The Castaway: a modern folktale

by Benjamin Parsons

luck, and Seaglass reasoned that hand-made goods, fashioned out of local materials, might hold quite an appeal to worldly visitors whose possessions were exclusively factory-made. His father was doubtful, but his mother, excited at the prospect of clearing the attic and shed of salvaged rubbish, championed the notion, and encouraged her son to make more such fancy-goods. He was pleased to do it, and soon the old man was pleased too, to find that Seaglass had shown great acumen— everything sold, and fast.

  Encouraged by this early success, the young man proved quite the artisan, and set up a regular workshop, transforming thrown-away and salt-crusted litter— shells, odd rocks, half-rusted nautical gear— into strange and delightful pieces that the holidaymakers adored: ornaments, paperweights, ashtrays and the like. So of course it was not long before the retired fisherman opened up his treasured chest of sea-glass, and asked what his boy might make of that— and you may be sure that the lad found a thousand ingenious uses for the stuff, from pendants to bottle-stoppers, until the shelves and counter fairly gleamed with soft, pearlescent (and extremely popular) glass wares.

  ‘So,’ Julie continued, ‘what do you think of him now?’

  ‘Is he for sale too?’ Arabella asked wryly.

  ‘Oh, give in— look at him and give in! There’s something else— he has the strangest name. You know how you like interesting names. He’s actually called Seaglass.’

  ‘I do like interesting names,’ her friend smiled. ‘But I’m not prepared to fall for a man named like a yacht. What am I saying? I’m not prepared to fall for anybody.’

  ‘He might fall for you,’ Julie murmured, as she finished her tea.

  ‘I doubt it— I’m named like a racehorse; there’s hardly any appeal to speak of between us.’

  ‘Have you finished? Let’s get the bill, step outside and accidentally bump into him.’

  Arabella made her protests, but Julie was determined; however, circumstances favoured Arabella’s reticence, because by the time they emerged onto the pavement, their quarry had moved past, and they were not inclined to pursue him when they felt the first licks of a shower coming on. The bright day had grown dark suddenly, but also determinedly— the rain advanced in earnest, and they elected to spend their afternoon in a cosy pub, instead of sight-seeing.

  As soon as the chase after Seaglass was called off, Arabella sighed to herself in relief. She had not wanted to meet him— her escape to the countryside was intended to be a release from all such introductions, all such steps in the dance. She was weary of it, ready to drop aside and stop her ears against the music; but still it played on, and she knew that she would spring up on her tiptoes in spite of herself. In reality, she was no stoic, and whatever she might say to her friend, she did not feel ready to be ‘whole’, or even capable of ever being so again— rather, she felt chewed up, and partly disintegrated, by a life of social and emotional insincerities, until at last, as though indigestible, she had been spat out. Of course she could laugh at it, outwardly, and even dress herself up as a tempting morsel once again; but there was something, she knew, lost— which is why she had come to the country, to perhaps restore that missing element. When she was younger, a dose of fresh air and fine weather was all she needed for rejuvenation— but now, she feared that she was compromised beyond cure, that what she had known, and relied on herself to be, was spent and gone. And consequently, if this were true, she knew she must rebuild all her hopes, refashion the course of her life, submit, resolve, and imperfectly survive— which naturally terrified her into cynicism.

  The next morning a continuing, drizzling rain kept Julie in bed and on the telephone, so Arabella stepped out by herself to explore the sodden retreat, taking advantage of the deserted shops and lanes. The overall effect was slightly depressing, however, and even though the sky was beginning to clear she was returning to the guest house, when she decided to take a detour past Seaglass’s little shop, and stop to peer in the window. The young man was not there— his guardian stood by the counter winding his watch absorbedly, and shortly afterwards moved into a back alcove to sit down. Arabella elected to take advantage of his absence to look over the wares, and promptly stepped in.

  Her attention was immediately drawn to a large sculpture, like a rain of chandelier drops, hanging near the back of the store, glowing, even in the grey light from the window. It was constructed of large pebbles of sea-softened pale green and moonstone glass, laced together with strands of wire; and in the heart of it hung a deep, red pendant— the very same ruddy shard that the infant Seaglass had clutched in his little hand on the day he was found.

  This was Seaglass’s masterpiece. Once his enthusiasm for making things from bits of glass had taken hold, it was not long before, in amongst the specimens that his father had collected, he found the dark red piece that was his first possession. He had often heard the story of how he was discovered, and this lump of glass was usually mentioned as part of the tale; but he had never actually seen it before, and now, on examination, he found it to be no less unique than beautiful. He gazed at it for a long while, intrigued by its random connection to the mystery of his birth, turning it slowly against the light. In the heart of it was a fissure that glinted occasionally, as though a crimson flame lurked within the pebble, and Seaglass realised that he must make something special with this, something that would let that cold fire flicker. And true to his intention, after a full month of crafting, he fashioned the sculpture, at the sight of which his parents concluded, with a kind of uncertain awe, that their son was nothing less than an artist.

  Unbeknownst to Arabella, this graceful work was not for sale— it was suspended there to show off its maker’s craftsmanship and inspire other purchases; nevertheless its beauty attracted her attention completely, and she gazed at it in admiration, gently touching the rough, smoothed surfaces of some of the droplets. She could not, however, reach the warm ruby in the centre, and in a way, did not want to— she liked its remoteness as much as its vibrancy.

