Dejected, I turned and began slumping back to the car when my pace was halted by a most extraordinary sight. There on the rocks, in the direction from which I'd heard the song, sat a young woman. She appeared to be enjoying the beachside's charms au naturel, and her impressively long hair was unbraided and artfully arranged, just barely descandalising her lean form. Her posture was flawless, and I admired the way the day's fading light seemed to make her alabaster skin glow.
Perhaps I admired it a moment too long, for as our eyes met she lowered her head slightly, keeping her gaze stuck to mine, her shoulders broadening beneath her plaits as she took in a lungful of the cool sea air. The atmosphere between us thickened measurably.
I opened the conversation. It was only polite.
“Oh, hello, what? Was that you singing all this time?”
She spoke, her voice possessing a crispness unlike anything I'd ever heard, save the peerless breaking of the surface of this beach's same waters by a majestic blue shark I'd hooked there, circa 1972.
“Are you a man?”
My initial reaction, as so often it is, was one of incredulity. Am I a man? What sort of question is that? Why, take a look, I felt like saying. Here I am, head up top, feet beneath, all the appropriate pieces and accessories between. Am I a man, indeed! But then, perhaps an effect of the intake of too much sea air, I felt something soften inside of me near the region of the solar plexus, and I realised there were two possible reasons for this innocent young lady's question. Either she may have struck her delicate head upon one of the rocks and was just now regaining her bearings, or she might be demurely asking a different sort of question altogether.
Of course. Of course!
“Y-yes,” I stammered, still a tad dazed by the aforementioned interior softening. I had completely forgotten my manners. “Here, take my coat. You must be freezing.” She accepted the proffered jacket, a smart tweed three-quarter length number with an understated check pattern, and whilst the fit was a bit large on her, there was something to the resulting look which engendered yet more sensations in my midsection. Most strange it was. Something akin to nausea, I suppose one could say, but in a pleasing sort of way.
“If you are a man, then we are now married,” this rather forward creature said, taking my hand and standing and catching me quite by surprise.
“Oh, don't be silly,” I protested. “But do come along and let's get you somewhere warmer and drier.” As I led her to the car, she began to sing again, a jollier tune this time and one which seemed to go straight to work on my gizzards, picking up where the softening was happening and giving me no end of novel and molten sensation. I drove the few miles to the cottage where I lived in those days in a sort of trance, scarcely aware of anything but the mellifluous song.
I shan't go into any detail whatsoever here, but by morning there could be no doubt as to the question of whether the young woman—she said her name was Cordelia—and I were man and wife. And a pleasant pair we were. All I had in the kitchen was a tin of kippers and some bread I toasted, but she devoured the breakfast with surprising zeal. Cordelia told me she came from the village of Tidewall, a hamlet to the north prone to flooding, from what I could gather. Her parents were fallen aristocrats. I'd never heard of the place or the family, despite being thoroughly familiar with that bit of coastline, but thought it rude to do anything but nod and smile. Poor thing, I thought, she really must have struck her head. No contusion was visible, however, and whatever the impact may have done to her profile, I had to admit that the effect was stunning.
We spent the next several weeks in a state of unalloyed bliss. Cordelia sewed herself dresses from silk and decorated them with shells, glass beads, and any other seaside trinkets she found about the cottage. She had a hard time in the kitchen, especially with the stove, but happily cleaned the house and ate fish and greens by the bushel-basket, singing between bites. Cordelia was a sweet one, to be sure, though a bit peculiar. Each time I held her hand, I found a few grains of sand between her fingers, and one merry afternoon as I gave her a foot rub, I bit my tongue to keep from remarking on the slight webbing I found between her toes. But she was beautiful, and for the first time in my life, I could say I was a man who knew the touch of romantic love. I longed to express my feelings and did so with a stream of gifts—new dresses she wore happily and jewellery which pleased her, especially pearls. Shoes were another matter. Cordelia rarely wore them, and only sandals when she did. What she did ask for over and over were things for her hair. She adored dressing it with baubles and even took to sporting the occasional tiara, which was amusing to me at first, if a bit eccentric. And the outfits she would wear on our evenings out! Her dresses she sometimes would re-sew into the most ingenious layered arrangements which, whilst still pretty, were fit more for a stage production than for walking along the town's main street. The village children sometimes followed us home with jeers of “Mister and Missus Princess” and tips of the hat to “Her Royal Shoeless.” Cordelia just smiled and tightened her grip on my arm each time I hinted at raising my walking stick against the blighters. Her hair was as long and luxuriant as when we met, and she attended to it with a procession of combs I brought home for her. She seized each one hungrily from me, running it through her flowing hair and singing as she did so. But the song was invariably a sombre one, and after no more than two or three sessions with each comb, she set it aside in a seldom-used dresser drawer. “It's not the right one,” I overheard her say as she assigned what I thought a particularly pretty silver comb to the drawer one evening in late summer.
I won't fool you by saying this business with the combs was the sole chink in the armour of our love. I ceased trying with the romantic poetry early on after eliciting naught more than a wan smile from Cordelia. Her constant singing was festive when she would burst out with sailors' tunes, and the stories she told me of how she first heard them were exciting, but sometimes raised the hackles of what can only be called my unfairly jealous heart.
