Seahorses Are Real

by Zillah Bethell

  ‘It’ll come,’ Terry had said as if he’d known what she meant. ‘It’ll come.’

  She stood up, her knees clicking, and walked on, faster than a little black moorhen swimming. It was a beautiful day – clean and crisp – as if the window cleaner had been round with his rags and polishes, sparkling up the morning. She wondered if her mother was happy now. Had she found the land of her dreams at last, the land where all is forgiven, everything wiped clean. Was she pottering about the Elysian fields, planting her crocus bulbs, lilies and forget-me-nots? Or was she somewhere in between, a soul distressed, deadheading nettles and stripping petals with her tiny silvery switchblade?

  She reached the old stump which was all that was left of the oak tree that had fallen in a bad November storm, one night when the lightning illuminated the heavens. It must have been older than the hills, that tree, older than Tiresias, older even than her grandmother who was really quite ancient. (I’m just an old zombie now, she sometimes said. Well past my sell-by date!) Counting the rings, encrusted in her stumps like lucky stars: silver, sapphire, amethyst and fire opal – each ring a memento, a year in the life of… no longer would she stand beneath the heavy boughs and shelter from the rain. No longer would she run and catch the catapulting leaves, just for fun and to make a wish. The top of the stump was perfectly flat like a dining room table, a little old mahogany dining room table. Did they come out at night and spread their table cloths, drink nectar from acorn cups and elderberry wine, have bun fights, play charades; and then, when daylight came, go spinning off into the pale white sunshine? ‘Goodbye, goodbye, what fun we had, goodbye.’

  (He told me fairies wake up the flowers, calling them by their botanical names. And he told me music came from heaven with thunder, hailstones, hurricanes and snow. And for bedtime stories, he read librettos.)

  ‘Never get as old as this,’ her grandmother sometimes said, counting her rings like lucky stars... each one a memento, a year in the life of…

  I have no intention of it, Grandma. Absolutely no intention of it, though I am very old already, like Arwen, and he will have to prove himself.

  How old could you get and still live?

  Seventeen

  The door banged shut and she heard his tread on the stairs... it could have gone either way... he was too well aware of her, had too deep a knowledge of her not to have known that it could have gone either way. The bang of the door – so vehement – and the tread of his boots (which should have gone long ago to Dr Barnardo’s) – so sullen and unloving – turned her away from him and away from her heart. By the time he came through the doorway, she was towering over him, metaphorically, in her head, beating him down to the size of a nut, though she sat quite still at the table, with her book.

  ‘Hiya.’ The voice was fake, cheerful; and she grunted a response.

  ‘How many people does he think live here?’ David threw a load of letters and papers onto the carpet. ‘Honestly, how many people does he bleeding well think live here?’ It was something of an ongoing joke that Jason put all letters not addressed to him at their door, and normally Marly would have entered into the discussion for Jason was a topic of great interest to her. She hadn’t actually met him yet – if ever she was on her way out and heard the door open, she hovered on the stairs, giving him sufficient time to make his escape – but she knew that he did his shopping by catalogue, de-loused the vestibule floor every two weeks and sent off for offers with strange names like ‘Pandora’s Box’. Today she simply remarked almost indifferently: ‘Maybe he thinks I’ll forward them on.’

  ‘That’s true.’ David peered over her shoulder. ‘You’ve read that book before haven’t you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You were reading it the other week, surely?’

  ‘No... and even if I was, I can read it again can’t I?’

  ‘True.’

  He flopped down on the sofa, picked up the TV magazine. Marly stared sightlessly at the words on the page, frustration mounting up in her. Why hadn’t he asked her about her day for goodness sake, or at the very least told her about his own. Come to think of it, he never did tell her about his day and she never asked; for all she knew he never got to his pale blue tower but shot off to London on a shopping spree or went down the pub and chatted up a girl more fun than she could ever be – silky sheeny stockings and mascara’d eyes. Did he impregnate her on the sly (they say it happens all the time)? She leapt up suddenly and peered over his shoulder the way he’d done earlier.

  ‘I suppose you’ll be watching that,’ she jeered, stabbing her finger at the description of an erotic film showing later that evening on TV.

  He sighed and looked up. ‘What’s upset you then? Did something happen at Terry’s? At the job centre?’

  ‘No.’ She was whirring with the news that Bernie Mungo had left for Jamaica and she was to start a new job but she wasn’t going to tell him that now.

  ‘The horses were good the other night weren’t they,’ he said then, changing the subject.

  ‘The horses were, yeah.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Oh nothing,’ she replied superciliously, as if he was too stupid to understand.

  ‘Which bit did you like the best?’ he went on, humouring her. ‘I liked Siglavy Parhelion best.’

  ‘None of it,’ she answered, hating herself for saying it. ‘It was all very unnatural… like robots. They should be left free to run on the hills or whatever it is they do.’ She couldn’t believe she was demeaning them like this, those glorious majestic creatures that had danced their way into her sick little soul. And she knew, for a fact, from her library book, that the horses loved their work, the performances, the attention, and when they were forced to retire often died or became suddenly old and decrepit, shuffling in from the pasture for their morning feed like senile old men.

