The Brighton Mermaid

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘I don’t want to be involved in this life any longer than necessary, Aaron. You know that. You said it yourself, I want this over as soon as possible. That is why I gave up my job. I don’t want this life any more.’ This is what I’ve never said before.

  ‘But once this is done we can move on from it,’ he replies.

  ‘I wish you’d understand, Aaron, I don’t want to live like this. Your father … On top of what he did to me and my dad and my mother and my sister, what he did to you was unthinkable.’

  Aaron looks at me as though I’m exaggerating; like I am twisting normal parental discipline into something it wasn’t. ‘What he did to you was unthinkable ,’ I repeat. And he pulls a face, dismissive and unbothered. F.O.G. Fear. Obligation. Guilt. It is making him minimise his childhood, creating a false trail of normality.

  I do not want any of this any more. This is what has to change. Aaron and I both have to face up to the things we do out of F.O.G. ‘Aaron, he repeatedly stuck your head in a bath of water because you said “damn”. He beat you so badly he broke two ribs because you took a plate up to your room. He kicked you down the stairs because your whole class was given detention …’ As I speak about the abuse he endured, things he’s told me in unguarded moments, I see his face change: it drops the unbothered look and becomes haunted.

  ‘I know you haven’t even told me the worst stories,’ I say now I know he’s taking me seriously. ‘You know what he did to you and worse, and still you’re here, taking care of him. You’d escaped, you’d built a good life for yourself in London away from him and what he did, and now you’re back here, living in the house of horrors you grew up in, taking care of the man who abused you.

  ‘He has never apologised to you, has he? He has never acknowledged what he did or how being a policeman allowed him to get away with it because people kept looking the other way or giving him the benefit of the doubt. And I know he has never once said thank you, but still you’re here. Because he had no one else, because your mother – who stood by and let your abuse happen – wouldn’t do it. What you’ve done for your father, what you still do for your father, is amazing. But I don’t want to be involved with him any longer than I have to be. If I gave you a chance, I’d end up around him for ever. I couldn’t stand that.’

  Aaron takes my free hand and rests it at the centre of his chest. His heartbeat is strong and solid; the vibration of a good person, a decent man. ‘I’m not my father,’ he says yet again as he holds my gaze. ‘And I’d do anything for you, Nell. I’d do anything to be with you. Anything . I’d give up anything to be with you.’

  I’m seeing someone , I say in my head as he moves even closer to me. I’m seeing someone , I silently repeat as his nose brushes against mine. ‘I’m seeing someone,’ I murmur as his lips are about to touch mine.

  Bleep-bleep, bleep-bleep comes from the computer. It stops Aaron from kissing me and I pull my head away. A white box is flashing up on the screen. ‘Match found,’ it says. ‘Match found’.

  They were Jude and Brighton Mermaid codes that I just re-entered.

  Match found. Match found. Match found .

  Macy

  Friday, 20 April

  I didn’t find out anything about the postcard – there was no hidden message and no one in Glasgow that was anything to do with Jude as far as I could tell.

  You can also buy those postcards online so you could get one from anywhere.

  I did find Clyde, though, quite easily as it turned out.

  He’s living in South London with a woman who has four children. Four children. I’m not sure if any of them are biologically his, because their ages would overlap with the time he was with me, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw him standing in a photo with her and them. He had the hugest grin on his face and his arms around the other woman. They were the perfect family.

  ‘Proud daddy,’ the woman had tagged him in the picture. And lots of people had ‘liked’ the image. Lots of other people saying stuff about what a good father he was.

  I wonder if she knows about me, about his three other children, the ones he’s clearly not such a ‘proud daddy’ about?

  I stand in the doorway to the kitchen and look at it again. I’ve been scrubbing since about midnight and nothing seems to have come out clean enough. I’ll just have to do it again. And again. And again until I get it right.

  Nell

  Friday, 20 April

  ‘What does this one mean?’

