Between Two Seas

by Marie-Louise Jensen

  I can see another wreck ahead. Without bothering to put my boots back on, I fight my way towards it. I’m breathless and exhausted when I reach the shelter it offers. I can breathe! I hear myself panting and gasping for air in the relative quiet.

  This is a steam ship, a massive iron monster. It’s lying on its side, twisted and broken, the sand drifted into huge silver mounds around it. I’m almost hysterical with relief, as I throw myself down on the sand in the lee of the hull. I rub my face with my hands: it feels numb. But even here it is too windy. It’s also getting dark, and I’ve never been out alone at night. The thought terrifies me.

  I walk around the vast bulk of the wreck, looking for a more sheltered spot. At the end that faces the sea, where the propeller must once have been, there’s a gaping hole. The metal has been torn wide open, leaving a jagged entrance to the hull.

  I peer inside. It looks sheltered and reasonably dry. But it’s dark. And it stinks of rotting seaweed and rusted metal. I stand, trying to gather the courage to go in. Who knows what may be inside?

  Holding my breath, trying not to touch anything, I crawl in. It’s warmer in here. I can hear the wind still screaming and scraping sand against the outside of the hull. Gradually as I get used to being in the ship, I begin to relax a little. I can wait out the storm, tucked away in here. The relief is still intense. For a short time, I became afraid I might die out there on the beach.

  Darkness falls. It’s so black inside the wreck that I feel blind. I sit shivering, whether most from cold or fear, I’m not sure. My eyes are stinging with tiredness.

  Every now and then the hull groans and creaks in the wind. Every sound echoes around it. I sweat with fear. I can’t stop imagining the drowned crew. They walk, grey and rotting, out of the sea towards me. Seawater streams off their ragged clothes. There is seaweed tangled in their hair. Their eye sockets are blank and empty, their hands reach out blindly towards me.

  Shivering uncontrollably, I stuff the end of the cloak into my mouth and bite down on it hard to stop myself from screaming. I wait, breathless, for their hands to find me. Minutes draw out into hours. Sometimes I think I can feel their ghostly hands on me, their rotting breath against my cheek. My whole body is rigid and shaking. Don’t be stupid, think about something else. I can’t say it out loud in case it draws the ghosts to me. I do try, but no other thoughts can keep my fears at bay for long.

  Not until the first grey light of dawn signals the start of a new day, do I begin to relax. This has been one of the longest nights of my life.

  I must have fallen asleep after all. I’m twisted uncomfortably, my head on my bag. As I sit up, I’m stiff and aching all over. Bright sunshine is pouring in through the hole in the hull.

  I crawl out onto the beach and blink in the bright light. The wind has almost gone. The sand is still, and the sky is a clear, clear blue. I’m dazzled for a moment. And then I smile at the beach, beautiful in the morning sunlight. Holding out my arms, I spin around, laughing with joy and relief, and then fall onto the sand, smoothing it with my hands. I’m still alive. I’ve done it. Now I can do the rest as well.

  I’m starving. When did I last eat? I can’t remember. A day ago perhaps.

  I pull my parcel of food out of my bag and fall upon the bitter dark bread, the juicy yellow plums, and even the raw pickled fish. I would normally push it aside and leave it. It’s slimy and tastes of vinegar, but I’m so hungry I don’t care.

  Sand has got into the food; I can feel it crunching between my teeth, gritty and salty. Nonetheless, I eat every last crumb. Now I’m thirsty, but I don’t have a drink. Time to move on.

  TEN

  My feet are hurting. I stop and remove my boots and peel my stockings off painfully. I have blisters all over my feet and toes, and they are weeping and bleeding. I hitch up my skirt and step into the shallow waves. The salt water stings. My breathing is ragged as I grit my teeth.

  I walk up and down, swishing my feet in the beautifully clear water. There are a few brown jellyfish floating in the small waves, but I take care to stay away from them. After a while my feet stop hurting and feel better.

  I walk on barefoot. Now I’m leaving footprints and toe prints in the soft sand instead of boot prints. I turn and walk backwards a few paces to see the prints appear.

