by John Heap
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter was at his computer, a Dire Straits’ CD played quietly in the background and Maria was asleep on his sofa. She was wearing one of his fleeces and some tracksuit bottoms and every so often Peter would glance over as if to confirm to himself that she really was there.
She was and it had all happened perfectly naturally.
Still holding her hands he had tried to re-assure her that everything would be all right, and that she wasn’t ill, or if she was, that it wasn’t serious. He had suggested that they should go back to his flat, dry out their wet clothes and get warm. If she was ill, that was exactly what she needed and anyway there was only so much coffee you could drink.
Earlier schemes had evaporated, fantasy firmly ousted by reality, and despite himself Peter had acted honestly. She was upset, they were both cold, and he understood that neither of them wanted to say goodbye. Maria agreed.
To avoid any awkwardness at his flat, Peter had organised things quickly. He had given her some clothes, shown her the shower, got changed himself, lit the gas fire and put some soup on the hob. By the time Maria had showered and changed, he had a mug of chicken and vegetable ready for her. A quick discussion pinpointed Dire Straits as one of their few musical crossovers, and they had sat on his sofa in front of the fire.
They had chatted a little while and he had learnt that she was Maria Anosovich, she was twenty-two and she had a degree in Modern Languages. She didn’t have many friends, certainly none in England, and considered herself a bit of a loner. They didn’t discuss her illness, the sea, or her mother, she looked too exhausted, and very soon, all warm and soup-filled, she had drifted off to sleep.
At his computer Peter was searching newspaper scans from St Petersburg. They had taken some time to find and he certainly couldn’t read them, but whilst it was a long shot and Maria had been vague, he knew the timeframe, between 19 and 20 years ago, and he had a name, Anosovich, so it may well be possible.
He started at the earliest and worked forward, looking blankly at page after page of unedifying script, his eyes vainly scanning for the word Anosovich. He was nearing the end of his search when he saw the photograph. Maria’s unmistakeable eyes complete with shadows were staring out at him. They were in the photograph of a man that Peter assumed was her father, Petro Anosovich. It wasn’t a flattering photo; the man had the look of a prisoner, a desperate prisoner.
Peter printed the page out.
He was so pleased with himself that he wanted to wake Maria immediately, but resisting the urge Peter went to the kitchen and made a Bolognese sauce to have later. She was still asleep when he had finished so he quietly left the flat to get some wine.
Outside the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared, it was now a fresh spring evening, yet Peter began to worry. It wasn’t the fact that he’d left a stranger alone in his flat, but that in his excitement he hadn’t thought about how she would react to him raking up her past. The article was bound to upset her, what on earth was he thinking?
He decided to buy two bottles of wine.
On returning to the flat then, it was a blow to find her standing with a cup of coffee reading his printout. He was right; she had been upset, however her anger had quickly passed for what she was reading was chillingly familiar.
‘Perhaps I should’ve asked beforehand’ offered Peter from the kitchen as he was putting the wine in the rack.
‘Yes’, she said coldly, ‘but that is not important now, this is’.
She explained to Peter that he was right; the article was about her mother’s disappearance. The original thoughts had been suicide; her doctor had reported frequent bouts of depression and her father had alerted the police immediately she hadn’t returned from her customary shore-side walk. But then two days later they had found her clothes washed up on the edge of the Baltic, and her father had come under suspicion.
‘Why would that change things?’ asked Peter
‘Because’, she paused to reread a paragraph to make sure she had it right.
‘Her clothes, her shirt, her jeans, her jacket were found with their buttons all fastened.’
‘Weird…but that…’
‘No Peter, you do not understand, her clothes were inside each other. As if fully dressed my mother’s body had simply dissolved.’
Peter was silent as he tried to think of explanations, but he couldn’t and now wasn’t the time for lame suggestions.
Maria continued, ‘Apparently, according to my father, my mother had been fascinated by the sea and that over her last few weeks this had turned into such an obsession she was compelled to make a daily pilgrimage to see it.’
‘Ah.’ Peter replied. There was rather too much to think about.
‘Does it not remind you of anyone?’ she asked rhetorically.
It was time to talk about her illness. It was time to get to the bottom of it all. Peter went to the kitchen, opened a bottle of wine, poured out two generous glasses, returned, passed her one, sat down on the sofa and motioned for her to sit down beside him.
Maria shook her head and started pacing, glass of wine in one hand, the printout still in the other.
‘No wonder he moved to Omsk, I do not know of any place that can be further from the sea. Perhaps that is why I only started to feel this pressure since I have come to England. You are never far from the sea here, you are surrounded by the sea and there is no escape from it on this little island, no escape.’