  I move my index finger over two larger circles around one smaller circle, almost like a small bullseye, that are tattooed on Zach’s chest. His tattoos are so intricate and delicate, yet bold and striking, I often feel I could get lost in them. They are a series of African symbols, called Adinkra , that he has had inscribed on his chest to create the larger picture. One of my favourite things to do is to point to a symbol and see if he can correctly name it.

  ‘That is “greatness and leadership”.’

  ‘This one,’ I say quickly, my fingers flitting over a chain link that looks like the cross-section of a squashed apple.

  ‘Unity and strength in the community.’

  ‘Right … how about this one?’ The heart symbol, small and firm and perfectly formed, which is pretty obvious.

  ‘Erm, that is “a call for patience and tolerance”.’

  ‘OK, was not expecting that. This one?’ The symbol with one circle surrounded by four circles and five tufts.

  ‘That is loyalty and adroitness, as well as the hairstyle of joy.’

  ‘Right.’

  I’m sitting astride him, and he takes my fingers off his body, pushes his fingers between mine like Aaron did earlier and I immediately feel a tidal wave of guilt crash through me.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask about my hair or lack thereof ?’ Zach asks now that the whole hair thing has been brought up.

  I look up from his chest and shoulder to his face. ‘No,’ I reply.

  ‘You’re not even curious?’ he asks. ‘Most people – especially women I’ve slept with – ask after meeting me more than once. I think you’re the only person who has never asked or even hinted about it.’

  ‘I am curious about it, but not overly. It’s part of what you look like, so it’d be like me asking you why you have dark brown skin, if you know what I mean? I don’t know you any differently.’

  Zach places his hands on either side of my hips and his thumbs start to caress me. ‘You’re so different to other women I’ve met,’ he says. His hands move up my body, skimming up my waist, over my breasts and then back down again. ‘So very, very different. I can’t get enough of you. I think about you all the time.’

  I smile and swallow down more of that remorse that’s been battling with elation since I left the Pope house. All through dinner at the Thai restaurant down on Market Street, and the drinks we stopped off for on our way back to Zach’s flat, I cycled between fizzing with excitement at the connection I’ve found to the Brighton Mermaid, and being internally crushed with guilt that I almost let Aaron kiss me. In fact, if the Brighton Mermaid thing hadn’t pinged I probably would have stood there and let him do it; not only that, I probably would have kissed him back. Yes, I’m only ‘seeing’ Zach, but I don’t like the idea that I could, potentially, mess him about. I like him so much, I lust after him even more. I’m nowhere near the other L-word with him yet, but I could get there. And I hate thinking that I would let feeling sorry for Aaron get in the way of that. It’s not like if I decided to give it a go with Aaron anything good would come of it. Any relationship with him beyond what we currently have would be dysfunctional from the off – a co-dependent meeting of F.O.G. minds. And I don’t feel anything about him like I feel for Zach. Everything to do with Aaron is based around feeling bad for him about how badly his father treats him, not unfettered affection.

  ‘I mean it,’ Zach says. ‘During the day I think about you. I wonder what you’re doing. I see so many things, hear so many things that I’m usually bursti
ng to tell you. It’s ridiculous, really, when I don’t know you, but there you go.’

  I don’t hear that sort of thing very often. Most of the men I have sex with are nice to me, and the ones who I have sex with more than once or even have flings with make it clear they like me, but they don’t act like, to them, I am anything special, someone who is constantly on their mind.

  ‘Tell me about your hair, then,’ I say to Zach, to deflect from the continually blossoming guilt.

  He uses the flat of his hand to stroke up the centre of my stomach then rests it on my chest, covering my heart. ‘You do want to know now?’

  ‘I think you want to tell me, which is why I want to know.’

  ‘I suppose I do want to tell you.’

  ‘Go on, then. Did you have hair before?’

