Saltskin

by Louise Moulin

  The mermaid stared at the fallen Angelo and her heart swelled with all the tenderness in the world. She whispered, ‘I know you,’ and leapt exuberantly into the air. Her body arched, her tail flicked water in a spray of diamonds, and mid-air she twisted, black backdrop of the sky framing her, and dove straight down deep into the ocean. Down she plunged, bubbles streaming off her, to where a school of fluorescent fish flicked this way turquoise and that way orange. Then the mermaid powered her way to the surface again, beyond herself with joy.

  She resisted the urge to clutch Angelo to her and drag him beneath the sea. She knew, by now, that a male human being had to stay on the surface. So she hooked the anchor and rope about her waist, and, using her gargantuan tail, propelled the boat and the men smoothly through the waves towards land, and into the lagoon near the settlement, at the mouth of a cave. She dug the anchor into the sand, then lay, spent, beside the coffin-like boat, fully out of the water. She held Angelo’s hand in hers and stroked the wiry hairs of his knuckles.

  Angelo came to with a yelp and registered the naïve face of the mermaid with her starry eyes. He lifted his head and took in the full length of her monstrous tail, both repelled and seduced by it. Not doubting what he saw, he seized the moment. ‘I will love you forever,’ he groaned through cracked and bleeding lips.

  The other men stirred, sensing they were on land. Percy sat up suddenly, startling the mermaid, who moved with the quickest of flips into the water so only her hair could be seen, floating and mingling with the kelp.

  Angelo shoved Percy back, fearful, for the mermaid belonged only to him. He stroked the faces of the other men like a mesmerist, willing them to stay in their slumber. Then he climbed stiffly out of the dinghy into the shallow waters and half floated towards her. There was such heat and excitement in his blood it was as if he had been dunked in the hottest of baths. Flushes shot through him and he was vibrant and sure of purpose.

  ‘If I let you go, will you meet me here at midnight?’ he asked her.

  The mermaid kissed his Adam’s apple and pulled back to receive his glassy look, inordinately flattered by what she read there. She liked very much the way he looked at her, as though she were extraordinary. She clapped her hands and tilted her head coquettishly, then dove flirtatiously into the ocean.

  Angelo watched the glimmer of her beneath the shallow water. ‘But will you?’ he beseeched.

  Angelo was woken by sunbeams blaring down on his face, the dawn a brilliant red. He thought: Without doubt this is paradise, this is Eden.

  A group of men ran in his direction.

  17.

  Dirty Deeds

  Captain Angus stood on the beach filling his pipe. The whales had been slow coming in and the fog had lifted only briefly, then fallen thicker than ever and merged itself into dusk. It had been a mistake to work in such blindness, the likes of which he had experienced only once, when the ship he served on was blown weeks off course and trespassed into waters wedged with icebergs invisible in the dark. He gave the order to wind it up for the day.

  He was uneasy, and not for the first time that day — nor the last. He attributed it to lack of sleep. Angelo came into his mind like a nudge in the ribs. Why was that man important? Angus was not a religious man, yet he was deeply aware of the spiritual nature of existence. He believed in the afterlife, in ghosts, in twoheaded beasts, and believed without doubt in the vivacity of the devil, for had he not seen the red of it in other men — and in himself?

  Davy, peeved and tight-bottomed, shoulders hunched, walked past the captain looking as if he had contracted the Black Death, his nose red and dripping like a rotting strawberry. He was seething with a churn of emotions: jealousy, anger. A sense of inferiority. His mind brooded on Angie: the way she had barely looked in his direction. Was he invisible as a man? He made up for his lack of good looks with a friendly demeanour and mostly he hoped for the best. But by God he wanted Angie. He reasoned that if he had her, he would be somebody. So absorbed was he that he didn’t hear Angus call his name, and only when he was held by the wrist did he halt.

  Captain Angus surprised himself by asking Davy about the woman Angelo was seeking, the woman he had referred to in his cabin.

  The mention of Angelo smarted — Angus caught the change in Davy’s expression. Davy wrestled with his conscience. Telling someone about Angelo’s obsession with a mermaid would certainly discredit his friend, make him appear loony. But it would mean betrayal, and after all, Angelo had not mentioned the mermaid since they set sail. Yet the urge to tip the scales in his own favour was too tempting.

