946 with just the clothes he had on and his naval hat box.
He found himself that spring morning amongst familiar streets but unfamiliar faces. Knocking on the door of number one Ledbetter Street, he discovered that his dad has sold up. Gone and married a woman from the other side of town was all the neighbours knew.
He went to digest the news in the park. Sitting by the War Memorial, he watched everyone hurrying through their days – women pushing prams, old men with sticks.
He wondered if his dad still kept pigeons. He remembered their release as a surge of light and air, and exploding joy. Then came the anxious hours and days of their return. Their bid for home was focused and uncomplicated.
‘They’ve made it lad. They’ve made it!’
Tears in his dad’s eyes. Michael felt that nothing in his life had ever matched that moment.
He shifted on the bench. It was getting cold. Who was this new woman? And did his dad hit her when he’d had a few? The sun was dropping red behind the moor – time he made a move.
He sat on.
SHAKTI PUJA came to Lyme Regis for the day and stayed thirteen years! Place is important to her, both as an imaginative canvas and as a keeper of memory. She loves the land and walking through it; the sea and swimming also. Along the way, she’s worked as a teacher, community worker, manager and cleaner. In her thirties, she lived in a spiritual community. But the most significant thing so far has been caring for and learning from her daughter.
Water
Norah Henschel
‘Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the flood drown it...’ The words from the Book of Proverbs, used by the Minister at the funeral, came frequently into her mind now that she was living by the sea. She had always wanted to live by water. Her house was all that she wished, with a white-painted bay window looking out over the ocean.
When people told her she should visit the old mill by the bridge, she was eager to see it. The grief of loss had so quickened her senses that she perceived all things very acutely, and now her feet sounded loud on the bare wooden stairs, although the ancient mill was curiously quiet, as if in suspended activity. Under one hand she felt the rough wooden rail while her other hand brushed the dusty stones of the wall. She waited for a sound, pausing on the stairs to look through a dust-dimmed window on to a patch of unkempt garden below, where a seat lay overturned among the weeds.
She went on up the stairs and came eventually into a room with a trap door in the floor through which passed a chain and a rope; a great stone mill wheel was propped in a corner, and, in the centre of the room was a massive post like a giant’s thumb, with a great toothed wooden wheel around it. She hardly noticed these things, as her gaze was held at the far end. Beyond a rail was the gigantic water-wheel – still – poised – at rest. Below it, the water was black and deep. A man stood near, and as she approached he nodded, made a movement and set it going.
There was an unseen gush, and the ancient building shuddered into life as the water pushed the great wheel into movement. It turned with slow grace, the water pouring in silver sheets off the paddles, and from some, green weed hung like locks of hair. The splash and rhythm, the turning ledges of water, the troubling of the darkness below, all fascinated her. At last the sound she had waited for: the comforting clacking of the cogs and spindles driving the wheels that ground the flour, all turning, turning, obeying the force of the water driving the huge wheel. She gazed at it, leaning over the rail. She shut her eyes and listened to it, and had no will to leave...Until someone came to tell her the mill was closing for the day.
Sleeping that night, her dreams were in company with the turning wheel. She felt the water-laden paddles continually coming towards her, dipping down to the dark water, moving through the darkness to emerge beyond her into the light, and fresh baptism, to begin the cycle again: round and round on the Wheel of Life. She woke with a start – where had she heard that line? She got up and went to the window where the moon was shining full on the sea. Tomorrow I’ll go to the shore and watch the sun go down, she thought. She slept again and had no dreams.
Bad weather kept her indoors for nearly a week. Each day the water wheel seemed to be part of her existence. In the rain on the garden she saw the dripping water falling from the paddles; in the wind pushing the tree tops she heard the moment of power as the wheel stirred into movement. The sea was rough, and she watched it from the window – the white horses leaping and tossing their manes as they galloped towards the shore. She picked up the shell that she kept on the sill and held it to her ear to listen to the sea whispering in its chambers. Not a shell from this shore which were chipped and flung by the waves, but a perfect conch from the Indian Ocean, with a pure marble-white interior, shaped, she thought, like a harp. She loved the sound of the sea-music in it, rising and falling, round and round. It occurred to her that the shell was a replica of her own whorled and chambered ear, and that it was listening to – echoing – the sound of her own inner waters.
The day it cleared, the sunset was brave, as it often is after storms, and she finally went out. The sun was gone by the time she went down to the shore, leaving only the embers glowing in the west where the sea was luminous with a palest yellow on the water. To the east grew a sombre darkness, the hill above it nearly umber under a deep grey-blue sky. On the shingle three fishermen in big coats and woollen hats were conferring in low voices. Their rods had red lights like fireflies on the top; the lines vanished into the sea. Further along was a boat, blue in the dusk, and a figure in a blue jersey and heavy boots leaning over it with a rope in his hands. She began to walk along the shore, watching the sea in the fading, creamy light – the long waves, black and serpentine as they slowly swelled, pale and transparent as they emptied themselves on the shingle.
