by Annet Schaap
“I don’t understand,” says Fish. “How did you know there was a window there? And how come there’s a boat down there? There’s no way to reach it.”
“I think… I think that it’s my boat,” says Lampie slowly.
“Your boat? What do you mean? What are you talking about?”
Outside the room, Flint throws his heavy body at the door once again. Then he curses and gives it a kick, but that does not help either.
Fish looks at Lampie, his face completely white. “No,” he shivers. “We don’t have to… We’ll just stay here. That door’s strong, it’ll keep him out. All we have to do is wait until… Until he goes away again, and… Or… or until my father comes. I need to talk to my father, if I could only…”
Lampie looks at him and shakes her head. Then she looks out of the window again.
“Yes, I do,” says Fish. “Honestly, if I could just tell him, just show him that…”
“I’m scared too,” says Lampie quietly. “But I think we have to do it.”
The door is cracking now. With every kick, the cracking grows louder.
Lampie feels the fear shooting through her, from the soles of her feet to the top of her head. Do they really have to do this? How far down is it? She would have to keep her body very rigid and go into the water like a spear – that way it wouldn’t hurt as much. And she would have to take a good jump, so that she would land as far as possible out in the sea, where the water is deeper. She would have to… she would have to… she would have to be completely mad!
And Fish looks around, at the room where he has lived his entire life. The books, the maps, the bath and the bed – and there is the photograph that Martha gave him only yesterday, with Joseph in it and his mother. The mother you can hardly see anything of, the mother who once lived here and looked out at the sea, longing for the water. Suddenly he can feel his tail, which is limp and dry and which is eager to get going again. He hears the water quietly splashing at the foot of the cliff, so deep, so green, so cold.
*
“Shoes off,” says Lampie, and she starts untying her other lace. “You too, Lenny.”
The boy makes no attempt to move, just stays where he is. Even when she says it again.
“Lenny…” she says. “You can swim, can’t you?”
Lenny looks at her and shakes his head.
“Really?”
Lenny shrugs a bit and looks sadly at the girl. Really.
“Not even for a short way? Just as far as the boat? It’s not all that far, and if we…”
The big boy keeps shaking his head.
“If Fish holds onto you, and I do too? We won’t let go of you. Will we, Fish?”
Slowly, Lenny puts Fish on the floor. Lampie wraps her arms around Lenny’s neck.
“Piss and puke and bile,” she curses and she pinches the big boy very hard, as hard as she can, but it does not help.
Another huge kick. The lieutenant roars, the door shakes in its frame. And now there are other feet coming up the stairs.
“We have to go,” says Lampie. “Now. There’s no other way.” She lets go of Lenny and climbs onto the window sill, without looking down. Keep your body rigid. Take a good jump.
“Fish? Are you coming?” She opens up her arms and Lenny lifts the boy off the floor and gives him to her.
“Lenny, if you sink, I’ll dive to get you,” Fish says quietly in Lenny’s ear. “I can do it. I really can!”
But Lenny keeps shaking his head: no way, no way. He hardly even dares to look out of the window.
Fish puts his arms around Lampie’s neck and wraps his tail around her.
“You’re the one with legs,” he says. “You need to make it a good jump.”
“Yes.”
“And keep your body rigid, so it won’t hurt as much.”
“Yes.”
“And fill your lungs first.”
“Fish, I’m frightened. I don’t think I can do it.”
“Yes, you can,” says Fish. “You’re made of the right stuff. The good stuff.”
“Stuff?” shivers Lampie. “What kind of stuff?”
“The stuff of heroes.” He clings extra tightly around her neck. They briefly look at each other.
Then Lampie squeezes her eyes shut. Takes a deep breath.
And jumps.
THE ADMIRAL LOOKS OUT OF THE WINDOW
Carrying the bunch of keys from Martha’s cupboard, the admiral climbs the stairs of the tower, where he has not been for such a long time. Up at the top, Flint is still pounding against the door. Then he stops to rub his sore shoulder.
“At ease, lieutenant,” says the admiral. “Has this door defeated you?”
“My apologies, sir. It’s a tough one. Real oak, I think, they’re always—”
“Keep your thoughts to yourself. Are they still in there?”
“I haven’t let anyone through, sir.”
“Good. You can take the boy. As for the other two…”
“Sir?”
“We shall see. Keep them here for the time being.”
The admiral opens the door. Inside, the wind is roaring through the open window. Beneath the window, on the floor, Martha’s idiotic son is sitting, huddled up, his hands over his eyes. Otherwise the room seems empty. Lieutenant Flint runs in and grabs hold of the boy.
“I’ve secured this one, sir!”
“Thank you, Flint,” says the admiral. “You may release him. I don’t think he’s a threat.”
He walks over to the window and looks down, at the sea far below. The waves have frothy tops, and he sees a small boat floating down there.
Twelve years ago, he stood in this very spot. Looking out, in just the same way, with exactly the same mixture of relief and – yes, what? – regret, pain, something like that.
