The Smell of Seaweed
A visit to the bookstore
I’d traveled home full of purpose and conviction. The foundations were laid, the framework constructed. I figured three months would be sufficient for me to complete the first draft of a new novel.
Three months have gone by. I haven’t progressed beyond the first chapter. I switched my computer to standby and gazed out to sea, which looked little more than a grey mist as the rain and wind rattled at the window. I needed a different kind of distraction, grabbed some rainwear from the closet and headed out to the Four-eyed Frog Bookstore in Gualala. I’d no idea what I was looking for until my eyes captured a tatty, yellowing book lying flat, neglected in an alcove. It was the cover that drew my attention, although faded it showed a fishing village overwhelmed by an onrushing tide.
Fishing vessels lay submerged with only their masts above the water, debris riding on the tide while a woman in black stood alone on the cliff, looking down on the scene, her long hair fanned by the wind. It was a side view, her face was hidden but nonetheless I was intrigued enough to examine the pages. I flipped through it tentatively fearing it might disintegrate, yet despite its age it was surprisingly sturdy and intact.
The cover told a story, but not the one I read between the covers. I chose to believe the woman depicted could have been grieving. Perhaps this observation enticed me to purchase the book, perhaps not.
Having taken the book to the counter, I saw the shopkeeper frown, ‘Are you sure you found this book here?’
While I thought the question dumb, I didn’t wish to imply so.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘How strange,’ he continued, examining it as though it were a novelty, ‘No price, no stamp — where did you find it?’
I pointed to the corner alcove, a little irritated.
‘It’s rather old, but frankly, well, it wouldn’t have interested me. Take it free of charge my friend.’ He slipped it into a bag and prepared for his next customer.
I took it home, brewed some tea and began to read; the story soon drew me in.
‘What have you found there?’ Jenny asked, as I lay it on the kitchen table.
‘I believed it was a story about the sea, encroaching on land and destroying a village, burying it beneath salt. But that isn’t the story at all.’
‘It’s not?’
‘It is not, Jenny.’
My own stories have never featured powerful women so I was hooked — but not so hooked that I wasn’t aware of the aroma which had infiltrated my study— a strong smell of seaweed. I checked the window, the catch was fully secured, the rain still hammering relentlessly on the pane. So where had it derived? It could only come from the sea of course, the smell probably driven by the wind I reluctantly concluded, returning to the book and picking it up, putting my nose to the page. I laughed at myself.
On page 40, not seen as I had flipped through the pages at the shop, was a note: Please return to The Four-Eyed Frog Bookstore if found. I felt bad, that I had somehow picked up someone’s book, believing it for sale. I put on my wet coat and returned to the bookstore. I looked around for the gentleman who had given me the book. I didn’t see him, perhaps in the back of the store.
I rang the bell and was met with a flash of white teeth belonging to a woman standing near the alcove. ‘So — what are you doing back here?’ She asked.
It took me a moment to believe how forward the woman was, having no inhibitions. I was reticent at first, novelists tend not to be the most eager of speakers. ‘Problem is,’ she said, ‘the outline of your novel seemed so clear at first, there shouldn’t have been a problem, but your mind’s been unusually lively. What you needed was a distraction.’
‘Funny you should say that; how did you guess?’ I asked.
‘It wasn’t a guess.’
There was something pointed in the way she’d said it wasn’t a guess, setting my nerve ends twitching. I didn’t know this woman and yet…
‘Yes, well, I came to the bookshop and found this curious book. You might think me nuts but the pages seemed alive — and when I got home and started turning the pages they smelled of seaweed, and then they became wet of their own accord. And the worst thing of all was that the end pages were missing, I could have sworn the book was intact,’ I said, raising my hands in the air, exasperated.
If she thought I was ridiculous, she didn’t show it. I shook my head, wishing I’d never said anything.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said, her voice solemn and laced with deep authority.
‘Did you leave it behind, accidentally, I said, ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I know that book better than anyone,’ she said.
‘You do?’
‘I wrote it.’
I choked, gob–smacked, that was absurd. ‘You can’t have. You seem in your twenties, it must have been written before you were born.’
‘In a manner of speaking,’ she said.
She may have said something else, my mind was in a daze. I looked at the cover of the book, the woman on the cliff, the powerful aura about her then, and was feeling again. ‘Look I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’
She looked wistfully through the store window. The rain finally stopped. I should have been alarmed by what was happening but I felt strangely warm and excited.
When she returned her gaze, her eyes were moist. ‘Let’s take a walk, let me help you remember. Why do you think you really came here? Why do you think your mind was too lively to finish your novel?
The woman on the cliff, I thought. But no, that would mean I’m losing my mind.
‘Why did I come to the bookstore?’ I said.
‘It’s because you’ve another ending,’ she replied.
Sometimes, I don’t know why, mostly when I’m writing, the strangest things happen. It is not unusual for me to take a walk along the shore. As a writer, I’m bound to ask myself if I’m having an episode!
‘Harry? Are you okay, you seem like you’re daydreaming again,’ Jenny said, bringing me a cup of tea.
I look into Jenny’s blue eyes, eyes that can smile as warmly as her mouth, and that warmth flooded through me — ‘I’ve just one more page to write, honey.’
‘Wonderful. Did you go out on the shore? You smell of seaweed,’ she said.
‘Maybe, Jenny,’ and I held the book up to my nose. ‘Maybe. By the way, I think Lori has become a woman, I said.
Jenny closed the study door, leaving with smiles all over her wonderful face.
