Saltskin

by Louise Moulin

  Gilda noticed that Martha looked extremely pale, and the idea that her cousin was on edge sent anxiety unfurling in her gut like a wriggling eel. Her hands clammy, her breathing short, she wanted to cry out, to run. There was an event planned and she did not know if it was welcome or not, and she knew they would not answer any of her questions so she didn’t ask.

  Then there was a collective gasp from the other room that stilled the heartbeat of the house. Gilda made a sharp movement, as if making to bolt, but Martha held up her hand.

  ‘Remember: if you trust you won’t fall,’ Martha said.

  The tapestry hung in the near-empty drawing room, on the far wall. Its wide expanse covered the door underneath and the length of it spooled on the floor. It depicted a mermaid reclined on a rock, set in an azure sea. Its colours barely faded by time, the work gave off a sheen, a sparkle, and the light, grey and eerie, hit off the curves of the mermaid’s face. She seemed to have just woken to the world; her eyes did not look made of thread but real, with a soul shining out from within, as if a person had been woven alive into the weave.

  The others stood on the lawn under a moon so queer it was like the light of an eclipse where darkness comes to day. The silver shadows fell as in a silent movie and the sea mists rolled. Some half turned away, for it seemed too intimate, too profound. Some watched expectantly through the window, and all felt they were in the right place at the right time: that an occasion foretold, destined, was taking place, and all would be changed forever after.

  Maggie led Gilda into the drawing room as though she were blind. Unbiddden, Gilda had her eyes squeezed closed, for she was apprehensive, and she trembled and leant back as if to erase each step as soon as it had fallen.

  ‘Here,’ Martha said, and folded Gilda’s hands around the shell box.

  30.

  Gilda

  Water is dribbling from the corners of the ceiling and now running in swift streams. It’s pooling from the pores of the walls and spurting in geysers and blowholes from the floorboards, filling the room like a bath. My flesh is splashed and the moistness is putrid, fetid and old. It is not seawater, or from a river or lake; it is as though the water is from a well no longer used, archaic, abandoned, and dark things float in it: lockets and locks of hair, ribbons and letters with faded stamps, and trinkets with worn gold and lost jewels.

  And I know I am in a dream: a lucid, waking dream. My feet stand in puddles that deepen and the level rises and I am knee deep and I wade through to try the door but the door dissolves as I get nearer. I am in a hermetically sealed room and the water is rising to my waist and it is foul — the odour of decay and the sludgy film sticks to my skin — and now my head is pressed against the ceiling, where the flood has pushed me, and weeds grab at my legs, binding me like manacles, and now I am under the surface with my breath held, and yet already my lungs scream for air and I know that soon I will take a breath — I must, I will die for a breath, and the current turns rough, a liquid tornado, and I am dashed in its rolling waves, and it does not want me here any more; it is impatient and urgent, and I must breathe, and so I open my mouth to the watery air, and before I can suck in I must first release the trapped air, and just as I know my next gasp will be fatal, the water evaporates as if it were never there and I am standing in a room that is familiar, a window behind me, and I find myself before a giant wall-hanging: a tapestry of a mermaid made long, long ago.

  She is ancient as a goddess. At first I feel nothing. I am indifferent in my little black heart. I step closer to the work of art, for all that I am not ready for has arrived, and I hold a box in my hands and I am unsure how it came to be and I realise I do not want it — that it is not mine to hold — and I release it, let it fall to the floor. I watch it bounce and roll, and from within a mirror is spilled and smashes into a million small diamonds that fly up and cut and graze like hail at my skin and it is impossible to repair and I am relieved of a pressure.

  The shards of glass hang like dust molecules and slowly drift down as if gravity has changed its pace. I am pleased it has broken, and a yellow light like a buttercup under the chin blooms to encompass all, and a billow of joy flutters up in me. A carefree emotion I have not experienced since I was a child, and the glow fills the room like a halo, a Gloria, and continues to grow. Its scope is infinite and the tapestry is reflecting the rainbow prisms of the splinters of glass and I am mesmerised by the mermaid’s face.

  I feel I have seen it before. I am intimate with it, as though I created it with my own mind and hands, and I am struck by an impression. For the briefest of moment I see myself, with my inner eye, clearly: as I used to be before my mother died, before heartache, before I built for myself a golden cage. Me unscathed by the tortuous rewards of grief or the drag of longing or the effort to suppress my hopes, and then the sharpness of it is gone, leaving me changed through insight, for I realise I am still that same person and I wonder what I have done to myself.