Of course he had loved her, his beautiful green-haired, golden-eyed princess. But he had never intended for her to follow him, for her suddenly to be standing there in front of him, with legs and without a voice and completely unsuited to life on land.
Under the water he had understood her. Or at least it had seemed that way. She put her head against his and they understood everything about each other, just like that. But once they were on board the ship, she became a mystery to him. Those eyes, those eyes that wanted something all the time. What is it, girl, what? What? He could hardly take her home and stuff her, as he did with his other trophies, his tigers, his rhinoceroses.
But she did not leave.
So he took her home with him after all. Where the situation got completely out of hand. Her legs did not remain legs; they turned back into a tail. She had to go into the water, had to swim all the time. Everyone saw it, everyone gossiped.
No, of course it was not the done thing to become involved with a mermaid. But she was there, and what was he supposed to do? And then she became pregnant too. And the more pregnant she was, the more like a fish she became. She started to bite him. His fierce green-haired princess changed into a lumbering, scaly creature with a huge white belly.
At first he stroked her stomach and whispered to it: “A son, a son, please, a son with sea legs!”
But that was not what he got. It had been foolish of him to think that it might be so.
After the boy was born, she had fled, out of this very window. And he had stood here back then, as he did now. But holding a son. A son with a tail.
Why had she not taken the child with her?
Flint has searched the entire room, but found no one else. So he grabs Lenny again and twists his arm up his back. The boy just lets him do it; he does not even react when the lieutenant gives him a good shaking.
“Where are they? Answer the question!”
From down below comes the sound of Martha’s voice, calling her son. “Lenny, lad, where are you?”
“Lieutenant, let the boy go.”
“But he’s a witness, sir. He knows what happened to—”
“Let him go, I said.”
Martha calls
again and, hanging his head, Lenny scurries to the door and disappears.
My God, thinks the admiral. Maybe there are worse things than having a child with a tail. At least his boy has a brain. He looks around at the books, the papers, the maps on the wall. He never should have come to live here.
Yes, why had she not taken her son with her?
*
It would never have occurred to the admiral to ask the simple-minded boy that question. After all, he never spoke. Which is a shame, as Lenny knows the answer to that question. And he is the only one.
He was eight years old at the time and he kept running away, especially when he was told not to and especially to places where he was told not to go. One afternoon, wanting to hide from his mother, he climbed all the way to the top of the house, to the room in the tower, where a mermaid was climbing out of the window. Which is almost impossible with a tail. When the door suddenly opened, she was as shocked as the eight-year-old boy, who shrieked because he had never seen her like that before, in her true shape. In fact, she was so startled that she let go of what she had been clutching so tightly, losing her balance and falling backwards into the sea, back to her home.
What she dropped fell to the floor and started wailing.
Lenny closed the door and ran downstairs, to the kitchen, to his mother.
Since then, Martha has found the boy much easier to handle. That was the last time he ran away.
The wind slams the window shut and the admiral locks it. He has just walked around the entire house, from top to bottom, without meeting anyone. Strange, there should be all manner of servants around the place, but he sees no one. Other than the lieutenant and himself, there is no one left in the Black House.
When he looks through the window on the other side of the room, he sees Martha and her son walking down the front steps, carrying their suitcases. As they walk down the path, his dogs come running out of the house too and bound along after them. One of the dogs is limping and dragging his paw. None of them look back, but disappear into the trees. Then there is no one.
This is what he wanted though. Isn’t it?
BOAT
She falls so far and she sinks so deep.
The water is dark and as cold as a stone. Lampie struggles upwards, almost suffocating. The surface is so far away. For a moment she is not sure she is swimming in the right direction and a wave of panic floods through her, but then the blue of the water around her becomes brighter and brighter. There is the light, there is the surface. She bursts through it and sucks her lungs full of air.
The grey cliff towers far above, with the house on it, black with ivy, and at the very top the tower with the open window.
She can’t believe that she dared to do it. That they dared to do it. She looks around. Where is Fish? In front of her, behind her, to the side – all she can see is the sea.
“Fish!” Her mouth fills with salty water. She can’t see him anywhere. She can see the boat though; it is floating on the waves, not too far away. She swims over to it, looking around as she goes.
“Fish! Come on, Fish. Fish, where are you?” Fear squeezes at her stomach. This was her idea, so it is her fault. What a stupid plan.
But as she takes hold of the wooden edge of the boat, he shoots out of the water beside her, dives back in and comes up again, doing somersaults.
“This is so much fun,” he shouts joyfully. “Isn’t it fun, Lampie? You should see all the things I can do!”
He does not need to go in the boat, of course, but Lampie does. She can’t stay there in that cold water, but as she climbs into the boat, the wind rises, blasting away at her, making her even colder. She shivers in her wet clothes and, with stiff hands, unties the knots in the rope. What is she supposed to be doing again? Who is she supposed to be rescuing? Oh yes, her father. She has to row around the cliff and hope that the lighthouse is not too far, and that she is not too late and that the admiral has not got to him first… and that Nick… She thinks about Nick waving and about the admiral’s furious face. So much is happening all at once.
