by Annet Schaap
He crumples the paper into a ball. Because it’s impossible. It can’t be from Lampie. His daughter can’t read or write; she has never learnt how. And neither has he.
He throws the ball of paper into the cold fireplace and slowly limps back up the stairs, to where the wind is blowing.
FISH SWIMS
Through the early morning mist they walk to the harbour, very first thing, even before breakfast. Lanky Lester and Julie, the bearded lady, lead the way. They are the strongest, so they are carrying the dead mermaid in her blanket. The others follow silently behind. All of them except for Olga and Olga, the elderly Siamese twins, as it was too far for them to walk. Lampie brings up the rear, pulling Fish in her squeaking cart.
Mermaids do not go into the ground. They have to become sea foam, to return to where they came from.
There is no one at the harbour yet and they do not stay for long.
At the last jetty, they stand in silence for a while.
Then the dwarf says, “Farewell, Sparkling Diamond.”
They drop the body into the water. It makes a quiet splash. Two quiet splashes.
When Lampie looks back at Fish, the cart is empty.
*
He is swimming after the body. He can see it dissolving in a flurry of bubbles, as if it is disintegrating. The dull skin, the green hair like seaweed, the black tail – they all dissolve in a fizzing cloud, like the headache powder that Joseph sometimes used to give him. Then something swims out of the cloud, as thin and twisting as a sea snake, but sweeter, more beautiful, with soft hair and a smile. She swims towards him, winds around him, brushes the hair out of his face, puts her mouth up to his ear and doesn’t speak a word. But he understands her anyway.
Go and look for them, boy. Go and let them find you.
Then she turns greener and more transparent, and shimmers away.
He just hears a quiet Thank you, before her voice disappears too. Thank you so, so much.
Fish turns around and around, but there is only water now, green and murky. The light falls through it in slanting rays and, in the distance, he can see the dark shadows of ships’ hulls floating above.
She was his family, the dwarf had said. Some kind of aunt?
Fine. So he had had an aunt for about half an hour. And then she was gone. Of course. No one ever stays with him, not ever. No one is coming to rescue him either. See? He could just as easily drown in this filthy…
Water.
He has been in the water for some time now but he still has not drowned. He is breathing as normal.
Or something in him is breathing, something knows how, somehow or other.
He touches his neck, but does not find any gills. When he breathes out, a stream of bubbles comes from his mouth and his nose.
But how?…
And also…
He can’t swim!
He looks down at his legs, at that deformed, clumsy clump of legs down there. He sees it swishing gently back and forth without any conscious effort on his part. That pointed white foot has unfurled into a fin, which is slowly, effortlessly moving in the water.
He is not doing anything at all. It is happening all by itself.
He closes his eyes.
He pinches himself.
He feels the pinch.
He looks again – and he still has a tail.
Then swim, he says. And his muscles obey.
Which they never did up there, up above, where he endlessly cajoled them, cursed them, prodded them: Stand up! Carry my weight! Be strong!
No, here they simply work.
Swish! And he shoots through the water. Turn! The other way. He swims and swims. Through the forest of slippery green jetty posts, left, right, left, he winds his way between them, smoothly, without touching a single one.
He is so fast!
He is so strong!
He is so happy!
He had never imagined that…
No, he had imagined it, just for a moment, in that dirty aquarium; he had felt how calm his mind became under the water. Through all the panic, he had noticed, just briefly, that… And then everything had gone crazy.
Could he even?…
He shoots through the water, his tail one big muscle, and with a leap he is up above, his arms open wide, as if he is flying. In a flash, he sees Lampie and the other very short, very tall, very fat silhouettes on the jetty.
“Look!” he yells, getting a mouthful of water as he dives back beneath the surface. He turns and jumps again. “Look at me!” The silhouettes are moving, he does not know if they have seen him, it is still quite dim and misty. He shouts and fills the air with splashing water.
“Look! Lampiieee! Look what I can do! Look at my tail! Lampiieee!”
Part Six
THE STUFF OF HEROES
GOODBYE
Fish does not want to come out of the water. He just keeps doing circuits between the jetty posts and then somersaults and seeing how deep he can dive and how far he can leap, but when Lampie calls him, from the high jetty, Fish slowly comes swimming towards her.
“Why don’t you just leave him here?” says the dwarf. “Isn’t it better for him to be free?”
“I don’t know,” says Lampie, and it’s true – she has no idea. What would happen if she went back with an empty cart?
Where is the admiral’s son, girl?
Oh, somewhere in the sea, I don’t know.
At the very least she’d be fired. And then what about the money, and the seven years, and her father? But what about Fish? Would he have to go back under the bed, in that tower?
“And you can come with us, you know,” says the dwarf a little shyly. “If you like. Not as a Phenomenal Freak, you turned out far too neatly for that. But just for fun? For the company?”
“The Black M would go in a heartbeat,” the fat lady with the beard suddenly says. “She’s not scared of anything. She used to sail to the White Cliffs and beyond.”
