The Surface Breaks

by Louise O'Neill

  She just what? What did Eleanor do?

  “I’m feeling tired,” he says abruptly. “You’ll find your own way back, won’t you, Grace.”

  It isn’t a question.

  Every night, I dream of that woman who looks like – who must be – my mother. Gaia, she says, and she starts to cry. Gaia. And every morning, I awake determined that today will be the day that I find out what happened to her, discover the humans who betrayed her and locked her away. Even if she is dead, I need to know for certain.

  Then Oliver does something to distract me, or he simply looks at me with those dark eyes of his, and I forget my mother. I had thought that impossible; her name has thrummed its beat down my spine every day since she disappeared, making a home out of every vertebrae. But Oliver makes me forget everything. I want him to look at me, I want him to touch me, I want him to make me feel things that I had never thought appropriate for a girl to feel. I want him to make me his.

  But I do not have that much time. I count the moons and the sunrises, scoring them across my heart in order to keep track of the days that are falling away from me. How do I make him love me? My grandmother said bonding was about anticipating your husband’s needs and meeting them, and I have been trying to do that but my very existence is now at risk. The ticking of the clock, the light changing its skin in the sky, and then another day is done. It is hard to admit this, but I am beginning to wonder what death might taste like.

  At breakfast every morning, Oliver asks me to accompany him on today’s “adventure” and at first I had presumed I would shadow him while he went to work as Eleanor does. She is unceasingly busy, always leaving the house for meetings, every available space in her office piled with papers and files as she talks into something called a “telephone”, rattling off lists of numbers and figures off the top of her head. “Have you taken a look at those reports I sent you, Oliver?” she asks him. “Did you look at the spec for that new ship? Oliver, are you listening to me? Oli?”

  But instead of boardroom tables, there are more horse-riding expeditions for her son, more mountains to climb. Cricket on the lawn, birds falling to the earth – thud – as the boys stalk the fields with weapons called guns clasped in their hands.

  “Look at Grace,” Rupert says as he reloads bullets. “She’s horrified. Are you one of those animal rights freaks?”

  “You’re vegetarian, aren’t you?” George asks. He is the only one who ever seems to pay any real attention to me.

  “Vegetarian, what nonsense,” Rupert harrumphs. “You don’t always have to come with us, Grace, you know.”

  But I do have to. I have to spend as much time with Oliver as possible. So, I sit on the sidelines, watching as Oliver plays tennis or polo with his friends. I notice that George always cheers when Oliver scores a goal, holding his mallet up in delight and yelling, “Well done!” I notice that Rupert turns away at the same time, hair slicked back with sweat, teeth gritted rather than congratulating Oli. You notice a lot of things when you are forced to stay quiet.

  “Fuck,” Oliver says now, as I touch the space between his shoulder blades to remind him that I am here. We are in the games room. George and Rupert and a few other men are playing something called poker in the corner; occasionally Rupert shouts that George is “cheating”. Oliver had been sitting in an armchair by the window, staring vacantly out at the sea. I did not like to see him alone, so I decided to keep him company.

  “Don’t do that, Grace,” he says. “You frightened me.”

  I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.

  Oliver’s breathing is laboured, one hand to his chest as if to remind himself to inhale. He grabs at the glass at his elbow, draining what’s left in it. I do not like this time of the evening, when we all retire to the games room and a cabinet full of shining bottles is opened and the men fall on them as if dying of thirst. Their laughter grows louder and more meaningless until they find everything funny. I am not enjoying myself; not that it seems to matter to anyone except for George, who occasionally asks if I’m all right, if I want a drink, if I’m getting tired. The magic draught that Daisy has given me is beginning to wear off, pain crashing over me like waves tipped with shining blades.

  “What’s the matter, Grace?” Oliver asks, his eyes suddenly on me.

  I look over at Rupert, tormenting the young servant girl who is unlucky enough to have the night shift. I had met this same girl a few days ago; she and Daisy found me in the rose garden, sitting on a bench hewn from stone. I wanted to look as if I was enjoying the sunshine, turning my face up to meet its warmth, but truthfully, I had been compelled to sit until the throbbing in my feet subsided.

