The Essex Serpent

A drunk young man approaches the banks of the Blackwater. He decides to swim in the “slow and dark” (9) estuary. He undresses and enters the water, but “the estuary surface shifts” (9), pulsing and throbbing. The man is immediately sobered. Searching for his clothes, he tells himself that “it’s nothing” (9), but he can still see “the slow movement of something vast […] with rough and lapping scales” (9). It is something ancient and monstrous, he feels, and he is frozen with terror. The wind changes and he finds his coat, feeling “completely absurd” (10). He yells at his friends. He slips off his shirt and vanishes into the water. As “the pendulum swings from one year to the next […] there’s darkness on the face of the deep” (10).

The passage of time affects everyone in London; time is “spent and squandered, eked out and wished away” (13). It rains constantly. Garrett mumbles to himself on a packed underground train. His diminutive stature has given him the nickname The Imp. Aged 32, he is a surgeon with a “hungry disobedient mind” (14). He is happily attending the funeral of Michael and thinks about Michael’s widow, Cora, as he had long detected dissatisfaction in the marriage.