It is the first time Lampie has heard the woman speak. She has a deep, husky voice and again Lampie has the feeling that she has seen her before. But she can’t remember ever having met a woman with a beard.
“The Black M? What’s that?” she asks.
“She should be over there somewhere,” says the woman, her bare arm jiggling as she points. “You’re her daughter, aren’t you? And your father was the ship’s first mate.”
“No,” says Lampie. “My father’s a lighthouse keeper.”
Through the mist she can see the light slowly turning, far off in the distance.
“Yes, that’s who I mean,” says Julie. “But she doesn’t sail any more, the Black M. That’s what they say. I wish I could…”
“Julie,” says the dwarf impatiently. “Shut up about this Black M of yours. Well, what are you going to do?” he asks Lampie. “Do you want to come with us? It’ll be fun. Every place you go is different but still the same. And everyone’s always so happy to see us. So happy not to be us.”
Lampie shrugs. Maybe, she thinks. Being part of a troupe. Travelling all over, making fires in the evening. A postcard from every new place, addressed to the Grey Lighthouse. No, she can’t do it. She shakes her head. She doesn’t want to leave.
“What about Earl?”
“Oh, Earl,” mutters the dwarf. “He won’t do anything. He just sits inside his ticket booth and thinks he’s the boss.”
“Lampie! Did you see me, Lampie? Did you see me?” At the bottom of the jetty post, Fish is shaking the drops of water from his hair, and his golden eyes are gleaming.
“Amazing,” says the dwarf. “My goodness, lad! That’s beautiful.”
“What?” Fish looks over his shoulder to see if there is something beautiful behind him.
“You,” says Oswald with a smile.
“Oh. But did you see it? Did you see me? I did a double somersault, as easy as anything, and I think if I practise I’ll be able to do a triple one and maybe even…”
Lampie sits down on the edge
of the jetty. “Fish,” she says. “Do you want to come home with me or not? Would you rather stay here?”
Here? Fish looks around, at the slimy jetty posts sticking up far above him, at the water around him, with the dead seaweed floating in it, and all the rubbish and the fish heads.
“Well, you know,” says Lampie, pointing out to sea. “Or you could go further out to sea, to the White Cliffs, where the mermaids live. That’s what she said, isn’t it?”
She looks at the small bobbing head below. She would miss him so much. “But it’s quite a long way, I think.”
Fish looks back, across the surface of the water and over the sea, out of the bay, to the distant horizon, to the endless sky. There? Him? All on his own? Suddenly he just feels tired and he really wants to go home, to rest, to sleep in the familiar darkness under his bed. And his father is supposed to be coming home soon, and he mustn’t be here then, he should be… Maybe though, maybe he could even, yes, maybe he could show him that… But he hardly even dares to think that thought.
*
Beside one of the tall jetty posts, there is a slippery wooden ladder. Fish pulls himself up, as far as he can, and then Lester reaches out a long arm and drags him up the rest of the way. Up on the jetty, Lampie helps him back into his cart.
All around them, the harbour is waking up. Ropes and pulleys are rattling, sails are being hoisted with a swish, and fishermen call out, “Ho!” and, “Hey!” Some of them stare in annoyance at the strange group. What on earth are those freaks doing here?
The dwarf takes hold of Lampie’s hand. “So the answer’s no?”
The girl shakes her head.
“That’s a shame,” says Oswald. “But we come back here every year. So who knows?” He gently pulls her down to his height and gives her a kiss on the cheek.
“Who knows?” replies Lampie. She hugs him and then Lester. She kisses the bird-woman and sends her best wishes to Olga and Olga and to everyone else, except for Earl.
“Come on, people,” says the dwarf. “Time to get this show on the road. Hey, Julie, come on!”
Julie is still standing on the tip of the jetty, staring out to sea, her skirt fluttering in the breeze. Slowly she turns around.
A fisherman walking by spits on the planks, right at her feet. “Disgusting. A man in a dress.”
She clenches her fists, but then steps neatly over the blob of spit and gives Lampie a kiss on the top of her head.
“Don’t forget,” she whispers quietly into her hair. “The Black M. If only I could come too…” Then she quickly scurries after the troupe.
Lampie pulls the blanket all the way over Fish and turns the cart around. The planks rattle under the wheels, and through the gaps she sees one bit of sea after another.
When they are out of the town, they can talk.
“What did that man say to you?” asks Fish. “Um… that woman, I mean.”
“I don’t know,” says Lampie. “Something about a Black M.”
“A black what?”
“I think it’s a ship.”
“Oh. The Black Man maybe? Or the Black Mainmast, or the Black Marlin?”
“Or the Black Monster.”
“The Black Mermaid,” says Fish.
“She said: she sails to the White Cliffs. Maybe we need to go there in a ship.”
“To go where?”
“To your mother.”
“The Black Mother,” says Fish with a shiver.
Lampie struggles to tug the cart up the last part of the hill. Fish seems to have become heavier now; his tail looks fuller and she has to pull really hard. But before they reach the top, Lenny comes running through the gate, like a very big puppy, hopping and skipping around Lampie, laughing and crying, all at the same time. He wants to hug her but he is too shy. She gives him Fish to carry and so he cuddles him a bit instead before striding towards the Black House with giant steps. Lampie follows, pulling the empty cart.