  “There you are,” Daisy said. “Gorgeous weather, isn’t it? We decided to eat our lunch outside to make the most of it, don’t get too many days like this. This is my friend, Ling.” The other girl half-waved at me. “And this is Grace,” she said, Ling’s eyes widening in recognition. They settled on the bench with me, Daisy offering me some of her sandwich (Don’t worry, she said, it’s only cheese.) while Ling told me about her family, about her father who had been a doctor but who’d died last year, forcing her and her younger sister to find summer jobs in the Carlisle house to help their mother pay the bills. (It’s fine, she said, clearing her throat. We’ll be fine.) “Ling is a traditional name in my father’s homeland,” she said, as if this was something she had had to explain many times before. “It means clever. Intelligent. Dad chose it for me.” I could not imagine the Sea King ever finding such a name appropriate for a girl-baby. It will only give them ideas, he would have said.

  Ling is tiny, so small that Rupert has to crouch down to whisper in her ear. She wants to escape, I can tell, but she has nowhere to run to. I am very familiar with that feeling.

  “Rupe, come on,” George says, placing his cards on the table. “Leave the girl alone.”

  “Shut it, Georgie Porgie.”

  “I mean it, Rupert.” George gets to his feet. “Get away from her.”

  “She doesn’t mind, do you, sweetheart?” I can see the tip of his tongue darting into Ling’s ear, her barely perceptible shudder. I should go over there and help, like I wish someone had intervened when Zale put his hands on me. But is it my place to do so? But maybe this type of behaviour is simply what women must withstand in order to exist in the world? We are trained to be pleasing, and to crave male attention, to see their gaze as a confirmation of our very worthiness. Are we allowed to complain, then, if the attention is not of the type we like?

  “Are you tired?” Oliver asks me. “I understand, it’s getting late.” He sways as he stands, brushing up against me. I want to beg him to touch me again, and again. Is there something wrong with me? Could Zale smell this want? Is that why he did what he did?

  “Where’s George gone?” Oliver asks, watching the men playing cards.

  “Gone off in a huff,” Rupert says and Ling glances at the open door behind her. “He’s so boring these days.”

  “Leave George alone,” Oliver says, losing interest. “Grace is tired so we’re going to call it a night.”

  “Of course, mate,” Rupert says. “Whatever you want.” He smiles at Ling, tucking a piece of hair behind her ear. “I have a few ideas about how I can spend the rest of the night, anyway.”

  “Ready, Grace?” Oliver says, and I nod my head.

  I leave that room.

  I leave Ling with him.

  “Apologies,” Oliver says as we climb the red-carpeted stairs to my bedroom. My feet are sinking into the fabric, and yet its luxury grants them no comfort. “I know I wasn’t much fun tonight.” The walls of the corridor are lined with images of his family, photographs, they’re called. Oliver as a child, always holding his father’s hand, his mother smiling too brightly. Alexander Carlisle, a handsome man with broad shoulders who becomes smaller with each passing year. “I’m tired.”

  He tires easily, I have noticed. Daisy said his valet told them downstairs that Oliver hasn’t slept pro
perly since the accident. Maybe he’s afraid of the darkness, the weight of an endless sleep pressing down upon him. Maybe he’s afraid he will never wake up. Maybe he’s secretly hoping he won’t. I could make you happy, Oliver. I could save you for the second time, if you would allow it.

  “You are beautiful,” he says. He rests his forehead against mine, so close, and I find myself short of breath. This is it. Please, Oliver. Please kiss me.

  “Is it okay if I…?” he whispers, moving his lips to mine. It feels so different to when Zale forced his tongue into my mouth that my eyes prick with tears. This is how my first kiss should have felt like. Oliver will heal me.

  He pulls away, a hand against the wall to steady himself. Oli. I reach for him. “No,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done that. It’s too late and I’ve had too much to drink. And it’s too…” His face pinches. “It’s too soon, don’t you understand?”

