All the Fabulous Beasts

by Priya Sharma

  I headed for the service road that circumnavigated the island. It was lined with letting agents, hairdressers, and low-rise flats. Darla had said that was where many of the villagers had moved to.

  Does my mother live there?

  I doubt it. I never saw her again after she left you.

  I crossed over and kept going. There was a path that led into the trees. I stepped aside to let a runner pass. He was breathing hard as he took the incline towards me. Sweat marked his top. He was what people here called gweilo. A term for foreigners, literally translated as foreign devil.

  Only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun.

  I was a gweilo too, only it didn’t matter where I was. In Britain and in the States it was the same. Even when people didn’t give a damn where I was from I felt like an outsider. Here in Hong Kong I looked like a native but it didn’t take long for people to realise that I wasn’t when they tried to talk to me in Cantonese.

  The path forked and I had an overwhelming urge to follow the left one. It led into the narrow corridors of trees.

  I emerged into the light. There it was, Ma Wan proper, laid out before me. I walked along abandoned streets. Weeds pushed up through the crack in the concrete to reclaim the land. Some of the houses were blocked off with chain link fences. Others were accessible. I went into a few of them. Faded imprints of life remained within. Torn wallpaper. A rotting mattress. Piles of cardboard boxes and bags covered in dust and rubble. There were empty shops and open-fronted sheds. Washing hung on lines, stiff from continual cycles of being rain-drenched and then sun-dried. Litter gathered where the wind had left it.

  Slogans had been painted on walls in red. Banners were hung over doors. I didn’t need to be able to read them to know that they were protest calls. Not everyone wanted to leave here. Some had remained. Somebody had left vases of chrysanthemums and incense sticks burning in pots of sand. Little gifts for silent gods.

  One side of the village overlooked the water. There was everything a community needed. I looked through the window of a building marked as the “Ma Wan Rural Committee”. Chairs were stacked up in the hall. On one wall there were photographs and yellowed notices. There was a school house further along and a playground that comprised a slide and a frame missing its swings.

  Along the shore line were stacks of plastic pipes. The suspension bridge loomed over me. I’d reached the houses on stilts. They were rotten. The rooves had collapsed in on some of them. Struts had given way.

  I followed the shore to the very edge of Ma Wan. A house stood alone on a promontory and it looked out onto the South China Sea. It was close to the water. Perfect.

  The front door and window frames were missing. The building was unrendered. The concrete floor had been swept clean but it was stained. The plastered walls were unpainted. There wasn’t a stick of furniture inside but I couldn’t see beyond the tattered, yellow curtain that divided the room. Somebody had planned a life here that never materialised.

  I could be happy here, I thought.

  I stepped inside. It was as though I’d stepped into a vacuum. The roaring in my ears wasn’t the rush of blood. It sounded like the sea. It was so loud that I crumpled to the floor. Shadow rushed at me and then receded. It was too much. I panicked, as I never had at open sea. My chest was tight. I couldn’t breathe.

  Then the world went black.

  *

  I was dreaming of the sea.

  Great white sharks circled me. Thousands of years of unthinking history looked out from eyes that offered neither pity nor remorse. Their smiles were serrated.

  They’re psychopaths, designed for survival. The sand shark will eat its siblings in utero. Their personality issues are no excuse for what we do to them. I’ve seen them hauled onto boats, fins hacked off while they’re still alive, then they’re thrown back in. Rudderless, they fall through the water. Death comes slowly by suffocation, exsanguination, or they’re eaten alive by other fishes.

  Man must consume a small part of the mighty and discard the major portion like it’s garbage. We will have dominion over everything.

  We will have soup.

  *

  When I woke, I was on the other side of the yellow curtain. It was cool. I heard a woman humming. The metal bedframe creaked as I sat up. I could feel its springs through the cheap mattress. This end of the room had been tiled in white. It felt oddly clinical. Cupboards ran along one wall and a sink was set in the worktop at one end.

