Something stirred within her. A message in a bottle. A fragment of excitement on a dreary day, in a dreary month, after what had turned out to be a dreary year. She tried to unscrew the top but her gloved hands slipped on the glass, and a light drizzle had misted the bottle’s surface. Rather than risk ruining the message, she contained her excitement, whistled to her companions and turned for home. The dogs, caught unawares by the change of direction, raced to catch her up.

Back home, as she dried the dogs’ paws, and made herself a cup of tea, her thoughts fixed on the bottle containing the scroll. Was it a love letter? A plea for rescue? Or only kids messing around? She knew it would be special because the tide had not smashed it, the mud had not buried it, and the local children had not found it first and broken it. It was as if it had been sent to her.

She took her mug and the bottle through to the living room and settled down on the sofa. In the corners the dogs were licking the grit and salt from between their paws. A smell of wet dog filled the room. The bottle seemed to glow with promise, and she felt reluctant to break the delicious thrill of anticipation. Finally she put down her mug, picked up the bottle, and tried to twist the cap. It was a strange pointed shape, and offered her little grip. She struggled for some time, then, suddenly, it yielded.

The seal had been secured by a strip of white tape, and the letter was dry. She upended the bottle over the coffee table and the roll slid out, tied by a pale blue ribbon, along with a sprinkle of perfumed wood shavings. Very gently she undid the narrow ribbon, and uncurled the papers. A lock of curled hair fell from the pages. Between her fingers she held two sheets, densely written in blue ink, which were struggling to re-roll themselves. The writing was looped and foreign, and her schoolgirl French was barely sufficient to decipher the first words.

She felt a pang of disappointment. It seemed she would have to wait to find out what the message contained, though it seemed appropriate that the bottle should hold on to its secret for a little longer. As she held the letter to her nose and inhaled the sweet smell from the sandalwood shavings that had cradled the scroll, she thought about whom she could ask to translate the letter. The bottle was so carefully chosen, the ribbon, the lock of hair, the scented shavings so carefully assembled and prepared with such tenderness that the contents would surely not disappoint.

She left the bottle and its contents lying scattered over her table and went over to the telephone.

2

Although I had agreed immediately to look at the letter, I was still annoyed when it arrived a day or two later. I was trying desperately to meet an important deadline, and had no time to spare. I had listened with half an ear to the description of how the letter had been found, and the prompt arrival of a few pages of intricately written French came at a bad moment. My friend had not replaced the letter in the bottle, but had simply posted the pages on to me, roughly flattened, in a recycled envelope without any accompanying note. When I unfolded the sheets and saw the looped handwriting with the r’s and the n’s that could be read as u’s, my spirits sank. I skimmed the first few lines half-heartedly. This would take some effort to decipher, and I put it aside to deal with when I had more time.