  Angus watched Davy and knew that knowledge lay within. He sought to coax it out by putting a number of silver coins in Davy’s palm, squeezing reassuringly and nodding with closed eyes. He told him to seek bed-rest at the Rusty Rose.

  Every man has his price. Oh, Angus could see Davy in the act of betrayal as clearly as an A on an adulteress’s bodice.

  Davy sighed. He circled his finger around his ear to imply stupidity. ‘Big on imagination is Angelo,’ he finally said. ‘He reckons he can find himself a mermaid — which is a fish, isn’t it?’ He laughed. A beat passed. Davy looked at the money in his palm. He could pretend the prostitute was Angie … He failed to note the expression of triumph on Angus’ face, quickly masked.

  Angus thumped Davy on the back a little too hard, and pushed him on with words to the effect that a real woman is not always as good as an imagined one. As Davy moved away, Angus shook his head in disappointment at mankind. Did Angelo have no real friends at all? He took a deep breath that quivered in his chest. So, Angelo was seeking a mermaid, was he? He felt stirred by it. He glanced about him, not seeing anything, and his eyes had the light of a crusader.

  In his cabin the captain heaved a sigh that came out like a strangled wail. He had to think, or he had to act, for he was sick of the madness of thinking — he had thought and thought for the past twenty-odd years. He doubted his ability to recall truthfully, for none of it was linear or followed the laws of time.

  He made straight for the drawer where he kept the mirror and stared into it. He remembered the face. In his past he had committed a dishonourable and horrible deed. Yet frozen in the mirror was the face of the young Angus, a few hours before, at the point where he could have chosen differently. The eyes that stared back at him were earnest and without guile. The eyebrows were tamed in a youthful arch, his mouth unfurled by cynicism. It was an image engraved at a journey’s crossroads.

  He had not known that one way would lead to a lightness of heart and the other to darkness, marking the skin with scars that betrayed his inner character. Age is not only about time, he acknowledged. A miser looks like a miser, a saint like a saint. It is the thoughts a man entertains as much as his actions that mark the skin and take away the plumpness of innocence.

  How he wished he could turn back time. Live it over, make different choices, knowing what he knew now. Then he could own the face he saw mirrored to him: without deceit, without guilt, without regret. But he recalled what he had felt back then. The cousin of love — lust. And lust was so near to greed, and greed to gluttony, and gluttony — was that so far removed from love?

  He had to do penance, not just to be cleansed of the guilt — the blame that stained all his actions, that covered the innocent in him — but to restore a balance. All he needed was a chance to put things right. He put the mirror from him in revulsion and reached further into the recesses of the drawer. There — he flicked his thumb as if flicking away a gnat and the top of the drawer gave way with a click. He lifted the lid, withdrew a logbook, and turned the pages to an entry he had not read for twenty years.

  The Ship ‘Maia’

  I must write this down before the vision of it is blurred by my disbelief. Today I met and fell in love with a mermaid. There, it is stated thus, and yet the letters are plain in comparison to the enchantment of my afternoon here on this isle.

  The crew drunk and otherwise engaged with a number of nat
ive females, I was able to shirk my lowly duties and sneak away unnoticed, for to them I am merely a boy. I had eaten my fill of the exotic fruits and sunned myself on the shores, the palm trees tall above. I rolled over, and to my right sat the mermaid, appraising me with open curiosity. Her extravagant tail glistened with the dew of the sea while her upper body was sloped in the form of a female human. Oh, the ripe breasts small and high, with the peculiar weight of woman’s flesh and nipples the pink of the inside of a conch shell. Oh, the glory of awakening to the presence of a goddess.

  I rubbed my eyes to clear them of the sunspots I most assuredly was seeing through. But she remained. She flicked her tail with a snake-like ripple. How can I tell of how the day evolved? I believe she was as enchanted with me as I with her. She permitted me to sketch her and I made two drawings of which I am inordinately proud, for my skills are less than those of an artist, and yet she was a muse and each stroke captured her. I had not yet touched her tail, for I felt if that I did it would be to touch the likes of a sea monster. It gave the impression of having its own life force and I failed myself by being fearful of it and yet aroused. I did, however, touch her perfect breasts, and she appeared to have no bashfulness, as though I had fondled instead merely her elbow.