  “You scared me. You took quite a turn.”

  A woman sat down at one end of the bed. She was a pearl. Luminous. “Drink.” She handed me a bottle of water.

  “How long have I been here?”

  “Half an hour.” Her accent was French.

  She wore shorts and a t-shirt. Her hair was black and straight, her irises so dark that I couldn’t make out her pupils. She shifted, pulling a bag onto the bed between us.

  “Here,” she rummaged inside and pulled out a bar of chocolate. “You should eat something.”

  The first bite made me realise that I was ravenous. The chocolate was bitter and restorative. She leant back on the head of the bed and watched me eat. There were bottles of water lined up on the worktop and a bag of apples. A red dress and coat hung on a peg. A suitcase lay open on one corner of the floor.

  “Feeling better?” she asked.

  “Much. Do you live here?”

  “I’m squatting.”

  She pulled her hair into a loose knot and fixed it with a hairband from her wrist. The dark strands were matted, as if she’d been swimming in the sea and not rinsed it out with freshwater afterwards.

  “I’m Tom.”

  “Simone.”

  I held out my hand to shake hers but it was really an excuse to touch her. I’d never felt the need to do that before, not with anyone. Her hand lingered in mine as if in answer to a question that I didn’t know I’d asked.

  Simone took the water from me and tipped her head back to drain what remained in the bottle. I could see the muscles of her throat working. It reminded me of Suzie, just before she kissed me.

  I didn’t want to be reminded of the disappointments of that night.

  “Where are you from?”

  “Paris.” She tossed the empty bottle on the floor. “My father was a diplomat so we travelled a lot. My mother died when I was six. She was from Hong Kong so I always wanted to see it.”

  “I see you’re doing it in style.”

  “I do everything with style,” she laughed. “My father disagrees about what style is. I inherited some money from my aunt. It’s not a huge amount, so I’m economising. To be honest, I don’t need posh hotels. It’s more important for me to be by the sea. I die inside if I can’t see it.”

  “Me too. I lived in Texas when I was younger, near the desert. I couldn’t breathe.”

  “What about you?”

  “My father died recently. My mum was from Ma Wan. I never knew her. I came here to find out who I am.”

  I’d never said that aloud before.

  “I’ve no idea who I am either, or where I belong.” She made it sound inconsequential. Funny, even. “My father stopped loving me when my mother died.”

  “My father never loved me. He never wanted me. Apparently he had me tested to check I was actually his.”

  We laughed, incredulous at how our fathers had scarred us.

  “Have you found anything worthwhile here?” The sound of my own voice shocked me. I realised I was flirting with her.

  She responded with an honesty that floored me, as if she’d misunderstood the question.

  “That I can’t escape myself. Wherever I go, I’m already there.”

  My heart leapt and twisted, like a fish with a hook in its mouth. She had me with that line.

  “I can’t make friends, Tom, not the way other people do.” She shrugged, embarrassed. “There’s always someone who singles me out, who thinks that I need saving or that I can save them. Fellow freaks, maybe.”r />
  “And they scare you because you’re not like them and you don’t know how to be what they want—”

  “—because I have no idea how to be myself.”

  The hairs on my arms stood on end.

  “Tom, I need to be in the water. Naked. Will you swim with me?”

  Her lips were parted. I was acutely aware of the rise and fall of her chest. It was the most earnest and erotic invitation of my life, made sweeter by our sudden empathy.

  “Yes.”

  *

  Simone stood on the rocks, not caring about the spray from the waves or who saw her. She stripped off her t-shirt and shorts. Then her underwear. Naked, she was made anew. Every muscle tensed as she stood on tip-toe, arms stretched out. She was tanned and sleek with a slight belly. She dived, a knife that sliced the surface.

  I tore off my clothes as I followed her. My heart was hammering. The ocean enveloped me. Water filled by vision. Simone’s hair floated around her like seaweed as she rolled onto her back, baring her neck and chest to the sun like a basking seal. I trod water beside her.

