I know you, she thought, and her eyes welled, and the aria coming from her would not stop. Notes with the sorrow of a saxophone on a breath that never seemed to end, and she watched him double over in pain and sink to his knees, his hands clutching in his hair, watched him teeter and fall into the wash of the water.
Horrified, Gilda stopped singing and slowly, haltingly — as if her legs were loosely hinged — moved, mesmerised, toward the water’s edge, then into the sea, up to her stomach, looking for the man who had been there a second before. She pushed her arms into the froth of the waves with grabbing fingers, going deeper into the ocean. Salty water splashed her mouth, went up her nose, stung her eyes and she was searching wildly now, in the same way he had, desperately. The waves curled up her chest and she realised he had gone, if he had been there at all, and as she turned, bereft, for shore, a bright light filled her vision. Her body buckled and she collapsed into the black sea.
26.
Tombs of Time: Dreaming
Gilda:
There is a gush of water as loud as a dam burst. Faith is horribly quiet except for grunts, and her face is red as she hauls stones too big for her from the river, but her strength is magnificent. There is trouble in the air.
We are in a forest. Water drips from the trees. Birds twitter and shake the branches. For a time I can’t see anything, as if there is only water. It’s not the sea it’s the river — it is yellow with floodwaters and moves fast and I look for Eve. I ask Faith over and over but she cannot hear me. I am a ghost to her, a strange breeze, and she looks up but barely as she works at the stones and I am over her now, perhaps in a tree, and she works hard and fast, rolling her boulders. A Hercules.
Her hair is mussed with leaves and mud and I am closer to her now. I see the beat of a pulse in her neck. I look for Eve but we are alone, yet I feel her, and then the water comes again like a cloud overhead and I am sure of disaster — near or only just passed — and then I see Eve down the mountain a little. She is kneeling beside a woman, staring at her. The woman is still and curled slightly, perhaps sleeping. And Faith yells to her mother: her voice is screeching, urgent, panicking. When Eve does not move, Faith stomps over to her.
Slowly Eve unbuttons the dress of the other woman. The dress is partially wet and muddy, looking dragged. Faith watches as her mother rips and pulls and tugs the dress off the woman. The woman does not move of her own volition but her eyes are open. The dress is removed from her body and the woman is naked. I know this is good but I don’t know why. I am sourly happy about it, vindicated, but I’m not sure why they have undressed her. Why her eyes are open and yet she does not move. I don’t know who she is but I don’t like her.
Eve has the purple dress in her hands; holds it up unable to believe its existence. Faith is crying now and pulling on the arm of the slack woman, and Eve takes the other and they lug and yank her body to the stones and lay her there. I see now that the shape is that of a tomb, and they layer stones over her.
27.
Mermaid Skin Slippers
There was much change in Jacob’s River. The fleets of whaling ships were leaving to follow the migration of the whales, packing up and slipping away as fast as an adulterous lover leaping out a window. Almost overnight the population of the village reduced to a handful.
The Unicorn left port one dark night, commandeered by Jake. He set fire to a trail of whale oil on the sea to show his brazenness, but Captain Angus could not have cared less. He and Davy and Angelo stayed in Jacob’s River. And everybody noted in fascination — but said nothing — that Angelo’s hair had turned from a morbid grey to a vivid, multi-toned golden red to match his eyebrows. It seemed only right that love should change one’s colour.
Everyone would always remember exactly where they were when they first saw Eve. It was quickly and widely accepted that she was touched with the brush of insanity, that back in civilisation she would have been a contender for the Bedlam hospital, but it only added to her charm. In fact all asked themselves whether, if put in the dock, they could claim themselves with impunity to be the full quid, and none felt sure enough to throw the first stone. Besides, she seemed to match Angelo like tongue and groove.
