She Sells Sea Shells
by Paul Darcy Boles
Humans seem to be nature's xenophobes, hell-bent on conquest, ravaging the land and everything growing and living on it in order to "possess" it. We destroy and conquer out of fear ...fear of anyone or anything unlike ourselves. Not satisfied with destroying the land, we are now hard at work trying to ruin the sea as well, dumping radioactive wastes and millions of tons of lethal chemical sludge into it, poisoning its inhabitants (and slaughtering those we don't poison), befouling it with massive oil-slicks that spread through the living water like huge black cancers.... And yet, throughout history there have always been those who have a gift for living in sympathy with nature, those who are the friends of the earth . .. and of the sea. For them, for those wise enough to see with their hearts, the sea can bring gifts of life, and love. For the others, for the ravagers and despoilers, the sea has a cold gift of quite another sort. ... The late Paul Darcy Boles was an internationally-known author with eleven books to his credit, including Limner, Parton's Island, Night Watch, and the collection I Thought You Were a Unicom and Other Stories. His most recent novel was Glory Day.
SHE WAS A QUIET WOMAN, THE BEST KIND. UP AROUND THE rocks nobody much goes in after Labor Day. But there she was, here into October, stroking in as if the water wasn't fit to chill a lobster. Naked, far as I could see, but for what looked like a shell necklace. Clean arms, with the shine of silver along them in the twilight and her legs scissoring nice and smooth, and no strain to it at all. A wonderful swimmer. Quiet, as I said.
Sun was just going out of sight out at Bradford Point, hanging behind the old lighthouse and making it look like a black candle in the middle of the afterglow. It's a time when I always liked to be by myself on shore. The summer people—the "straphangers" we call them, and you can figure out why—are gone and the pines and the rocks just sort of turn into themselves again. The boards of the docks look bleaker and quieter. The ring of green weed around the dock pilings gets a gentle, lost light in the evening. Molly's Fish House down the line gets its shabby contented look back again. It seems to be about to fall into the sea but it never does. The smell of the water is stronger and like iodine around a scratch. Some places on the island you can stand still and hear a moose drinking from one of the creeks. It's a near-to-wintering time when the sun feels better than it will again all year.
When she got in under the shadow of the steepest rocks I said, "Evening," and heard her stand up in the shallows. Then she looked around and up at me, just her face showing in a little spotlight of last sun. It was a searching face, like a seal's, and smooth as brown stone under the water-shine. Her hair hung down to her backbone, wet and heavy and looking like dripping amber in that light. The eyes were the color of the periwinkles you see growing in some of the inland gardens where the wind doesn't reach enough to tear them out of the ground. They were wide and a little surprised to see me there. With her two hands she lifted the hair from her back and stroked the water off in a downflowing motion. Then she said, "It's darkening fast. Will you walk me back to my place?"
I nodded that I would. I guessed she trusted my looks. I didn't know her from Adam's off ox, but she didn't look like leftover summer people to me. They have a different shine, as if they're already on their way to somewhere else in their heads. She seemed as if she belonged. And she didn't look as though she fooled around with paint and canvas, bothering the lobstermen by sketching them or parking herself on the rocks and making a common buoy and some gulls come out like daubs. Or writing poems about the coastline and how the fog makes her think of her lost childhood. I waited while she dressed under the overhang of the rock. It was nearly good dark when she came around up the path. Her feet were bare and she walked like she swam, neat and quick. She carried a little old tote bag she'd kept her dress in. The dress was just any old wrapping.
We headed up the shoreline toward Molly's. With some people you have to make talk. You could wait for her to make it. After a while when she thought it was time to say something, in her own good pace, she said, "There are whales out past the Point."
By now it was dark along the sand and the water had a steadier sound as it lapped. The light at the Point was sweeping across out there, picking out pieces of the cove and then letting them go like a sliding eye. It touched the side of her face and let it go.
I said, "If you got that far out you're some navigator. That's about five nautical miles, where the whales hang out. Stand a good chance of letting yourself get caught in a tide rip."
The light came around again and this time when it touched her I could see she was smiling. "I don't mind a little tide. I've fought them before." She looked ahead to where the lights of Molly's were starting to show the outlines of the fishnet draped over the windows. "It's only when I come back that I get frightened. There are too many murderers on shore."
She happened to lean against me and I took her arm. It was cool as wet sand and lean and hard but round too, with the pump of blood I could feel under my fingertips.
I said, "I'm Jeb Malifee. Portygee on my mama's side and green apple saltwater on my old man's. They've both been gone awhile. I've got the little black shack you see crosswise from the Point. But you can't see it after dark or get there unless you know the path."
I waited for her to tell me something about where she sprang from. She took her time about that. Neither of us were in any chattering hurry.
"Marna," she said after a spell. She sort of walked around the name and caressed it like a woman will try a ribbon on for color and effect in a mirror. "Mama," she said again, as if she liked it all right. "I come from not far off."
I like anybody who doesn't care to tell too much about themselves. There's a decent mystery in that. She appeared and felt old enough to me to have been married and rid of whatever man had bogged her down and maybe even to have had kids. But they'd need to be little kids; she wasn't that old. I kept holding her arm and didn't mind it a whit. Neither did she. She gave off that clean smell of the salt that soaks into your pores and seems to touch your bones when you've been swimming a time.
I said, "I take supper at Molly's most evenings. Before I walk you home maybe you'd like to join me. The chowder's not bad, and she sets good greens."
We were inside the light that came out through the fishnet windows now. There were a couple of local cars. Bigbee's truck and such, parked in the yard. A first wind had come up and was shaking the yard grass some. I could see her eyes clearer. They were pretty close to mine. The Point light didn't reach us here because of the breakwater slabs. But it touched the slabs in its swing and made the tip ends of her drying hair shine brighter when it passed over. I said, "I'd think you'd be sharp-set from swimming. I've got some handyman's pay in my pocket. My treat."
She said in a low voice. "Yes, I'm hungry."
I don't know how it happened then. But she swung in against me. And I took her shoulders and then I was covering her mouth up good. It was like tasting bright brine on a sunned morning when you're a kid. With a lot of heat at the center. It was like applejack too, with the rindy kick you get that wakes you up like blowing weather.
. . .