  He leaves me. And all I understand is that I am buzzing, as if every nerve ending in my body is being kissed by bees. I am alive.

  I sit on my bed, re-live what just happened in graphic detail. His thigh nudging my legs apart, his fingers on my throat. That heat rising. I pull the dress up around my waist, my hand drifting to that new place, that part of me that I had not known would exist when I struck a bargain with the Sea Witch for human legs. I am made wild with longing, my fingers dipping inside the wet heart, imagining Oliver’s body on top of mine. Something akin to bliss, or maybe agony, teetering on the knife edge in between shivers from my very centre to my toes, an overwhelming relief knocking me drowsy.

  I did not know such ecstasy could exist for women, is my second-last thought before I fall asleep.

  I am running out of time, is the last.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Where’s Oliver?

  He is not there the next morning when I go to the orangery, my skin flushing as I remember what I did in his name last night. Eleanor is at the breakfast table by herself, folders piled beside her plate as she discusses today’s schedule with her assistant, a fair-haired young man called Gerald.

  “And there is that museum opening at—” She breaks off when I walk in, and Gerald pauses his incessant scribbling in that notebook he carries everywhere with him.

  “Grace, there you are,” Eleanor says. “How did you sleep? Gerald happened to be passing your room last night and he said that you were thrashing around in your bed. Like a woman possessed, he said. Not bad dreams, I trust?”

  I was dreaming of Ceto, sitting in her chair in the Shadowlands, counting the pearls in her tail. One, two, three, she began, touching each pearl in its turn. Thirteen, she said, staring at me. Remember that, little mermaid.

  “I want to be sure that my guest is happy, while you are here,” she says. “And we don’t know how long that will be, after all. Not too long, of course. I’m sure that you have your own family to return to. Do you have family, Grace? Brothers? Sisters? A mother who misses you? I bet your mother looks just like you, doesn’t she?”

  Eleanor waves a hand at the seat beside her, gesturing at me to sit. “You’ll be wondering where Oliver is,” she continues. “He’s in his room, I think, but I wouldn’t disturb him when he’s in one of these moods. So like his father, that one. Best leave him to it.”

  And so it goes. Day after day. Did Alexander Carlisle also spend days disappearing from sight, turning into a ghost, slipping away before anyone could catch him? Oliver’s crumpled napkin is on his plate when I arrive to the orangery for breakfast, no matter how early I wake up. Eleanor and I, side by side, and she always has so many questions.

  Where are you from? Who are your people? Blink your eyes once for yes and twice for no, Grace. We must be able to communicate in some manner, since you can’t read or write. Most unusual in this day and age. If Oliver was here he would say, Stop it, Mother, there’s no need to interrogate Grace. But he’s not here. He’s never here any more.

  At lunch he has always gone out with ‘the boys’, hunting or riding, servants following with picnic baskets of food and drink. I am not invited. “Boys will be boys,” Daisy says, attempting to reassure me as I stand by my bedroom window, watching them leave. “It’s nothing personal, Grace.”

  And maybe it wouldn’t feel so personal if my life wasn’t resting in his careless hands. It wouldn’t feel so personal if I hadn’t made the sacrifices I have in order to be with him. Why is he punishing me? It was he who initiated the kiss, not me.

  The only time I catch a glimpse of Oliver is at dinner, but he doesn’t sit with me now. It is always a grand affair, the guests are business people and members of this country’s parliament, others in dark sunglasses that they refuse to remove, even indoors, as if disguising their unusually attractive faces. Tonight, there is a man on either side of me, the duke of something on my left and a Mr Large Gold Watch on my right. “Gosh, you’re pretty,” Gold Watch says, open-mouthed, his wife opposite him frowning at me, as if it was my fault.

  During the course of the meal, Oliver drinks glass after glass of red wine, signalling to the waiter once the bottle is finished. “Another round, garçon,” he says, snickering, and Eleanor leans over and touches his arm.

  “Maybe you’ve had enough, dear?” I can see her whisper to him, glancing nervously at the rest of the guests. “Remember, we have company.”