  ‘Yes. I had a lot of hair once. All over my body. I was actually really hairy.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then it started coming out, mainly in the shower at first. Not much, but I started to notice a couple of bare spots on my head, a few spots on my chest. Then the “little bit” turned into a bit more, and a bit more until, over about six months, all my body hair and head hair fell out and didn’t grow back. Then my eyebrows went and my eyelashes. That was the worst. When I exercise I get sweat in my eyes; I have to rinse my eyes out with eyewash every morning and night because they get full of the grit that’s usually stopped by eyelashes and they dry out. At one point all my nails went, too. But that’s stopped.’

  ‘That sounds really tough.’

  ‘I think the worst part was the eyelashes and eyebrows, not just for what I said about how it impacted on my eyes. It made me look weird. Before all of this happened I’ve shaved my head and I’ve let my hair grow out, never thought anything of it. So having no hair on my head wasn’t anything strange, and no hair on my body was fine because no one sees that regularly. But the eyebrows and eyelashes, they made me stand out. I felt like a freak.’

  I shift on him and he keeps his hand slightly left of centre of my chest, covering my heart. ‘I don’t think you look like a freak,’ I say. ‘I’ve always thought you’re pretty damn gorgeous, actually.’

  He blows a kiss at me. ‘I don’t care now, so maybe that’s why you don’t think I look weird. When it first happened, I felt so ashamed. I hated walking around because I could see people staring at me, double-taking, trying to work out what was wrong with me. My confidence took a huge hit and it’s taken me a while to get some of it back. Like I say, I don’t give a damn now.’

  ‘Did you ever find out what caused it?’ I ask.

  ‘No, not really. It’s an autoimmune thing, apparently. Not many people have what I have – alopecia universalis – where they lose all the hair on their body and eyes. They think it was stress, trauma, really. I was very close to my grandparents and they were taken from me quite suddenly.’

  ‘What, they died?’

  He nods thoughtfully, his lips pursed as though he is stopping himself from saying anything more. It’s a very deliberate thing to say – ‘taken from me’ rather than ‘I lost them’.

  ‘Did someone hurt them?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes, someone hurt them. Killed them. It was a while back, but I think the shock of it took its toll without me realising. I’ve been tested for all sorts of things, and there’s nothing wrong with me. The only thing I can really say that was significant was what happened to my grandparents.’

  ‘Did they ever catch the person who did it?’ I ask. I want to ask more but I don’t. It doesn’t really matter how or exactly when, it’s enough that it happened and that it had such a profound and lasting effect on him.

  ‘No, no they didn’t,’ Zach replies.

  He has a faraway look in his eye that makes me think there is a lot more he would like to say but won’t. He’s not simply being cautious around me, I don’t think; I suspect he keeps all of this stuff close to his chest, deep in his heart. This is something he doesn’t talk about with anyone.

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’ I ask. I could leave it, avoid the subject now he’s being reticent, but then there’d be this unspoken ‘thing’ between us and I’d rather there wasn’t. As much as possible, I want this relationship to be different to the others I’ve had. I want us to build something on a firm foundation; to be honest and open enough to ask questions. ‘You don’t have to, but I just want you to know you can if you want to.’

  Zach smiles and shakes his head. ‘No. I don’t want to talk about it. I never want to talk about it. Too painful.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘You know what someone said to me once, though? About my lack of hair, I mean?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d have a head start if I decided to become a criminal because I’ve got less DNA to leave behind.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I said,’ Zach says. ‘I did point out I’d rather have hair and they told me I should try to look on the bright side of things, it’d make me happier eventually.’

  ‘And they couldn’t just say you’d spend less on shampoo or shaving gear?’

  ‘Exactly! You’re the first person to get it. Most people think I’m being oversensitive. But seriously, why would your first thought be that I’d get away with being a serial killer? I suppose someone like me does make people uncomfortable, so they do say strange things.’

  ‘Maybe, but I think it reveals a lot about them, though. Is it going to grow back?’

  ‘Probably not after all this time. I think they said if there isn’t any sign of regrowth after the first year or two, it’s unlikely to return.’