  When I come to a stream, I walk inland a little, and then lie down on the dune grasses and scoop water into my mouth with my hands. It tastes earthy, but it’s cool and refreshing. I drink and drink until my thirst is quenched.

  I climb onto a tall sand dune to get a view inland. Only rolling dunes as far as the eye can see. I sit down and slide back down the dune, the sand cascading around me. I dig my hands into the pale gold, and trickle the grains through my fingers. It reminds me of when I was little, when mother took a day off work and we walked to the beach. Those are happy memories, and I smile to myself.

  Quite by chance I look behind me. There is movement. I scrunch up my eyes, trying to make out what it is. I can feel my heart beating faster, whether with hope or fear I hardly know. It looks like a horse and cart, but I can’t be sure. I keep looking back as I walk. I feel as if I’ve been alone for months.

  I can see it properly now. Definitely an open cart, like the one I rode in yesterday. It has huge wheels, and I can see the driver sitting straight, holding a long whip. He’s driving it with two wheels in the sea and two on the beach. Why? Oh, of course. The sand is so soft. I’ve discovered for myself it’s easiest to walk right on the water’s edge.

  Hurriedly, I force my sore feet back into my boots, and then walk on, full of hope.

  They’re catching me up now. There are two men, besides the driver, and I can hear them speaking Danish. I slow down, limping more than I need to, hoping for a lift. Surely they will stop?

  The cart draws alongside me and begins to pass me. Disappointment courses through me, and without quite meaning to, I look up reproachfully at them.

  One man catches my eye. Immediately he calls to the driver:

  ‘Holdt!’

  The cart pulls up just ahead of me. Now that they’ve stopped, I’m suddenly shy, but both the passengers are smiling down at me in the friendliest way. They are smartly dressed. One is an adult with a full beard, twinkling eyes, and smile creases. The other is a young man, just a few years older than me, I would guess.

  The older man speaks to me.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I don’t speak Danish.’

  His face falls.

  ‘Engelsk?’ he asks. ‘Nej. Mais français? Ça va mieux!’

  ‘Vous parlez français?’ I am astonished. In the remote north of Denmark, I suddenly meet someone who speaks French. How strange.

  ‘Mais oui!’ He’s grinning now. ‘Nous allons à Skagen. Voulez vous venir avec nous?’

  He’s offering me a lift. I nearly jump for joy. I beam up at him and accept at once. My French is only passable. I’ve only ever spoken it with my mother. How I complained when she insisted I learned it. ‘What use will French ever be to me?’ I used to groan. ‘We can’t afford to travel to Lincoln, let alone France.’ Now I have my answer.

  The two men are letting down the tailboard at the back of the cart so that I can climb in. The older man reaches down for my bag, the younger man reaches down and grasps my hand. He pulls me up. I scramble into the cart, catching my skirt and landing on the wooden bench with a bump. At once the cart lurches forward again, tilting slightly with the slope of the beach.

  The older man holds out his hand to me. He’s expecting to shake hands:

  ‘Hr Ancher,’ he introduces himself. I wonder whether Hr means mister. It doesn’t sound like a name. He has smooth well-kept hands. The young man’s are hard and callused.

  ‘Peter Hansen,’ he says. He has an open handsome face, sun-bleached fair hair, and eyes like the sea.

  ‘I’m Marianne,’ I tell them, and then to my surprise, I spot something, lying under the front seat of the cart.

  ‘Oh! My trunk!’ I c
an see my name on it. It’s so good to see it again.

  ‘Ah! It’s yours?’ asks Hr Ancher in French. ‘The woman at the inn asked us to bring it.’

  Everything is going right now, and my spirits soar. I’m curious though, about how this man comes to speak French.

  ‘Comment parlez vous français?’ I ask.

  ‘Je suis artiste,’ he tells me. ‘J’étudiais en Paris.’

  ‘You’re an artist?’ I lean forward, fascinated, a hundred questions rising up in me. ‘And you live in Skagen?’

  He nods.

  ‘Et vous?’ I turn to Peter, but he blushes and looks to his companion.

