The below excerpt, written by Amki Moors, is based on John Fowles’s The French Lieutenant’s Woman.
There is wind that cools on a hot day, and wind that embraces houses at night, rocking children to sleep in its wailing cradle. There is wind that twists the autumn leaves, and wind that brings exciting news. Then there is an easterly at Lyme Bay. It would take determination, or perhaps stubbornness, to stroll down the Cobb on a day like this with the easterly tugging and shoving every which way, but the young couple making their way over the rocks on this morning in March of 1867 were determined. And for the man, at least, it can be said that he was stubborn. They had put this meeting off for a long time, and what they felt could not survive a noisy public house or a screeching train. So the easterly was braved, and they enjoyed the struggle with the fervour of determined people.
As for the people in Lyme, most of them did not care enough to brave the biting wind. Inhabitants love a place like their mother, and fail to appreciate it in much the same way. It has become nagging, restrictive: it will not leave them alone. Pay your taxes, it says. Mow your lawn, it shouts up the stairs. But the strangers on this fretful morning could see the Cobb as only strangers can: in all her magnificent, aged glory, her embrace of the land, the wisdom and tolerance of her years. She had seen the Armada, she had harboured Monmouth. She was a last safety before the vast sea, the hand on your arm in the kitchen, the all will be well, you’ll see when you get to be my age. Worn with love, her heavy rocks curved out under their feet, as the strangers ambled further out.
The man took comfort from this maternal structure. Turning his gaze inland, he felt as if all of nature tried to impress her, like a small child. March had brought on the first wave of green, tumbling over the hills: not the rich, heavy of summer, but a sharp, yellow kind that boomed from the earth, here I am, I am green, I am spring. To the west, the cliffs gave themselves to the sky and the sea tore at them in childish jealousy. Monmouth beach. The woman had walked there as a child, hunting for the prettiest seashells. Her father had wanted fossils. They had seemed boring to her then. Seashells could be deliciously smooth to the touch, but fossils always had something dull about them. She came back to the man, and the Cobb before them. The sea washed its scent over their silent mouths. She would not speak first. It was not an angry silence, but bristling with nerves, suppressed joy, insecurity. She hoped her arm through his would not give her away. She wished the figure ahead of them would leave. It was distant at the end of the Cobb, but she could see it was dressed all in black, and held itself with dramatic stiffness. It could have been part of the Cobb, it stood so still, pressed up against a canon-barrel. But it was alive, clothes fluttering in the wind.
The wind pushed at them too, threatening to carry her plumed hat with it and interrupting her reverie. Though he did not turn, the man seemed closer all of a sudden. She could tell he was enjoying himself: there was energy in his step, his mouth twitched in an absent smile. Maybe he will speak first, after all.
‘I am glad we came here.’ His hand swept across it all, pointing with the air in his grasp, and landing by her face where it trembled and thought, what would it be like to touch? She was dressed so boldly, in vibrant magenta and green. He could glimpse her ankles. He had never known a woman quite like her before. But he lowered his hand and walked on.
The slanting sun left long shadows of cold trailing behind him, and walking by his side, the pools of grey fell on her ankles, exposed to the cold. She shivered. Perhaps she too should say something. Behind her layers and plumes, a trembling creature of nerves huddled. Look at my clothes, look at my clothes, do not see me, it said. The man beside her was firm, like one of those cliffs, simple, grey, pushing out of the sea. He seemed secure, like she could lean against him and warm herself from the sun-soaked stone.
The figure at the end of the Cobb trailed into her daydream again. It was not real. Perhaps she imagined it, a creature of the sea, of the sailors, of the drowned. It was a cloud of dark seaweed, rippling at the corner of her eyes, pushing at the air around it. It did not seem to belong to this harmless, sunny day.
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