Seahorses Are Real

by Zillah Bethell

  ‘Poor fellow!’

  ‘I mean, I know the more you try and control, the less you really do. I’ve read library books, all sorts of stuff. I understand it all in theory. I just can’t put it into practice. The slightest thing and I’m back to square one.’

  ‘Everything feeds your particular sensitivity.’

  Marly nodded.

  ‘Does David know about all this?’

  She nodded again, wondering why it always came back to David. David this, David that. How he felt, how he reacted. What on earth did David matter? If you’re so keen on David, she thought to herself, why don’t you just have him in here: two for the price of one!

  Terry picked up a scrap of paper and drew something on it and Marly put on her glasses again and leant forward to see. It was two rather wobbly circles intersecting in the middle.

  ‘You’ve got to be individuals,’ he explained, ‘but not separate. Keep on intersecting, that’s the thing. Other­wise…’ He drew again. This time it was two circles side by side but not touching – ‘No connection! The other thing you can get…’ The pen was off again. It was as if he was trapped in his own doodle… ‘is a relationship where one person is dependent on the other. Sometimes it does work but it’s pretty suffocating.’ This time it was one circle enclosed in another.

  Subsumed in me, Marly thought, that’s where he must be. Living for me entirely and alone.

  ‘What you’ve got to remember is that we’re all just part of a unit. There’s no difference, we’re all part of the same unit.’

  Oh yeah, Marly thought. All of us jigging to the same bleeding heartbeat, the same bleeding goosestep. You sitting there in your black leather chair and me a despicable little Gollum-like creature. All just part of a grand design. Well let me tell you Mr Terry ha ha fucking funny man. You stink, I stink, the earth stinks; the whole grand design just stinks... ‘Yes I see,’ she muttered, blinking through tears. ‘Yes I see.’

  For a while they sat in silence, staring out at the chilly white sunshine, Terry tactfully ignoring her tears. She was surprised he let her cry, without interruption, or any attempt at comforting, but after all it was a relief. The tears trickled down her cheeks and now and then she brushed them away with her sleeve. When she’d finished, he turned and smiled, a warm, gentle enveloping smile and said quite matter of factly: ‘I think you suffered very high levels of anxiety as a child.’

  She stared through the window at the far too red car. Beautiful, bright and gleaming. Gleaming more than a tooth polish advert. He must have been polishing it all weekend. Polishing it up for Christmas no doubt. The bumper was gleaming, the windscreen was gleaming; the number plate was gleaming. You could eat your dinner off the bonnet by the look of things. Fry an egg on the engine like they did in American movies, American legends. In the end she said: ‘No more than anyone else I shouldn’t think.’ Even the hubcaps were gleaming... ‘I saw this thing the other month about a kid who got bitten by a puppy. He was just skeleton and teeth.’

  Terry sighed, just a faint exhalation of breath but Marly’s sharp pointy ears picked it up and wondered why. He took a sip of stone-cold tea from his long-forgotten mug, grimacing a little at the taste of it and she pretended not to notice and looked over his shoulder. The Grecian vase had been tucked behind some books – the quaint and colourful figures chasing each other with bunches of grapes, having a ball in perpetual motion; and the girl in the shape of a cross peered down from the wall with those great green eyes of hers.

  ‘We all conceal things,’ he suddenly said, ‘out of shame, embarrassment... it doesn’t really matter unless it’s hurting us. I hid this for a long time.’ He indicated his wide vitiligoed arms, ‘and then one day I thought to hell with it and I put on a short-sleeved shirt and went down to the garage and what do you know, the first thing a kid says is: “Have you been in a fire, mister?” I said, “something like that”.’

  He must mean the radiation, thought Marly. When he’d lost his heart and teeth at twenty-one in a hospital near Wormwood Scrubs. He’d been radiated from head to foot apparently, up his jacksy, his hooter, down his lugholes, any orifice you cared to imagine. Just like Ivy. Ivy had been radiated in all the wrong places. Ivy ever radiating like a fucking star. Ivy radiating for ever and ever like a glorious dying sun.

  ‘You’ll be alright.’ He reached out and touched her shoulder. ‘It’ll come.’

