Away by Jane Urquhart Page A

he knew, would have been even more so. Whatever it was she was doing did not interest him at all, but he sensed that it might be a key to communication. Were this communication to take place he would desperately want to take notes, but had, alas, neither pencil nor paper with which to make a record of what she would say, if she would speak at all. In his agitation he dropped the jar he was holding in his hand and several sea anemones were left to perish on the sand. Without pausing to retrieve it, he walked across the beach towards the woman.
    When he was close to the rock she stood near, Osbert smiled brightly. “Madam,” he said, “may I perhaps be of some assistance?”
    “Assistance?” she asked.
    Osbert was caught off guard by the fact that she hadanswered his question with another question. He cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said, “I thought I might help.” He looked at the seaweed in her hand. “You are, I believe, removing specimens of this particular kind of seaweed.”
    “Sir?”
    “You have so large a quantity here, I thought …” Osbert looked down at the basket, then back towards the woman, “I thought … why
do
you have such a large quantity?” he blurted despite himself.
    Replicas of Mary had gathered seaweed along the coast for hundreds of years, singly, and at certain seasons, in groups. She knew suddenly that this man had been blind to them, her people. “It’s for the field, sir, the patch … to make the plants grow properly.” She lowered her eyes and, remembering her shawl, brought it back up to cover her hair.
    Osbert was greatly surprised by this piece of information but felt it prudent, under the circumstances, not to show his reaction. Instead, he assumed a sympathetic expression. “They haven’t been growing properly, have they?”
    “No, sir,” she answered quietly.
    This was not the direction that he had hoped the conversation would take, and he had virtually no idea how to move into the area where he would be able to glean some useful information for his folklore collection. He clasped his hands behind his back and began to rock from his heels to his toes. “Ah well,” he said, “things can only get better.” And then, when she said nothing in reply to this platitude, he abruptly asked, “Do you know who I am?”
    “Yes, sir,” she answered quickly, “you are one of the gentry from up at the Big House.”
    “Yes, yes … that’s it. And you, I believe, are O’Malley’s wife. Am I correct?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    A terrible silence followed this, during which Osbert felt it necessary to cough several times. Sea birds called overhead and, for no reason that he could fathom, they reminded him of the Hill of the Screaming on the silent, calm island that dominated the sea beyond this strand. Osbert had rarely felt so uncomfortable in the presence of another. He stared at the sea with great concentration as the woman stood patiently in front of him.
    “Well then –” he began.
    But, to his astonishment, she interrupted him. “Please, sir,” she said, “what was it that you were doing?”
    “Doing?” he repeated. Curiosity was not a state of mind that he associated with these people. Imagination, superstition … but certainly not curiosity. For a moment he wondered if her question might not be impertinent, but before he could clearly define her behaviour, he found himself answering in much the same way that he might have had she been someone of his own class.
    “Doing? Why, I was collecting specimens of sea anemones to observe and study … and to draw … when I take them home. Little creatures, you know, that live in tidepools.” There, he thought, there’s an end to it. Perhaps he could just come out and ask her directly, Do you have a daemon lover? But, to his increasing amazement, she persisted.
    “Excuse me sir,” she ventured, “but why do you do that?”
    “Why do I do that? Why do I do that?” He rocked again nervously on his heels.