  ‘Very unnatural,’ she repeated, a terrible sadness coming over her. It was like stripping away beauty, deliberately stripping it away. Is that how her mother had felt, stripping petals from flowers?

  He smiled at her blankly, a look of dislike in his eyes. That was a triumph of a sort, she supposed, that look of dislike in his eyes.

  She went on and on then, on and on and on, unable to stop herself.

  ‘You like looking at things don’t you. Typical man. Always looking at things.’ She jabbed the magazine again, childishly.

  ‘What are you on about? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing’s the matter. Nothing’s the matter except for the fact you like looking at things.’

  ‘What things? What things am I meant to be looking at?’ He sat forward on the sofa. ‘I always seem to be looking at things, I’m surprised I’ve got time to do anything else.’

  ‘Well, if you can’t remember it means you don’t even know what you’re doing, which is even worse, you just can’t help yourself.’

  ‘Go on then. Go on, tell me. What am I meant to have been looking at this time?’

  She stood still, staring at the torn and tattered world map hanging off the wall. Would she ever get to Novorosysk, Corsica, Shangri-la? Of course she wouldn’t. She’d end up at the Limes, feeding the likes of Rasputin, Waltzing Matilda, Pegleg Pete and Leslie Finch. How fitting! ‘That girl,’ she mumbled at last, ‘by the badges.’

  ‘What girl? What’re you on about?’

  ‘You know, that girl by the badges on the way out, after the horses.’

  His brow creased. ‘I don’t remember any bloody girl by the badges. I remember there were some silly buggers blocking the way.’

  ‘Tall, dark-haired, looking at the t-shirts.’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue what you’re on about. I know I was going to get you a badge of Siglavy Parhelion. That’s all I remember. And then you buggered off.’

  She stared at him for a moment. Could she be so wrong? Could she be so completely and utterly wrong?

  ‘You obviously don’t know you’re doing it then,’ she repeated, ‘Which is even wors
e, you just can’t help yourself.’

  He laughed outright then. ‘You’re mental, you are. Your head’s playing tricks again.’

  ‘You obviously just can’t help yourself,’ she insisted.

  ‘Why do you punish yourself like this all the time?’ His voice was almost pitying. ‘Why do you want to hurt yourself like this? Why do you keep hurting yourself?’

  ‘It’s not me hurting myself,’ she replied, feeling a little foolish. ‘It’s you hurting me, not me....’

  She went and sat back down at the table, pretending to look at her book. ‘Pervert,’ she whispered, almost as if she were talking to herself. ‘Go and look at all the erotic films you want to. Go and look at all the women you want to, I don’t care.’

  In the time it would have taken him to answer, he’d jumped up and pushed her chair back against the wall so that she sat, tipped up, clinging on to the edge of the table with the tips of her fingers. ‘Is that what you want?’ he shouted. ‘Would that make you happy?’ She could see the saliva on his teeth. ‘Is that the sort of person you want me to be?’

  ‘So you admit it then?’ she muttered, taking one hand off the table to push her glasses up her nose, her cheeks reddening.

  ‘Or do you want me to poke my eyes out? Should I? Should I? Should I poke my eyes out for you?’

  Yes, she whispered to herself. See nothing but me. Wholly, solely dependent on me, though out loud she said: ‘Oh don’t be so stupid David.’

  He suddenly let the chair go so that she came crashing down, bashing her knee on the side of the table. She flinched, shielded her face, thinking he was going to hit her, but he sat back down on the sofa, put his head in his hands.

  ‘I can’t do this any more,’ he said in a voice Marly had never heard before. ‘It’s no good... I can’t do it.’ He kept shaking his head. ‘It’s no good... no good any more.’

  She sat quite still, her knee throbbing, her heart racing, every fibre of her being intensely aware of his presence, the broken room, even the quality of the light. This little old room where they’d shared so many moments of boredom, love, tenderness, despair. She wanted to believe him. How she wanted to believe him. It was like groping in the dark for a light switch. If only she could believe him everything would be alright....

  ‘I’m leaving you.’

  The words skimmed over her like three little arrows. I’m leaving you, I’m leaving you… and in her head she saw the musical repeat sign, two lines and two dots, two lines and two dots which she always saw, for emphasis, exaggeration, without repetition of the words themselves. I’m leaving you. :|| :||

  He went on into the silence, quickly and brutally.

  ‘I’ll clear out tomorrow night… start packing later on. It’s not like it’s going to take long.’ She stared at him in disbelief.

  ‘...probably best for both of us… this is killing us both.’

  ‘You can’t.’

  He looked at her as though he very well could and would.

  ‘You can’t just drop a bombshell like that. Everything’s alright and then you suddenly say you’re leaving like that. It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘You knew it was fucking me up.’

  ‘Well, you were always alright the next day… whistling... playing your guitar… never communicated the fact that you wanted to leave.’

  He sighed. ‘I’m sorry, alright. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I just didn’t realise the scale of the problem.’

