Seahorses Are Real

by Zillah Bethell

  And those moments – those moments of wonder (that would all come true) would stand in her memory like fixed stars – all alone, self-contained, still seeming and yet spinning with infinite quiet motion; there, soft, in her memory, stars to chart a course, a life by. (Amazing how they lived for billions of years, waiting for man to tinker his way through the Ice Age, the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Rocket Age, until the moment he was able to look through his telescope at that star looking back, saying cheese and exploding.) This moment. This feeling. This forever-now eternity.

  After the downpour everything is glowing, trembling, catching rainbows. She points out a skylark (so she says), a strangely-coloured stone, a bit of graffiti, a bend in the stream. They laugh unrestrainedly at nothing, at everything, everything yet nothing touches them. They linger hand in hand, stroll, smoke the breeze, catch the rays of an Indian summer in a little old park in England on a Sunday afternoon.

  Benches are full: occupied by dozing, impervious grand­fathers, umbrellas, packed lunches, bags of conkers, sodden scarves, skateboards and footballs and faces under newspapers, behind headlines, doting mothers, feet splayed, with babes in arms; but they manage to find one all to themselves in the middle of the flowers. (Picking flowers she’d been taken. He’d swooped right out of the blue and carried her off – it is well to remember; and for a while there is an urgency, a slight desperation in the way she cranes her neck, tilts her eyes, opens her mouth a little too wide in gasps of excitement, surprise – she is living on borrowed time. She must drink it all in, every second full gulp; cram each moment into her mouth for when she has to return.... He, at least, is happy to forget that one day she will have to go back because for him each day is freshly stamped, new created, with the dew still on it; he is grateful, simply, for one of her smiles.)

  How the birds sing after the rain! The sun has opened everything up: a Dulux dog steps out of the clouds, light streams through the trees in ‘Beam me up Scotty’ columns, shirtsleeves roll up, smiles come out to play. The tiny carousel is going full blast in a corner of the playground, pulsating to the music and the screeching chains of the swings that are going full swing. Rival gangs of boys on bikes eye each other warily over the monkey bars: do spins, do skids, show off, do wheelies, do ‘Bet I can, Bet you can’t, Bet I can infinity,’ no hands, spit gum, chuck petards. A little girl blue hula hoops all alone on the grass and a tiny helmeted boy on a minuscule bike careers past shouting obscenities. Everyone is out, taking the air, as they must have done in the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall and Ranelagh in the eighteenth century. A gaggle of girls teeter and giggle a little way away from a pride of young males, lounging, indolent, aloof for now – though they will pounce, come in for the kill with the dusk. (Parasols in Georgian times were also no defence against young bucks leaping fences into the ‘dark walks’ in the dark.) A ruffled-up couple startle up behind the hedge at the snap of an approaching twig.

  ‘I always wanted a Grifter,’ he announces suddenly out of nowhere amidst the flowers, his mouth twitching at the tiny helmeted boy who is circling the girl, now, in hula hoops of his own, still shouting obscenities, ‘but my parents couldn’t afford one. My dad kept threatening me with a Bomber but in the end I got a second-hand Commando!’

  The sun glints down on the flowers, on her skin, on the screeching chains of the swings, on the ice-cream man getting cabin fever in his van, on the tiny carousel going round and round. She could stay here forever, in this park, in his arms, on this bench, which is a rock in a maelstrom of colour. The painted horses plunge and dance, throw their riders off onto shadows complex as Byzantine artwork on the ground. An energetic dad kicks a football too high at his large, too slow, unprepossessing son. ‘Too slow,’ he barks horridly, his dreams clearly thwarted. ‘Too slow.’

  ‘What a fate!’ she smiles back at him, not sure who she means but thinking how wonderful it must have been to have parents who wanted to buy you a Grifter but couldn’t afford to... and suddenly he is telling her small, arbitrary, nonsensical things, things she has tried to wrestle out of him over the years… here, now, in this park, on this bench which is a rock in a maelstrom, he is giving them up to her quite naturally, freely, of his own accord....

  How the smell of Cardiff in the morning is so distinctive because of the brewery; how he loves the rain, the hills, the valleys of Wales; how he likes to walk in cities at night; how his grandfather (who always kept Mackeson’s stout and porridge oats in the cupboard) had died knowing his grandson had got to university; how his sister went through a stage of mixing ice cream and cherryade; how a little boy at primary school had eaten crayons and counters, pissed in the hatstand and told him a virgin was a woman who hadn’t done it; how he always thought ghosts were like photographic negatives, borne out of certain climatic conditions; how he’d dragged his parents round museums as a child, boring them half to death….

  These words pouring out of him one Sunday afternoon (what a strange, earnest little thing he must have been) in the golden light of an Indian summer (she was quite safe here in that warm golden light) in a park in little old England on a bench which is a rock in a maelstrom of colour.... The blue roans, dapple greys, dark bays and palominos snort, cavort, prance and bow, graceful as ballerinas; and the flowers (asphodels, surely, asphodels which grow in the Elysian fields) nod drowsily in the sun.

