Wash Ashores Read online

  Anne Fall is the author of a confessional collection of poetry, Rosa Scriptum. A poet, a novelist, and a rosarian, Anne lives privately in the Shenandoah Valley.

  www.annefall.com

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  Anne Fall

  Wash Ashores

  Vanguard Press

  VANGUARD PRESS

  © Copyright 2018

  Anne Fall

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  this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978 1 784653 18 7 (paperback)

  Vanguard Press is an imprint of

  Pegasus Elliot MacKenzie Publishers Ltd.

  www.pegasuspublishers.com

  First Published in 2018

  Vanguard Press

  Sheraton House Castle Park

  Cambridge England

  To those who find themselves washed ashore

  "The red flowers in her own garden would have suited her much better, but she could not help herself: so she said, 'Farewell,' and rose as lightly as a bubble to the surface of the water. The sun had just set as she raised her head above the waves; but the clouds were tinted with crimson and gold, and through the glimmering twilight beamed the evening star in all its beauty. The sea was calm, and the air mild and fresh."

  — Hans Christian Andersen, The Little Mermaid

  CHAPTER 1

  The edges of the road became increasingly sandy and layered with the sharp angles of fallen pine needles. Bent and contorted, the trees around the road hardy enough to have survived the ocean winds, stood crippled and worn. Seagulls, whether perched or flying, faced the sea, as if waiting for a ship yet to come.

  Seated in the backseat of a taxi cab, a young girl watched the scenery pass in what seemed like black and white. The windows of the cab were dappled with rain and dust, and the floor of the backseat flecked with light grains of sand. The driver's window was rolled down, and the cabbie smoked without touching the cigarette with his hands. Ash descended to the seat next to him like snow falling from a dirty sky.

  Despite the cigarette, the air whipping the interior of the car was scented with sea, sand, and something musty Sylvia could not name, like old sail cloths unrolled. She had just turned fourteen years old, and it was the summer of 1953, when a fourteen year old girl could still be a child.

  The cab turned into a short driveway that led to a staggeringly large house. The tree line opened up to create broad exposed space around the house. Defying the sea it faced, the house’s gray shingles proclaimed weather-beaten strength. The porches, elaborately enclosed by white balusters and trim, welcomed with their width. Visible from the side drive, the glass of the back porch mirrored the sun. Stained glass accents in reds, blues, and greens reminded her of a church. Plants pressed hotly against the glass walls like prisoners trying to escape.

  Stepping out of the cab, Sylvia stood on the sweetly scented earth of Cape Cod for the first time. The wind made her eyes water and allowed her tears without the admittance. Even though she was young, she recognized the prosperity that pervaded the grounds. She briefly turned to face the cab driver as he unloaded her bags from the trunk. Her mother had packed for her, carefully folding article after article in a conquered patience. Explaining the future to Sylvia in simple terms, she threw open a door to a room that Sylvia had never fathomed. In that cold room, there rested only a desk and cold papers with endless black lines. At the top, ‘Divorce’ was written in a clean concise font.

  The words meant nothing to her, but somehow, Sylvia had come to stay with her aunt and uncle for the duration of the summer. The house was a summer home, but it looked nothing like the vacation homes with which Sylvia was familiar. It lacked impermanence. The gardens were tended with bold blue hydrangeas and bordered by manicured boxwood hedges. The plants visible within the glassed-in porch suggested a continuous tenant. Later, Sylvia would learn that the housekeeper lived here year round.

  She and the driver approached the massive front entrance. The far-reaching porch was conveniently decorated with endless lounge chairs and tables in painted wood. Looking almost like a hotel or restaurant, Sylvia began to see the large parties held here before she entered the foyer.

  Waiting inside to greet her, her aunt and uncle were dressed stylishly in crisp cottons and matching loafers.

  "Sylvia, it's been so long." Aunt Vivian politely kissed her on both cheeks and almost embraced her but pulled away with something close to dislike. The voice she spoke in was reserved as if she withheld her judgment watchfully at a distance. Her Uncle Adam held out his hand to her confidently.

  "We're glad to have you." His response immediately tried to negate a dispute from her vision that must have played out between the husband and wife. They were childless and avid entertainers.

  "Thank you." She and the cab driver remained standing, shifting uncomfortably. He looked at the foyer in contemptuous awe without trying to disguise it. Lustrous hardwoods stretched everywhere. An oppressively large table dominated the center of the open foyer and held a blue and white porcelain vase painted with perplexing designs. Overflowing with hydrangeas and colorless roses, the arrangement in the vase was sculpted to a height taller than herself. Birds of Paradise stood in the corners of the room, their plastic looking foliage immaculately dusted.

  "Where do you want these?" The cab driver's severely northern brogue entered the scene with an unexpected insult to the practiced elegance.

  "Upstairs will be fine. Here, I'll show you." Adam led the way. He was a tall and hearty man whose movements were deliberate. Wearing his attractiveness like a suit, he tried to appear unaware of it, but he was not.

