The Mermaid's Call

by Katherine Stansfield

  There were pillars down the length of the church, and arches between them. At one of the pillars Mr Seldon stopped. ‘It’s this one, not that I have much cause to look at it. ’Tisn’t a pleasant sight.’

  The top of the pillar was lost to us in the gloom. Anna climbed onto the bench beside it and held her lamp up.

  I followed the pillar’s smooth lines, its ordered squares of stone and mortar, stone and mortar, up up up to where the arch branched either side of it. And at the branching at the top of the pillar was a nasty sight. It took my breath from me, for along with being nasty it was familiar – a known shock.

  I was looking up at a stone face. A face with a beak, with grinning teeth and a bold tongue pointed at me. With empty eyes.

  Mr Seldon sank onto the bench. ‘Of all the things.’

  ‘It is remarkably similar to the tattoo,’ Anna said.

  ‘It’s the same!’ I said. ‘Without the colour of the ink, I’ll own. But otherwise a perfect likeness.’

  There was a noise – a creak of hinges. The church door being opened.

  ‘That’ll be Nancy back,’ Mr Seldon said, and got slowly to his feet. He seemed to have aged since Anna had lifted her lamp and brought the carved face into sight. It was shocking, I would own, but Mr Seldon had seen it before. What he hadn’t seen was flesh bearing this likeness as a tattoo, with all the terrible colours.

  When we were alone again, I whispered, ‘This is proof, then. The man in the deadhouse is Joseph Ians.’

  ‘It would seem so, though I think it would be wise to show the gobbet to the captain for final confirmation. Just to be sure.’

  ‘And if the captain says the tattoo is his brother’s, then it means the dream was true – the captain did see his brother’s death before it happened.’

  ‘Well …’

  From the far end of the church, towards the altar, came the murmurs of Mr Seldon and his daughter, the clang of pails on slate.

  ‘Which means,’ I said, feeling my breath run quicker, ‘that the part about the mermaid could be true as well.’

  ‘I think we should reserve judgement on that part. But what about this?’ She held the light close to my face. ‘Captain Ians told us about the light, remember, seen from the parson’s hut the night before Joseph Ians was found. Do mermaids use lights, Shilly?’

  That I didn’t know, but I thought it unlikely. Anna did too. Her question was not the kind that sought an answer.

  ‘So we’ll take the gobbet to the Bush, then,’ I said.

  ‘I will, Shilly. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you—’

  ‘Will you be wanting the lamp, sir?’ It was Nancy Seldon. She was on the other side of the pillar. How long had she been standing there? ‘Only, Father and I are finished here.’

  ‘Thank you, Nancy, but no. My wife and I were just leaving.’

  Anna handed her the lamp and we followed her to the door. There was no sign of Mr Seldon, and no flowers in the church, either. Perhaps Nancy hadn’t been able to find any. Anna and I went out into the porch and Nancy made to close the door behind us. Then I remembered.

  ‘The gobbet,’ I said. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Father has it,’ Nancy said, ‘to put in the box with the poor wretch. You can have no need for it, surely?’

  ‘Oh, I—’ Anna said. ‘We did ask him not to, for the moment. Well, no matter. Please thank your father for dealing with it.’

  She shrugged. ‘That’s his job. All of ours who live here.’

  Then she pulled the door to with some force, for she was strongly made, like her mother but with thicker arms. She bade us goodbye and went down the path through the churchyard, towards the vicarage. The air after her was warm with beeswax, cut sharp with vinegar.

  ‘Please say we don’t have to fetch the gobbet back from the deadhouse to show Captain Ians the tattoo. Because I’m telling you now, Anna, it won’t be me that goes inside to get it.’

  The look on her face at the notion was enough to ease me. ‘That would be a foul business. What was the word Mr Seldon used about the corpse? Soupy.’

  ‘We’ve seen the tattoo, and we’ve found the carving that matches it. That’s enough proof to put to the captain, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s enough for me, Shilly, but the captain is the one paying us.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  We were in sight of the Bush. I had been all for going straight in, but Anna caught me to see if I was back-sliding on the matter of drink.

  ‘Is this wise, Shilly?’