  “I’m happiest here. So are you.” She didn’t look at me to gauge my reaction. She knew she was right. Then she kissed me. I kissed her back. When I held her there was no softness beneath her skin as if she were armoured underneath it. I was so hard that I thought I’d burst.

  “Shall we?”

  I nodded, already knowing what she was asking. My breathing was slowing and deepening. Down we went.

  We twisted around one another, sometimes only an inch apart but never touching. Drifting out with the current, we went closer to the sea bed. A shoal of tiny fishes moved around us like slivers of silver. I could see the crab crawling along the bottom. I could sense the microscopic plankton that fuels the world.

  We broke the surface in unison. Here she was, the person that wouldn’t find me wanting. For once, I was in the moment, not trying to guess at what was required of me. Thought could be suspended and everything would be right. All those unsatisfied nights. I thought the joy of Simone would break me, right then.

  We floated further out. Ma Wan looked miniature. I packed my lungs as much as I could. Let her see. Let her know the man I really am.

  We spiralled back down, corkscrewing around one another. My breathing was controlled enough, my exhalations deep enough to give me the negative buoyancy to make giant strides along the sea bed.

  Simone matched me, step for step until she wrapped her ankle around a drift of sea weed to anchor herself. I did the same. She put her forehead to mine. Her hands were on my shoulders. Mine were at her hips. She shifted to let me inside her.

  There it was. The great mystery. We were synchronised. Our rhythm was primal. Tidal. Something in me rose. I could feel Simone tightening around me. I was clamped, the tip of my penis sucked and messaged by her cervix. I was so close to coming that it was painful. She gripped me tighter. My own orgasm was a dry spasm as she ejaculated inside me.

  It was like breaking up and dissolving, every particle of Thomas Briggs dispersed on the currents.

  *

  Simone and I walked back to the house, naked and dripping, carrying our clothes in bundles. I reached for her hand but she moved away.

  We dressed in silence, me into what I’d been wearing and Simone into the red dress on the peg. I watched, throat clogged, as it slipped over her slight, bare breasts and then over the triangle of dark hair between her legs.

  “Simone.”

  “You should leave.”

  She sounded angry. I reached out to touch her shoulder but she stepped back.

  “Please, Simone. I’ve been waiting for you my whole life.”

  “Then you’re stupid.”

  “What have I done? What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t you get it?” She pushed me away, both hands on my chest, not hard, but it hurt all the same. “I don’t want you. It was a mistake. Get out. Go on, go.”

  *

  I didn’t want to sit alone in my father’s apartment. I knocked on Darla’s door. Cadogan answered. I stared at him, taking a moment to register it was really him.

  “What have you done with Darla?” I pushed him out of the way. The lounge was empty. Nothing was out of place.

  I was angry. I wanted to fight with someone who’d fight back. Let him kick the shit out of me. It didn’t matter.

  “Where’s Darla?” I pushed him again. “Darla?”

  “She’s in there.” He pointed to the bedroom. “I’ll wait here, if it’s all the same to you. And she said to shut the door after you.”

  I’d never been in Darla’s bedroom.

  There wasn’t a bed in there. A footed bath occupied the space where a bed should’ve been. It was giant, with clawed feet. The floor was marble and ornate drains were set into the floor at regular intervals. It was a giant wet room. The tap dripped at regular intervals. It landed in the water below with a heavy splash.

  One wall was covered in a huge canvas, just like the lounge. This was an angry, swirling blue, as if from an abyss.

  A strangled, sucking sound came from the depths of the bathtub.

  What was in there was at least eight feet long. Its skin was like hide, a mottled brown colour. Its gills moved as it squirmed with pleasure, its underbelly revealed. I could see patches of human skin.

  The eel was thick around the jaw. It had Darla’s face and when she opened her mouth to speak I could see the thick spikes that she had for teeth and the second set further down her throat.

  The sea within the canvas writhed in fury.

  “Thomas,” Darla said and all the pounding water came pouring out.