Angelo, his chest smelly with fish, cleaned and scaled her mermaid tail and hung it in the cave to dry. He put aside his worry that her skin was always cold, even the inside of her mouth. For overall he was content. He cured the skins in brine and had the cobbler make Eve a pair of magnificent slippers in the modern way, one shaped for the left foot and one for the right. The cobbler accepted, with a shrug that meant he wasn’t asking, when Angelo told him it was local lizard skin.
The women of the Rusty Rose, those who had not ventured up country or left on the boats, took Eve under their wing, donating petticoats and undergarments and rosewater and turquoise combs. Orchid, when she first saw the waif dressed in a man’s shirt, rushed away and returned with two dresses, one red and one green, and they fitted Eve as if they had been destined for her. The captain and Orchid and Angelo beamed at Eve when she bundled up the skirts as though trying to free herself from a net.
Eve was open, curious and delighted by the simplest thing. Potatoes struck her as hilarious. She communicated with chickens, her dress covered in shit where she lay down to be at eye level with them. The most everyday thing was special in her hands. For hours she would laugh while wielding a hammer, smashing and banging things to hear the sound and see the carnage.
Meanwhile Angelo, one eye on Eve, set about building their house. With at least the basics of three-dimensional thinking from tapestry-making he understood the rudiments, and the rest was enthusiasm.
Eve was without malice or guile and purely enchanting. She had a way with people, for she could see and hear their every thought without judgement. When she turned her attention on them they glowed and felt themselves to be attractive, despite bald spots, pimples, missing teeth, botched tattoos or pot bellies. Their self-satisfaction swelled like yeast in dough, big and puffy. No character flaw was of any importance in her presence.
She did, however, earn the reputation of being a thief, on account of the fact that she took anything that caught her fancy — just spirited it away; she didn’t hide the stolen object but paraded it. Angelo apologised repeatedly for her. The Chinaman selling fruit and vegetables on Saturdays just let her have whatever she wanted. The men catching fish on the wharf smiled indulgently as she picked fussily through their fish hooks until she found the prettiest ones, hooked them in her curls and glided off in the hovering way she adopted to avoid putting too much weight on her legs. Their gaze followed her.
Eve loved the stray cow — no one knew who owned it and therefore it belonged to all. Eve was often found at non-milking times tugging on its teats. She simply adored its big soulful eyes with its pretty lashes, and she wanted it to feel special so she decorated it with shells and flowers. It let her sit on its back and it became her means of transport; she lumbered along the dirt tracks and the beach on the back of the happy cow. And because Eve needed no sleep, it was the cow with whom she spent the early morning hours while Angelo snored in their bed.
But when he awoke she was always there, staring at him expectantly. And so would begin her incessant questioning, and Angelo spent much of his time explaining to Eve the ins and outs of etiquette. For the plainest notions were as foreign to her as could be. Sometimes Angelo would laugh hysterically over their situation, and she would cover his face with her little cold kisses or climb over him like an exuberant crab. In the end it was Eve who decided which conventions were worth adhering to and which were nonsensical.
As if it were already in existence and just needed to be plucked from the sky, Angelo, with the help of many hands, finished the house for his bride. The cow was used to winch up the walls. Angelo erected a spectacular, though not perfect, turret on the roof. He was puffed up proud, his face red with pleasure for days, and he began searching for something else to make.
One evening, struck by
inspiration, he set about making a mosaic of a mermaid, which it would take him seven years to finish.
The only soul unhappy about Eve’s presence was Angie Swan.
28.
New Life of Forgetting
Angie had not been seen in the village since the day Eve arrived. She had been stunned to see Angelo hand in hand with a maiden wearing only a man’s shirt, and it had affected her as surely as a leech sucks blood. Now the landscape spoke of autumn.
Orchid fed Angie a medicinal broth from the almanac The New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences, by Ebenezer Silby, which lay open on the bed. She tipped the bowl to scrape up the last. The six previous concoctions had failed and Angie’s morning vomiting continued. Orchid felt like a woman practising the art of cheesemaking: blown by many variables, all of them ephemeral and fickle. Angie, shallow in the bed, swallowed, eyeing Orchid as she would her captor. Orchid pretended not to see as she wiped Angie’s mouth of dribbles.
