Path to the Night Sea

by Gilmore, Alicia;

  She staggered ashore, half wading, half crawling, pushed by the waves. She fell once more to her knees and vomited a sickly stream of salt water. Placing her hands in the wet, cold sand, she squeezed this imitation earth. She didn’t feel safe with her back to the ocean. It could pull her in at any time, holding her hostage.

  ‘Move.’ She began to crawl. She was surprised to see how far she had drifted from the point she had entered the water. Squinting, it took her a few nervous seconds to locate her small pile of clothes, camouflaged as they were in the gentle rolls of sand and rock. With trembling hands, Ellie rummaged through her clothes, grabbing her singlet and shoving her head and arms through. With cold, clumsy fingers she dressed, the sand sticking to her damp skin, making each movement awkward. Her progress back up the hill was slow, exhaustion marring each lurching step. The aches and pains seemed to have become a permanent part of her. Each footstep was accompanied by a laboured pant. She just wanted to be home. To shower and put on clean clothes, to curl up under her blanket with Perce beside her. Where she would be safe.

  ‘Home.’

  Day Six

  Ellie traced flattened figures of eight on the kitchen table with her fingertips.

  ‘I need something,’ she said to the empty room. ‘A shroud.’ She remembered reading in the Bible of the shrouds that covered the dead. The steam from her tea rose into the air in slow misty spirals as she thought about how she could construct one. She hadn’t sewn anything for a while, not properly at least. In this cooler weather, she had simply buried her body under layers of Daddy’s clothes. There was no need for anything else.

  Ellie took a sip of tea, the fragile china cup heavy in her hand. She was exhausted and sore. It still hurt to breathe. She lowered the cup to the saucer, slowly, decisively. He would be covered. It was not that he deserved it, not after what he had done to Mummy—images of bones mingled with rotting plastic bags flashed before her—but she did not want to see him again. It was time to pick up her needle and thread once more. She would make her father a shroud.

  She left the teacup with its black pooling liquid and stood. Needle, thread, and scissors: she counted the necessary items on her fingers. Her sewing tin was in the back of her wardrobe and the sheet on his bed would have to do. It was white. They only had plain white sheets. No stripes or fripperies for Daddy. Plain and simple was best.

  ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.’ She spoke with a husky voice, her throat still sore. Mummy would need a shroud too, and Maisie, and the babies, but Daddy came first. That body, that smell, his evil… They had to be contained. Ellie rummaged in the closet for the old biscuit tin that held her sewing supplies. She opened it and pushed aside a misshapen pincushion that vaguely resembled a strawberry—a very early sewing attempt—and found a spool of white thread. ‘Yes.’ She could untuck the sheet beneath him and sew along the sides, cocooning his body and sealing him in. Perhaps it would stop the flies and the bugs for a while. She winced. As she had walked past his room earlier, she’d been sure she could still hear that buzzing murmur of rancid life.

  The stench hit her before she had even opened his door. The room smelt stale and thick with truculent air and decaying flesh. There were fewer flies—the spray had done some good—but the air remained rank. His bloated body lay horrific on the bed, weeping through the thin flannelette pyjamas she had tried to dress him in. She lifted off the pyjama top she’d draped over his torso and long flakes of skin peeled off with it.

  ‘What d’ya think you’re doing, girl?’ His eyes were open, trying to focus on her through that dull, milky film.

  Ellie gritted her teeth. ‘What I have to.’

  ‘Goddamn it, Ellie, leave me alone!’

  ‘No.’ God, she wanted to, but she couldn’t. Not yet. He’d changed colour again. Blue and green patches and blisters erupted from him, his stomach swollen and grotesque. Layers of skin sloughed from him and she dreaded the thought of having to touch this thing, this body. Fluid leaked from his mouth and nose, and his purplish tongue, mixed with the dead bodies of maggots, protruded as if he were readying himself to speak once more. She staggered backwards, hands clasped over her mouth.