The man in the blue jersey was starting to push the boat towards the water. As she came past, he turned his head towards her.
‘Hullo. Grand evening, isn’t it?’
‘Going out fishing?’
‘Yep. Fancy a trip?’ She hesitated, but only for a moment.
‘Could I really?’
‘Course you can. No problem. Come aboard.’
As he pushed the boat into the water, she took off her sandals, tucked up her trousers and then climbed into the boat as he steadied it. She felt the water begin to lift and carry it, then rock and sway as he jumped aboard. He tossed her a life-jacket and they travelled over the water, silent except for the splash of the oars, until the lights on the shore were distant, and then he busied himself with his lines.
‘I feel as if I’m on Charon’s boat,’ she murmured.
‘Charon? Who’s he? Friend of yours?’
‘Ferryman of the Dead.’
‘Crikey! Don’t talk like that! You’ll scare off the fish.’
She laughed and sat quiet. She was untroubled by the image. Let the Ferryman take her where he would. The rocking of the boat made her feel cradled, and she let her mind drift, as if following his line through the water. She was fishlike and pre-human; she was a seed suspended in water, changing, taking form, pushed towards living by the turning of an invisible mill wheel. Neither awake nor dreaming she drifted, until the slapping of fish on the bottom of the boat roused her. There was a pale light at the eastern horizon. She could see his face now, his hat pushed back on his head, and his arms as he leaned over to reel in the line. The sea was grey in the early dawn, and she shivered slightly.
‘Seen that old Ferryman?’ he queried, smiling. ‘I guess you’ve been asleep while I’ve been catching my dinner.’
She stretched her arm to dip her hand in the water and splash her face.
On shore again, they pulled the boat up on to the shingle and he lifted the creel full of fish. Half in a dream still, carrying her sandals, she followed slowly up the slope of stony beach to a shack at the top.
‘Welcome to my palace,’ he said as he unlocked the door. ‘I think a cup of char...’
Inside, it smelled like driftwood and seaweed. The wood of the walls was bleached pale and hung with fishing nets in loops and folds, like tapestries, she thought. Fishing rods stood in a corner, and a long-handled net. A bare wood table was at the side, with three china mugs and a tin kettle on it, milk in a bottle, and a blue and red biscuit tin. There was a simple bench beside the table and a kitchen chair with a worn cushion.
‘Sit down,’ he invited, as he took off his boots, filled the kettle from a gallon jar and lit a camping stove on a ledge under the window.
It was quiet in the shack – nothing to hear but the faint hushing of the sea and the cry of an early gull. She didn’t want to talk, but observed him as he sat relaxed on the bench, his feet in thick red socks stretched out in front of him. He had thrown off his cap and she could see now that he was not young. His face was tanned and lined under white hair rumpled by his hat, and he had the eyes of a sailor, blue and far-seeing. Holding the warm mug in her hands, she gazed around her. The surroundings made her think of fairy-tales half-forgotten – tales of mermaids and castles under the sea; the basket of silver fish on the floor seemed like treasure, magical. She began to smile to herself.
At last she stirred herself to say her thanks and get ready to leave.
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘Come again. Whenever...’
He saw that she was smiling. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s nothing,’ she said.
She was thinking that she had gone to sea in Charon’s ferryboat and come ashore to the palace of the Fisher King.
At home again, she stood by the window. The sea was beautiful, not flat, but ruffled and ruched like silk. The house was still. She also was still, gathering into her centre the images that were transforming her: the turning wheel, the ceaseless cycle of the sea, the primeval waters, the Fisher King and the Waste Land healed.
‘Eternal Return,’ she murmured. ‘Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the flood drown it.’
Comfortable words. Watching the ocean now, other words came back into her remembrance – seen once carved on a stone at Dartington. She’d copied them to keep for herself:
‘HERE ROLLS THE SEA AND EVEN HERE LIES THE OTHER SHORE WAITING TO BE REACHED. YES HERE IS THE EVERLASTING PRESENT. NOT DISTANT. NOT ANYWHERE ELSE.’
NORAH HENSCHEL lives where she can watch the sea, in a small house too full of things and books half read. Married 51 years and widowed for nine, as a child in wartime life was very home-centred, uneventful. University was a journey which finished with a degree in History and a fiancé who became a teacher and later a headmaster. As a Head’s wife, her job was to mop up the spills from other tables, and it was her good fortune to be required to teach a whole variety of subjects, including World Mythology – it was, and is, her deepest interest. A quiet life has given her a taste for the varying colours of ordinariness.