  (Oh Hades, whispers the breeze.)

  They make their way through the grubby streets in the light of early morning. Nobody in their right minds could possibly be up yet except the blackbirds, the postman, the lonely street-stall hawkers; and he, scorning the stale warmth of the sheets, cosy teapot, egg-and-bacon Saturday morning treats, strides ahead intrepid, resolute, arctic explorer in his own mind no doubt, Strider, Gandalf; hobbit more like with those feet of his clumping along in his worn-out boots. (Why didn’t he ever take them to Doctor Barnardo’s?) And she, lagging behind, a little irritated, a little tired, fighting the scarf about her neck, old receipts and shopping lists blowing about her pockets, her toes so cold she could snap them off like twigs. ‘Let’s get up early,’ she’d heard him call through the grogginess of sleep, ‘let’s get up early and wake up the flowers, the way you used to....’

  That was a long time ago, she’d wanted to point out to him, and even then... but she didn’t have the heart to and so now, here she was, in this grey, freezing mist, struggling along past ‘Valhalla’, ‘Bedouin Cottage’, ‘Heart’s Rest’, past the Darenth stream slipping away silent as a secret, in the deep, crisp, even steps of her ha ha Lord and Master.... It must have been like this on that first day, in that first dawn of creation – the world a silent, freezing greyness ready to be lit, ready to be spoken. Had He drawn them forth one by one, spinning them out of his lonely breath in Latin, Double Dutch, Romany, Yiddish, Cantonese? Did his echoes go forth and multiply, down the Grand Canyon, up the Zambeze, round Cape Horn at a rate of knots? Did any disappear off the Marie Celeste (though the table was set, the feast in place) enticed underwater by the sonar of dolphins and humpback whales singing? Did any get lost in space, still hurtling round and round, holding their breath, orbiting the angels and the barrier of sound?

  He’d taken a risk – ripping her out of warm oblivion the way he did. She met reality hard; he should know by now that she met reality hard. It was only in dreams, she’d confessed to him, that she could escape the confines of her stopped-at-the-doll’s-house body, her lank hair, marshmallow eyes; only in dreams did she set out on walks with the hazel stick her father had cut down for her as a child; only in dreams could the past be redeemed, could she play God with her soul, make wishes come true, do cartwheels, backflips, do the splits, shoot goals in netball in bionic slow motion, her limbs free and easy, her mind clear as water; only in dreams could her anger set itself free to soar harmlessly, twist the air, skim slow toads and blue irises, power stations and church steeples; only in dreams could she absolve herself.... It could have gone either way – he was too well aware of her sudden hosti
lities, surprise turnabouts, slow steps to compromise, random bursts of aggravated violence, not to have known that it could have gone either way. She had lain suspended for a while in the weightlessness of limbo, in the space between two moments, waiting for something inside to protest; but the tender warmth of his voice, carefully packed haversack, cheese and onion rolls, bottle of squash, the way he nudged her gently but firmly into her clothes, even the tilt of his chin, all brought her down, touched her heart, told her he was taking her with him whichever way the dice fell, whichever way the wind blew – hat, broomstick, warts and all. And just for once and just because... she would let it be, let it happen, like that strange, sad, slow dance with the hands, the eyes closed, where one partner leads, the other follows. Ebbing and flowing. She would follow, eyes closed, flow.

  They pass, like ghosts, out of the town; and it recedes into the distance like some ancient oil painting put out to weatherbeat, to mature under apple trees the way Van Gogh did it. They have never been this far before on foot – it is an adventure, it is altogether different from the park and pretty cottages with their year-round tulips in vases behind windows, their crazy paving and garden gnomes that sing in the rain, fish for trout, wheel barrows, crouch on toadstools – though they hardly dare so much as breathe if you ever care to approach. Everything real here is imagined in this strange, surprising mist that cons you into non-belief then conjures an epiphany out of a stone, startling and absurd as a pigeon out of a hat, a silk handkerchief: nettles tall as soldiers; fireweed out of blackened earth; the grave of Anna Czumak (who suffered much in this life) marked by a smattering of frost, like icing sugar, and a simple wooden cross (like the lines of crosses on Caldey Island where the monks have slipped back into the soil that fed them and gave them essence of gorse and heather, which they bottled in perfumes for the tourists that come to their gift shops for sachets and pot-pourris, fudge and ice cream, never the crosses and the stillness); a fox in the pose of fantastic Mr Fox, waiting for his picture to be taken by the sun: two yellow eyes, foreleg raised, a greasy gibleted grin on his chops…. Not a sound. Not a sound except their voices and their footsteps which have acquired a new freedom in this rock-strewn land – home to wise owls, little grey rabbits, secret voles and lonely tramps sleeping rough under midnight, starlight, moth and bat-soft light. Not a sound except her heartbeat keeping a new rhythm to the jigging of the haversack on the back of the man she could no more part with than she could fly to the moon… this strange, surprising notion in this dawn just breaking; this truth just being felt.

