Status: Re-uploaded 1/12/2012
Salt
Anchors Away!
The sea was stormy grey again, but the tidal pools were calm, and there were oh-so-many things just below their surfaces. Set like jewels in the cool, black rock, they were windows into another world, crammed with sea life. There were tiny starfish and shell fragments like bleached bones littering a snail graveyard. There were bright blue and purple barnacles like pint-sized volcanoes, no larger than a thumbnail. In the wider shelves, where the rocks stepped closer to the ocean, soft carpets of weeds waved, just kissing the ceilings of their containers.
These lower pools were beds for plants and animals. Tranquil bunks tucked into the shale, they lay just above reach of the frothing at low tide. At high tide, the sea would surge over and bury them in nourishing currents, but for now, the clusters of huge mussels, their shells cracked open to draw breath, tendriled anemones and weeds like strings of green pearls were part of a self-contained ecosystem.
Gingerly, Victoria prodded the contents of a shallow pool, and found her arm submerged up to her elbow. It was deeper than it looked. A spiky, orange crab was disturbed and fled the cover of one patch of weeds for another.
This was a glimpse of the real ocean, not white sands and blue waves seen on postcards, but that wild, untamed, briny world full of secrets and mysteries. She was almost glad of the chilly weather. It suited her mood, and drove her closer to the sea, where she knew all the sunken things were immune to the biting wind.
She wanted to sink, too.
Inside her chest, something had already slipped, heavy and cold, like an anchor splashing into the water. Now it was weighing her down as she wove her way along the rocky shore, dragging her ever closer to the ground, so that she peered into those little worlds like escape hatches. The sky over the horizon, which was streaked with far-off rain, was starting to run in a way that suggested the earth was crumbling from the top down. Soon, the sea would be the only safe place left.
Salt daubed the rocks, making Victoria’s dress cling to her knees. Salt clung to her eyelashes. She needed another place to adopt her, she felt so homeless. She had been evicted from her own heart.
She didn’t want to go back to the house, even though she knew she would have to at some point. She hadn’t brought anything with her –no wallet or phone or a bag to clutch like a shield. None of those things seemed necessary in the panic when Christian had stepped out of the door and marched down the beach. She had followed in the wake of his longer, more confident strides, dogging him as he walked towards the rocks, feeling unwanted and inferior.
He had ignored her, naturally.
When he reached the cliffs, he stood and gazed out at sea, his hands slung in his pockets as though he were simply contemplating a quiet afternoon.
She waited behind him, cold and forlorn in her whimsical dress, which wasn’t made for unplanned jaunts onto sea-swept outcroppings. The wind tore straight through her, whistling through the hole where her heart had been. She was so invisible that she was almost a ghost.
Eventually, Christian turned and came striding back in her direction. Her heart, she realised, wasn’t missing, but had been hiding in her throat the whole time.
Now, the wind buffeted her hopes as keenly as it impeded his progress towards her. He even fixed her with his steel-grey eyes, and for a hopeful moment she failed to see the unwilling acknowledgement in his stare.
Then, he walked straight by her.
‘Don’t follow me,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’m going into town to make arrangements. I’ll be home in roughly an hour, to collect my things.’
Home.
Of course, it had slipped out accidentally, but it stung all the same. It was everything she didn’t have anymore.
What did she have left? She felt her sides, feeling tenderer and squishier than usual. What parts of her were still quintessentially Victoria? What didn’t belong, in some small way, to Christian? She still dressed like herself, but her mannerisms were at least half his, now. Physically, she was one half of a whole.
Who owned the rest of her? Who owned all the memories they had made together? Perhaps she would be forced to relinquish those, too. She didn’t feel all that capable, just in that moment, of accepting responsibility for a whole half of a person that had previously belonged to somebody else.
It was all too much to handle.
All the same, she knew that, somehow, she had to. She was a boat stranded on a sandbar, or on a reef, and if she didn’t budge, she would sink. What she needed, she thought, was a good captain, someone who could steer her through this trying time, out into the open water.
Now that Christian was gone, there was only one person who could.
Darcy. I need to call Darcy.