Angie’s pregnancy bump was indecently small. Her arms lay on the quilt, putting as much distance as possible from the lump between them, disowning it. The wedding band on her finger had rashed her skin. By her marriage she had hoped to prompt Angelo into a declaration by the lever of jealousy. Her pride had forbidden any other more direct approach. To ask him to have her seemed impossible. Even in a godless, lawless land such as Jacob’s River, and even as unconventional as Angie was, she could not — would not — suffer the humiliation of being mother to a bastard bairn. Her confinement in itself was not to be mentioned.
‘I’ll fetch more at sunset,’ Orchid said, consulting the book, snapping it shut and preparing to leave.
‘It’s your wedding night and you intend to come to me? The witch can be in two beds at once …’ Angie said, wondering how and when her governess had become pretty and herself plain. Angie’s eyes, once fiery coals, were folded now within an excess of skin, and a drooping had set in around her mouth. One could tell by looking at her that she had little kindness left to give — for herself or for others. The sarcastic darts she shot were no longer hitting their mark. She turned her head into the pillow.
Her thoughts returned again and again to her lost chance with Angelo, and the baby inside her absorbed the information without question. Her whole life snagged on that one night, with her dress around her waist and Angelo grunting above her. She missed him. The foetus moved inside her and she hit her stomach. She did not want a child without him. She wanted to be his. And in her womb the human growth cowed and knew itself to be ugly and unwanted. Its bones did not develop well, the face hesitated in forming, and the heart made at its centre a hole. It listened to its mother’s thoughts.
Orchid stroked Angie’s hair and clumps of it came away in her hand, even though her palm was gentle. Bald patches and dry skin. Angie had lost much of her plumpness; her skin hung on her, yet Orchid knew the girl had strength yet. Even half drowned she had the will of a lioness. There was cunning in Angie — Orchid just didn’t yet know what the plan was to be, and wouldn’t know until it was too late.
Orchid glanced at Davy, who nodded and approached the bed, fussing with the covers. His movements had no melody. Then he turned from his prize, his wife, and walked Orchid out the door. Once outside both sighed.
Whaling season was nearly upon Jacob’s River again, and from the village a festivity of sounds floated up. A gong echoed, banging itself against the mountain.
‘Captain Angus is a most fortunate man,’ said Davy, bowing slightly, but he did not mention Angelo and Eve and the double wedding planned for the day. Although he dipped his head when he saw Angelo, the man now held no relevance for him. All that mattered was his new family. His prime aim was to provide, to give.
Orchid’s smile was bright. She waved and moved off down the mountain, pulling a rope tied to a wooden crate containing her tools, her potions.
Davy hesitated and then came after her. ‘Will the medicine heal her?’
Orchid looked at the sky for a moment, then back at Davy. ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to heal.’ She went to move away but Davy halted her.
‘Wait. I must ask again. Will you make for me the potion I saw in the …’ he broke off, nodding towards the books.
‘Don’t ask — it would not be right. I am a novice. I am not gifted. I may only attempt to ease physical pain through the apothecary of nature. Love is the realm of spirit.’
‘It is a physical pain.’ To hold a woman whom you cannot move is like an illness, thought Davy, for although she let him have her whenever he wanted, her attitude was so unyielding, her passion so absent that he only ever took her from behind.
‘It would be a sin. There is no potion to make Angie love you.’ For Angie loves another: the unspoken words hung in the air like the leaves of a weeping willow. And Angelo did not know it. As if the night on the beach had been an illusion the likes of which is seen in parlours. Impulsively, Orchid embraced Davy.
The sweetness of her kindness took his breath away. She released him and spontaneously he bent and picked her a bunch of rosemary, which grew in lush patches like a weed, and thrust it into her hands.
