The Swimmers
Page 22
He stops next to Pearl, and she can see that he is wearing the shiny colours that only the highest officials can display; the contrast between them must be difficult to miss for any passers-by. She hears the gasps of dismay when they embrace and kiss.
* * *
Outside of their makeshift house on Kon-il beach, three large white shuttle-labs connect together; the sounds of the ocean and the light of the sun wake Pearl.
Arlo and Verity, their daughter, are already up, collecting samples in the rock-pools to take into the lab. In the distance the Barrier is a gigantic ruin with an open wound in the middle, through which the Three Oceans enter, mixing with the managed portion of water that had been Kon-il. Now, both seas compete in evening each other out, and the colour of the water, that before looked brown and yellow, is now a little more pristine looking; greenish to bluish green, perhaps, a 6 to 9 according to the Forel-Ule Scale. Now, Pearl also understands that the reflection of light off the water is also to blame here, that sometimes the colours are unreal, a mirage of sorts. However, the 6 to 9 mark is a progression of sorts: algae returning, with some dissolved matter still.
Neither Pearl nor Arlo had anticipated this bluish-green, and they are, for now, contented.
Arlo, the Upper Settlement’s hero. Arlo, humanity’s saviour.
It was not difficult for him to claim Verity back, to convince the scientific elite to let him try the bacteria down on the surface.
Arlo, Pearl and Verity were offered a coveted space in the craft that would depart for the found star. It was only just that they were given this space, as Arlo was the one to bring their message of hope. To everyone’s surprise, they declined the offer. Their place was on Earth, on the surface. No one could deny them their wish. The day the vessel departed, this time to a set destination, they did not join the festivities, but they watched it go, climbing up and up into the ether.
In Kon-il, dawn comes quickly. The sky goes purple, more so now that the bluish-green from the ocean is changing the colour and, Pearl maintains, the flavour of everything. There hasn’t been a beam of blue light since they got down here, and that is good; no more experiments, at least for now. None of them knows for how long they will be allowed to continue with their work; but for now, this is their life.
It is a good life. There is the lab, and for Pearl her own small repository, where she composes her tales. No excess here, only a few things that matter. Two books, rocks, pine cones, dried flowers, a few images, printed on paper in the old-fashioned way.
Sometimes the night is impossibly eternal, and Pearl understands: she thought she would never see Verity again. She had internalised that pain, and it is hard to let go. Verity’s constellation is the Kingfisher, the same as hers. Together, they read the poetic fable:
Little blue bird, little blue bird. Where are you going, little blue bird?
Little blue bird, little blue bird. Where have you gone, my little blue bird?
Do you want to know the truth, little blue bird?
She looks at Arlo, and knows that their union is now blessed, that the tentative cooperation they have installed between the ring and the surface is the key to it all.
Away, in the deep ocean, a leviathan wails: an old song.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to the Clarion 2014 crowd; everything I write is still influenced by what I learnt from you, and what I wrote with you. To my PhD supervisory team: Helen Marshall, Una McCormack, Tiffani Angus. To my examiner, Roger Glass. To the Titan dream-team: Sophie Robinson, George Sandison, Polly Grice, Dan Coxon. To my family, James, Oliver and Anita, who allowed me to finish this book under quite difficult circumstances.
There are two works of literature that have inspired me beyond measure to write this novel. One is the Southern Reach trilogy, by Jeff VanderMeer, in particular the first, haunting novella, Annihilation. I have spoken and written in many places of the influence of Ann and Jeff VanderMeer’s definition of the Weird on my work, and of my admiration for Jeff ’s body of work. The second is the novel directly responsible for my desire to write in English, Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea. I could never claim to have attempted to re-imagine Wide Sargasso Sea, as to do that would be a futile, absurd enterprise: Rhys’s novel is a masterpiece, and it would be foolish to tamper with a masterpiece. But I have taken my inspiration closely from the novel. Since I first read it, Wide Sargasso Sea has struck me with how closely I could relate to its description of a world in which issues of ‘equality’ and dominant culture proved that nothing as prosaic as the law could indeed make us equal, and that many other undercurrents decide these things for us. I related intensely to the heroine’s navigation of the complex politics of her mixed ethnicity, and saw it a reflection of my own hopes and fears: my own background had seemed to conspire to destine me to some things, had not allowed me to reach other dreams. I hope this has turned out to be a book that proves one thing: no matter who tells you that you cannot do something, there is always a way. Do not let them put you in boxes. Do not listen to them.
MARIAN WOMACK,
Cambridge 2020
Marian Womack was born in Andalusia and educated in the UK. Her debut short story collection, Lost Objects (Luna Press, 2018) was shortlisted for two BSFA awards and one BFS award. She is a graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop, and she holds degrees from Oxford and Cambridge universities. She writes at the intersection between weird and gothic fiction, and her stories normally deal with strange landscapes, ghostly encounters, or uncanny transformations. She is also the author of The Golden Key, a Victorian supernatural mystery set on the Norfolk Fens.
Marian lives in Cambridge, at the edge of the Fens, with her husband, their children and two ageing Spanish cats. When she is not writing she can be found working as an academic librarian, or editing books and pamphlets in her indie publishing project, Calque Press.
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