  The silence between Sylvia and her aunt stretched until it floundered into unease. At this moment of distress, the housekeeper entered the foyer. She was a bristling woman with eyes that demanded a response immediately in her square face. The presence of her startled Sylvia and comforted her, as if her mother had walked in the room.

  "Well, look at this little beauty we have here! Why, Vivian, she looks just like your sister. That blonde hair!" The housekeeper approached her easily and touched the length of her hair with a hot dry hand.

  "She does." Vivian stepped closer with this pronouncement, clearly defining Sylvia as Marie's child and hence as Marie.

  Compared to her niece and sister, Vivian was the opposite in appearance. Her true beauty was the remarkable nature of her green eyes. They conveyed whatever she wished. Rather than expressing just emotion, Vivian's eyes had the astonishing ability to allow the listener to see the scene she tried to communicate, like a strip of film held to the light.

  Interrupted by the presence of the two men descending the stairs, silence fell over them again. The difference in social class between the two men was palpable. Sylvia, watching their two hands sliding on the railing of the wide staircase, saw Uncle Adam's as polished and flawless. The cab driver, who was a man of lifelong work, bore the legitimacy of calluses. She was not sure which appealed to her more and did not clearly think a
bout it. Her uncle led him onto the porch, and she watched through the window as they exchanged handshakes and the pale green toile of money.

  "Come, let's get you upstairs and settled. I'm Hanna." The housekeeper's eyes crinkled and disappeared as she smiled the smile of a woman who loved children and had not been with them for a long time.

  "I'm Sylvia." Sylvia's words embarrassed her; of course Hanna would have known her name by now.

  "Come along upstairs now. Vivian, if you'll look at tonight's wines again, let me know what you'd like brought up." Vivian nodded abstractly, watching Adam through the window with eyes shadowed underneath by half-moons.

  "I will. Thank you, Hanna."

  Leading the way, Hanna showed Sylvia the layout of the second floor. There were seven bedrooms, six of which were fully ready to receive.

  "The third floor isn't used as often, but there are four more bedrooms upstairs to receive any overflow of guests." She paused in her tour to face Sylvia. "Your aunt and uncle enjoy entertaining, quite a bit. The summer months are my busiest. The rest of my year is really quite empty."

  The hallway was lit by a hexagonal window that faced the sea, as all the bedroom windows did. Sunlight diffused through the window and wet the corridor with the impression of the sea. Watching Sylvia at the window, Hanna spoke clearly.

  "You'll have to be careful, but I'm sure they'll be plenty of time for you to enjoy the beach. It's quite private." Unspoken condolences slipped off her tongue, revealing knowledge of Sylvia's circumstances.

  "I'd like that." Sylvia's stomach tightened. She longed for the place she wasn't.

  "Here, this is your room. I think you'll be comfortable here. I'm downstairs, in a smaller bedroom off the main living area, if you need me."

  The bedroom was done in soft white wallpaper with purposeless roses climbing in a repeating vertical pattern. Bedding piled up high beckoned with a skilfully embroidered duvet and irresistible feather pillows that she wanted to muss immediately. A large bureau stood facing the room, empty and hollow, waiting for her things. Three watercolor paintings hung on the walls, all of women in the sunlight.

  "Thank you so much. You've been very kind." Sylvia remained controlled and muted. A brief conversation ensued regarding her unpacking, but Sylvia gingerly relieved Hanna of her concerns with a few measured replies.

  "Tonight, Vivian and Adam are having the party that will begin the season. I'd beg off if I were you; it will be a long night. You should rest. Your dinner will be at six." Hanna paused in the doorway and turned back. "Don't worry. You'll make it through this patch." Fading in a rustle of industriousness, Hanna left in her wake silence and the promise of boredom

  Sylvia unpacked slowly, touching the material landmarks of her home. The smell of the clothes made the twinge stronger. Finally, when she found a childhood doll her mother had hidden under stacks of neatly folded blouses, brackish tears needled her eyes.

  After unpacking her clothes into the bureau, she hid the doll in a drawer underneath the same blouses as her mother had done before. The silence of the room awaited her. Unlocking the brass sash to open a swollen window with some effort, the noise and distant laughter coming up from the beach entered the room like a radio turned on. The static of the crashing waves dispelled the silence and made the room come to life. From where she could not imagine in the immaculate room, dust rose in breaths.

  The view of the beach captivated her. Unlike her home, there were no significant shadows on the beach, only the irrelevant shade of people and umbrellas. Everything else was sun, sand, wind, and water. The four elements created a powerful and primary force, wearing and whipping these people that lived on the edge of the earth.

  A couple stood on the beach, a blue and yellow umbrella perched near them, driven into the sand at an angle. The two did not stand in its shade; rather the umbrella appeared to be a kind of useless formality to them. The woman created a silhouette that refused to be denied, despite attempts at modesty. Her bathing suit, while discreetly cut, only compelled further inspection. Golden and imperfect swells of flesh pinched out and forced their way into the knowledge that is sight. Sylvia studied the woman's figure carefully while focusing on her breathing. It was the complicated tangle of her hair that reminded Sylvia of the porcelain vase in the foyer. There was a metaphor in the angle of her limbs in this place where the world was horizontal that fascinated Sylvia. She did not belong here, whoever she might be.