  ‘Does it bother you? I know you said you don’t give a shit now, but does it bother you?’

  ‘Not much. Especially not when I pull a beauty like you who doesn’t act like it’s a big deal and who tells me in many ways that she thinks I’m gorgeous.’

  I move his hand away from my chest and lean forwards, place my lips on his stomach and then slowly, carefully run my tongue up his body to his chest. Then I kiss him, slowly pushing my lips firmer and firmer onto his, until his mouth opens and our tongues meet. Zach pulls me down onto the bed beside him and our kissing becomes deeper. He climbs on top of me and stares down at me.

  Again I’m struck by how open his face is without any hair, how it feels like I can see every part of him. I run my fingers over his face, relishing how smooth he feels, how without guile he appears.

  He reaches under the pillow beside my head and pulls out a small silver square, slightly misshapen on the flat by the circle sealed up inside it. Up until now, we’ve always used these. At some point he went to get tested and he showed me the results. I went to get tested, too, and I showed him the results. Even though we’ve both been given a clean bill of sexual health, we’ve continued to use condoms.

  I watch as he slowly tears open the small packet of protection. I’ve always thought of condoms as something to prevent pregnancy and guard against the spread of certain types of diseases, until recently, when I began to think of them as a whole different type of protection. I read something where some researchers had theorised that, through sperm, microscopic parts of the DNA of every man a woman has slept with stay inside her body, becoming a tiny little element of her physiological make-up.

  It is just a theory, something the researchers put forward amongst other theories to explain why they found non-family DNA in women’s bodies, but I was struck by it. I’ve always used condoms despite being on the Pill, because I’ve never been with a man with whom I didn’t want some sort of barrier between us while we had sex. This is why I am staring at the condom Zach holds. Would it be terrible if – potentially – a minuscule piece of Zach stayed with me for ever? Would it be so awful to share such an open, barrier-less intimacy with him? Maybe it’s the guilt of almost kissing Aaron, or the excitement at having a chance to take a step forwards with my Brighton Mermaid search, but I reach for the condom and take it from him, drop it onto his bedsid
e table. ‘We don’t need this,’ I say, staring straight into his unadorned eyes.

  He’s surprised. ‘You sure?’ he asks. ‘There’s no pressure to do this, you know?’

  I’m sure , I think. I want this with you . ‘I’m very sure.’

  He kisses me and I kiss him back as he slowly moves me into position underneath him. I place my hand on his face; his skin is warm and smooth under my fingers; our eyes are linked as he slowly enters me.

  I’m so sure about this and I’m sure about you .

  Macy

  Sunday, 22 April

  ‘Please stop this, Macy,’ Shane begs.

  ‘Stop what?’ I ask.

  ‘Look around you, Macy. Look what you’re doing.’

  We are in the deepest hollow of the night, where darkness cannot find us and light is a dictator’s mirage. I like this place, I do not have to do anything when I am here. Daytime will not be able to order me into the office; night-time cannot force me to lie down and sleep.

  I look up at him from my place kneeling in front of the freezer. There was a spot right at the back that I haven’t cleaned properly and I am doing it now. I’m also trashing stuff that’s out of date. Stuff that is in date I am going to repackage and label so I know what is useable and what is for the bin.

  ‘Macy, this isn’t good for you. For any of us. The children are going to be up in a few hours and you’ve cleared out all the cupboards. Where are they going to eat their breakfast?’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous, Shane,’ I tell him. ‘All of this will be gone by morning. You know that.’

  Shane pinches the bridge of his nose like he thinks it will help him understand. I’m glad he doesn’t understand. Because I don’t understand. How can Clyde be a proud daddy when he has three children he never sees, and he never pays for? How can he be a proud daddy with someone else? What was wrong with me ? Why didn’t he want me and our family life?

  ‘I don’t know what’s set you off, but if you don’t stop this, I’m going to call Nell, then I’m going to call your parents,’ Shane says. ‘You can’t keep doing this.’