Our arguments were often rooted in what I saw as reluctance on her part to share morsels of her exceptionally odd background with me. She told me she came from a large family and that her childhood was one of singing games and lessons in swimming and fishing. She said something about being part of a school, which sounded like one of those experimental programmes dreamed up by “progressive” parents not interested in a proper education for the youth. Fishing, swimming, singing…“Age of Aquarius,” indeed!
All the same, we settled into a mostly happy companionship, travelling in the autumn to Sennen Cove, near Land's End, where we had dinner with Cordelia's sister Marina and her husband Steve, a semi-retired tugboat captain. They had been blessed with a lawless mob of children, all of them cheerful enough, even if they did get a bit short of breath after capering about for very long. The green tinge to each of their complexions was something I decided was not worth mentioning.
After what may have been justly called the one too many glasses of whisky Steve and I shared that evening, punctuated by his increasingly bawdy revelations regarding his and Marina's love life—with an odd wink at me accompanying each detail—Cordelia and I graciously begged off for the night.
The evening was innocuous enough, but as a grain of sand doesn't always catch just so in an oyster to produce a pearl but rather sometimes goes straight for the eye of the otherwise perfectly contented swimmer, so that conversation lodged itself between Cordelia and your narrator, causing a minor but regular irritation.
When the New Year rolled around and we'd been cooped up in the house for far too long that winter, I was struck, as happens to me that time of year, with the urge to wander to new places, to see landscapes and meet people I might otherwise never encounter. And this time, I thought, I can bring my lady love, my shoreline bride, my Cordelia.
“I say, darling,” I said, “Why don't we knock off to this Tidewall village of yours, get some fresh air, and drop in on your mum and dad? You must miss them terribly, as I'm sure they do you
. It's been almost a year, and you haven't been back.” At this, the fragile Cordelia erupted into tears. She sobbed uncontrollably, and no amount of ministrations of tea and repetitions of “there, there” was enough to console her. She had been sitting doing some needlepoint work—a pirate ship theme, I believe—and the flood of her great salty tears was fierce enough not only to drip from the canvas she held in her hands but also to downgrade my first edition of W.D.M. Bell's The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter which I'd left on the small table next to her chair. It had been a “very fine,” but now…
When Cordelia did gain hold of herself sufficiently that I thought she might be able to hear my voice, I ventured a careful enquiry.
“What is it, my pet? I didn't mean to upset you.”
“I feel as though you don't know who I really am!” she bawled, her watery delivery carrying with it an exasperated spite which stung me as though I'd got hold of the business end of a jellyfish who, after long chase, yet retained a final jolt of electricity in its arsenal.
“And how should I?” I retorted, perhaps a bit harshly. “You never truly open up to me about anything. We never go to your village. Here we are, married for nearly a year, and I've never even met your parents. It's as though you hide from me all I could ever hope to find out about you.”
“You, sir, are denser than an oyster shell!” Cordelia spat.
I'm not known at the club as the man to go to for instructions in holding one's temper, but this trait is thankfully balanced by the good sense to know when the train of conversation has departed the rails altogether and is heading for the cliff. Some fresh air was indeed in order, but perhaps best taken alone. I set down my tea cup, rose from my armchair, and walked to the closet near the front hall, where I had stashed my fishing kit the springtime previous.
“I'll return when both our tempers have cooled somewhat,” I announced, rummaging about for this and that piece of necessary equipment. The last object I pulled from the closet was my creel, and as I did, something rattled against its wicker wall. Unfastening the top, I reached in and snatched hold of the pale, barnacle-encrusted comb I'd caught on that fateful day nearly a year before.
“There,” I said, tossing the comb onto the seat of the hall tree. “Perhaps that comb will do for you what all those others could not.” I was scarcely about to wait for a reply from Cordelia, but on my way out the front door, I did catch sight of her face and noticed that she was gazing covetously at the comb and that her countenance had brightened considerably.
Maybe I had been too rash, for when I returned from shore—again without catching a single fish—Cordelia was nowhere to be found. The comb was gone, and apart from her and the clothes she'd been wearing, it was all that was missing from the house. She didn't return that night or the next, and I grew concerned for her. A call to her sister's proved fruitless. Marina and Steve seemed concerned, she less so than he, who just repeated his condolences for my ill luck. “Just be happy you've had the experience, mate,” he intoned as I hung up. And for the only time in my life, I felt a bit sorry for myself as well. Perhaps I had been too rash. But damn it all, who was that woman, anyway?
I never did see Cordelia again. The closest thing I got to a goodbye came on the anniversary of our meeting, when there was a knock at the cottage door. Opening it, I found myself face-to-face with a most extraordinary man. His lips were full, protruding, and a touch blue, and his eyes were wide-set in his hairless head. His strangely tailored suit positively dripped with, what was it, sweat?
“I represent the solicitors Gillman, Seasbury, and Codd. These documents are for your inspection,” gurgled the damp fellow, pressing a sheaf of soggy paperwork into my hands.
