Out on the beach now she keeps watch, but there is no sign of a sail. She is a huddle on the shore, like some fluff-feathered bird hunkered into the puff of itself, only her white face protruding from the mass of garments. I can see almost nothing of her, balled up there – not a jut of a joint or a wisp of silver.
It is a dismal, chilly day, and instead of feeling cosy and cosseted indoors, I feel myself half in the mist that is encroaching, thickening over the water; it hasn’t lifted. The low sun is a perfect pale disc without halo or shine, a hole-punched circle in a parchment sky. The storm has left a faded world behind, the cliffs, the sea, the neighbouring island, each a flat cut-out layered up in transparent shades of grey. Everything slightly damp to the touch. All is without contour, bland, dreary, a world heavy as lead. Nothing stirring, not even hardly the water. It neither advances nor retreats; it has made just the barest, hesitant approach up the shore towards her, an inch or two at most, and she regards it flatly, and it has barely the energy to nudge at the sand. As if all the energy has been sucked up and swallowed by the deadened sea, in which I imagine the fishes, the whales, even the mermaids, floating bored, wall-eyed, flipping a listless fin once in a while for the sake of appearances, without propulsion.
The lamplight seems soaked up. Everything that casts a light is ghosted. And she is little more than a tracery of faded ink. She seems, each day that passes, to blend into the light and the changing skyline, so that it would seem cruel, somehow, to remove her.
I sit with my books before me but pay them scant attention. I can afford to let the time slide. I am waiting for the moment to tell her: I will devote myself to her only from hereon. I won’t be going back to my job. I shan’t teach any more – what pupil could possibly follow her? I’ll take down the plaque from my door; let some other poor fool’s mail get stuffed into the pigeonhole that for thirty years has borne my name. No more tedious tutorials, no more endless execrable essays. Enough. Let it all go. How cosy it could be, the ermine mantle of the Professor Emeritus. I will work away at my book, with her help perhaps, but the School will do without me, and we will go wherever she wishes to be.
So I will end my career with a fade out, a sabbatical that will now stretch beyond this term to an indefinite end – a fullness of time, filled with her. I thought I’d be stowed away in that dingy office of mine for years yet; they’d find me there, all dust and bones, deep in the basement and quite forgotten, clutching a biro, dead mid-sentence. Such is the fate from which she has saved me, which strange to say I had almost looked forward to, before I met her.
Still she has mentioned no plans beyond the end of this honeymoon, and I suppose I have forgotten to ask, or given up asking. Perhaps she means never to leave here; perhaps she means to go on staring out for the rest of her days. And if that is so then I shall remain, Calypso’s willing captive on Ogygia, waiting upon my deity; and if I only stay at her side, she will keep me immortal. I am Circe’s happy pig on Aiaia; I have made it to the Sirens’ shore and am happily stranded, drugged with love as with the lotos, a slumbering, lumbering love, lolloping round the island, circling her, happily circumscribed. With no need for future or past. I am growing accustomed to the shadowy corners, the indistinct shapes; there is no sign of our power being restored. We will go to bed early, or drink by the fire, close together, for warmth; it could be worse. I can live with this darkness. I could live in this half-light beside her, out of time, indefinitely, despite the cold. If she would only come in.
The seals are out today, looking unhappy in the mizzling rain. Sad sacks of taut skin, occasionally craning their heads and flopping back down again, disconsolate. Although they seem to look unhappy in any weather; tearful, fearful creatures. We have often seen them out, barking, each to each; but they rally and stir the moment we draw near, first one and then the whole herd of them belly-flopping frantically down to the sea as fast as their little stunted flippers can carry them. But today, while she has been sitting, I have seen one, two, a dozen little wet-whiskered, doggy heads poking out of the foam. And as I’ve watched, one after another they’ve broached the shore, looking shifty despite their ungainly gait, and they have formed ranks on either side of her, at a safe distance, and appear to be watching, ever cautious. And as she has barely moved, one of the fearless pups has made a waddling advance towards her, and the adults must follow to defend it; several, now, are quite close. That little chocolate brown one could eat from her hand, if she happened to have a morsel of fish to offer. She does not reach out, however, and it does not come closer; just watches with those pooly dark eyes, wet, empty and shining, and I can see, I think, her lips moving, and the little selkie sits and listens.