  I can see I’ve said the wrong thing. I feel bad. Ancher explains that Peter fishes with his father for a living and doesn’t speak French.

  I give Peter a shy smile. He’s the one I would most like to speak to, but he’s shut out of the conversation. I know the feeling all too well.

  ‘We don’t get many English visitors,’ Ancher says, looking at me expectantly. ‘Especially at this time of the year.’

  He is very kind and charming, but I’m not going to tell him the reason for my journey.

  ‘What do you paint?’ I ask, determined to deflect attention from myself. He takes the change of subject without a blink.

  ‘Many things,’ he tells me. ‘The beach, the sun going down, my wife and my daughter. Most often I paint the local people. Many artists come to Skagen in the summer for the light,’ he explains. ‘I’m just on my way back from accompanying several friends to the train.’ He speaks fast and fluent French, and I struggle to follow it. ‘You are not an artist?’ he asks.

  This time I really wonder whether I’ve misunderstood.

  ‘No, of course not!’

  I can’t believe he would even ask. I can draw, of course, but can a woman be an artist? I can’t imagine it.

  The cart suddenly lurches down into one of the streams that slice through the beach. We all hold on as the cart slithers and bumps through the water. The sand is obviously very soft and the horses strain. Finally we stop altogether. Our turn to be stuck.

  The driver slaps the reins and shouts, but the horses can’t move on. He kicks off his clogs and jumps down into the stream to lead them, but that doesn’t work either. Ancher begins to remove his shoes and stockings and roll up his trousers, and Peter kicks off his clogs. I bend down to unlace my boots, but Peter stops me with an uplifted hand, shaking his head at me.

  I hestitate, confused.

  He jumps down into the stream and then lifts up his arms and beckons me. With a shock, I realize he intends to carry me.

  ‘I can walk!’ I protest, shaking my head.

  ‘Il vous porte,’ says Ancher with a grin.

  My heart is beating very fast. I don’t want to be carried. Or do I? Peter is waiting, smiling at me. My heart beats faster still. I sit down on the edge of the cart, at the back, where the flap is down. Peter puts one arm around my waist and slips the other under my knees, and scoops me up. For a moment, I panic. I fear he’ll drop me, and put my arms around his neck, holding on. He hasn’t started walking yet. He’s still smiling at me, but his face is so close now. I can see how long his lashes are and how smooth and unblemished his skin is. I meet his eyes fleetingly and feel myself blushing.

  He begins to walk, splashing energetically through the stream, carrying me as though I weigh nothing. I realize he’s not going to drop me and relax slightly. I can smell the clean linen of his shirt, and the sun on his skin. Just for a second I close my eyes. I feel a bit dizzy.

  Then it’s over.

  I’m standing on the far bank, and Peter is wading back to help push the cart. It seems to be an everyday event in this part of the world, getting stuck. They treat the problem with the same good humour that the peat-cart men did … was it only yesterday? I’ve lost track of time.

  While they free the cart, I attempt to smooth my dress and my impossibly windblown hair. It’s coming unpinned, and is stiff with salt. I dread to think what kind of appearance I must present. My skin is taut and dry from exposure to the wind. My lips are chapped and sore. I wish I could tidy myself more.

  Soon we’re under way again.

  I can feel Peter’s eyes on me as the cart bumps along. After a while I look back at him to show I’ve noticed. To my surprise, he still doesn’t look away. Instead he smiles warmly, his eyes lighting up as he does so. It’s an open gaze, curious and friendly. I try to smile back, but colour floods my face and I look away.

  Not much further north we come to a wreck so huge that it blocks most of the beach. To my astonishment, I see they’ve cut an archway in it. The whole cart drives in through the missing section of the iron hull.

  ‘Why are there so many wrecks here?’ I ask Hr Ancher. I don’t know the French word for wrecks, so I say something like ‘broken ships’. He seems to catch my meaning.

  ‘This is a dangerous stretch of coastline,’ he explains. ‘Strong winds and hidden sandbars.’ Ancher points and gestures with his hands, making a pantomime out of the explanation. I notice Peter grinning as he watches.

