Welcome sunshine glitters on the furrowed sea. A gentle, salty breeze ruffles the dark plumage of a cormorant drying its angular wings as it stands on a barnacle-clad post.
“What poise,” thinks Carmelle. She is sure she can incorporate some reference to the statuesque quality of this motionless seabird into her latest piece of writing, which she has entitled “The Soulful Sea”. She will discuss her latest ideas with Darius when she meets him in The Ship. She enjoys their verbal entanglement and is keenly anticipating the delicious frisson generated between them. She is ready, eager, for more than that now, and Darius cannot help but have noticed, surely? She has put clean sheets on the bed and flowers in the room.
Carmelle has stayed on at Greyling Bay longer than she intended, having found the sympathetic eye and ear of Darius, whose particular interest, fortuitously, she has discovered, is the written word (when Laura, a slim, long-limbed student from the university had made his acquaintance at a fund-raising barn dance last summer, his particular interest then, usefully, had been political history. Greyling Bay has a veritable polymath in its midst).
Enjoying the unexpected warmth and stillness of the day sit Frances and Mercy on a bench at the edge of the sand. They watch Carmelle walk past, antelope-like in her fluid gait, hips swaying and arms gently swinging. Oh, how they wish they could regain their youth. That bloody war took their husbands and now all they have to contemplate is a fortnightly visit from the chiropodist and a chip supper with entertainment in the community hall on the first Tuesday of every month. Failing joints, false teeth and thinning hair. Loneliness. That is the reward life bestows for hard work, loyalty and stoicism. But still, they can laugh and feel the warmth on their paper-thin skin, grateful for their friendship.
They could have been something, Frances and Mercy.
Faith Bretherick
Showing posts with label The Ship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Ship. Show all posts
Friday, April 3, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Darius Bredwyn Is Loved
Following disturbing allegations about Douglas Bruton's working habits I no longer feel comfortable including his work in Greyling Bay, and so have deleted the four pieces which were attributed to him here.
For more information read this post on Vanessa Gebbie's blog, and this post on my main blog, How Publishing Really Works.
Apologies for any difficulties this might cause.
About The Contributors
For more information read this post on Vanessa Gebbie's blog, and this post on my main blog, How Publishing Really Works.
Apologies for any difficulties this might cause.
About The Contributors
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Owen
The sea is smiling today, soft and beguiling. Damn her. Damn her. Owen scowls at her from the prow of the Gwiddon, hands gripping the rusty rail, feet apart, knees locked as of habit although the swell is as gentle as a lullaby. He prefers the whore, the witch, the harpy. He knows his place then. He knows every inch of her, every gentle curve, every bone and sinew of her but can never sense that moment when she’ll snap, snarl, catch you in her jaws and spit you out on the shore for the women to gather up like flotsam. But then, no man can.
He shuts off the engine. Gwiddon rests on the water, a baby at the breast, sated and sleepy. The only sound is his breathing, rapid and hoarse. He looks back into the smudge on the horizon that is Greyling Bay. The air is still; the sky a pane of frosted glass; the smoke from the chimneys as straight and true as a plumb line. A few desultory gulls drift across the quay waiting for the boats to return bursting with their slippery, silver cargo. They don’t know about quotas, about net gauges. They’ll have to make do with rubbish bins and scattered chips.
He slipped out that morning to scuttle his beloved Gwiddon and sink with her into the seductive mattress of water. Why fight? Why rise before a winter’s dawn and set out against the tide, sleet blinding him, the wild wind tearing his hands, scraping the skin from his cheek; the triumphant struggle to haul in the swollen nets only to weep tears of rage back on shore where, calculations made and heads shaken, most is poured back into the water, dead and rotting?
On such days he feels the madness rise in him. He lurches blindly into The Ship and then, too ashamed to face the look in Ann’s eyes, sleeps off the madness on Gwinnod’s deck.
Greyling Bay once was home to a hundred fishing boats. Now the three that are left are the tattered remnants of sanity in a world where a London newspaper pays him to talk about the ‘good old days’. The girl smiles as he swallows glass after glass of whisky which he isn’t used to and only drinks because she’s paying. He isn’t a man of words like this chattering exotic bird with her jangling bangles who sits across the table from him, affecting wonder and astonishment at his nonsense. He’s stiff and awkward at first—he hates to see a woman at the bar—but soon enough he stops caring and demands more and the more he drinks, the more lies and fairytales pour from his loosened mouth because that’s what she wants hear. When his own idiocy stares back at him a week later he wants to vomit but Ann, who knows it is nonsense, kisses him and says never mind, bach, the money will pay for shoes for the girls.
Judas, the sea whispers in his ears. Judas Iscariot.
Sally Zigmond
He shuts off the engine. Gwiddon rests on the water, a baby at the breast, sated and sleepy. The only sound is his breathing, rapid and hoarse. He looks back into the smudge on the horizon that is Greyling Bay. The air is still; the sky a pane of frosted glass; the smoke from the chimneys as straight and true as a plumb line. A few desultory gulls drift across the quay waiting for the boats to return bursting with their slippery, silver cargo. They don’t know about quotas, about net gauges. They’ll have to make do with rubbish bins and scattered chips.
He slipped out that morning to scuttle his beloved Gwiddon and sink with her into the seductive mattress of water. Why fight? Why rise before a winter’s dawn and set out against the tide, sleet blinding him, the wild wind tearing his hands, scraping the skin from his cheek; the triumphant struggle to haul in the swollen nets only to weep tears of rage back on shore where, calculations made and heads shaken, most is poured back into the water, dead and rotting?
On such days he feels the madness rise in him. He lurches blindly into The Ship and then, too ashamed to face the look in Ann’s eyes, sleeps off the madness on Gwinnod’s deck.
Greyling Bay once was home to a hundred fishing boats. Now the three that are left are the tattered remnants of sanity in a world where a London newspaper pays him to talk about the ‘good old days’. The girl smiles as he swallows glass after glass of whisky which he isn’t used to and only drinks because she’s paying. He isn’t a man of words like this chattering exotic bird with her jangling bangles who sits across the table from him, affecting wonder and astonishment at his nonsense. He’s stiff and awkward at first—he hates to see a woman at the bar—but soon enough he stops caring and demands more and the more he drinks, the more lies and fairytales pour from his loosened mouth because that’s what she wants hear. When his own idiocy stares back at him a week later he wants to vomit but Ann, who knows it is nonsense, kisses him and says never mind, bach, the money will pay for shoes for the girls.
Judas, the sea whispers in his ears. Judas Iscariot.
Sally Zigmond
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