It would only be putting off the inevitable not to read and sign the divorce petition, so I did so straight away, noting that this bizarre fellow's law firm was located in Tidewall, Cordelia's old home. At least she'd made it back to her people. The thought gave me some small measure of comfort as I handed the papers to the moist solicitor, who burbled what must have been an acknowledgement before turning and flapping off in a westerly direction.
I've remained a confirmed bachelor ever since the incident. The ways of love are perhaps an ill fit for my personality. I did bump into Steve a few years later, during an unrelated visit to Sennen Cove, and bought him a pint at the Old Success. He told me that he and Marina hadn't seen Cordelia, but that they had caught word that she'd taken up with a young marine biologist in Newquay, some miles north of where she and I first met. Ah well. We drank to their happiness.
Aside from the occasional reverie of bewilderment concerning romance and its trappings, episodes of which have happily tapered off as the years roll by, all that's changed in my life since my early bachelor years is my prowess with my angling. I just can't seem to catch a fish, ever. It's the strangest thing, and I assure you that despite consulting all the manuals and periodicals on the subject, I haven't the foggiest notion as to why it is so.
The Fight Afield
FIRST AID FOR THE FAIRY-SHOT
The Dangers of Going Out of Doors • Hostage No More • Cautions, Countermeasures, Cures • Elf-Song • Fairy Food and Drink • Dancing • Elf-Shot • A Lonely Path
ANY PERSON VENTURING outside the wainscoted confines of their own home, let alone beyond the bounds of their village, is entering a veritable wilderness in which the fey, not men, can unfortunately be said to have the advantage. Here, any semblance of a life without the potential for sudden abduction or unprovoked violence is but a gross illusion—at best a lull in the ongoing struggle between humanity and our immortal adversary, at worst a pernicious duping of the senses brought about by wicked fairy magic.
Perverse to a fault, fey attacks are deviously cloaked under the guise of countryside situations one might deem charming, although the word takes on new definition when one pauses to consider the grisly results of being “charmed” away to a lifetime of imprisonment in Fairyland. The key to your well-being lies in your peering past this disguise, in your seeing such tricks and traps for what they really are.
Unsurprisingly, given the popular misconceptions of Faerie, it is often said that such attacks are carried out to keep mankind from penetrating too deeply into fairy country, sometimes poetically referred to as “the last of the wild spaces.” Whilst I am a sworn protector of the natural splendour of the countryside, I draw the line at being held psychological hostage by territorial elves and their addlepated human supporters. It is with this conviction that I implore you not to be swayed by fear, but to go bravely into field and forest prepared to face the realities of fairy assault.
And here I impart good news to the intrepid souls wishing to emerge from the shadow of possible abduction or attack. There are many dangers, indeed, but all of them are avoidable should one spend a bit of time preparing for their eventuality. Furthermore, these precautions utilise objects familiar to us all and tactics rewarded by a bit of practice at home.
My own brand of “fairy field medicine,” if you will, is organised around a trio of easy-to-recall principles. These are Cautions, Countermeasures, and Cures. As the names imply, the Cautions are preparations of knowledge and equipment; the Countermeasures, actions to be undertaken to address fairy attacks in progress; and the Cures, remedial procedures to enact should prevention prove impossible.
What follows is a listing of examples of the principal forms of fairy attack and which of the “three Cs” is most effective in each case.
Elf-Song
All of us have, at some point during a walk outside, paused to listen to melodious birdsong. Did you know that this simple pleasure is one which fairies regularly exploit in order to turn unsuspecting young members of society into withered husks of women and men? For the song one hears is just as likely to be an unseelie lullaby as it is an innocent songbird's warble.
Every British child has heard the story of Shon ap Shenkin, a tale similar in many ways to Rip Van Winkle's in America: A good-natured country person rests ben
eath a tree where he is lulled to sleep by fairies, in Shon's case by charming elf-song. What seems like a nodding off of but a few minutes is in fact a slumber lasting decades. The victim awakes only to crumble to dust in short order or, as was the situation with Van Winkle, to become a walking curiosity in one's own village.
Neither of these grim fates will befall me, however, because I never leave the house without a standard bell-alarm clock packed among the objects in my day-hike kit. This I procure from my satchel and set for half an hour each and every time I find myself settling down against the base of a tree to enjoy a particularly soothing snippet of birdsong, on the not unlikely chance the tune is actually sleep-inducing fairy music. It is the simplest of Cautions, and I daresay it's saved my life more than once. I've tried compact “travel” alarm clocks and found them less satisfying than the classic bedside style. You might think it an unnecessary burden to pack one with you on your walks. You may feel self-conscious the first few times you wind your alarm clock and set it in your lap. Perhaps you think the ticking of the hands or the ringing of the bell upsets the pristine perfection of the wild. But if the OED were ever to include an illustration alongside its entry for “mortification,” it would be one of the unthinking fool who forgot to set an alarm clock upon first hearing elf-song, only to wake up a century later and turn to dust on his great-grandnephew's doorstep.
Once the bell sounds, frightening off any warbling Faerie tricksters, I always like to bring myself back to full consciousness with a set of isometric stretches against the tree, followed by three loud recitations of my grocery list, which I am never without.
Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop Page 5