Marriage & the Mermaid (Hapless Heroes)

by Cusack, Louise

  “Forget her. She’s poison,” Ted replied. “The worst form of harlot. You won’t be seeing her again.”

  Christ, was he going to kill her? “She’s harmless, dad,” Baz pleaded, wishing he could say the same about his father. Was this Budjenski’s influence?

  “She tried to seduce Winifred an hour ago,” Ted snapped. “And where were you? Am I the only man interested in protecting the women of this family?”

  For some reason Baz looked at Randolph then, but the young man was simply watching his father, face expressionless. No clues there.

  Baz shook his head again. “Protecting… the women?” Plural? He turned back to his father. “What are you talking about? Protecting the women from… Venus?”

  “From her kind!” Ted spat.

  Baz shook his head. “Lesbians?” Was his father homicidally homophobic?

  Ted’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You saw what was happening but you didn’t tell me, did you, boy?” Spit was coming out with the words and Baz knew then that his father was mad. “You were in this cave, when they were. I saw you running out of here that last day.”

  That last day …

  Baz took two steps backwards and hit the wall but there was no avoiding the memory: his mother shouting in his face, shaking his shoulders. She’d never shouted at him before — telling him he shouldn’t have followed her and that he mustn’t say anything, especially to his father. It would be their little secret, or she wouldn’t love him any more. So he mustn’t tell… ever.

  “Oh God,” Baz said softly as the past and the present collided and suddenly made sense. He looked up into his father’s eyes, “My mother and the woman who looks like Venus. They were in here together.” He turned to look at Venus and was swept back in time. The physical similarities were uncanny. “Did they … ? Were they lov—”

  “Shut up!” Ted roared, raising the gun to point it at Baz’s chest again. “It’s over. It’s gone. It never happened. Not then and not now.” He turned the gun on Venus. “I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen —”

  Randolph’s inertia evaporated and he jumped forward to grab Ted’s arm, angling the gun away. “You promised me a job,” he said quickly. “Don’t get angry and muck things up. We have an agreement.”

  Baz, who had been about to jump towards them hung back, feeling a growing sense of helplessness.

  Ted’s breathing was erratic, but somehow, returning Rand’s steady gaze, he got it under control. “You’re right. Eyes on the prize, eh?” he said and gave a demented smile.

  “Sure,” Randolph replied, letting go of Ted’s arm. “So. Is now a good time to do the job?”

  Ted’s maniacal grin widened. “Right here and right now,” he agreed.

  Rand shook his head. “Now is good, but here isn’t,” he said. “The mess would be too hard to clean up.”

  Mess? Baz felt a sudden swirling sickness in his stomach.

  “Outside in the surf.” Rand nodded towards the tunnel entrance.

  “What job?” Baz asked, fearing the answer.

  “Go, Balthazar,” Ted replied, waving him away with the gun. “You’re too squeamish for this.”

  They were going to kill Venus! Baz tried to think. If he ran to the house to get help she’d be gone before he got back. He couldn’t do that. But what chance did he have of overpowering his gun wielding father and a young, strong accomplice? None. So what else could he…

  “Money!” he shouted at Budjenski. “Whatever he’s offering, I’ll give you more.”

  Randolph stopped his quiet conversation with Ted and turned to Baz. “Talk,” he said.

  “There are two police officers in the house,” Baz lied, trying to sound calm, to be a negotiator like the ones he’d seen on TV. “You won’t get away if you hurt her.”

  “Money,” Randolph reminded him, ignoring Ted who waved his gun in agitation.

  “We’ve made an arrangement,” Ted snapped, “I want her people warned away from here —” but before he could point the gun at Rand, the boy had it out of his hand and had spun Ted around with an arm at his throat and the business end of the pistol pressed against his temple.

  “Shut up,” Rand hissed in his father’s ear, then he nodded at Baz. “Money?” he reminded him and cocked the gun.

  Baz swallowed. Hard. “You can have anything. Everything,” he said. “I’ll give you Saltwood if that’s what you want. Just don’t hurt my father or Venus.”