  ‘You don’t have to worry. Not a drop has passed my lips in months.’

  ‘All the more reason to avoid such places. What was it you used to call them – dens of iniquity? Why give yourself such temptations?’

  ‘I can’t skirt it for ever. The world is full of inns.’

  ‘This part of the world seems to be.’

  I took her hands in mine and she flinched at the chill.

  ‘I’ll not be much use to you if I never more step foot in inns or kiddlywinks or beer shops. That’s where the rogues are!’

  ‘True.’ Her gaze went to the Bush behind me, the glow from the windows. ‘And it might help warm you up. If you’re sure you can resist …’

  I hurried towards the inn before she could change her mind.

  The floor was slate, and dirty with mud. It was quiet inside, the fire louder than the few men who were there. And they were all men. We got stares for we were dressed much finer than their working clothes. I took the bench nearest the hearth and told Anna I would have a small beer.

  ‘But we’re not staying,’ Anna said. ‘We just need to tell the captain about the tattoo.’

  ‘He’ll likely need a drink after hearing about that, won’t he? Because if the tattoo is the same as Joseph’s then this means the dead man truly is his brother. Even though he had the dream, the truth will be sad for him, and we can’t let him drink alone. I’ll just have a drop. Like you said, Anna, it’ll take off the chill.’ I said it like I didn’t even want it. But I did want it, of course I did. Such wanting doesn’t leave a body.

  She gave in at last and went to fetch the drinks and I did my best to breathe, to fight the swell inside me. This was a test I’d given myself, like the tests we set those we were suspicious of in our detecting, because what I’d told Anna outside was the truth – I couldn’t keep from such places for ever. And I wanted to prove I was changed from the weak creature I was when she first met me. For if I did that then she would have to help me with my writing. And some writing in particular, for I’d decided I’d write to Mathilda. So I said to myself, Shilly, you will drink this drop of small beer and this alone, and you’ll leave the Bush soon as you’ve talked with Captain Ians. And you won’t take anything with you, neither. No sliding half-bottles into your coat pocket for Anna will find them, she always does. And then all this goodness will be undone.

  She was back with the glasses. ‘The barman has sent up to the captain’s room. He’ll be down shortly.’

  I took a deep breath and reached for mine. But Anna pulled it back so I couldn’t get it.

  ‘You’re certain about this?’ she said. Her face, her own beneath the whiskers and the eyebrows, the powder and the paint, was all fear.

  ‘Certain,’ I said, making sure to look her in the eye.

  She pushed the glass back to me. I lifted it.

  ‘What shall we drink to?’ I said.

  ‘To tattoos?’ she said, and found a smile.

  ‘To tattoos.’

  Our glasses met with a clink I’d missed hearing. I put my glass to my lips and took the littlest sip. It was sharp and sour and good. But I wouldn’t be undone. I was Mrs Shilly Williams now, and Mrs Shilly Williams had hold of herself. I put the glass down and stood.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Anna said.

  ‘Going to the bar.’

  Her eyes widened.

  ‘To beg paper and ink,’ I said. ‘We’re going to write to Mathilda.’

  She opened he
r mouth to speak but I made out I hadn’t seen. She was going to tell me no, we wouldn’t write, but I couldn’t fathom why. All I knew was the pitching that worry gave me. Why didn’t Anna want Mathilda to join us? There would be room for her at the vicarage – half the bedrooms were ready for visitors. Mrs Hawker and she could talk about German things. The parson’s wife was sure to love Mathilda’s sweet nature. All who met her did, Anna too. But there had been that row between them before we left Boscastle. What had caused that bad feeling?

  The man behind the bar found me paper but ink gave him more trouble. He was built like the barrels that sat on the floor – broad-chested, sturdy. He was bearded and none too clean about the mouth. Looking for the ink he cast about and blew air through his nose like a horse. He smelt so bad, it would have been no surprise to see flies round him, like he was a horse truly. The smell was of spirits. Once that smell would have made me trembly, made me thieve and lie, but today it did nothing but make me want to purge. I was truly a new soul. Them that was chapel would have known me born again.