Lenny keeps looking back at the girl, to make sure she really, truly has returned.
PHOTOGRAPH
Martha is angry. She heard them coming from a long way off, the crunching of the wheels, Lenny’s happy cries and the barking of the dogs, but she does not go to look. She keeps on angrily washing dishes, with her back to the kitchen. Even when she hears them come inside and the girl hesitantly says, “Hello?” she still does not turn around. Her hands keep sloshing suds over the plate she is holding, even though it is already clean.
“That,” she says slowly, “Was. Not. Our agreement.”
“Um… did we have an agreement?” asks Lampie.
“Of course we did. An afternoon off is an afternoon off. Not an evening. Not a night. Not one and a half… Whatever were you thinking, staying away so long? Now of all times, when the admiral—”
“Is he already here?” Fish almost screams the words. “Is… is he upstairs?”
Martha goes on washing the same plate. Behind her back, Nick silently shakes his head.
“Oh, yes. Wouldn’t that have been something! Where’s my son, Martha? No idea, sir. He’s off gallivanting with the maid.”
“That’s not true,” says Lampie crossly. “We weren’t… gallivanting.”
“He is not allowed to go through the gate, I told you that. Not allowed outside. N. O. T. Not! Do I speak too quietly or something? Is that the problem?” Martha throws the plate onto the draining board and takes another one.
Nick puts Fish in a chair and slides two cushions under him, so that he can sit comfortably.
“There’s no harm done, woman,” he mutters. “Don’t get yourself all fired up.”
“We just had to go and figure something out,” says Lampie. “I saw something that…”
Martha turns around and glares at the girl.
“Oh, really? You saw something, did you? Well, I’ve seen a thing or two myself. In fact, I see plenty. But I keep my mouth shut and do my work, and you should do the same. Where are we supposed to go, eh? Lenny and me? What will happen if I get fired? Have you ever thought about that, eh?”
Lampie is about to answer, “No,” but Fish speaks first.
“If, if… If my father dismisses you, then…” The boy is sitting up very straight. Lampie has never seen him like this before. “But he would never do that. My father is a fair and decent man.”
“Huh!” sneers Martha. “And what would you know about that, monster?”
“He is not a monster!” Lampie screams the words. Lenny, who is crumpling up pieces of newspaper into balls, does not dare to look at his mother when she is so angry, but he shakes his head too.
“Oh really?” Martha says, waving the wet plate around. “Then I’d like to know what it is. Look at it sitting there, half human, half…” But then she stops waving her hands around and does not say the word. “Oh. What do I know? Never mind.”
“Mermaid,” says Lampie.
Clatter – there goes the plate.
Before long though, the shattered plate has been swept up and there is tea on the table. Nick makes sandwiches and passes them around in silence. Everyone is waiting for Martha to speak. And after a while she does.
“Oh dear,” she says. “Oh well. It’s such a long time ago now. When she lived here, when she… No one was allowed to know. That was the agreement. She was… Well, of course she was beautiful. Strangely beautiful, with green hair and very peculiar eyes. But yes, beautiful. We just weren’t all that keen on her. Such a strange race. Unnatural. Our dear Lord can never have intended for something like that to live among us, among normal folk, let’s say. But we didn’t say anything. For the master’s sake. We never spoke to her. She didn’t say much herself either. Nothing, in fact. I can’t remember her ever saying a word. And when she walked past, we made the sign of the cross behind her back and spat on the ground to ward off the evil. It has to be bad luck, that kind of thing. Who knows what unholy bargain she made to turn her tail into legs?
“At first she could still walk like normal, so it wa
sn’t even that noticeable. But we knew. Of course we did, all of us did. That she used to go swimming at night. That Joseph would unlock the door for her. That she was going out more and more often. And that the master said it wasn’t allowed. Whenever he yelled at her, we could hear it through the wall.
“‘You are not a fish!’ he used to scream. ‘So stop behaving like one!’
“She was hardly ever allowed to have a bath either. She was forbidden to go in the pond and certainly not allowed in the sea. But whenever he went off on his travels again, she did it anyway. She slipped out of the house more and more often. Until he got her pregnant, and then she hardly ever came downstairs. We sometimes saw her, just her silhouette, at the window up there, but no one went up to see her. No one but Joseph. Yes, I felt sorry for her. But well, you can feel sorry for anyone, can’t you? Not my business. You know how it is. And after that… well, I actually never saw her again after that.”
“Yes, you did,” Nick says, nudging her. “For that photograph.”
“What photograph?” asked Lampie. She notices that Fish looks rather pale. He has not even touched his sandwich.
“Photograph? There is no photograph,” says Martha.
“It’s over there, isn’t it? In that drawer?” says Nick, pointing helpfully.
Martha rolls her eyes and walks over to the kitchen cabinet. She slides open one of the drawers, rummages around, takes something out and throws it onto the table. It is a sheet of thick, yellowing paper.