  Ted was so angry he was shaking. “Let go of me you stupid, ignorant, thieving —”

  “You’re the stupid shit,” Rand spat back at him. “I’ve fucked your so–called lesbian, and I can tell you she’s anything but. And as soon as I can I’m going to fuck her again.”

  Baz blinked at that, then looked across at Venus who was trying to smile with a gag in her mouth. He looked back to the boy. “You weren’t going to hurt her?” he asked.

  “I was trying to rescue her from this fucker,” Rand said, and he squeezed Ted’s throat for emphasis. “His brains I’ll gladly distribute from one end of this cave to the other.”

  Baz held up a placating hand. “Money,” he reminded the young thug, for that’s clearly what Randolph was, despite his expensive suit.

  “We’ll see,” Rand said, then gestured with the gun to encourage Baz forward. “Check his pockets for the handcuffs key.”

  Despite his father’s evil eye, Baz sloshed through the tidal pool until he reached them and then patted his father’s pockets until he found the key, then he stepped over to release Venus’s purple hands from the handcuffs.

  The moment she was free she pulled the gag from mouth and started talking, “I have to go now, I can feel it here,” she said, pressing her abdomen, “And I think I am a lesbian too, but I don’t want to be hurt, and I really have to get into the ocean now.” She licked her lips. “Is Wynne safe? And will the police come down here? Because I don’t want them to arrest me. I have to be in the ocean.”

  “Okay, okay.” Baz patted her shoulder until he heard Randolph’s growl.

  “Don’t touch her,” he snapped, and Baz decided it would be safer to step back. The boy did have a gun.

  “The ocean,” she said again. “I have to go.”

  But before Baz could ask her what she was talking about, Ted let fly.

  “It’s your kind who killed my wife,” he spat. “Filthy sea whore!” The words festered inside his mouth like an ugly boil waiting to burst. “I should have killed her while I had the chance. Disgusting, slimy, repulsive creature.”

  Baz suddenly stopped thinking about Venus’s urgency to go, as he focused on his ranting father. It took him a moment to replay the words in his mind, and even then he couldn’t believe he’d heard it right. “Who killed mum?”

  Ted gritted his teeth together. “Swimming out after the slut — “

  “That would have been my sister,” Venus said, edging towards the cave exit. “I wondered why she didn’t come back pregnant.”

  Baz couldn’t drag his attention away from the ugly, spitting horror his father had become. “You told me mum drowned.”

  Ted’s mouth turned down in disgust. “She was stupid. Infatuated,” he snarled, but then he closed his eyes as if he couldn’t bear to remember.

  “Did you let her die?” Baz demanded, his voice echoing off the cavern walls.

  “When I caught them together I ordered the slut to leave. Threatened to gut her and throw her to the sharks. I should have done it but Violet got hysterical.” He sneered at that as though it was a weak feminine reaction. As though a man would never be hysterical. When in fact, Baz was on the cusp of it right at that moment.

  “When the slut swam away I ordered your mother back to the house,” Ted said, and stared through Baz as though he was a window into the past. “She was in enough trouble already. But no, “ he shook his head slowly. “She didn’t listen to me.” He sounded as though, after all these years, he still couldn’t believe his wife had disobeyed him. “She ran right by me int
o the water, chasing that vile creature, so I let her go.”

  Baz had no breath in his lungs. “You let her drown?”

  “She should have come back to me,” Ted replied, his tone edging into the self–righteous now. “She should have come back to her senses. It was a test.”

  Silence then. The sort that tries to absorb sound but can’t, so the ugliness hangs in it, like a framed monstrosity.

  Rand spat on the ground beside himself and said, “He deserves to die.”

  Baz was incapable of speech. He simply stared at his father, trying to mesh the past he’d constructed from memories and conversations, into this new version of his family history. But it wouldn’t fit. Because everything he’d believed about his father was a lie.

  Ted licked the spittle off his lips then and said to Rand, “I’ll give you a million dollars if you let me go,” turning his head to try and make eye contact. “And I’ll make sure the police lay no charges about the stolen car. I can do that.”

  Rand wrenched Ted’s head back into place. “Can you get me off murder?” he hissed into Ted’s ear. “Difficult if you’re the victim.”