I am not quite warm enough, cold in my clothes, displaced, a shiver on my chest.
I stare at the page. The letters swim and fail to reassemble. Rub and pinch the bridge of my nose, press the nostrils together.
The sky lowering; closing in like rising water. Sinus pressure below the eyes. Clouds coming down heavy like sleep.
I thought I heard her say my name.
But she’s still out there, I think; I think I can make her out. For a moment I lost her against the sky; and then she turned her head and came back into being, silver flaring in the dull light.
Pale arms reaching, out of the water.
*
It is already growing dark, at three o’clock. I am not sure where the day has gone; the sun seems barely to have risen, and now darkness is falling. It has crept into the corners of the room behind me, and she is increasingly hard to discern against the dimness. I must light candles to see by, to guide her home, presenting a haven to her in the dark.
In the kitchen I peel potatoes carefully, carefully ignite the hob with a candle, boil them and reheat a leftover mutton stew and give thanks for it; the storm-rations of Mrs Odie’s basket will tide us over another night. At least there is wine left. And whisky for dessert.
I stand at the window and raise my candle and hope to beckon her home.
*
Were her cheeks streaked only from the sea, when she came in? Her skin was chill and damp to the touch and paler than ever. Were you crying? I asked. I wiped at her cheek, put my thumb to my lips. ‘Seven tears to call a selkie man,’ she said, with seeming lightness. I harrumphed. No sign yet, I take it? When might we expect your new suitor? She laughed. ‘Just the cold, and the wind. No tears were shed. Not one.’
Well then, what did that little brown seal have to say? I asked. ‘Not much,’ she said. ‘They’re secretive creatures.’ They run off whenever I get near them, I said. ‘They probably smell you,’ she said. What do I smell of? Is it all that offensive? I asked, mock-indignant; but supposing I become one of those old men, nostrils too clogged with curling grey hair to smell their own odour, of coffee breath, of unwashed wool, of bowels? ‘Of man,’ she said. A relief. ‘Of murder.’ What could she mean?
I’ve no blood on my hands, I said. ‘Of course not. But they don’t know that. All they know, from experience, is that to the likes of you they are just meat and blubber and oil, all bagged up in a convenient, valuable, waterproof packaging. Which they prefer to keep wearing.’ What about you, then, I said; how is it that you come up smelling of roses? Or fish or whatever it is they’d rather I smelled of? ‘I don’t smell of fish,’ she said. No, I said, no, of course you don’t. You smell of the sea. Of deep water. And of biscuits. ‘I what? How do I smell of biscuits?’ I don’t know, I said humbly. You just do. Of salt and oats. She looked bemused. ‘I’m a woman,’ she said. ‘Maybe that’s it. Maybe I smell of kindness, not killing.’
Ah yes, I said. One of those kind, meek and gentle Northern females, who never threaded sinew through a bone needle; that must be what they’re smelling. She conceded the point. ‘I don’t know. I’ve been out there for days, I suppose they’re used to me. They know me. Maybe they think I belong here.’ Ah, could it be that they will tempt you at last to take to the sea with your suitor, my little selkie? She frowned. ‘No
t likely. Can’t swim yet.’
I laid the table and we ate by candle-light. The night held at bay beyond the window, our doubles projected upon it; the cosy interior scene made strange by the outside dark that lurked behind it. She swiped the last of the gravy from her plate and then mine with a finger and sucked it clean with a smack of her lips and smiled. She took up the candle and led me with it to the fireside, and kneeled and pulled me down to her and put her arms around me under my shirt and her legs around my waist and although her hands were as cold as ever, in the circle of her I felt warm again.
‘What have you been working on today, then, Professor? Do you have a story for me?’ she asked, once settled, wrapped in a rug with a glass in hand. What have I been working on? The day has been swallowed up by the grey. I’ve no idea what I’ve been doing. Watching her. Watching out for ships in the mist. I may have been sleeping. A memory of something reaching; or was this just a vision from a dream?
Just checking references today, I said. Nothing to report. No mention of the future seemed fitting, in the firelight. ‘In that case, I’ve got another one,’ she said. ‘Listen – here’s the selkie’s story.’ Ah! I knew it, I said. I knew you’d had some secret from him. That sly little pup.