  Oliver shakes her hand off. “You can’t control all the men in this family, Mother.” He speaks loudly and a hush falls over the table.

  “Oliver, that’s not fair. I didn’t try and—”

  “Oh,” he says, ignoring his mother’s pleading expression. “Oh, I think you did.”

  After dinner, Eleanor has invited a few guests to accompany her to the drawing room. I have joined them because I have nowhere else to go; Oliver left before pudding was served, beckoning Rupert and George to follow him. I tried to look like I didn’t mind.

  The drawing room is Eleanor’s favourite place in the house; it is where she spends the most time, besides her office. It is floor to ceiling glass walls overlooking the sea, curtains and chairs in a primrose silk with the outline of roses picked out in cream thread. The handful of guests remaining after dinner include Henrietta Richmond, a woman with skin stretched tight across her bones, and her husband, a balding man called Charles. “New friends,” Eleanor crowed when they agreed to stay for a nightcap. I had heard her tell the assistant earlier to ensure these two guests were particularly well cared for. (“Wine, Gerald,” she said, “and lots of it. I want the Richmonds feeling very merry and very generous.”)

  Charles owns a company Eleanor wants to acquire, and she is determined to have it. This world of money and business that Eleanor thrives in seems so complex, full of knots that must be untangled, never-ending problems to be solved. Eleanor is half-nursemaid, half-warrior, manipulating, flattering and bullying those around her to get her own way. It is most bemusing.

  They clink glasses, ignoring me, then Eleanor reaches over to say cheers to the man they call “Captain”. He is sitting by the fire, hands in his lap, while the two women are cuddled on a chaise longue. I am in an armchair opposite the Captain, Charles standing at the drinks trolley, examining the labels carefully.

  “Charles,” his wife says. “Maybe you shouldn’t have any more.”

  “It’s a party, Hen. Relax.”

  “Come now, Captain,” Eleanor says quickly as Henrietta’s lips disappear into a thin line. “You must have some tall tales for us, good man. The Captain is one of this country’s most reknowned sailors,” she explains to the others. Sailor? “Well, he is more of an explorer, really, aren’t you, Captain? Going places where no other man dares to go.” I look at him more carefully, this captain, this man who takes to the seas in search of adventures. What could he have seen, on his voyages? “He is famous for his story-telling,” Eleanor continues. “And he is most sought after company because of it. The last time he came for dinner, he gave the most wonderful account of his trip to Antarctica.” She smiles at the old
er man. “Where have you been these last few months, Captain?”

  “I do love a good tall tale,” Charles says, throwing back his drink. “The more outrageous the better, if you please, kind sir.”

  “They’re not tall tales,” the Captain says. His voice is deep, and so low that each of us has to strain to hear him. I have seen him at Eleanor’s dinner parties before now, but I have never heard him speak until this moment. He always seems to be on the periphery, watching everyone else. Watching me. “I only tell the truth. The things that I have seen are beyond mere exaggeration.”

  “Oh, how exciting,” Henrietta says. Her face is beginning to perspire from the heat of the fire and she wipes sweat away from her upper lip self-consciously. “Like what, Captain?”

  “Things that cannot be explained,” he says, without moving his gaze from the fire, as if he doubts Henrietta’s ability to understand. “Things that do not make sense to the rational mind, but which I have seen with my own eyes and know to be true. Things that can never be proven, so scientists dismiss them as fanciful delusions; the ravings of men spent too long at sea, the salt melting their brains.” I shift in my seat, leaning forward so I can listen better. Go on, I urge him. Tell us what you have seen. I need to know.

  “Come now, old chap,” Charles drawls. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve sighted at sea?”

  “That depends on your definition of weird, I suppose.”

  “Perhaps this was a bad idea,” Eleanor interrupts, holding her wine glass so tightly I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. She looks curiously pale, as if she has suddenly taken ill. “It’s not fair to expect the Captain to entertain us. He’s probably tired anyway – it’s getting late…”

  “Now, now,” Charles says with a wink. “You started this, Eleanor. I was promised extraordinary stories and I want to hear them.”