  “No.” Baz was dazed but he still knew… that wasn’t right.

  “He killed your fucking mother,” Rand said.

  Baz shook his head. Losing his mother had been cataclysmic. Being shipped off to boarding school the next day, before he’d even been able to attend her funeral had crucified him. And all this time he’d imagined his father’s grief must be far worse than his own. When, in fact, Theodore Tiberius Wilson had been directly responsible for his wife’s death and had rubbed salt into the wound by lying to Baz and saying his mother had hated him. How could one person be so cruel, so hateful.

  “Do you regret anything you’ve done?” Baz asked, knowing remorse wouldn’t redeem his father, but wanting to hear it anyway.

  Ted wouldn’t look at him. “I regret marrying your mother,” he said. “She never loved me.”

  “Who would?” Rand snapped.

  But Baz was looking at his father, seeing pain in the deep lines on his face. “Did you love her?” he asked.

  “What does it matter,” his father said, his voice surly now. He still wasn’t looking at Baz.

  “It matters to me,” Baz said.

  His father met his gaze then and Baz saw all the torment in those watery eyes that he’d felt himself that night on the clifftop. To love her so much and imagine that she hated you… It had torn Baz apart, and he’d only been her child. He couldn’t imagine how that would feel for a husband. “Let him go,” he told Randolph.

  The boy shook his head. “Not until she’s safely away from here.”

  That was sensible, but Baz had to make sure Rand didn’t take matters into his own hands. “Can I trust you?” Baz asked the young thug.

  “More than you can trust him,” the boy replied. “He tricked me into coming here so you’d care about his stupid house.”

  Baz opened his mouth but no words came out. He wondered how often he could be stunned before he went into overload. “Then you weren’t trying to steal my inheritance?”

  “Of course I was,” Rand snapped. “It’s worth shit–loads. But the tricky old bastard rigged the paperwork. He shafted us both.”

  Baz held Randolph’s steady gaze while he tried to gather his thoughts, but Venus was already leaving. She’d reached the tunnel entrance as Rand noticed and called out, “Hey! Wait. I want to —”

  “Have to go,” she called back and disappeared into the darkness.

  “Not without me.” Rand dragged Ted to the handcuffs and locked him to them then ran after her.

  “The police,” Baz called after him but it was an empty threat. There weren’t any police. Not yet. But there would be. Baz turned to his father. “I’m telling them what you did, pretending to have dementia, trying to kill Venus. You’re mad and I’m not having you anywhere near Wynne.”

  Ted stared at him like a chained tiger waiting to pounce, and Baz realised that his father really was crazy, and that he’d have to follow through on his threat. But before that he had to make sure Venus didn’t drown like his mother had, so he ran to the tunnel and shuffled through it in the dark. When he emerged onto the beach he was surprised to find it becalmed in the wake of the storm. The waves were mere ripples foaming onto sand and the clouds overhead had parted to let stars peak out. Venus was arguing with Rand a few meters away on the sand, then she kissed him and walked towards the water. The boy stood watching her, his shoulders slumped. Baz hurried towards him, keeping an eye on Venus who was bathed in moonlight as she discarded clothes.

  “Why didn’t you stop her,” Baz said but the boy just shook his head, then Baz turned his attention to Venus, wondering if he should run after her and try to tackle her to the ground.

  Just at that moment her toes hit the leading edge of the foam and Baz blinked as a flash of sparkles rose up from the water. It reminded Baz of bright sunlight reflecting off grains of glass, and he thought at first that she must have stepped on a submerged torch, only, as the sparkles rose they enveloped her body and spread outwards, dissipating at the edges like an aura of spent fireworks. It was the most bizarrely beautiful thing Baz had ever seen.

  “What … ?” Rand ran into the surf and Baz ran after him and grabbed his arm to stop him. Instinct. Then Venus dived forward, like a salmon heading upstream, and as her body went through the incoming wave, the sparkles grew and danced over its surface like fairy lights going underwater. They disappeared as she did.

  Baz held his breath, waiting for her to resurface as the seconds ticked over.

  She didn’t.

  “Where is she?” Rand hissed and pulled out of Baz’s grip, but he didn’t go any further.