  ‘You’re not real. You’re not alive.’ She rocked on her feet. ‘You can’t be.’ She knew he was dead, had to be dead, but why could she see him move? Why could she hear him? Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

  ‘You’re rotten,’ she whispered, ‘rotten to the core.’ Him and her both, she grimaced. She left the room in search of the portable fan they used in summer time. They would both appreciate some fresher air.

  As the fan blew cool air onto her back, Ellie untucked the sheet beneath him, cringing as her movements caused the body to stir.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? Stop it. Stop it now.’

  ‘I have to. Daddy, you can’t stay here anymore. This body, it’s not you.’

  ‘You can’t do this to me, Ellie, I won’t leave you.’

  ‘I know.’ She looked down at him. ‘That’s why I’m leaving you.’ In the dirt, she wanted to add, but didn’t. She moved her gaze to the sheet. It was too short on this side. She steeled herself to move his body—It’s just a shell, an empty shell—so it was better positioned on the expanse of cotton. There was a squelching sound as her fingers sank into fetid flesh. Bile rose to her throat as she forced herself to kneel on the bed and reach over his distended stomach. She gagged and choked as she found herself too close. Her eyes watered as she tried to roll him on his side. The bed and the body rocked with a sticking, peeling sound. She saw his arm move and leapt off the bed.

  ‘Goddamn it!’ Tears mingled with the snot dripping from her nose. It’s not real, she told herself. He’s not really moving, he’s dead. Dead and gone. Dead enough to be buried.

  ‘Be dead.’ She glared at him. ‘Stay dead.’

  It took some time to manoeuvre the body into position. The skin on his back and arms that had been lying on the mattress was darker as if the evil that had resided in him had pooled below. She tried to align the edges of the sheet so she would have enough room to neatly sew him into this thin sleeping bag, his impromptu shroud.

  She wiped her face on her sleeve and perched on the side of the bed. Licking the end of the white cotton, she threaded her needle and began to sew.

  ‘Do you remember when I was little and you showed me the duck?’ She had watched her father strip the feathers—brown feathers shimmering with glints of light green and blue—from a duck’s lifeless body over the sink in the laundry. She didn’t know how old she’d been, but her face had been scar-free. He hadn’t been ashamed to look at her then. He had been out shooting, whistling as he had left in the predawn darkness. The whistling had woken her and she remembered that she had crawled into bed with Mummy and fallen asleep as soon as she was sure he had left. Daddy had returned by lunchtime, still in a good mood, and he had let her come into the laundry to watch as he had prepared the birds.

  The light attempting to sear its way through the overhanging leaves and the glass window had created dappled patterns along his hairy arms. He had hummed as he’d plucked the feathers out. She had stood on an upended bucket, holding onto the edge of the sink.

  ‘Daddy, what happened to the bird?’

  The memory changed, the image segued into strands of blond hair instead of feathers. It wasn’t a duck that he had been hunting; it was a girl. A girl wearing a handmade cardigan with red ladybird buttons. A girl with blond hair matted and streaked in red. Maisie.

  The needle stabbed her finger and Ellie was jerked back into the present. A bright circle of blood blossomed on her finger. She stuck her finger into her mouth and jammed the offending needle into his lifeless leg.

  ‘You bastard.’

  She had sewn all the way up to his shoulders before she stopped and stretched her arms over her head, yawning widely. All she could see now was his face. His eyes seemed more sunken. He looked like
an odd, oversized insect trying to emerge from its cocoon. She thought again of the bugs that had fed on him, within him, for the last few days and cringed. Perhaps this humble shroud wouldn’t be enough to hold him, but she had to try. She picked up her needle again to rethread it.

  ‘Don’t you dare, girl, don’t you dare.’

  Ellie broke off the thread with her teeth. She wouldn’t seal him in yet. Not because he had spoken, but because there was something missing. She reached into her tin and pulled out some coloured spools. She wouldn’t leave him with this clean white cotton. He didn’t deserve a pure and innocent white. She threaded her needle with maroon. She would decorate his shroud. She would embroider and honour the names of those whose lives he had stolen. Mummy. Maisie. Her baby in the bowl—what the encyclopaedia called a foetus. Baby girl, baby boy. Ellie.