  I am unable to sleep, I am sure. I will the hours of my life to pass until I can look upon her glory once again. It was all too brief, for she seemed to leave as suddenly as she had first presented herself. And just before her pretty shoulders submerged in the ocean she asked me if I loved her and I said, ‘Forsooth, yes.’

  The Ship ‘Maia’

  My guilt is immense. I hold in my palm her mirror. Indeed, all the belongings she came to me so trustingly with, held in a delicate shell box. I stole it all, including a bag containing pearls as big as my eye. I had the presence of mind to — Lord forgive me — steal it, snatch it from her before she slithered away in fright.

  How could I have permitted such an atrocity? Why did I tell anyone about her? By writing I hope to purge my soul of a horror I could not ever confess to a man’s eyes, for the shame is too great. How can I say it but straight as an arrow? I have lost my mermaid. She has swum far from me and will never return.

  I should not have boasted of it. I should not have let others spy on what ought to have been sacred. I can never forgive myself. I let it happen, caught up in the lure of capture. Creatures such as these cannot be harnessed. It must be given and deserved. Her trust. Her love.

  I cannot go on. I am afraid of beauty. I led her to temptation and yes, I wrestled her down, her eyes alarmed and forgiving at once. I am a coward, for I did not move to save her. I did not. And yet even now I wonder whether, given the chance to do different, I would. I fear I would not. I must remember the words of the apostle John: It is the spirit that vivifies; the flesh is of no worth. I can aim for a higher state of being.

  But it is no good: I was a partner in the degradation of the mermaid. I have sinned. I held her wrists to be bound by rope, I lit the flame to scorch her tail. I cannot bear the weight of her goodness. Were it not for her almighty strength she would be tethered now in shackles below deck, and would I, if she were so trapped, be up here mourning? Or would I be with the others, poking her with sticks?

  And despite it all I wish to have her trapped. We have tarried in these waters too long, forgone our original mission in the hope of seizing the prize of a mermaid. I never asked her name. I will not see her to the circus awaiting in Europe.

  Angus’ mind drifted back to Angelo.

  18.

  Bathing

  Mrs Orchid Faullen had spent only one long year in Australia, yet carried on her tongue the brogue of the illbred colony. Her mother, Clarisse, had been arrested in London for assault, and since she was simultaneously being hounded for witchcraft, Clarisse considered the sentence of deportation to Botany Bay perfect timing.

  Clarisse was a sensitive: a midwife, an astrologer, a palm-reader; indeed, adept in divination of all kinds and far from being a charlatan. Aside from her abundance of knowledge when it came to childbirth, prevention and cure, she could mend the unmendable simply by laying on her hands. She could see with all-knowingness the train of a patient’s future as if it were already written. For these purposes she employed a variety of tools, from tea leaves to bowls of water, but these were merely props, for her vision was clear as air and right as light. It was not that Clarisse believed in the supernatural but rather that she knew nature itself to be super.

  These skills did not make her rich. For payment for her services she received all manner of bartered goods — cheeses, eggs, meats, clothing, jewels. And where possible she encouraged and accepted children’s teeth, for a number of reasons. Firstly as a joke, for children’s teeth were said to ward off black magic and this made Clarisse cackle. Secondly, she believed — as many did — that a child’s articles and pieces contained great power. Thirdly, the quirk of it appealed and added to her eccentricity.

  Her lacklustre child, Orchid, did not possess the gift. Indeed, she seemed to have come from another set of eggs entirely. Where Clarisse was confident and wise, Orchid was timid and reticent, with too much regard for her own fears. However, her daughter was a scholar of sorts for she understood the recipes and spells and could mix a potion well enough.

  When young Orchid, infected with the red dust of the colony, left their home to embark on a mismatched marriage, Clarisse gave her a mystic dowry packed into a small tea chest: the very same tea chest she herself had carried upon her deportation, allowed aboard after she cast a spell to the effect that the barren wife of the magistrate would bear twins. The promise proved true and provided good mileage in Botany Bay. Where others were starved and raped, Clarisse was able to live in relative luxury.