  “She’s okay,” Baz told him, “She can hold her breath for ages.” But as the minutes passed, Baz’s reassurance started to feel inadequate. Still, something in her demeanor before she’d dived in had been different and Baz found himself waiting with wonder, rather than fear in his heart. She’d always seemed so natural in the water as if it had been her element, and just now, she’d leapt into the wave the way a bird takes flight.

  Like coming home.

  Venus is supposed to rise up out of the sea.

  Baz blinked, staring at the moonlit swell, remembering those silver eye flashes, and even before she resurfaced, the clues he’d been seeing for days fell into place.

  She came up with a splash, a head, a body, and a…

  “She’s…” Rand couldn’t say it.

  Baz watched her breach again, her long green tail flicking into the air like the dolphins at Sea World, golden hair sliding into the water as she disappeared again. There could be no mistake. And it was so astonishing Baz couldn’t even say it aloud.

  “But… I fucked her,” Rand said, as though that fact negated whatever his eyes were telling him. “I didn’t… She…”

  Suddenly the parts of Ted’s story Baz hadn’t understood — creature, slimy — were blindingly clear. His mother’s lover had been a mermaid. When Venus’s head popped up again he felt instinctive awe, but got himself under control as she swam in closer. The gun fell out of Rand’s hand into the surf in the same moment as Baz was remembering one of the first things she’d said to him — Don’t let the authorities take me. No wonder!

  She waved for them to come out into the shallows, her arm breaching the swell like Excalibur’s Lady of the Lake. Rand immediately sloshed further in. Baz waded behind.

  “Venus,” Rand hissed, when she came close enough to hear him. “You’re a mermaid.”

  Baz wanted to laugh. A hysterical laugh. Now that he could see her in the water, all the things about her that had seemed merely unusual suddenly looked alien — her slanted eyes which, even as he watched, closed sideways on a second silver eyelid, her wide mouth, those scale fingernails.

  Venus came up beside them and her tail flicked against Baz, but instead of feeling repulsed, he felt childlike wonder as he reached down to slid
e fingertips over the smooth scales as they slipped past. She wriggled around to Rand and smiled up at him sadly through six inches of water. “My clitoris is gone, “ she said, a strange gurgling sound. “My adventure is over.”

  “The scars on your back.”

  “Gills.”

  He shook his head, his dark eyes large and wounded. “You’re my people.”

  Her expression grew solemn. “No, Randolph,” she said. “You gave me pleasure and hopefully a baby. That’s what I came for. My people need human genes or we revert into fish. I’m going home now. I have to.”

  “Come back,” he demanded.

  “The whirlpool won’t open again for twenty years.”

  “I’ll wait,” he said, his voice harsh with what sounded like strangled emotion. “Will you come back here?”

  Baz didn’t want to intrude on what was clearly a romantic moment, but his concerns were about the present, not the future. He sloshed through the water towards her “There’s a giant shark out there.”

  “I’m stronger than it is. It won’t harm me,” she replied, then she turned back to Randolph, her big eyes unblinking in the water. “The police are coming. I don’t want you to get caught. You should go.”

  Baz took a step closer and pulled on the boy’s arm to drag his attention away from Venus. “I won’t tell them about the scamming if you stay,” he said, “I need another witness to dad’s confession so he’ll be punished. I’ll tell them you’re innocent,” he promised, because Baz had to find a way to ensure that his father couldn’t hurt anyone anymore — especially not Wynne —because the old man was quite clearly mad.

  “Okay, I’ll stay” Rand said.

  But Baz could see a shiftiness in his expression that wasn’t there before. “I’ll give you money as well,” he promised. “A million.”

  “Sure. A million,” Rand said, far too calmly. “I’ll wait here.”

  Baz hesitated, his instinct telling him the kid was lying. But Wynne was up in the house, scared, and with only the unreliable Betty for company. Baz needed to get up there and phone the police, have them take his father away before the old man could do any more damage. Baz couldn’t leave him handcuffed in the cave forever. And maybe Rand would be gone by the time the police arrived. There was no physical way Baz could contain him, not with that wild look in his eyes, so all Baz could do was hope.