She still had an hour before Christian would return. Even if the cottage was a painful place to be, she could brave it long enough to retrieve her phone, and then skip off towards the headland, where the whole messy scene would be out of sight.
This is it, she told herself, preparing to hoist her mass like an Olympic weightlifter psyching up for the main event.
Anchors away!
These lower pools were beds for plants and animals. Tranquil bunks tucked into the shale, they lay just above reach of the frothing at low tide. At high tide, the sea would surge over and bury them in nourishing currents, but for now, the clusters of huge mussels, their shells cracked open to draw breath, tendriled anemones and weeds like strings of green pearls were part of a self-contained ecosystem.
Gingerly, Victoria prodded the contents of a shallow pool, and found her arm submerged up to her elbow. It was deeper than it looked. A spiky, orange crab was disturbed and fled the cover of one patch of weeds for another.
This was a glimpse of the real ocean, not white sands and blue waves seen on postcards, but that wild, untamed, briny world full of secrets and mysteries. She was almost glad of the chilly weather. It suited her mood, and drove her closer to the sea, where she knew all the sunken things were immune to the biting wind.
She wanted to sink, too.
Inside her chest, something had already slipped, heavy and cold, like an anchor splashing into the water. Now it was weighing her down as she wove her way along the rocky shore, dragging her ever closer to the ground, so that she peered into those little worlds like escape hatches. The sky over the horizon, which was streaked with far-off rain, was starting to run in a way that suggested the earth was crumbling from the top down. Soon, the sea would be the only safe place left.
Salt daubed the rocks, making Victoria’s dress cling to her knees. Salt clung to her eyelashes. She needed another place to adopt her, she felt so homeless. She had been evicted from her own heart.
She didn’t want to go back to the house, even though she knew she would have to at some point. She hadn’t brought anything with her –no wallet or phone or a bag to clutch like a shield. None of those things seemed necessary in the panic when Christian had stepped out of the door and marched down the beach. She had followed in the wake of his longer, more confident strides, dogging him as he walked towards the rocks, feeling unwanted and inferior.
He had ignored her, naturally.
When he reached the cliffs, he stood and gazed out at sea, his hands slung in his pockets as though he were simply contemplating a quiet afternoon.
She waited behind him, cold and forlorn in her whimsical dress, which wasn’t made for unplanned jaunts onto sea-swept outcroppings. The wind tore straight through her, whistling through the hole where her heart had been. She was so invisible that she was almost a ghost.
Eventually, Christian turned and came striding back in her direction. Her heart, she realised, wasn’t missing, but had been hiding in her throat the whole time.
Now, the wind buffeted her hopes as keenly as it impeded his progress towards her. He even fixed her with his steel-grey eyes, and for a hopeful moment she failed to see the unwilling acknowledgement in his stare.
Then, he walked straight by her.
‘Don’t follow me,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘I’m going into town to make arrangements. I’ll be home in roughly an hour, to collect my things.’
Home.
Of course, it had slipped out accidentally, but it stung all the same. It was everything she didn’t have anymore.
What did she have left? She felt her sides, feeling tenderer and squishier than usual. What parts of her were still quintessentially Victoria? What didn’t belong, in some small way, to Christian? She still dressed like herself, but her mannerisms were at least half his, now. Physically, she was one half of a whole.
Who owned the rest of her? Who owned all the memories they had made together? Perhaps she would be forced to relinquish those, too. She didn’t feel all that capable, just in that moment, of accepting responsibility for a whole half of a person that had previously belonged to somebody else.
It was all too much to handle.
All the same, she knew that, somehow, she had to. She was a boat stranded on a sandbar, or on a reef, and if she didn’t budge, she would sink. What she needed, she thought, was a good captain, someone who could steer her through this trying time, out into the open water.
Now that Christian was gone, there was only one person who could.
Darcy. I need to call Darcy.
She still had an hour before Christian would return. Even if the cottage was a painful place to be, she could brave it long enough to retrieve her phone, and then skip off towards the headland, where the whole messy scene would be out of sight.
This is it, she told herself, preparing to hoist her mass like an Olympic weightlifter psyching up for the main event.
Anchors away!