  I look inland, at the towering dunes that edge the beach, cutting off any view of the land.

  ‘And how far does the sand go?’ I ask, pointing inland. I’ve been wondering about this, having seen nothing but dunes rolling into the distance.

  ‘Here? All the way to the other coast,’ Ancher tells me. ‘The sand blows and shifts with every storm. And there are patches of soft sand everywhere. Whole coaches drawn by four horses have been swallowed up by them. That’s why they can’t build a road or a railway. Do you see the white building there?’ He points inland and I see a white tower with a red roof.

  ‘It was a church. The sand buried it. That’s just the top of the tower you can see there above the sand.’

  I wonder if I’ve understood him correctly.

  ‘Une église entière? Did they not try to dig it out?’ I can’t remember the word to dig, so I mime it. I’m awestruck at the idea of a whole church buried under sand.

  ‘Many times,’ Ancher nods. ‘But the sand keeps coming. They’ve built a new church in Skagen now. They painted the tower of this one white to warn the ships. A landmark.’

  I look down the beach. From here I can see the remains of two wrecked ships.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to work.’ I can’t keep the dryness out of my voice.

  My visions of my father living in a neat farmhouse fade. This isn’t farming land. But then I knew my father’s family fished, and that they owned their own boat. Perhaps Skagen is a flourishing fishing community, with a harbour like Esbjerg or Frederikshavn.

  The next building we see is a windmill. Its thatch is as grey as the sky, and its sails are still. There are boats pulled up onto the beach here and there, and I can see a number of men, and women too, wading, hauling on fishing nets. Some are wearing oilskins, others are clad in waterlogged woollen sweaters. The nets are secured around their waists with ropes, held in place with strips of wood. There’s a rowing boat further out, and the men are shouting what sound like instructions to one another. I’ve never seen fishing from the beach before, and watch with interest. It looks hard work.

  One of the fishermen hails the cart, and Ancher calls to the driver to stop. The fisherman walks unhurriedly to the cart. He’s wearing tall boots and oilskins even though it’s a warm day. I watch him curiously, noting the lined and weathered face, his stiff, upright bearing. His huge beard is fair but streaked with grey. The man looks stern, intimidating. He doesn’t smile as he greets Ancher, neither does he offer his hand. When he speaks, his voice is deep and booming. The voice of a man accustomed to command. He reminds me of the preacher in Grimsby who treated me so scornfully. I feel fearful of this man and turn away a little, pulling my sunbonnet forward to hide my face.

  Peter catches my eye and smiles. I smile back shyly and he begins to speak. Of course, I don’t understand a word he says. He starts pointing to the people who are fishing, and talks
some more. I just keep smiling at him, embarrassed, each time he pauses. What am I supposed to say in return? I say nothing.

  At length, Ancher and the fisherman finish their conversation and the cart lurches forward once more.

  ‘Dav, Peter!’ I hear the fisherman greet Peter belatedly. I keep my face averted so he can’t see me. He makes me nervous.

  Ancher watches him as we move on. ‘That man is one of our important townspeople. He’s our … ’ Ancher mentions a word I don’t understand. I must look puzzled, because he tries to explain. It sounds as if the fisherman also holds some official post, but I still don’t really follow. But I understand when Ancher says, ‘He’s a stern man, that one. And strict. He’s more judgemental than the parson himself if anyone has done wrong.’

  Yes, that’s how he looked to me, I think to myself.

  The cart turns inland and ploughs across the soft sand of the beach and up onto a sandy track on the inland side of the dunes. The horses are wading in sand up over their hooves. There are houses now, either side of us, straggling along the coast. For the most part, they are tarred wooden shacks thatched with dune grass; some have the craziest shapes. Some are obviously upside-down boats built into dwellings or sheds. I can make a guess, now, where the wood from the wrecked ships went to.

  Suddenly the air no longer smells of the sea. I pull my cloak up over my face and choke down my nausea. The town smells like a combination of the privy back home and the inside of a fishing boat. Only ten times worse.

  A sudden gust of wind blows across us, bringing a squall of rain. It takes the smell away momentarily.