  

  ‘The water’s so still, so flat. I had no idea it could be this way.’ Jack’s gaze was straight to the horizon. Arthur turned his head and squinted out to sea. It did seem too flat, unnatural. Jack fidgeted, his feet shifting in the sand. He still felt a little on edge around Arthur, even though Arthur seemed to have accepted him.

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry about your dad.’ He wanted to say more, but he couldn’t find the words. He hadn’t liked Arthur’s dad and he hadn’t known anyone who’d died before. Not someone’s parent. Someone his age. If it could happen to Arthur, then it could happen to anyone.

  Arthur didn’t respond. Jack tried again.

  ‘It must be weird now, you know, you working… Just you and your mum at home.’

  Arthur looked away.

  ‘Do you ever hear from Miriam?’

  ‘Nup.’

  ‘Do you…?’

  ‘Check them out.’ Arthur interrupted, gesturing to their right. Further down the beach, a group of girls lay stretched out on their towels, basking in the sun. Jack supposed the conversation was over. He eyed the three girls dispassionately. Could he do it? He’d thought about it. Tried to picture himself finding a girl, doing the expected thing, dating, marrying, settling down. Maybe once he was married, these thoughts, these urges, they would fade. Although if he could still have these moments with someone, someone who felt the same way he did… There had to be others with these feelings. If not in this poky backwater, then the city, somewhere. The thought that he might be the only one who felt this way terrified him.

  He could hear the girls giggling and one in a cheery blue swimsuit made eye contact with him before rolling over onto her stomach. Jack looked back out at the glassy surface of the ocean. There’d been that guy down at Coledale who’d got bashed; he’d heard his dad talking about it. Seeming pleased, almost envious of the blokes who had done it to the ‘faggot’. Jack scratched some peeling skin on his shoulder. Could he live a lie? Forever? Hide his desires away, bury them, and be like everyone else in this small fucking town? Be a ‘real’ man with a wife and some kids? Hell, there were plenty of folk ready to believe he’d gotten Miriam pregnant. He burrowed his heels in the sand. It had taken a while for Arthur to start talking to him again—albeit in grunts more than sentences—to hang out with him again, even though it appeared their movie days were a thing of the past. Jack had apologised, sworn he’d never do something like that again, and Arthur had accepted. Neither one of them had ever mentioned again what had happened that afternoon on the beach. If Arthur could pretend the kiss had never occurred, then so could he.

  Arthur kept his eyes on the girls. One of them noticed Arthur staring and said something to her friends. Three heads had whipped around.

  ‘They’re checking us out.’

  Jack looked at the girls again. ‘So?’ He didn’t recognise them; they weren’t locals. They had doubtless caught the train down from the city. He supposed he could try. He’d probably never see them again.

  ‘So, we go over, introduce ourselves, you know, be friendly… Never know where it’ll get us…’ Arthur winked as he stood and Jack felt his stomach twist.

  ‘I dunno,’ Jack shrugged. ‘Don’t think I’ll be getting anywhere.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing.’

  ‘And you do, I suppose?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Arthur bristled at the mocking tone in Jack’s voice. ‘I do.’

  ‘Yeah, right, who’d have you?’

  Arthur wheeled around. ‘I can have whoever I want, whenever I want.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  ‘I’ve got what it takes.’

  ‘Prove it.’

  ‘Already have,’ he sneered. ‘Thought you’d be grateful.’

  ‘What d’ya mean?’

  ‘I don’t see you running around telling everyone you didn’t sleep with my sister.’

  Jack flushed. He wasn’t sure why, but he did feel oddly guilty about Miriam. He hadn’t thought she’d been that sort of girl, but she’d obviously been with some bloke and it hadn’t been him. Arthur eyed him cockily and Jack wanted to take the smug look off his face.

  ‘You ain’t been with nobody. The girls at school wouldn’t touch ya, and now you’re working at the mine, who you gonna meet? You’re too young to get into the pub. You’re full of shit.’