She accepted the posy, collected her ropes and said benevolently, ‘Just love her, and the baby. You’ll see. Time shall forge new irons through her heat.’
Angie gave Davy such a look as he entered that he turned around immediately and headed away into the bush to hunt.
She swung her legs over the bed, lifted up her nightdress and admired the dried scars mixed with the purplish-white streaks of her stretchmarks. From under her pillow she took a rusty nail and dragged it across her belly. Then, dressing calmly and feeling serene, she set about sweeping the hut.
Beside the river where the bend was swiftest, Orchid married Angus and Eve married Angelo. None could fetch Eve to make her mark the registry — the first entry, the first legal document of the village. She could not be reached, for she stood in the river up to her abundantly round baby mound, steady and untouched by the current, catching fish with her hands.
Davy returned with a skinned goat, which he put on the table. He didn’t look at his wife. The spirit of the room did not include him. Always unwelcome. He kissed her with closed eyes on the forehead and left without saying where he was going.
Angie took a knife and began cutting up the carcass. As she split it between the ribs and cracked it open, her waters broke, running like urine down her leg.
It was quick. She clung to the edge of the table with the mutilated animal partially gored, and pushed. Angie gathered her skirts about her middle, the way she had that night with Angelo. She squatted and pushed; her bladder and bowels emptied on the floor. Then the baby oozed out, feet first but caught in Angie’s vulva.
She gripped the child’s ankles and tugged, for she wanted rid of it, wanted the hated thing out and away. She groaned and the baby came loose and she let it go. It fell to the floor, swinging by a crimson cord, and the birth sac came out after, landing with a squelch on the child.
Angie stared at the baby and felt about on the table for the knife. She hacked through the cord and once free she scooted herself, pushing with her feet, her backside sliding a trail of blood along the floor until her back reached the wall and stopped her.
The baby made no sound.
Two moons later, Eve was with Angelo on the beach when her waters broke. The gush of it made Angelo jump out of the way as it trickled along the sand and headed to the ocean with the magnetism of water. They looked at each other, startled, and then they laughed. She waddled around in circles on the sand. She wore only a white petticoat made for a bigger lady, her tresses loose and lush.
Angelo punched the sky and jigged. Each clench of Eve’s laughter squeezed more water out in squirts and she lifted her petticoat, laughing, and watched the water spurt from her. She aimed it at Angelo.
Her pregnancy had been a joy.
Eve’s contractions were tiny, little pings on a wire.
Angelo carried her to their bed,
crooning to her. The wood of their new house still had the aroma of being freshly sawn. He plopped her on the bed and she grinned, opening her legs with the casualness of a yawn, and the child, as if greased with fat, slipped out. Angelo pulled down Eve’s bodice and put the child to her breast. He reverently cut through the umbilical cord with a blade.
While the child suckled, Eve splayed one tiny foot, and for a moment a peculiar sadness came over her, washed over her the way a cloud overcomes the heat of the sun. She had imagined that maybe, just maybe, the child might be a baby mermaid. And always she would watch her daughter closely for signs that she was her own — of the sea. Before the time of forgetting, when her child would seem a munificent stranger.
Angelo was delighted that his child did not have fins or gills or scales.
They named her Faith, for faith had delivered.
Two infant girls were born.
Each had a beauty spot above her lip.
Each had ginger hair and a pale body.
They were almost identical, except that one was not quite right — like a distorted, wax copy of the original.
Davy named his child Grace. He began to avoid town altogether, for fear that Angelo might see him and claim what was his. Davy planned to leave Jacob’s River for good, just as soon as his young family seemed fit enough to voyage.
Angie turned twenty years old. She performed all the tasks of a mother except those of affection and attention. She did not hold the child except for feeding and cleaning. The child learnt not to whimper when alone with her mother, and her voice-box for ever after was faint and underdeveloped.
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