  Marly bit her lip. She’d feared man’s betrayal and she had got it. This was it! She’d been right all along. Men were pigs, men were shits. Oh ho, she’d been justified alright... she’d been justified. ‘You knew I had problems… got depressed... I never hid that from you.’

  ‘We-ell. Look, I’m sorry for changing, alright. It’s not like I haven’t tried. I’ve tried for nearly six years.’

  ‘It’s like you’re not accepting me when I’m ill, because I get ill.’

  ‘But that’s not you. It’s not really you when you’re ill.’

  ‘Yes it is, it’s a part of me.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he repeated. ‘It’s not like I haven’t tried... but it’s killing me. D’you know I check my watch every few seconds on my way back from work… in case I’m late.’

  Marly laughed then, part nervously, part sarcastically. It seemed such a peculiar remark to make and hardly relevant to the argument. ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I’m so sorry... so why did you make all those promises if you can’t see them through?’

  He sat and stared out the window, lining things up with his eyes no doubt.

  ‘Why did you say all that stuff about loving me, looking after me, if you couldn’t see it through? The slightest little problem and you’re off like a blue-arsed fly. I was alright before you came along.’

  ‘No you weren’t.’ He shook his head vehemently.

  ‘Yes I was. I was doing alright. And then you come along and say all those things and I stupidly believe them. I should have known better.’

  ‘Okay, I’m a shit. You’d be better off without me.’

  ‘Fine,’ she agreed. ‘You are. Go on then.’ She kicked a letter on the floor that had obviously come from Anne and Michael effing Angelo. ‘Go back to Wales – it seems to be the be all and end all for your family. Go and sit in your valley where it rains and it’s safe and you don’t have any problems. Go and find some happy little woman – Bronwen or Myfanwy or whatever it is they’re called over there – have your two happy little kids, grow your fucking happy rhubarb... it’s obviously what you want.’

  He sat, his head in his hands, and didn’t respond.

  She shut up then for a while, fidgeted with her pen, her book, stared into space, stared back at the desk. Her gratitude diary sat beside the lamp, overflowing with anticipation for the Lipizzaner concert. Oprah Winfrey would be proud of her… all those spiritual psychological gurus. Ha ha. What was it Terry had said? You’re lucky you’ve got someone like David who’s going to be there. Ha ha. How ironic!

  (Above us the stars will shine, Radames said to celestial Aïda. Ironic as it turned out – they ended up in a crypt.)

  The ramifications of his leaving were immense – her head went into a spin just thinking about it.... She wondered if Jason was listening in, down below in his underworld kingdom, listening in for all he was worth or cooking himself a pizza or peering through his optical lenses at Pandora’s Box. The ramifications of his leaving were immense.

  ‘I know I provoke you,’ she admitted in the end, tentatively, quite rationally. ‘There’s no question that I provoke you… but the way you react... you’re worse than I am. The problem is you don’t communicate, you bottle stuff up and then you explode. You can’t just bracket stuff off in your head and think it’ll stay there.’

  He looked at her, his eyebrows raised, as if to say ‘you can talk’.

  ‘You need some sort of counselling. Maybe you should go to Terry as well. Two for the price of one!’ She flashed a grin in his direction and he smiled back weakly. There was no way he was leaving her. Love you forever, he’d said. Always and forever, he’d said. Just like one of those fizzy loveheart sweets. ‘I reckon you’re worse than I am now. I’m getting better and you’re getting worse.’

  ‘Yes,’ he uttered despairingly and she turned to him in surprise. He had his head in his hands again; and he reminded her of a little boy at primary school – the toughest boy in the school – who’d sat for a whole day with his head in his hands. Nobody could get a word out of him. Everyone tried, even the headmaster. Something terrible had obviously happened at home and he sat the whole day with his head in his hands, without uttering a word, a cry, even a whimper. He’d ended up in Borstal a few years later, for nicking cars.

  ‘Anyway,’ she went on quickly, ‘you can’t leave... cos I’m just starting a job!’

  ‘What job?’

  ‘At the Limes… a week on Monday. I’ll probably be getting Rasputin’s grub on for him.’

 
; ‘Poor bastard!’ David smiled grimly. ‘You want to ask him why he goes round shouting all the time!’

  Marly gave a wild exaggerated laugh out of nervous relief. Every argument they had was The End and they always began again. Why should this one be any different?

  ‘Oh yeah, I’m really going to do that aren’t I? Hey Rasputin, my boyfriend wants to know why you go around shouting!’

  ‘You’ve never called me that before,’ David remarked wistfully.

  ‘Well, you are aren’t you... my boyfriend?’

  He turned away and looked out the window again, lining things up with his eyes no doubt. ‘And you want to ask him why he wears that tiny pink haversack. I mean it’s not like he can get any shopping in it!’

  She giggled uproariously. Everything would go on as always, the two of them together in their little rundown flat. Everything would be alright. She jumped up, ran over and knelt in front of him, grasped his hand. ‘You’re not really leaving are you,’ she pleaded. ‘I’d die without you... I’ll be well soon, I’m sure of it. You’re not really leaving are you?’