  ‘I could be a fucking father by now.’ He smirked and turned back to face the girls. ‘I’m no poof like you.’ He hitched his t-shirt over his head with his coal-encrusted nails and tucked it into the waistband of his shorts. Since working in the mine his body had thickened out, his arms and chest more muscular and defined. Jack swallowed. Arthur swaggered over to where the girls were lying, leaving Jack to trail behind.

  ‘Can’t believe she gave you her number.’ Arthur’s glare fired resentment. ‘You weren’t even friendly or nothin’, friggin’ quiet all afternoon.’

  Jack let Arthur go before him on the path. ‘Why do you care? You got her friend’s number.’

  ‘Yeah, but you didn’t even have to try. Wasted, that’s what you are.’

  The boys walked in silence, Jack fingering the slip of paper the pony-tailed girl in the blue swimsuit had given him, its surface slick with suntan oil. Maybe if he played the part, kept up the illusion… Something that had been niggling at him all afternoon came into horrific jarring focus. He stopped, his foot slipping on one of the pebbles.

  ‘What you said before?’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Before, about having anyone, about being a father, you didn’t mean, you couldn’t…’

  Arthur stopped walking and turned to face Jack. He was above him on the path and this brought the boys to eye level. ‘Spit it out.’

  ‘You…you meant your sister, didn’t you? You meant Miriam.’

  Arthur’s eyes flashed. Jack’s stomach snaked and coiled and he couldn’t tell if it was revulsion or fear.

  ‘That’s sick. You’re sick.’

  A slow, creeping smile warped the corners of Arthur’s narrow lips.

  ‘That’s fucked.’

  ‘What are you going to do about it?’

  ‘I’m fucking going to tell. You…can’t…she…’ The words were lost in his mouth, swirling in bile. Arthur took a step towards him, his eyes boring into Jack’s.

  ‘Who are you going to tell, huh? No one, that’s who.’

  ‘I’ll tell,’ he fumbled for a name, ‘my Mum.’ He knew how pathetic it sounded, even before Arthur barked out a dismissing laugh.

  ‘You won’t.’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘You won’t. Everyone around here thinks it was you.’ He jabbed his hand in the air bringing it close to Jack’s face. ‘If they knew the truth about you, you reckon it’d be safe for you around here? Your folks wouldn’t kick you out? You reckon your old man wouldn’t kill you?’ He leaned closer, dark eyes burning. ‘You think anyone would take the word of a fag?’

  That’s not the same. I haven’t done anything, but what you’ve done, your own s
ister, God.’

  Arthur smiled. ‘You reckon anyone in this town would give a shit? I know what people in this town can forgive and being a poof ain’t it.’

  ‘No one knows.’

  ‘Yet.’

  Fear christened Jack’s entire being. ‘But you can’t just do that. That’s different.’

  ‘Can’t do what?’ Arthur was belligerent. ‘Fuck or tell?’

  Jack gagged. His mind flashed through the possibilities. He felt sick and guilty and scared and angry and it was all so very, very wrong, but what had been done to Miriam was done. She’d been sent away now anyway. But if people were to find out about him, he would never be able to walk these streets again without fear. The men in this town were all miners or dock workers; the guys at school, they would beat the shit out of him. His dad. His dad wouldn’t stop them.

  ‘You fucked her.’ The words were a whisper.

  ‘I did.’ That perverse smile stretched across his face.

  ‘Your sister…’

  ‘She fought it, but she deserved it.’ Arthur winked. ‘I showed her.’

  Jack shoved Arthur in the chest, pushing him off balance and sprinted up the path. His legs were weak beneath him and he wanted to throw up, but he had to get away. He couldn’t stay there, couldn’t stand next to Arthur and breathe the same air as he did. He didn’t want to tell, but he had to. It wasn’t right. She’d been a quiet little thing at church, always helped his mother out, never complained. He’d tell. He would. His mother had always said the Clements family were bad. He had thought she was just droning on with more of her pious, bigoted drivel. Poor Miriam, she was just a kid. He didn’t hear the words Arthur muttered at his retreating form.