The Silence of Water by Sharron Booth

Author:Sharron Booth
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fremantle Press
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Agnes

Adelaide, 1891

The work at the Jensens’ house was hard. There were so many rooms that by the time she’d cleaned the whole house, the room she’d started with was dusty and grubby all over again. After she’d finished for the day, Miss Salt of the Sea watched the water. Before sunset, the tide was always up high and the breeze whipped in from the south, tearing the sea into thin white strips and making women grab their hats. If it was too windy, she stood underneath the jetty, where seagulls made arrows in the sand with their feet, and children splashed fearlessly in ankle-deep water. If she felt like it, she took off her boots and paddled in the sand at the edge or walked in up to her knees. She was Miss Salt of the Sea, who lived with an aunt in Exeter, with a mother long dead and a father long gone. Perhaps Ernest could put that in his stupid little rhyme. It was all Mrs Jensen had needed.

After a few months, Mrs Jensen had given her a small wage rise and asked her to stay longer a couple of days a week to help in the kitchen. Agnes had used up ten more stamps on ten more letters to Walter. She had stopped asking Sarah if any letters had come. The walk to Semaphore became windy and cold. The stench of whisky on the men outside the Jetty Hotel smelled sour and she’d stopped feeling sorry for them and their haunted faces.

On the day of Mrs Jensen’s annual afternoon tea party, Miss Salt of the Sea made a decision about what to keep and what to let go. At Mrs Jensen’s she put on a special apron, served delicious sandwiches and earned high praise from all Mrs Jensen’s friends. The sky began to turn black over the sea and Mrs Jensen sent her home at five to avoid the rain.

The wind blew like it must be coming straight off the South Pole and the sea bubbled up high on the sand. She knew she’d have to run the last hundred yards home if it began to pelt. People hurried back along the jetty and pointed at the sky and mouthed, You’re going the wrong way. A fisherman packed up his line and shook his head at her. The jetty swayed and creaked and down below the water lapped at the pylons.

Agnes took Eliza’s sketch out of her pocket, tore it into pieces and threw them over the rail. Every one of Ernest’s old letters, envelopes and all. Her badly written copy of Ernest’s rhyme was the last thing she let go of. She screwed it into a ball and hurled it as hard and as far as she could. Bits of paper darkened and sank. Gulls screeched and dived.

She hurried back, but the rain was too strong. The wind howled in her ears and soon her shoes were soaked through. Agnes began to cry.

‘Let’s get you out of this weather.

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