  The leaves in the wood are almost blinding – it is difficult to know where to put their feet. The climb is slow and ponderous with many turnings in order to catch their breath under pretext of admiring the view; many jokes about rations, miles to go before they can eat, levels of physical fitness; many antics on the red-gold slippery leaves, leaping and skating with the abandon of children, of cartoon characters; many mock heroic savings of worms and snails from puddles and pools…. She is glad he ripped her out of warm oblivion to meet this new day which is just like one of her dreams. They have decided the top is Lothlorien and they must reach it before the light comes over the hill and into the meadow other­wise... otherwise... but she cannot think of anything bad enough to happen. Nothing in this world can catch her today. It is enough just to walk, look about, feel the blood flow crimson round her stopped-at-the-doll’s-house body. It is enough just to be far away from the town; feel the sadness kept at bay by the sound of a robin singing, his smile, the sky. No need to call their names one by one by one in Latin, Double Dutch, Romany, Yiddish, Cantonese. No need to stand in fairy rings, blow dandelion clocks, spin widdershins round blue moons and hollow trees at noon, clutching sprigs of white heather, golden harps, a silver tin whistle, mother-of-pearl star. No need to step a foot beyond the confines of her soul – stay still for they are here, in her heart, in her eyes, in her smile, in her hair, in her sudden surprising laughter, their frail, transparent wings fluttering in and out of her fingers, like eyelashes against a cheek, like a butterfly kiss. Wherever you are they are there. They are combing their hair in pocket mirrors of dew; Chinese skipping with gossamer rope and blades of grass; threading old moonbeams into their clothes; posting their mail in woodpecker holes; sweeping their mushroom and mulberry homes with dustpan clouds and feather brooms; catching the rabbit warren underground tube – for Camden Town and Primrose Hill; some are waking up the flowers – a little chore for them like cleaning their teeth – and after all these years, after all these storm-blasted, wasted years, these years of futility, pain and despair, she can hear them whispering back through the soft grey mist; she can hear them whispering back to her over the years: ‘campion, speedwell, periwinkle, wood myrtle. Silene dioica, Veronica chamaedrys, Vinca minor...’

  He feels it too. She is alive again. The lines have gone from her mouth, from her eyes. She is like the girl he first met, her tall neck shimmering over the crowd, far above the rest. There is a possibility of hope, of happiness in the soft blue irises of her eyes. He is magically transformed in those eyes…. He is her rock, her shelter; he will protect her from the wind and rain, the storms and snows. She will grow old in his arms.

  He has stood by her in the dark places and now he is taking her into the light. At the top of the hill they will see the new day, the new beginning. He takes her hand. She is ready.

  ‘World Number 426’ it had said on the box, ‘Fragile’ – though it looked tough as old boots to her. She shakes it gently just for fun and just to watch it settle again, the snow falling soft as enchantment on the small white house, the small green lollipop tree.... Outside is pitchy black except for the fireworks going off nineteen to the dozen, illuminating the heavens, the moon, a stray trotting dog and their own small corner of the street. The flat is warm and cosy, smelling of lavender, marigold soap and shampoo; and dimly lit by a pink scented candle (in tribute to the night), the landing light over the stairs and the anglepoise lamp glowing over the settee where David sits reading a thriller, her own small jumble of pens and paper, lists and library books piled high on a cushion at his feet. This is the time she likes best – when the day is almost done, the dirty dishes washed and stacked; and she has just stepped out of the bath, her face and hair squeaky clean, her old pink dressing-gown tied about her waist, padding about on slippered feet, putting things in order, setting things straight, with nothing to worry about or look forward to but sleep. She places the snow world back on the window ledge and peeps behind the curtain, watching a rocket tearing up into space, a waterfall cascading over the town in silvery drops, a giant yellow moonflower bursting out of the lake to blossom in an instantaneous death.

  ‘They sound like Rice Krispies,’ she remarks at his reflection, fingertips wiping the pane already misted up with breath. ‘I liked Snap best. The boys were Crackle and Pop. Snap was the cutest of the bunch, I think, and wore a stripey scarf.’

  His reflection grunts, looks up, smiles vaguely, goes back to its book; she grins inwardly, wondering whether to tease him by telling him the ending, having read the last page, but deciding instead to leave him to it: the undercover federal agents, bombs and assassins, the girl called Cheyenne who rode her man, did all manner of extraordinary things to him and was in fact a spy. (It stuck out a mile – the way she cried, looked away furtively, worked in a bank. No girl called Cheyenne would ever work in a bank!)

  A couple pass by, hand in hand and loitering, stopping now and then to stare and point at the fireworks; they seem so small down there on the street, underneath the spacious sky and everlasting stars. Sometimes she is overwhelmed by the smallness of things, her own life dwindling and shrinking to something less than an atom, her mind and body melting and dissolving like a boiled sweet on a radiator, like sugar in tea – though not tonight! Tonight it is all beautiful: her life, her love, the man and woman hand in hand, the stray dog trotting homeward, David reading his thriller under the glowing lamp, for they are all connected, united,
wrapped up in a destiny majestic and trivial as a moon­flower bursting out of a lake.