Trembling with cold, she picks up the oars and slides them into position. They are heavy and were made for much longer arms.
“Start rowing, Lampie,” she says to herself. “That’ll warm you up.” She rows and it does help a bit, but she is still just as wet. There is a rumbling in the distance now, and the wind is blowing even harder. The waves are pushing her in the wrong direction.
Fish keeps leaping out of the water, in front of the boat or behind it, and calling out to her, but she can’t understand what he is saying. The boat crawls forward. If Lenny could swim, if he were here, with his long arms and big muscles, then they would reach the lighthouse in no time.
“Fish!” she screams into the wind. “Can you swim ahead? Can you go to the lighthouse and see if… if?…” The wind takes her words and scatters them around. A few of them reach Fish though, and he gives her a wave. “Yes! I’m on my way!”
“Fish,” she calls. “You have to say that he… You have to…” But he is already gone.
The horizon surges around her: high, low, high. The wind whistles in her ears.
Ooh, look at this, it roars. Don’t we know each other? Do you remember me? Have you come to play again, lighthouse child?
NAILS
“Mr Waterman! Mr Waterman!”
Augustus is sitting halfway up the stairs, catching his breath. That wretched leg! He has never got used to it. It still startles him sometimes, when he looks down, even though it happened so long ago. That was where his foot was; that is where his toes should be.
If that swine of a sheriff had not taken his stick, his good stick, then he would not have to make do with a piece of rotting driftwood that was lying around, which can barely carry his weight.
Yes, yes, his head says. It’s your own fault. If you hadn’t used the stick to hit your own daughter, your own flesh and blood…
“I know! Just shut your mouth! Shut your mouth for once!” his mouth tells his head.
“Mr Waterman, there’s another letter. I think it’s really important this time. You need to…”
He stands up, his makeshift stick bending, almost breaking. Everything always breaks here; the wind from the sea, always blowing, makes sure of that. It eats wood – and that includes the planks nailed across the door. If he pushes against it, he knows the door will eventually give way. Landlubbers never think about that kind of thing. If he wanted, he could be out in an instant. But what then? Where could he go?
“Can you hear me? Will you come downstairs?”
He sees something white sticking through the hatch. What is it now? He limps across the room.
“There was… it wasn’t your daughter, there was a man here just now and he… I’m sorry, but there was no envelope, and I happened to glance at it and I thought… Well, just read it for yourself. What are we going to do? Um… I mean you. What are you going to do? You can’t stay here!”
For the sake of politeness, Augustus pulls the crumpled paper from the hatch and looks at it. Yes, there are clearly letters on it. Neat letters, completely different from last time. He scratches his beard.
“Is it from Lampie?”
“No, that’s what I just said, a man came with it, a man who was in a hurry. He was very friendly though. But what do you think? What are you going to do?” The neighbour’s voice is shrill and anxious, and she is clearly waiting for him to say something. But what?
“Um…” he says. “Well…”
“You have read it, haven’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
“Well?”
“Thanks, then,” he says. “See you tomorrow.” He hopes she will go away. But she does not.
“Mr Waterman?” she says. Her face is close to the hatch; he can see a small part of it. A brown eye.
“What is it now?”
“You did read it, didn’t you?”
What should he say? He could lie, of course. Or he could make himsel
f look like a fool.
“Mr Waterman? You can read, can’t you?”
The most important details are not in the letter, thinks Augustus after she has read the letter to him. Ah, an admiral who wants to hang him, yes, he could do without that. And he clearly needs to get away. But where should he go? And where is Lampie?
“Somewhere in a boat, that man said. She’s rowing across the bay, I think he said. Could that be right?”
“What?” Augustus yells through the little hatch. “At sea in this… Now? I have to get out of here!”
“That’s what I’ve been saying,” his neighbour replies. “You do. But how?”
Augustus pushes against the door of his prison. A powerful storm is on the way, he can smell it, he can feel it in everything. And he will not let it happen again that his child is out there somewhere drowning while he sits at home, doing nothing. He has to get to the harbour, right now, as fast as he can. He pushes again, even harder this time. The door opens a hand’s breadth. Two. The nails have almost released their hold on the wood, but not completely. Outside, his neighbour is also tugging away at the door and showing him where to push.
“No, lower. No, not like that… Hey, if we just had… Hang on, I’ll go and fetch my husband’s pliers.”
Her husband? he thinks. Not that he cares either way.
“My late husband, that is,” she says.
“Oh,” says Augustus.
“Like your wife, eh?”
“Yes,” Augustus replies.
“Right, then,” she says. “I’ll be back in a moment.”
With a pair of pliers, the last of the nails are out in no time. He hears them dropping onto the slabs outside. Then he gives the door one last push and it opens with a shriek of iron. Augustus steps outside.