‘So,’ she said. ‘There was a young crofter.’ Oh yes, I know the type, I said. Another of your brawny limpet-pickers, is it? ‘This one’s different. Do you want to hear, or not?’ she said. By all means, I said. Please, go on. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
This particular crofter, she explained, was lonely; he worked his land hard, alone, and took out his boat to fish, and kept his small flock and a horse and a cow, but there was no one but him to milk her, and no one to tend the fire in his hearth, and he slept each night with only his dog to warm him.
And one day, as he was gathering kelp on the shore, he heard music from the sea and saw three women, naked on the rocks, combing their brown, their red, their blonde hair. ‘And each was beautiful, and they combed one another’s hair and sang, each to each,’ she said; ‘and the crofter fell at once in love with the golden one.’ Surely it was silver, I said, not golden. Surely he fell for the flash of her silver hair. ‘Very well,’ she smiled; ‘he loved the grey one.’ Argent, pearly, opaline, I insisted. ‘Ash, hoar, stone,’ she said. ‘Grey. May I go on?’ Yes, yes, go on, I said. The lonely crofter fell in love with the silver-headed girl.
‘So the crofter watched quietly from the shore; but his dog didn’t seem to take too well to their song, and barked and yapped and ran back and forth at the edge of the water, and the women were startled and slipped from their rock, and the crofter ran down the beach, pulling his shirt off, ready to dive and save them although it was bitter cold and he couldn’t swim. But just as he reached the water, he saw three sleek heads emerging, and three seals, a bronze, a dark and a pale one, turned in the waves and swam out.
‘The crofter’s heart was as heavy as his load of kelp as he turned for home. On his path he met Old Thomas; lame Old Thomas, not a tooth in his head, reeking of whisky, but wise.’ She filled our glasses. She raised a silent toast, to Thomas. ‘And Thomas told the crofter that the ladies he had seen were the daughters of the King of Lochlann, from beyond the sea’s brim, and explained what the crofter must do if he wished to capture a sea-princess, when the selkie women came back.’ This part of the story, it seems, is uncertain; in nine days’ time, or at the next full moon, or a year to the day, the crofter must return to the beach.
‘So the lovelorn crofter waited,’ she went on, ‘and when the time came he returned to the beach. And again, as he came down to the shore he heard music, and the women, again, were singing, but this time Angus’ – Angus? I said. ‘The dog. I think it’s a good name for a dog … Angus was left tied by the barn door to howl at the moon unheard and alone. And the crofter crept quietly down to the beach and crouched, hidden, waiting, and watched in wonder as they slipped from their perch. And this time, with no Angus to scare them off, the three seals swam into shore, lithe and easy in the water. And as they reached the beach, they slipped out of their silken seal’s skin on the sand, and emerged three women again, pale and lovely, and the crofter watched carefully where they stowed their bundles, behind the rocks. And the women danced to the music of their father’s kingdom, a slow, mysterious dance, on the shore in the full moonlight, to which they answer, like the tide that brought them ashore.’ So it is the full moon, then, that brings them? I asked, glancing out of the window at the moon rising, close to full but not quite, the room lit silver and shadowed away from the light of the fire. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I like that version. And he needs a light to see by. So, he crept around the rocks, and saw, in the moonlight …’ and now she turned too, to look out at the near-roundness of it, fat and haloed and diffuse in the velvet, rain-washed sky; ‘… by the full moon’s light he could see that one of the furs was glowing brightly, almost white. And he gathered it up and stood, and the selkie women stopped dancing, and the grey-haired one cried, Oh please, give me back my skin, but the crofter would not, and walked away from them, knowing she must follow, because if her skin is stolen,’ she whispered, ‘she can never return to the sea. And she followed, at a distance, and he did not once turn, so that he didn’t have to see her weep. But he could hear her, and as they left the roar of the sea behind them, she wept louder and bitterly, until it was the only sound he could hear. And still, he did not turn, until they reached his little house and she followed him in.’