  While he was rootling, I had a notion I would speak to him. There was something we had yet to discover. Something important, even though Anna didn’t think so. Better to rootle for this when she was out of hearing.

  ‘I’d have one thing more from you,’ I said, ‘aside from the ink. About the sea.’

  He stopped his search and frowned at me. ‘The sea?’

  ‘About what’s in it. Who is in it.’ Now he truly was uncertain of me, but I pressed on. What had I to lose from this stranger? ‘The man in the parson’s deadhouse. I’ve heard tell it was a mermaid killed him.’

  He went back to rummaging. ‘There’s many here that say so.’

  ‘Will you tell me about her?’ I said.

  ‘It’s a nasty story.’

  ‘Please. I … I need to know.’

  Something in my voice must have told him just how much I needed it, for he ceased his rummage, put his hands on the bar, palms flat in the little puddles of spilt beer, and he spoke.

  ‘She must have had a name, but no one here remembers it now. It all happened so long ago. A Morwenstow girl, she was, and beautiful – that people do remember, because it wasn’t right, see, her looks.’ He leant forward. ‘Unnatural. People said it was because her mother bathed her in a pool of water used by mermaids when they were visiting these parts, and the girl took on their beauty – her skin so pale you could all but see through it, see the seawater that had begun to run in her blood.’ He laughed. ‘My own mother told me this to stop me going in the sea. Thought that would frighten me more than any talk of currents.’

  ‘And did it?’ I said. ‘Frighten you, I mean.’

  ‘It did, but that was because of what happened next. The squire’s nephew came calling, and this girl had no sense in her beautiful head for she lay with him. He’d never marry her, her parents being working people, and when she told him she was with child he left the parish.’

  This part I had heard before, in many stories.

  ‘What happened to her?’ I said, already guessing the answer.

  ‘Oh, when the child came, she and the babe both died. The squire’s nephew came back to Morwenstow then. They say that’s when it started. The calls.’

  I felt my own blood run cold as seawater at mention of this. I couldn’t stop my shivers.

  ‘For though the girl had been buried in the churchyard,’ the barman said, ‘some part of her had swum down, down through the earth and into the sea beneath. She was free now, wasn’t she, and she could take her vengeance. She called him, the squire’s nephew, and he had no choice but to go to her. His body wasn’t his own when she called, oh and it was the most awful sound, they say. Ungodly.’

  ‘What did she do to him?’ I whispered.

  ‘Well, she killed him, didn’t she?’

  ‘How?’

  The barman shrugged. ‘Some say drowning. Others say she tore him to pieces with her teeth, or with her claws. It don’t matter, really. The end is still the same, however the story’s told.’

  ‘But what was it that made people think it was the mermaid that killed the man in the deadhouse?’

  ‘The noise. She’s always calling. When the wind gets up we hear her, and she’s good for business. People need a draught after that. People like yourself. I see it on you. That’s why I’m telling you.’

  I mumbled my thanks, ashamed, somehow, that my wretchedness was so clear to strangers. I wasn’t so good at hiding myself yet as Anna. I still went into the world naked.

  ‘But that night,’ the barman said, ‘the night before that man was found beneath the parson’s hut … Well.’ The barman shook his head. ‘It was much worse than usual. Them that came in here was took bad with fright. Did very well out of her that night.’

  ‘Why?’

  He looked me dead in the eye. ‘That night she was screaming.’

  ‘It could have been the storm,’ I found myself saying, and it was as if Anna was with me, speaking with my tongue.

  The barman smiled. ‘It could have been. No way to know, is there? Unless she calls you too. But you’d never have the chance to tell anyone the truth.’

  I shivered, for he was right, and that was terrible.

  ‘The people she calls,’ I said, ‘what is it marks them out?’

  ‘Love,’ he said, and shrugged, as if it was the simplest thing in the world rather than the most difficult and wondrous and all the time sleepless longing. ‘Aye, it can be the love of a wife for her husband that the mermaid knows,’ he said, and I realised I had turned to look at Anna still seated with our drinks. ‘All kinds of love that’s lost,’ the barman said, ‘for the mermaid lost twice over, didn’t she? First the squire’s nephew, then her child. Our screaming mermaid calls them that hurt the most.’ He laughed. ‘If you believe such tales.’