  What have I done to myself? The light is radiant, omnipresent and glaring white and there is an echo — voices carried on a wind from an unseeable place — and I feel the gateway of my ribs opening to let in the whisper and I comprehend, finally, what my dreams want me to understand. The echo speaks of loss, of inherited loss, the flagellation of longing, and I conceive many things at once, as if a spell has broken. I acknowledge that this is the last of the dreaming, the last of the memories, that there will be no more, and I worry, for who then will keep the memories alive?

  Within the tapestry I see my naïve mother swimming in the silken threads of the sea, swimming away to die rather than stay on shore and drown in the lies in her head. And another woman, fleeting, releasing her blood to free her sorrow, and I see that they loved others more than their life, and I am their innocent misplaced pain, their sweet illusions, and I am the wiser of them. The echo whispers and their lives are part of me, knitted in my bones, and my heart goes out to them.

  The white radiance is glorious and mystical, intensifying its rhapsody. I am not alone any more and the epiphany is heavenly and the light swirls like a sandstorm and my body is pushed about by warm zephyrs and the spirits of my ancestresses are a mist, the way emotion charges a home. They are there for me, brushing against my body, stroking, caressing, and I know the mind has no place, and my arms are raised and I recall all that has been forgotten, vivid and fleeting as a darting bird.

  Once told, the tales can again be forgotten, to fade, to leave me be, for new memories, new stories will be etched in the future, and I am strong without fight, with faith. The room agrees with me and these spectres, these shrouds of feeling, kiss me a thousand kisses on my arms and face, and I am twirling in their midst like a child, and then they are gone, vanquished. And the light lifts me and I am ascending, yet my feet are still on the floor. I am soaring in my soul and I am in the heights of euphoria and the light, that rapturous light, is wonder, and I float on its vibration, as though I have no body and I know a purer way of being and I am flying, yet so still.

  A man stands between the tapestry and me. And I know him. He smiles and nods and runs fingers through his rosy golden hair, and I see his beauty spot, just like mine, and he takes my hand soberly and squeezes it against his chest and gazes, with a mixture of regret and hope, into mine. He is calm and he says all the heartache has been put to rest and he anchors me with his peace. I bow my head and he kisses me on my forehead with the worship of a father. He says it is time, and invites me to make a wish, and I turn to ask what for and he is gone, yet I still feel his comfort.

  The light subsides and dims, fades to wisps, and the dreamscape departs, as if no time has passed. It is just me in the room. Broken glass dead on the floor. Just me standing in front of the tapestry of the mermaid as at an altar, and yet the sacrifice has already been made. I feel refreshingly cold and it makes me feel alive. And I know who I am. I am Gilda.

  I make a wish.

  I wish for an ordinary love with an equal, as plain and lifegiving as soil. I wish
to be both loved and lover, and that will be enough.

  I turn now, beckoned, as if my name has been called, and through the window I see on the lawn the people I belong to and who belong to me. And I am touched deep in my heart, where once a stone was lodged and is no longer, and I realise I am the love I seek: I am a vessel from which love overflows. I am no longer afraid of its power, now that I see I am able to give real love.

  As I look from each countenance to the next I know that faith is the opposite of fear. And I am weeping and laughing, for it is simple. And there, Joel’s good face, smiling at me through the window, his eyes flinting and sparking with white light, and a rush of gratitude is hot in me for I realise: I want what I already have. For this man sees me as I really am: my perfection as well as my flaws, and I know I am ready to engage, to take the gamble where loss is the risk and part of the game, and I am confident, this time, that I can’t lose.

  Acknowledgements

  So many kind people helped me write this book. Thanks to Michael Gifkins for giving me a crack and taking it to the next level. Thanks to Harriet Allan, fiction publisher at Random House, for also seeing the merit of the work and running with it. In the early draft days, thanks to Bridget Wilson and Derek Williams for their belief, and my little sister Bronwyn for her enthusiasm. And later, Marc and Laura, without whom I would have floundered, and to my sister Carol: thank you for regular grocery drops and roast-chicken dinners. I am very grateful to my mum for so many things and being such a nice mum; Dad and my brothers, too. Thank you to the Aramoana community for their welcoming spirit and, in particular, Emma and Christy for their serenity and friendship. Thanks also to The Fortune Theatre. And finally, right at the end, thanks to darling Hector for his bluntness and his praise.