  While absorbed in this scrutiny, the sun broke a little from the overcast haze, and its beams suffused the entire sculpture with gentle brilliancy; and as it did so, Arabella stood back, as though stricken for an instant, and expressed her pain in an involuntary sigh. This roused her from her difficult reverie, and she hurried from the premises.

  She had not realised it, but Seaglass was a witness to this short episode— he had been crouched down out of her sight, cleaning one of the other items on display. He was about to stand and say good morning, when he noticed her silent appraisal of the glass piece; and, flattered by her interest in it, did not interrupt. But when her face and demeanour suffered such an unhappy change, culminating in the sigh, he was confused, and became wary, instantly doubting whether something in his work had disappointed her somehow. He let her go without speaking— but was too intrigued by her reaction, and her person altogether, to remain mute. With a quick word to his guardian, he pulled on his coat and followed her into the lane.

  He saw her passing down the hill towards the beach, and did not catch up until she slowed to cross the shingle. His crooked-eared hound, ever his shadow, had dashed off with him, and now bounded to her side. She paused and bent down to pet him, and as she did, the dog’s master ran up beside her. Arabella straightened in surprise, and some bewilderment, to find the young man standing so eagerly in attendance. Seaglass suddenly repented his rashness, and awkwardly held out his hand to introduce himself. She shook it absently.

  ‘I saw you were looking at my glass mobile,’ he explained.

  ‘Oh, did you make it?’ she returned, feigning disinterest.

  He nodded, and she complimented his craftsmanship; and at that, his powers of conversation expired— but still he stood, poised to speak to her.

  ‘Do you—’ she opened, consciously awkward, ‘do you make the glass— I mean grind it smooth, yourself— or do you find it?’

  This was a comfortable subject, and he responded eagerly. ‘No, it’s all found. My dad got me into fin
ding it, here on the beach. Look, there’s lots of little bits.’ He stooped to retrieve a nugget from just before her feet. ‘Your eyes get used to looking out for it,’ he explained, and held it forth to her.

  Arabella picked it up, and then quickly pressed it back into his palm. ‘You’d better keep that,’ she said, smiling. ‘It’s your livelihood.’

  ‘Oh, there’s plenty,’ he assured her. ‘Mostly it’s green, like this— lots of green bottles, you see? People come and drink here on the beach in summer. So green’s the easiest to get. But not all the greens are the same green, though, some are dark, and some are really bright.’ All the while he was talking, he was inwardly yelling at himself to be quiet.

  ‘And what about red glass?’ she asked. ‘Your sculpture has that red pendant in the centre— it’s very beautiful. I didn’t notice anything else that colour in your shop.’

  ‘No, well, it is rare, I reckon. There’s nothing else like that, not that I’ve ever found. I always thought it might have been part of an old, old bottle that rolled out of the wreck.’

  ‘The wreck?’

  He moved to her side and pointed out into the bay. ‘See that big rock, like the hump of a whale out of the water? It looks high enough now, but when the tide’s in, it’s almost covered. They say there was a big storm— hundreds of years ago, mind— and this great galleon got into trouble trying to steer into the cove. There were no buoys then, of course, and no charts, so she came haring in too close and split open on it, and lost all hands. Well, if that’s true, she’s still there on the bottom, with all the sea wouldn’t eat lying in the sand. Seems to me some rich bit of glass got smashed and took its time to wash up here.’

  Arabella was taken with the romance of this anecdote, and cast her eyes down into the shingle interestedly. Almost at once, she noticed a green pebble, doubtless part of the same fragment that Seaglass had taken, and lifted it to the light.

  ‘Isn’t it strange,’ she mused, half to herself, ‘how something so unwanted— commonplace rubbish like a broken bottle in the shingle— can become so beautiful?’ She smoothed the surface with her thumb. ‘Where did this come from, I wonder? Did it shatter in some disaster, or did a careless chance break it?’

  Since Arabella was inclined to speak, Seaglass took courage, and, letting her questions blow away unanswered, raised the query he had pursued her to ask.

  ‘If you don’t mind— would you tell me what you thought of that mobile I made— the one you were looking at before? It’s just that— I saw you, and you seemed taken with it, but then you changed your mind. It’s not that I’m trying to sell it, I didn’t come after you for that— but I’d like to know what was wrong, what put you off?’

  ‘Oh! Nothing!’ she replied quickly, embarrassed that her reaction had been observed. ‘It’s quite inspired— I really admired it. Almost too well.’

  ‘But— but what?’

  He prompted her with such an earnest expression, that she felt it would be insensitive to give some merely polite reply, and offensive to his sincerity to flatter; so she found herself telling him the truth.

  ‘It was the idea of it that struck me,’ she confessed, ‘when I realised that the red glass is the heart— and it wasn’t a very happy idea, which is why I left.’

  The dog was running in a circle around them, and she glanced aside as it scampered past; but Seaglass leaned forward to catch her eye, frowning with attention.

  She looked at him, while still turned slightly away. ‘It was just the thought of the sea taking something