‘And another thing,’ shaking the printout in Peter’s direction, ‘here they quote some… some old crone… some charlatan,’ Maria was getting angry again, ‘who is convinced apparently, convinced that my mother must have been a mermaid. A mermaid for god’s sake, she was my mother!’
With this she uttered something Russian, finished off the glass and sat down.
Peter hadn’t even tasted his wine so swapped his glass with hers and went to get the bottle. This was a lot for him to take in and in truth he was having trouble keeping up.
When he returned, her face was still furrowed but she was quieter.
‘You never said your mother was dead’ said Peter.
‘I do not know that she is. A body was never found so she is still officially missing. My father feels she is alive, that she just swam off into the sea.
But me, well, do you know how cold the Baltic is in March?’
‘No.’
‘Very.’
She nodded at Peter’s cigarettes on the table and with his permission she grabbed one and lit up greedily
‘Maria you say you’re ill, exactly what’s wrong with you?’
Peter had done it; he had asked the question that he didn’t really want answered.
She took a deep drag on her cigarette, paused, exhaled and began.
‘I do not know what’s wrong with me. It started with headaches, I would wake in the morning with a pain on one side, at first I thought it was drink’, she raised what was left of her wine, ‘but on the other side my limbs would be numb as if I had spent all night sleeping on them.
‘Sounds like your circulation.’ said Peter.
‘Perhaps, but it is becoming more extreme, more painful and it is linked to my other problem.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know; this problem with the sea. Peter, it is more than a fascination as reported in that paper; it is a need, a physical need. I need the sea; I feel it in my head, in my bones, in my gut. But, and this is the scary bit, I believe the sea wants me, that it is waiting for me, and that is not good.’
She finished off her wine again and as Peter didn’t immediately replenish it she shrugged and continued.
‘It seems the change of the tide, that moment of slack water is the worst. That was when you first saw me, err… yesterday? I go down to the shore to catch the low tide, it is far enough away then, it is not too dangerous, I cannot go at high tide.’
‘And this is associated with your other symptoms?’
‘Yes, the pain at night is so
mehow linked to the time of the tide and I often have nightmares; I promise you I can wake up screaming.’ She gave Peter a warning look and he understood that she was planning to stay over.
‘What can I do to help?’ asked Peter.
‘I do not know, probably nothing, keep an eye on me? Perhaps that is all I need, it has been getting worse over the last month. I do not know how long I can resist, I do not know how long I want to resist. Just smelling the sea is a release, I really want to escape into it but I know it would take me.’
‘Right,’ Peter needed a time-out. ‘how about something to eat, you like pasta?’ With that he left Maria, who was emptying the last of the bottle into her glass.
Alone in the kitchen he gathered his thoughts. What he’d heard was disturbing; Maria seemed to be reliving the death of her mother and he wasn’t convinced that ‘keeping an eye on her’ was going to be sufficient. Still he wasn’t going to give up that easily, and besides it looked like she was staying over.
The pasta didn’t take long and soon he returned to the living room with two steaming plates of spaghetti Bolognese, the second bottle of wine under his arm.
Maria was leafing through one of Peter’s portfolios. She was particularly intrigued by a set of photographs showing several metal figures set into a beach, all looking out to the distant horizon.
‘Where is this?’ she asked.
‘That’s Crosby, it’s an installation by Antony Gormley, there are a hundred identical statues, casts of Gormley himself, and they’re spread out over the shore. It’s really impressive.’
Peter put the plates and bottle down on the coffee table and went back to the kitchen for cutlery and pepper.
‘The way they are all looking out to sea is quite unnerving though.’
‘Yes, that’s the point I think, it’s called ‘Another Place’ shouted Peter from the kitchen.
‘Oh.’
On his return Maria was now inspecting his large DVD collection and picking out ‘Syriana’ she asked, ‘Peter can we just be normal this evening? Say, watch a movie, just forget about all the weird stuff and just relax whilst we can?’
‘That’s fine with me’, said Peter trying not to sound too relieved, ‘but are you sure you want to watch that, its pretty heavy, complicated stuff.’
‘Yes, I need something involving.’
They ate with their plates on their laps, as the movie unfolded Maria was quieter and whilst she drank more than her fair share, she lacked the recklessness of earlier. After finishing their food, she brought her feet up on the side of the sofa and snuggled against him. He in turn put his arm around her, trying not to concentrate on the feel and the scent of her body. A body that was now so close he was finding it extremely difficult to follow the convoluted plot.
‘Peter?’ she started
‘Yes?’
A pause then, ‘What is going on in this film?’
She looked up at him, he looked down at her cute grinning face and he had to kiss her.
‘It’ll take a long time to explain.’ he replied smiling.
‘Well let us forget it then and go to bed’.
With that Maria leapt up and made to the bedroom, taking off her top as she went.