The Castaway: a modern folktale

by Benjamin Parsons

The Castaway: a modern folktale

  by Benjamin Parsons

  Copyright 2011 Benjamin Parsons

  * * *

  Years and years ago, back in the back of Cornwall, a man went beach-combing in a rocky cove renowned for its interesting flotsam. He was often there, as his little cottage was wedged between the sea caves and shore, and he got his living by fishing; but he idly hoped that one day his fortunes would be transformed by some splashed-up treasure. So he scoured the gravelly wash each morning, especially after a night of high weather, in case something valuable should appear.

  You may well believe that it would be a rare chance to come across such a life-changing find, whatever it might be, and so, while waiting for it, he made a hobby of collecting bits of glass that had been worn smooth by the waves and jumbled among the grit. These pebbles of sea-glass were the nearest things to gems his luck would let him have, but nevertheless he grew fond of sifting them out from amidst the other stones on the beach, while all were glistened and becoloured by the water. What were once painful shards and littering splinters became to him, with the intervention of the tides, as hoardable as jewels, their sharp edges smoothed and their bottle-colours rendered strangely lambent; and once he had the knack of finding them, he collected and collected, until he had an impressive trove of this detritus, much to his wife’s chagrin.

  This particular morning, the fisherman expected great rewards for his searches, as the sea had lashed all night, and even now ground and seethed as he picked along the waterline; but his expectations were soon confounded and over-topped at once. As he stooped to examine a clutch of rubble, his eye was caught by a gleaming white object a short way ahead— it amazed him, both for itself, and for the fact that he had not discerned it before: the cove was small and enclosed, and yet there it lay openly, for anyone to find. It was a naked baby, lying upon a drift of seaweed, just by the water’s edge.

  Of course he dashed forward immediately to rescue it from being doused by the next breaker, and as he hugged the little boy to his chest looked around angrily to find the parent who had so carelessly abandoned their charge there; but the beach was deserted in every direction. He stood quite alone with the infant, and it was a fair feat of the parent’s to vanish so quickly— the encircling cliffs were sheer, and the nearest boulders at a swift dash’s distance— yet the child was warm enough, and dry, and calm enough too, so he could not have been left long. He was clutching some largish object in his tiny hand, and in case it should prove to be a clue to the mystery, the fisherman retrieved it, and got his second, rather different, surprise.

  The baby had been holding a piece of sea-glass, nearly the size of an egg, which was unusually big for such stuff; and more remarkably still, it was a deep, penetrating red. Most such glass, in the fisherman’s experience, was green, or opaque white (originally clear); brown or blue were occasional variations— but he had never found red sea-glass before, and now to come across it in such uncommon circumstances made it seem almost unprecedented.

  However, it was not his first concern at that moment, so he quickly pocketed it, wrapped the rapidly shivering baby in his coat, and hurried back to his cottage, peering every which way as he did so, and intermittently shouting out to discover the whereabouts of the person who had forsaken their child. No-one appeared, and he was soon home and calling the police.

  It is no enhancement to the tale for me to tell you of his wife’s astonishment, or of their perplexity, or their shocked denunciations of the feckless parent; but it is as well to tell you that they tended to their diminutive guest with doting care and compassion, and made as much goodly fuss as they could. Within days it became clear that the family of the infant could and would not be traced, and all the while the boy was allowed to remain with the couple who had taken him in, once he was found to be perfectly healthy. The authorities, perhaps with more latitude than they would display nowadays, looked kindly on the busy attentions of the fisherman and his wife, and approved of their warm and obviously growing regard for their temporary ward; and so it was that when the pair, who had no children of their own, petitioned to keep the little castaway and adopt him legally, their case was given undue attention. For sure, they were not rich, nor so young as they might be— in fact they were downright poor, and had almost gotten old enough to never expect their own offspring— but they were popular in the community, and had friends and relations who knew people in the council. Favours were done, presents of fish and other produce made, and at last enough eyes winked or turned temporarily blind for the hopeful couple to get their way. The baby became their own and only son, and his new father named him, having perhaps thought too long and whimsically on it, Seaglass— again, much to his wife’s chagrin— but she was too delighted with her lot altogether to mind it overmuch.

  Seaglass grew up to be a fine, fit, cheerful lad, who was much liked, and liked everyone. Although not clever, he was skilful manually, tying all the knots his father taught him without a second lesson, learning to sail when hardly taller than a bollard, and fishing so expertly, both with line and net, that his mother claimed he must whistle the fish onto the table.

  One skill, though, was beyond his range for many years: for all his mastery of boats, he could not swim, and sank like a stone whenever he fell in— a great incentive to sail well, of course— but as a fish is out of water, so was Seaglass in it, and quite helpless in his nominal element. However, as he grew older, he challenged himself to do better, and gain through effort and determination that aptitude that others acquire so easily; and with perseverance he began to swim at last, and then swim smoothly, and then swim fast, until, by his twentieth year, he was something of a local Leander, plying the water with such strength that it became a joke that he was ever weak.