  The man standing next to her moved closer to her, nearer than normal decorum would have allowed. The beach stripped that propriety like paint thinner on a canvas. He was tall, taller than her. His skin was dark for this early in the season, and his hand held the vulnerable line of her neck. Even from the distance Sylvia regarded them, she could see the woman respond with the closure of the remaining distance between them. Allowing the curtain to fall back, Sylvia looked away.

  Unsure of what to do with herself, Sylvia closed the door to her new room and washed her face at the sink in the attached bathroom. The water was flat and neutral. She had somehow expected to taste salt on her lips. The fixtures shone in brash chrome. Regarding her reflection in the mirror, Sylvia saw a pale face with anaesthetized blue eyes and perpetually swollen lips. Her nose looked too small under the strange wideness of her eyes. Her dress was childish and at odds with her shape. She did not understand her appearance yet and hid it when she could in a shame that was unwarranted but apparently asked for by the women who looked at her.

  Searching through the folded clothes she had just unpacked, Sylvia sought one of her finer dresses. She selected a garment of dark navy with lace trim along the collar. Standing in the appallingly awkward period between childhood and womanhood, Sylvia was mashed into them both in a confused jumble. While unaware of it, she simply looked at the expressions on the faces of the adults who received her to see herself. It was a fickle mirror, and they could not make up their minds what Sylvia was any more than she could.

  The clock downstairs conspicuously struck six o’clock and Sylvia found herself on the wide staircase, hesitating, with her foot extended to touch the next step ‘en pointe’. Vivian, stepping silently out of her bedroom, regarded Sylvia standing alone. While guarded by many sentries, Vivian’s emotions pulsed and rose into protectiveness at the sight.

  "Sylvia, dear. You must be hungry. How silly of me."

  Sylvia turned to watch Vivian descend to her. Her curls were impossibly radiant, as if lacquered, and the thin shoulders of her gown caught the precarious falling curve of her shoulders and showcased her fine breakable bones. She was a pretty blackbird, iridescent in places.

  "Yes, Hanna said dinner was at six. I wasn't sure where to go." Sylvia, disliking the tension of her own words, stood slightly straighter.

  "It's down here, I'll show you. How careless of me not to give you a complete tour of the house." Vivian descended the stairs with the same exaggerated grace. Sylvia, clumsy beside her, did her best to emulate the tilt of Vivian's chin, the gravity of her steps. She only knew how to run up and down stairs.

  "Tonight, we're having a little party. There should be a few girls of your age there, maybe a little older. Would you like to come?" Passing through a hallway of framed portraits and ocean scenes, a long woven runner led the way in deep blue flowers and golden vines. Sylvia briefly noticed a sparkle of sand along the baseboard. So, the sand is everywhere, even here, she thought.

  "I don't think so, not tonight. I'm a little tired from the trip." Vivian approved of this in her proper way that expected a girl to be exhausted by the most minor of exertions.

  "Certainly, you are. Perhaps we'll hold a party for you next, to introduce you. You're at that age." As Vivian considered the prospect, her eyes lit up. "Yes, and of course you'd need a new dress, a white dress. And your hair, we could get your hair done for the occasion: the whole house in white roses. Yes. I'll talk to Adam about it. How would you like that?"

  "I would like that very much, Aunt Vivian." Sylvia, distrustful of wha
t had just happened, lied the politest of lies.

  "Of course you would!" Vivian leaned toward her and touched her cheek. "Of course you would. Why, it'd be perfect to take your mind off things." The things of which Vivian spoke felt like misconduct to which Sylvia, although not involved directly, could be considered an accessory.

  Vivian showed her the rooms of the first floor. They were all arranged in such a way that it appeared no one had ever entered them before. Really, the rooms were ordinary in their decor but every detail caught her eye: delicate porcelain, dangerously cut crystal, and sun-warmed blossoms.

  In the dining room, several maids laid out white china, crystal goblets, and recently polished silver. The entire room was chaotic with vase after vase of flowers and serving pieces scattered everywhere. Vivian paused in front of the door.

  "You won't be eating in the dining room tonight. The kitchen will have to do." She examined the work of the summer maids with a critical eye, observing different things she would have to change.

  "Of course, Aunt Vivian." Sylvia watched the flurry of activity. It looked like they were preparing for a wedding.

  "Here's the kitchen. Hanna, what have you made for our little goose?" The endearment struck Sylvia as off-key, like a flat note in a song.

  "Rice, chicken, and creamed onions. She may have some of the fruit for tonight's dessert, if she'd like. I may have a little extra ice cream, too." The kitchen was in the same flood of activity as the dining room. Staff moved around in a bustle, a glass broke and two girls rushed to clean it up. Vivian's eyes took note of it all with a frown of disappointment. She had the idea that nothing would happen unless she forced it to, and it kept her emotions on the surface, her heart in her throat.