  She stared at him, solemn faced, touched by his gesture, his warm genuine reassurance and a glimmer took shape in her mind, like a beacon from a far-off ship at night, not of hope exactly, but of recognition; recognition that one day they might meet as equals and as friends. And an understanding too that what she had considered to be his limitations was simply an acceptance of a reality: both cruel and beautiful, despairing and hopeful. An acceptance of his place in the world and the courage to embrace it with a disciplined and determined counting of blessings. But the ship was too far off, the beacon too faint and the gap still too wide between what she knew she should think and what she did; what she knew to be absolute truths and the horror of her own.

  Sixteen

  It was mayhem in the job centre. Builders were in doing the roof, and parts of the building were cordoned off with tape and red traffic cones like something out of a crime scene. Every now and then came the sound of violent drilling and muzak had been put on to combat the effect. The queue was inevitably longer than usual, reaching almost to the door; and a man was going round with a vacuous smile saying to no one in particular: ‘We’re a bit disorganised today I’m afraid. We’re a bit disorganised.’ He stopped in front of Marly and said to a point over her left shoulder: ‘We’re a bit disorganised today.’ She noticed he had very long fingers and very long pointy fingernails and she smiled back, shivering slightly. It gave her the creeps the way he kept prowling round the queue, flashing his vacuous smile and long pointy nails. She wondered if he’d been a cat in a previous existence.

  Bernie Mungo was nowhere to be seen. She gazed about the place trying to spot him. He wasn’t in any of the cordoned-off areas. He wasn’t wandering around looking at the jobs. He wasn’t even by the door, counting his rings like lucky stars, his keys dangling from his waist like lucky charms. It wasn’t impossible that he was out the front having a cigarette or out the back on a tea break. It wasn’t impossible he was on a day off, but she thought it unlikely. Maybe he’d been promoted to Head of Security and was upstairs somewhere behind a desk, looking into a security camera. She hoped he was somewhere near. There was something reassuring about Bernie Mungo. It just wasn’t right for him not to be here.

  The queue inched forward a few steps and a bad smell suddenly hit her in the nostrils. The man in front was reeking! She wondered if he’d given up washing his clothes too. He was a large burly man in an overcoat, with very short hair and creases at the back of his neck as if he spent too much time rolling his head about on his shoulders. He looked very at home in his overcoat, like he wore it all the time. It was comforting, Marly knew, to wear the same set of clothes. She was particularly attached to her long grey skirt, blue shirt and blue anorak, whatever the weather. In truth, she was frightened that if she changed her clothes, things might get a lot worse. It had occurred to her that if she changed her clothes, things might get a lot better, but she could never take the risk. She wondered if she stank as bad as the man in front did. Quite possibly. Luckily the olfactory sense numbed itself after a while – she’d learnt that in school – the biology teacher had said that’s how people work in sewers without keeling over.

  The queue inched forward a few more steps and Marly looked round a little wildly for Bernie Mungo. He must be somewhere! Someone ought to shout out ‘Get Bernie Mungo’ and he would appear suddenly out of the woodwork, his Saint Christopher shining, like the time there’d been a disturbance in the review section. Maybe he really had been promoted and was upstairs some­where looking through a security camera; she smiled vaguely at the ceiling just in case. The muzak was startin
g to get on her nerves: frigging panpipes! They always reminded her of Ireland, leprechauns and that singer her mother used to like – what was his name...? It was the same when they kept you waiting on the telephone and always played bits from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: the same bits over and over. It was meant to be reassuring! That man with the nails was giving her the creeps as well. He’d probably been a witch in a previous existence.... What was that singer’s name? He wore a cardigan and sat in a rocking chair, she knew that much. But for the life of her she couldn’t remember his…

  All of a sudden a mobile phone went off a few steps behind and a man’s voice answered. After several yeses and nos he said: ‘Can he lick it off a spoon?’ There were several more yeses and nos and then he switched off and remarked to no one in particular: ‘Sorry about that. My dog’s got kennel cough. He’s got to have Benylin. I don’t know how because he never sees any other dogs. It spreads in the air apparently.’

  Marly turned and smiled an acknowledgement. It was a great gift that, an astonishing gift to be able to strike up a conversation with no one in particular. Once when she’d been walking, she’d met a man called Ian who’d told her in less than a minute that he lived in the end cottage by the pub, worked nights, always got three sausage rolls for him and the other two lads, and walked the pub dog, Peppy, in exchange for his Sunday dinner which was cooked by Agatha who kept the kitchen immaculate. He’d told her other stuff as well but she couldn’t remember it now.

