The Turning: Cockleshell Summary & Analysis

Brakey, a 15-year-old boy, is watching a girl named Agnes Larwood from a peppermint grove on the shore as she spearfishes for cobblers in the sand flats at sunset. Brakey has been watching Agnes for a week before he can admit to himself what he is doing. He still does not understand why. He has known Agnes all his life—they are classmates and neighbors—and has always found her unremarkable. Agnes’s sister, Margaret, is beautiful, but she ran away from home. Now, however, Brakey finds himself obsessed, coming out to watch Agnes every night until dark, and picturing her long after. Brakey and Agnes both live in Cockleshell, or Cockle Shoal as it used to be called, a hamlet across the bay from Angelus. Cockleshell used to be livelier, but the closure of the whaling station and the meatworks has depopulated and impoverished it.

Brakey is unsure how long to stay out. Brakey’s mother is anxious and lonely, convinced that everything will go wrong; Brakey’s father ran off on them three years ago. The Larwood family live next door, and as Brakey walks home he distinguishes the two houses by the Larwood’s church music and the smell of his mother’s fried onions. Brakey reminisces on how Eric Larwood, Agnes’s father, used to drink heavily, break things, and physically abuse Agnes’s mother. The Larwood family frequently came over to Brakey’s house, and his father had to go calm Eric Larwood down. The Larwoods are particularly obvious Poms. Eric Larwood was a shop steward (a union leader) in the meatworks, but since it closed he is a shell of himself, and the two families have little contact.

The next morning, at the bus stop, Brakey notices Agnes watching him. As they board the bus she confronts him, asking why he has been following her. He mumbles out an apology, not an explanation, and she asks him if he did his math homework: he has not. Their conversation is cut off as Brakey’s friend Slater boards the bus. Brakey reflects on how he should be careful with Agnes, as she is not especially popular at school. During math class another student, Brad Benson, is taken away by the police, but Brakey, in a daze, hardly notices. When Brakey gets home, his mother tells him that Brad Benson’s father committed suicide, jumping into the sea at the “Big Hole.” To Brakey’s mother, this is yet more proof that “They all run away in the end,” which Brakey, resentfully, promises to himself to do, too.

Walking out, Brakey runs into Agnes. They discuss Mr. Benson’s suicide, and Brakey joins Agnes fishing, even though he is not wearing shoes. Agnes has him hold the lamp for her as she spears the cobblers and removes their poisonous spines in silence. Brakey reflects on their families and the lack of contact between them. Suddenly, Brakey steps on or is poked by a cobbler spine; his foot hurts and begins to swell, causing him and Agnes to part abruptly. At home, Brakey refuses to tell Brakey’s mother what has happened. In the shower, he considers his mother’s sense of superiority over the Larwoods, despite her own family’s meager situation. That night, Brakey dreams that he and Agnes find Mr. Benson’s body washed in from the sea on the sand flats, but when they turn it over, he sees his father’s face. Unable to go back to sleep, Brakey thinks about his unpleasant visit to his father in the city last winter, an experience he vowed not to repeat.

By the next evening Brakey has recovered and joins Agnes once more, this time with shoes. Once again, they do not speak to each other while fishing. Afterwards, Brakey cannot stop talking, reminiscing about childhood. He inadvertently suggests that Agnes is fishing to support her family, which she finds insulting: to her it is a hobby, a way to get out of the house. Agnes confesses how stifling, even dead, her home feels. Agnes’s father successfully gave up drinking, but, without his job, his favorite daughter Margaret, or his addiction, he is now “like a ghost.” Brakey asks her if she would run away, too, but Agnes says she could never leave her brothers. Brakey tries to hold Agnes’s hand, but she angrily rebuffs him and heads home. Feeling defeated, Brakey goes home too, falling asleep full of regret and longing.

Brakey wakes up to screams, “like [in] the old days.” Getting out of bed, he realizes that the Larwoods’ house is on fire. Brakey crashes into Brakey’s mother in the hall, runs to the door, and lets Agnes’s brothers inside. Out on the lawn, Agnes and Agnes’s mother are watching their house burn. Eric Larwood will not leave his house. While the family are panicked, Agnes is stone-faced, even calm. Brakey tries and fails to find a way inside to help him. The next day, welfare agents take the Larwoods away; no one slept the rest of the night. Brakey grows up and leaves for the city, though he does not get much better with women. His mother dies, still bitter and alone. While he remembers Agnes for the rest of his life, he never sees her again, and dreads encountering her; she too lives in the city.