  In the chest she optimistically and clairvoyantly packed for Orchid:

  1. A book titled The New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences by Ebenezer Sibly.

  2. A book titled La Très Sainte Trinosophie (The Most Holy Triple Philosophy), by Saint-Germain.

  3. A spell book for common ailments.

  4. A black beaded purse containing 113 children’s teeth.

  5. A gold velvet quilt.

  6. Two low-cut gowns secured from the Dutch. She suspected her daughter would never wear them, for their decadence, but hoped she would. One was green and one red.

  7. A douche set.

  Clarisse’s last words to her daughter were: ‘There comes a crossroads in all of our lives where one must choose. And the right or wrong of these actions can only be read backwards, like a spool of thread unravelling. A saga that on our deathbeds we review: the incidents hurtful and kind, the ones that were pivotal and, like the wings of a butterfly, set off a storm in another land. We do not know how our choices and actions will affect the greater world but they do. And if we did understand we would be dazzled by the brilliance of chance.’

  For a long while she regretted the words, for they had been gabbled, and she knew they made little sense to Orchid. She wished she had simply said: ‘I will miss you. Be well.’

  And yet she knew that wasn’t the way of the world.

  Clarisse could foresee all that was to happen; she knew that her daughter’s life was not just for the present but that her descendants would play a vital role in the wellbeing of the world — the essential realignment of balance, when civilisation was ready to hear the truth once again, the truth submerged but ever present, a truth as powerful as natural law. And so the glory box was packed with the far future in mind. But, knowing as she did all the trouble, the bedlam that was to follow, Clarisse released the clasp of the gold locket she wore and fastened it around her daughter’s throat. Inside it was empty.

  Orchid’s marriage was aborted on account of her husband’s bigamy, although she kept her married name in preference to her bastard birth name, and Clarisse set her up as governess to the Swan family. Mr Swan was a close intellectual friend of hers who helped in the acquisition of rare botanical ingredients.
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  It was Clarisse’s tea chest that later would serve as lifebuoy for Mrs Orchid Faullen and her charge, the capricious Miss Angela Swan. Mr Swan was a gentleman of repute who spent his life travelling to remote locales to collect and catalogue new and wondrous plant species for the Crown. His last and fatal journey ended in shipwreck. Forty miles south of the rocky coast that bordered the whaling settlement of Jacob’s River. Mrs Orchid Faullen and Miss Angela Swan were the only known survivors.

  In a little hut with walls of flax and sand and dung on the other side of the makeshift settlement, our Mrs Orchid Faullen stood, back erect, in her cotton nightgown starched from potato peels, at the side of Angie’s bed. The girl lay on her back, her treacle hair spread across the pillow, one naked arm flung out to the side. Orchid reached out to stroke the girl’s head, hesitated, and instead clasped her hands firmly to halt their tempestuous migration to the girl, who was covered partially with a velvet quilt of gold. Orchid was homesick and desperate for the touch of kindness.

  ‘Must you stare so? You really are peculiar, Orchid. Away with you.’ Angie sat up quickly and her breasts wobbled with the motion. Her face flushed, rancorous. Orchid’s gaze fell to Angie’s chest in a reflexive way, like a hand going out to halt a falling cup, and she was startled by Angie’s harsh laugh.

  ‘Go on then. Touch them. You know you want to,’ taunted Angie, truculently, slyly, but her eyes, her expression were sugar sweet. Orchid glanced nervously at Angie’s face and could read only an invitation, for that was what she wished above all else to see — a sign of acquiescence, of permission to crawl onto the bed and to be embraced by another living soul. Her stomach tugged on a nerve in her womb and as always, when the black bile stirred in her, she fondled the gold locket at her neck.

  Angie pushed back the golden cover to reveal her pearl abdomen, sunken between her hip bones. Orchid could not move. Angie ran her own hand over her ribs and stomach and said, ‘I’ll not beg you for it,’ and her hand disappeared into the golden folds of the quilt. Her legs moved apart beneath the covers and she smiled tauntingly. Like a trained courtesan she half closed her eyes and let her head fall back, her neck exposed, the blue veins stark against her pallor, as if to a vampire.