  ‘Women loving other women?’

  ‘All the kinds of love you can think of. Mothers for daughters, fathers for sons. Friendship. It’s the strength of it – they say that’s what she’s drawn to. If you’ve a passion and you’re hurting, she’ll call you. Now, you’ll be wanting another?’

  ‘Hm? No, I’m not—’

  ‘For the captain.’ The barman nodded across the room. ‘He’s come down, look.’

  I took the glass the barman gave me and went back to the fire. The cold was deep inside my bones now. My wet clothes had been chilled by the wind on the way back from the hut and I couldn’t feel my feet. But it was more than that. It was the story of the woman made a mermaid by her rage. A woman screaming into the wind.

  The captain was looking rough as ever but he made an effort to greet me, and seemed excited. It was soon clear why.

  ‘I have just been telling the captain about the tattooed gobbet and its likeness to the carving,’ Anna said.

  ‘It can only be Joseph’s tattoo,’ Captain Ians said. ‘Your description is as I remember, and it matches the carving too.’

  ‘There’s the bit of the tattoo left on the body,’ I said. ‘The same green ink, of the beak, I think.’

  ‘It is him lying in the deadhouse. There can be no doubt now.’ The captain banged the table with his fist and our glasses jittered. ‘I knew the dream was true. And Robert so keen to tell me I was wrong. Charlotte too.’

  He was tugged two ways, between relief and despair. To be right, but about such an awful thing. A deep sigh escaped him. He had been proved right about the dream, but that meant the loss of a brother. Frederick and Joseph Ians had not met in this world for many years. Our discovery of the gobbet meant they never would again. There was only the hope of the next world, as the Seldons kept on about.

  For myself, I felt relief. We wouldn’t have to go back inside the deadhouse to get the gobbet. Joseph Ians would be buried the next day and the foul air would begin to clear from the churchyard. And we were closer to finishing our business in Morwenstow and getting back to Mathilda.

  ‘I will tell my sister,’ the captain said. ‘As I’m
sure you’ll have gathered, staying at the vicarage, she and I have not shared the same belief about Joseph dying. We’ve been at odds, and Robert hasn’t helped matters. But it’s all over now. We have the truth, or some of it, at least.’

  ‘Mrs Hawker will be saddened by the news,’ I said.

  ‘She will, but she can’t be kept from it. Not with the funeral tomorrow. She should know she’s saying goodbye to her kin rather than a stranger.’

  ‘Well,’ Anna said, ‘that’s one part of our work done. What remains is to discover who killed him, for we are in no doubt that he was killed, and on land. There is the matter of the key which can only have been thrust inside Joseph after death, and now the tattoo, which was distinct enough to identify the body and conveniently removed from it.’

  ‘You believe that the murderer cut out the tattoo?’ the captain said.

  ‘Quite so, to prevent identification. If it wasn’t for the effort of my wife here,’ and at this Anna flashed me the briefest of smiles, ‘the gobbet might have been washed out to sea on the next tide and the identity of Joseph Ians never discovered.’

  ‘I am grateful to you both,’ the captain said, ‘and I pray to God that the truth of my brother’s death will soon come to light.’

  Anna stood and shook his hand. I stood likewise but the slates seemed to have grown soft since I had sat down, and I could not stand so well. It was the cold of the sea. I needed my bed.

  It was only after we were on our way back to the vicarage that I remembered I’d left most of my small beer untouched. And my note to Mathilda unwritten.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  My shivering worsened with every step closer to the vicarage. Anna helped me up the stairs to our room then sat me on the bed.

  ‘Here, lift your skirt,’ Anna said.

  I couldn’t take off my wet clothes myself for my hands were ashake. My legs and feet felt as if the sea pressed against them still. That push and sway of the waves. With the nimble fingers of someone who has often changed her clothes with great haste, Anna got my dress unbuttoned and whipped it over my head. I was thankful the chill hadn’t taken her so bad as me, though we’d both been in the water that afternoon. She was strong, even though she was so thin and older than me too.