The crofter hides the skin, and the next day she asks for it, and he refuses; and after that she doesn’t ask again, and no longer weeps, and marries him. He gives her a name, because she won’t reveal her own. She eats only raw fish, at first, with her hands. Having guests is awkward. But she learns to eat it boiled or smoked, with a fork, and becomes a good wife, and bakes his bread and milks the cow and cooks his porridge in the morning and his soup when he comes home from his labour, although she does not eat with him; she keeps the hearth burning, and a pot upon it, and is warm and smooth-skinned in the bed at night. And poor old Angus never quite trusts her, but consents to sleep at their feet.
‘She neither wept, nor laughed, nor sang, but she was loving, for twenty years, and bore him seven children, who all loved to swim in the sea; until one day, their youngest son came upon a salty, stinky, dried-out bundle, hidden in the wall of the barn; and when he brought it to her, at last she laughed and wept, and the boy watched as she took it to the shore; he watched as his mother shed her clothes and dived into the water with her bundle and vanished; and then he saw, for a second, a white head emerge from the waves and a sad seal’s gaze looking back at him. And to this day, every full moon after, he comes to the beach with his father, to hear the selkies sing. And the crofter and his family, when they take their boat out, haul fish in abundance; and he can only be glad of the years he had, because as that old sot Thomas warned him, a wild creature will always go back to the wild.’
That’s rather sad, I said. ‘He got twenty years out of her,’ she said, reasonably, and then looked away, and busied herself with poking at the fire. Can she hope for as much? And how could that possibly be enough? All the more reason to give her every minute.
I couldn’t think of a way to fill the silence. ‘And lots of fish,’ she said. She filled her glass and laughed.
Now she sings in the mist that she’s conjured about her in the bathroom, drifting salt-scented through the house with her song; I sit in the half-dark and listen to her singing to herself, singing to the sailors, and I can’t stop thinking of those strange half-selkie children in her story, yearning for the water, unable to live there. Suppose we were to bring our own little pups into the world? Silver-headed, pale, tall, unworldly; my little webbed wolf-cubs, their doggy devotion. Will they, like I, always be hoping, always longing, and unable to join her in the distant sea she swims in, behind her eyes? Would she tell them the secrets her father told her? And do I, really, wish to bounce them on my sore, swollen knees, teach them to tie lace
s with arthritic fingers, drive them to university and say, feebly, that I used to teach at a university once, and hear them say yes, Dad, we know, and of course they would know, and I’d say I met your mother there, and they’d say, more uncomfortably this time, yes, we know, which of course they would, but I would only want to tell the story again to prove that I’d existed once, that she’d loved me, which must seem to them to be impossible. Is that true, that by then, such a thing would be impossible?
Impossible. I say it over and over, until it becomes as meaningless as a mantra. Impossible.
She’s calling me from the bathroom.
Impossible.
Her wide, wet, inscrutable eyes.
Wednesday
She’s quiet today. Flat and sad. Our last day. I ask her what’s wrong, she says, ‘Nothing,’ or she says nothing. One or the other, each time I ask. She has a headache, she says. Too much wine, too much whisky. Not enough sleep. My head, too, is dull and pounding. I stare at the page and the words blur and swirl. I look up and can make out only the vaguest shape of her; I take off my glasses, but she is still little more than a smirr against the sky. Nothing is sharply defined.
I thought I saw someone out in the murk, a silver glare returned, maybe; coveting; but it was only some shadow fleeting, a flit of dark movement against the grey. When I looked again they were gone. Back to their cave, perhaps.
Mist seeping in, so the overheated cottage still is somehow chilled with damp. There isn’t any sun, not even a semblance, not even a cut-out circle. The world has entirely vanished in a cloud as thick as the fog in my head. There is only a faint, shaded grey line, as if a low light shone on a piece of folded paper, sky above the crease and the pale shadow of the sea below. And I, too, am entirely lack-lustre. I haven’t taken the trouble to dress, and sit in my pyjamas, robe hanging open; my hair is a rearing hedgehog, pressed sleek and flat on one side and spiny on the other; my skin is sallow as the sky, haggard and woebegone; the coffee, cold in my cup. Everything damp, and I don’t know where the sun is. If asked to tell the time of day, I would say that time has ended. Soon the bland bloat moon will rise, invisible in the dank dark. I am stifling in the smell of toast and wet wool and biro ink and burnt coffee. I pull the tartan closer and try not to feel old.
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