  *

  I woke on the bed in the little house on the promontory. Simone was dabbing at my face with a cool, damp cloth.

  “Darla, she’s…”

  Simone shook her head. Her lips pinched together, leeching them of colour. Her eyes were pink and tear-stung.

  Fever raised beads of sweat on my head and neck. A sudden chill went through me and my teeth started to chatter. I didn’t trust that Simone was there after all. I reached for her but a chain rattled, restraining me. I was tethered to the bed frame.

  “Simone.” My voice was hoarse. I followed her gaze to the corner of the room.

  It was Darla. Darla as I’d always known her, dressed in linen and looking refined.

  “Let me go.”

  “I can’t. Not now.” Darla was the one in charge.

  “I want to go home.”

  “You are home. I’ve been calling you all back here, one by one.”

  I tried to sit up but slumped back, exhausted. My every joint ached. Every muscle felt weak.

  “He looks really sick. I think we should get a doctor.”

  “And say what?” Darla asked sharply. All I could hear was their breathing.

  “Good.” Darla had taken Simone’s silence for acquiescence.

  “I can’t do this anymore.” Simone was trembling.

  “You’ve done it before and you’ll do it again because it’s what you were born for. You can’t help yourself. Like draws like. Something in your father found something in your mother. It was the same for him.” Darla motioned to me. “A recessive gene, to be sure, but mixed together and becoming more manifest with each generation. You’re a daughter of the sea, just like Thomas is a son. And you’re all coming back to replenish what’s been lost.”

  *

  I was dreaming of the sea.

  I reached a coral reef. Sea horses were on the ocean floor, a grazing herd. They anchored themselves where they could; on coral, sea grass. One wrapped its tail around another’s neck. Elsewhere they were knotted together in what looked like an orgy. Their prehensile tails were sinuous.

  They rose to greet me when they saw me. They varied in size, some as long as my hand.

  Their delicate, translucent fins were like fragile propellers. All they could manage was a drunken canter but they danced for me. A chorus line of prancing seahorses.

  Em
boldened, they came closer. Close enough for me to see their eyes moving independently of one another. That their snouts made a constant sucking motion. Lacking a stomach means that they must feed perpetually.

  I pity their poor cousins, pipe fish, who lack the seahorse’s equine angles. Such elegance. They bowed to me, even though they were the ones with coronets.

  I felt like my chest would burst with their sweetness.

  *

  Darla and Simone left. My fever settled as I slept.

  Cadogan stood at the end of the bed.

  “Feeling better? Good. Now, ground rules. Scream and I’ll stuff rags in your mouth and break your legs. And you eat and drink or I’ll make you.” He pulled a funnel and a hose from a bag to demonstrate.

  “I thought you worked for Dad’s solicitor.”

  “I work for lots of people. That’s the fun of being freelance.”

  “Conflict of interest doesn’t bother you, then?”

  “Clearly not. You’re mixed up in some weird crap here, aren’t you?”

  “Can I have a drink?” Talking hurt. My mouth was dry.

  He smiled as he handed me a plastic bottle of tepid water. What I wouldn’t have given for a glass of cold beer, cold enough to make my teeth ache.

  I looked at the curtain, moving in the breeze. Simone’s things were gone.

  He pulled back the yellow curtain a fraction so I could see the water.

  “Was Simone worth it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “My dad used to say killing and fucking are what makes a man.”

  “What about parenthood?” The thought surprised me.

  “He knew bugger all about that and never bothered to learn. Any idiot can father a child.”

  “Yes, it takes a real man to raise one.” I was thinking of my own father as I said it.

  “Yes, I reckon you’re right there.” When Cadogan looked at me then I felt like he was seeing me for the first time.

  “You have children, don’t you? Sons.”

  “Yes.”

  *

  Cadogan changed my bedding, helping me back from the chair where I’d slumped. He tucked me in, pulling an extra blanket and pillow from a carrier bag to make me more comfortable.