  Now it happened that, a few years later, on one bright and busy morning at the beginning of the holiday season, two young women, fresh from London for the week, sat themselves down in the window of a smart little café that overlooked the main street of Seaglass’s native village. They ordered, and began to talk; but very soon, one said to the other: ‘Julie, stop! Can’t we have five minutes’ conversation together without that man of yours interrupting us twenty times? That’s twice a minute! Really, I could be telling you I’m about to give birth to a porpoise, and it wouldn’t be as interesting to you as two kisses in a text message from him.’

  ‘Alright! Alright! I’ll put my phone away!’ Julie replied. ‘I hardly get any signal here anyway. Besides, it would be four times a minute if he did text that often— you’re terrible at sums, Arabella.’

  ‘Well, you’re terrible at conversation, today— I suspect you wish he would text you four times a minute! What can you possibly have to say to each other since yesterday?’

  ‘Nothing,’ —this in a sort of drawn-out whine, which implied, ‘nothing I’d confess to’.

  Arabella smiled. ‘This is just why I wanted to escape London, and the man-market altogether— nothing-messages, nothing-words, nothing-meanings— I’ve had my fill of nothings.’

  ‘Even sweet nothings?’ asked the other, wagging her phone provocatively before she dropped it into her bag.

  ‘Especially those! You couples are the worst for nothings. At least when you’re still dating, you try to make your nothings sound amusing; but once you’re hitched up, there’s no effort at all— he could talk to you in nonsense nursery-rhymes all day long, and you’d think it was “sweet”.’

  ‘You say “you couples” as if you’ve never been half of one yourself!’

  ‘Well, if I never am again, I’ll be happy enough. I’m determined to be independent from now on— one whole Arabella, all to myself.’

  ‘This is holiday
talk,’ Julie sniffed. ‘You’ll soon be bored of independence. It’s all very well telling me you resent men, but you won’t go so far as telling them.’

  ‘You’re as wrong as you can be,’ Arabella insisted. ‘It’s men I’m bored of— too bored even to resent them.’

  At this juncture the waitress arrived with their order: tea and cake for one, coffee and fruit for the other.

  ‘Are you actually going to eat that apple, and watch me eat a cream cake?’ Julie protested. ‘All I’ll say is, remember what you’re doing with every bite— eating well to stay slim to impress men. Ha!’

  ‘I want to retain my health, not my figure!’ Arabella protested in turn.

  ‘La, la, la.’

  ‘Julie, you’re no better than me— you’re only eating that cake because you have a man, and can afford to let yourself go a little.’

  ‘And isn’t that reason enough to be in a relationship?’

  Arabella laughed, conceded defeat, and ordered a cake of her own.

  ‘Now then,’ Julie resumed, peering out of the window, ‘since you’re so bored of the entire subject, I won’t bother to point him out to you.’ She gestured into the street with her fork, where Seaglass happened to be passing, walking his faithful pet mongrel.

  ‘You just did,’ said Arabella, hastily looking.

  ‘And aren’t you glad of it? He’s quite the local beauty!’

  ‘Hmmm— perhaps a little roughish around the edges for a beauty. Which is the man, and which is the dog?’

  ‘Hiss! I think the question should be “which is the cat”! Come on, now, Arabella, he’s a chunk of Cornish heaven, admit it.’

  Seaglass had stopped to talk to an acquaintance, giving the women ample opportunity for scrutiny from behind their cups. Arabella glanced him up and down.

  ‘Well— well,’ she said, ‘if he’s handsome, what of it? What good does it do me? There are handsome men in the world— it’s a fact I must bear, not applaud.’

  ‘He’s talented as well as handsome,’ Julie enthused. ‘While we were down in the cove earlier, I sniffed out a little shop while you were scrabbling over the rocks. It’s a tiny place— practically a kiosk— but it’s full of all manner of wonderful trinkets. Some of them are really pretty, if you like that sort of thing, and he makes most of it himself.’

  Julie had this information from Seaglass in person, who had been working in the ‘kiosk’ when she visited it. A couple of years previously his adoptive father, having harvested the Atlantic since a youth, finally decided to reign in his nets and sell his boat, defeated by the vagaries of the rotas and the market; and instead he set up the little store, selling tackle and bait and tat. This venture threatened to fail, at first; but as his neighbours began increasingly to turn their attentions from the citizens of the sea to those more lucrative shoals of the land, tourists, the old man saw his business improve by increasing his stock of holiday-fodder: postcards, knick-knacks and gifts. Then Seaglass, on discerning this merchandising trend, was struck by the idea of using his father’s hoard of beach-combing lumber for commercial ends, and one afternoon bolted some old, bleached driftwood into a picture frame, which sold first thing the next day. This was a happy bit of