The morning following the storm was calm, almost cheery by comparison. I let my coat flap about me without being buttoned-up on my walk down to Hertledge, the only precipitation a fine dusting hanging about the air through which I walked. I was disappointed that I had been unable to get any writing done, but I was scheduled to stay in my cottage above the channel for several months yet, and my hopes remained high. The solitary figure of my landlord at the tip of his dock still haunted me, though I could not have said what was particularly upsetting about a man making use of his own property,
(waiting)
nasty though the weather may have been. I was grateful to sit down at Anabel’s, my table by the window ready for me, a steaming mug to my lips shortly. It was a quiet morning in the coffee house, the weather being as palatable as it was.
"The real nasty days are what brings ‘em into my little place. They're looking for company. They have their own coffee at home, but weather, like we have around the channel, makes folks lonely."
"I'll drink to that. Up on the hill, it's like the end of the world."
“What’s that ye said?”
“It’s like the end of the world.”
“The bluffs? You’re living up on the bluffs? Mr. Blud’s old place?”
“That gentleman is my landlord, though I don’t know much about the history of the cottage itself.”
“He lived there with his daughter before he built the place he has now. It was so far away from town as is, and he’s gone and moved further, all the way across the channel. How are you liking it up there?”
“I’m trying to finish my book,” I said.
“Why Mr. Grady, just when I thought you’d hit the ceiling for charm, you go and tell me that you’re working on a book. An author in my shop.”
“Not so much of one to be honest. A few of my stories have found their way into print here and there but nothing much really.”
“I wish you the best of luck. Did you know that you’re the first tenant he’s ever taken on in the place? That ought to make you feel special. Maybe it says something about you. Could be a sign that you’ll bring great accomplishment to the place. With your book!”
Anabel went back into the kitchen, bustling about in a way that seems particular to women of a certain age. I've never seen a young person bustle with much effect, but Anabel was the queen of it I'm sure. With her back to the kitchen, I was able to get a look at the only other man in the dining room. He wore a shabby coat and had a steel gray moustache that rested on the lip of his mug when he took a drink. The smell of the ocean lingered near him strongly. The smell of the ocean was a constant presence in those parts; the brine attached itself to the nostrils of everyone present, but its smell was only noticeable when it was greatly multiplied as it was with this man. I took him to be a fisherman.
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“That’s about the measure of it,” he told me.
"I've not been since I was a boy, to tell the truth. I imagine my hazy memories of pond fishing would be quaint to you."
“Do you want to go out?”
“Fishing with you? That might be a bit much for me.”
The man laughed a smoker’s laugh, rumbles coming from deep in his chest.
"I've a row boat tied up h'aint seen open water in years. Never have the stomach for a pleasant row after coming ashore. Good for the soul, a row."
“I would love to do that. Grady. Thomas Grady.”
“Ye can just call me Renny. Everybody else does.”
When each of us was finished with our coffee, Renny walked me down to the docks to show me the rowboat. He told me not to go out if the weather was bad, because as he said (showing a flair for the dramatic) the bluffs were not pretty enough to be the last thing I saw before dying. As if a stringed-puppet, I looked up and saw my cottage from below for the first time. The view of it from the docks was partial, but it was undeniably my little getaway. Renny only grunted at it and pointed across the channel at the long dock I knew well, it’s red light grounded in a visible reality, though no more pleasant to my mind.
“Why red, do you think?”
“Wive’s tale.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Blud’s a bit superstitious. Weird cock if you ask me. Supposed to be that red’s the only color deep sea creatures can see from the depths.”
“How deep is the channel?”
Grunts.
“Why would he want them to see it?”
(waiting)
“...”
“...”
“Don’t take it out in bad weather. Do ye understand?”
“Perfectly.”
On my way back up to the cottage, I tried to see how long I could keep the docks in view, but they were lost before too long. Only Mr. Blud’s dock across the channel extended far enough into the water to not be obscured by the bluffs, his absurd red light marking its place all the way up on the hill on which he evidently used to live with his daughter. That was one detail that Anabel dropped as if I should have known. Somehow in all my imaginings of my landlord, I had never considered that he might have a daughter. In my mind, he was always a solitary figure, a lone man who lived a hermit’s life near rough waters. The thought of a child in pigtails skipping stones from the edge of the dock. It did not seem quite right. Wrong. The channel was no place for a child. A child needs sunlight and ponds. Aging, unaccomplished writers can get along just fine with dreary weather and unsociable fishermen, but a young girl?