  The queue inched forward a few more steps and a smartly dressed woman came across and asked above the din of drilling and muzak if anyone was interested in the jobs at Bluewater. The queue metaphorically shuffled its feet. One or two people became acutely deaf. Marly found something very interesting to look at on the floor. Never catch their eye: that was the secret. If you caught their eye you were done for. It was the same with people doing surveys in the precinct, people rattling cans for charity outside supermarkets, even girls behind beauty counters. Once she’d made the mistake of looking too long at a girl behind a beauty counter who was shouting at the crowds: ‘It’s not your decade that matters but your dedication!’

  She’d seen Marly staring and pounced on her; and she’d spoken so softly, beguilingly and quickly about pearlescence and luminescence that Marly hadn’t had a clue what she was on about and found herself writing out a cheque for eighty quid (much to David’s distress) in exchange for two bottles that would give her this pearlescence, luminescence etc... Afterwards, she’d thrown them out, too embarrassed to take them back, too ashamed to use them. The woman asked again a little wearily over the din of drilling and muzak if anyone was interested in the jobs at Bluewater. Everyone then became profoundly deaf. Marly’s eyes remained glued to the grey stone floor. Val Doonican, that was his name. Val Doonican. The woman stood there a moment then shrugged her shoulders and went away muttering to herself. The whole queue quite literally breathed a sigh of relief.

  There was a space for her next and what do you know but the man with the nails was settling himself behind the desk. Marly groaned inwardly, slung her bag over the side of the chair and tried to appear surprised when he said apologetically: ‘We’re a bit disorganised today I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh dear. Is that the building work?’

  He nodded. ‘The roof’s been leaking. I’ve had to shift my quarters. It’s all hands on deck at the moment I’m afraid.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ She wondered if the girl with eyes like antique beads and the woman with the mushroom hair were upstairs with mops and buckets, stemming the tide; and then she suddenly remembered it hadn’t rained for days. What was he on about? She eyed him suspiciously, wondering if he was on some sort of medication. Those nails weren’t normal for a start.

  ‘So, if you don’t mind, we won’t do a job search today.’ He indicated the queue. ‘We’ve got a backlog as you can see.’

  Marly turned, partly to look at the queue, partly to hide an expression of delight. She noticed the man in the overcoat standing by the window and staring out at the cold, bright sunshine. Even from this distance the creases on his neck were clearly visible. He must roll his head around like a bloody ball bearing, she thought.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘Not at all.’ She turned back to the man with the nails, smiling graciously. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Hold on a minute though, something’s coming up on the screen.’

  ‘Oh?’ She propped her chin in her hands and leant forward, pretending interest.

  ‘I’ve got some good news here... Marlene.’

  ‘Oh?’ She wondered if they were upping her dole cheque.

  ‘The Limes are offering you a job on a trial basis.’

  ‘What? Are you sure?’ Marly was appalled. ‘I haven’t had an interview or anything.’

  ‘Well, your application form obviously did the business. You’re to start a week on Monday. There’ll be a day of induction, health and safety etc... and then you’re off.’ He clicked to print out some details for her.

  ‘There must be some mistake.’

  ‘Not at all. Don’t be so hard on yourself. It says here that you’re just the sort of person they’re looking for. Well done. Congratulations! Good to see the back of you so to speak. No offence like.’ He waved his pointy nails and smiled vacuously.

  ‘Thank you.’ Marly took the piece of paper and got up to go, then turned suddenly on impulse.

  ‘Is Bernie Mungo here today?’ she asked quickly.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Bernie Mungo.’

  ‘You mean the security guard?’

  ‘Yes.’ She wondered how many Bernie Mungos they employed.

  ‘Oh no. He left for Jamaica two days ago.’

  The words rang in her ears as she pushed past the queue, out into the cold white sunshine. Left for Jamaica two days ago. Left for Jamaica two days ago. He’d gone and got his plane ticket out of here. He’d gone and left her behind. No longer would he stand, counting his rings like lucky stars, or wander round looking at the jobs for he was there right now in the land of his dreams, the land of talcum sand that burnt your toes, coral reefs that cut your feet, palm trees, azure seas, warm and oily mangoes. Everything was new, changing, different. Everything was new, changing, different; and she didn’t like it one bit.

