Equilibrium

Trails of spume were streaking away across the wide arc of the horseshoe bay, the offshore wind strong enough to slow the waves almost to a standstill and they would totter and break unevenly on the shell strewn shore. She was taking small, deft steps backwards and forwards to keep her balance as the buffeting threatened to toss her down to the patchwork sand far below.

Bright sunlight from the cloudless sky burned the grass at her feet and she closed her eyes to feel the warmth trapped inside.

Opening them again, she turned to the approach of a woman along the long slope of the headland; the houses of the quiet town nestled far behind.

They held each other’s eyes over the last of the distance, and nodded a silent greeting.

“Hello. I have seen you up here before, it seems you never bring your coat?”

“It is much colder where I come from, sometimes.”

A sudden stronger gust tore at them then and the women looked to the sea together as a plaintive howl rose and then rolled away over the water.

“I come up here once a day, I have for years now”, the older woman said. “For the exercise, and to clear my head. It’s a wild coastline, but very beautiful I think.”

“The water here is so blue, I always feel I could run down and simply throw myself in to swim. At home the sea is darker, with the dark sand, and the weaker sun.

It is a beautiful coast, just as at home; cliffs and waves always remind me how small we all are, how big the world.”

“Was it the war which brought you here?”

“The war?”

“Did you want to get away from those things?”

“Yes, I did, just for a while. The war, and I wanted to see this place. My cousin wrote to my mother often after he came, one of his letters mentioned your elections. He sent us a photograph of men and women lined up together at the local school, to vote. They were smiling, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, to vote altogether.”

“I thought women had the vote in your country?”

“In Iceland, it has been decided it will only be for those over the age of 40.”

She took an envelope from the fold of her sleeve, removed a photo and turned it so the older woman might see. “My mother voted this year.”

She did not need to point out her mother in the image, it showed a woman alone in all her dark finery, surrounded by smoking men who turned sombrely to the camera.

“I’ve voted ever since I turned 18. I voted for Mr Massey this year, I voted for him last time as well. I didn’t really give it much thought, this time.”

The young woman smiled and looked away towards the sheltering houses below, then back to the woman at last.

“I hope we will be the same soon, all of us, voting without a second thought.”