  She nipped across by the Daisy launderette full of blood, chocolate, stains, vomit (Have you heard our Daisy scream?), picking up her pace out of sheer agitation. Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job. She was to start a new job. How ridiculous! Just the sort of person we’re looking for, my foot. No one else had applied for it; that was the truth of it. No one else had applied! She made her way into the park and her feet beat out the rhythm on the tarmac path that she was to start a new job: Dee de de deeh de de deeh. Dee de de deeh de de deeh :|| A week on Monday was not enough time to cut her hair, wash her clothes, be rid of the wart on the end of her nose... a week on Monday was not enough time. There was never enough time and always too much to say the things that needed to be said and do the things that needed to be done. (Ivy ever dying in HA HA HA HA HA domestic bliss; and she had just sat there deaf and dumb to it.) Never enough time and always too much.

  She sat down on the bench by the memorial for the dead to catch her breath, gazing wildly around for the gardener with her volatile hair, tramps with their beer cans, even the old gentlemen and ladies guzzling nasturtium seeds in the shrubbery, but there was no one around. It was very cold – crows kaarked in bare-limbed trees and a solitary fly buzzed round an old rose bush – but the little bench caught the sun and was really quite hot, almost burning. She took off her coat to bask in the heat though inside she was whirring with the news that Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job. How ridiculous, for goodness sake, was that? She tapped the ground nervously with her toe, willing the gardener to appear if only to distract her. She even stood up and peered at the van parked by the library gates; but it wasn’t Lizzie’s Lady
Gardeners with the little vinegar bottle stashed away on the dash board (in readiness for snacks, chips, pasties and samosas); it was a cleaner, whiter looking van and a pale bespectacled man was getting out of it, laden down with what looked like a load of old school annuals. People were scurrying into the library as always, from all directions, bringing back their books and records, CDs and videotapes. It was the busiest place in town, that library. She sat back down and turned to stare morosely at the memorial for the dead. Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job. Someone had thrown a wreath of lilies around the statue’s neck and stuck a red bobble hat on his head. Possibly the work of 9T9 Flake. It gave him a slightly comical air, a seasonal, cheerful, festive air, quite at odds with the desolate park. Why wasn’t the gardener filling the beds full of Christmas, Santa; New Year Good Resolution flowers? Lilies were flowers of death apparently, flowers of death and eau de toilette, of Christmas talc and funeral parlours. (Someone had sent her mother a wreath of white lilies without message or card. An old admirer perhaps. It had all been very strange. Marly had taken a solitary rose.) Lilies were flowers of death like poppies and forget-me-nots. Like the poem she’d read: Steffi Vergissmeinnicht. Steffi forget me not. In the end all that was left was a photograph torn and his stomach blown open like a cave.... The pale bespectacled man was stumbling back into his van, still laden down with the old school annuals. He must have renewed them, Marly thought. Why not? School annuals were a great place to live. (You were quite safe with them. You could read them in bed.) If she could have been anyone she’d have been a character in an old school annual.

  She got up then and made her way along the little old path beside the Darenth. The river had slunk back into its bed for there hadn’t been rain in days despite what the man with the nails had said. Still no sign of it either in the sky: the clouds were too white, too small; too high. Everything was glimmering, bright, reflecting; and the water burbled along quite merrily, giving off a little steam in the sunshine like some happy singing kettle. Marly knew that if she leant over the bank she would see her reflection broken up among the rocks and weeds, beer cans and old boots. Why had she never confessed the truth? Terry would have understood. He’d been here many times before and knew his way around the block. Why had she never confessed it? It lay on the tip of her tongue, at the back of her throat, stuck in the crevices of her stopped-at-the-doll’s-house body.... She crouched down on the grass and peeped over the edge, her long grey skirt brushing the tops of frosted cobwebs like tiny silken tents or fairy trampolines. The surface reflected the side of her head, the sky; the trees. It looked like a portal to another world, some secret underwater kingdom. How easy to believe you could just dive in. How easy to be fooled by the illusion. Is that what happened to Narcissus? Had he gazed too long and taken it for real? Had he gazed too long and taken it for real?