by Amanda James
Mellyn had stepped back and run a finger under her lashes. ‘Say thanks and let’s get going, eh?’
From my plush swivel seat, I watch the seagulls crying overhead. Mellyn sails the boat expertly along the coast, and the wind tugs her hair free of the clip. I laugh again and draw in a few lungfuls of salt air; it’s good to be alive and right here today. If only I could take and bottle the exhilaration, happiness and excitement rushing through my heart, I would never have to worry about being low ever again. I’d just take a sip on grey days, and my cloudy skies would turn blue.
The plan is to drop anchor around the other side of the bay in a sheltered cove and go for a swim – Mellyn, ever organised, had bought a swimming costume for me this morning as she’d walked down to the harbour – then afterwards we’ll have a picnic aboard the Sprite.
From the boat, the perspective of the land is like watching a commercial for the Cornish tourist board. The sun drenches a long white sandy beach decorated with sprinkles of families, brightly coloured windbreaks, sandcastles, and nearby a raft of surfers bob like seals in the cerulean Atlantic. As I watch, a few pick up a wave and glide effortlessly to shore, even though a jolly breeze whips the crests of waves into white meringue peaks.
Around the headland it’s a different story. A few tiny beaches inaccessible by foot cling to the roots of cliffs. Yet seabirds are unafraid, and show off, majestically wheeling and gliding the air waves as if copying the surfers. I note after a few minutes that the Sprite has slowed her speed and that the water is becoming shallower and clearer. It seems impossible that these turquoise calm waters belong to the ones we have sailed across around the headland. If I didn’t know better, I would have said we had been picked up by a water spout and dropped in the Mediterranean.
As I peer down into the blue, Mellyn shuts off the engine and drops anchor. ‘Seen any fish?’ she asks, looking over my shoulder.
‘Not sure – I thought I saw something glint far below.’ I stand and secure my hair in a ponytail. ‘Wonder if it was a piece of pirate treasure?’
Mellyn narrows her eyes at my half smile. ‘More likely to be a shark,’ she says and bites her bottom lip.
‘Sharks, here? You’re joking, right?’
‘No, we have quite a few round these parts,’ she says in a broad Cornish accent.
I sigh. ‘But not the ones that would attack, surely?’
She looks up to the left and ponders. ‘Not unless they’re really hungry.’ She takes in my worried expression. ‘And the name’s Mellyn, not Shirley.’
I laugh at the old joke and also to make her think that I’m not taken in by the shark thing – though even to my ears the laughter sounded nervous. ‘Hm, so you go in first to see if they’re hungry.’
Mellyn gives a hearty complacent laugh. ‘You’re okay, just me joking. I’ve been swimming round the Cornish coast all my life and never spied even one.’ She pauses and holds up her finger. ‘Actually, that’s a lie. I have seen a few basking sharks – you know, the enormous ones?’ I nod. ‘But they will just suck you to death – no teeth, see.’ She bares her own and snaps them together.
I raise an eyebrow. ‘Are we going swimming or what?’
Mellyn appears from below deck in a light blue swimsuit which accentuates her curves and colouring. I’m impressed by her toned physique and hope I’ll look as good at her age. I watch her move around the boat. She has confidence wearing so little that many would envy. The emerald green suit she’d bought me is a perfect fit and she compliments me on my figure. ‘I was just thinking the same about yours,’ I say. ‘Do you work out?’
‘Not consciously in a gym or anything. I do swim a few times a week and love walking the cliff paths, of course. I’m lucky, though, I don’t really have to watch what I eat.’ She tugs my ponytail gently. ‘Plus having you so young meant my stomach muscles just snapped back into place without me having to think about it.’
My perfect cue to ask more about what happened back then shouts loud and clear from the wings, but before I can say anything, Mellyn climbs over the back seat and dives into the ocean with a splash. I step onto the diving platform and she beckons me in, a big grin on her face. I glance into the water again and it looks very inviting, but a few droplets that had abandoned the ocean as she’d dived chill the sole of my foot. ‘How’s the water?’ I ask, kneeling down.
‘Wet!’
I give her a look and dip my hand below the surface. Yes, it’s cold, but warmer than I imagined. ‘Okay, let me gird my loins.’
‘Just jump in, ya big wuss! No good faffing about or you’ll never get in.’
I know she’s right, but I’ve always been the same. I can stand to be hot, but cold is something I avoid where possible. Now, if I was standing in front of a heated pool, the story would have been very different. Mellyn swims over and grabs hold of the diving platform. I feel her cold wet fingers on my elbow sending goosebumps along my sun-warmed skin, and then she pretends to pull me in. ‘Okay, okay,’ I say, standing up. ‘I’m going to dive in – stand back.’
She flips onto her back and laughs at the sky. ‘I’d have to be pretty tall to stand back at the moment.’ Mellyn has a voluptuous laugh. Sometimes the sound of laughter is a straight, hard line. Perhaps it’s false. Laughter like that certainly tells you nothing about the reason for its existence. But hers is plump, rounded and curvy, it makes your own laugh want to join it, dance with it, rejoice in levity.
I give her laughter a dancing partner and get into a diving pose. ‘I think you’ll find you need to swim away a little, or I’ll end up sinking you.’
‘Hey, perhaps you should jump in if you’re not used to the water,’ she muses, performing a lazy backstroke.
I sigh and then execute what I know will be a perfect dive, leaving hardly a ripple in my wake. Icy teeth bite into every part of me, my breath catches in my throat, then my head breaks free of the surface into a raft of sunlight and my ears ring with the tail end of Mellyn’s whoop. Already I can feel the bite of cold leaving my blood, so to aid the process I exhale into the water and strike out away from the boat, my arms powering through the turquoise water in a strong front crawl.
Patches of ocean run cold and warm as my body moves effortlessly beneath clouds and sun. Adrenalin runs too, through my veins and my heart, spurring me ever faster. It’s as if a switch has flicked in my brain making it neutral, allowing sinews, muscle and bone to take control. It has been a long time since I’ve felt like this, too long. When I swim I can enjoy the ride, let my mind go blank, feel my worries drain away, submerge in my slipstream.
After a time, an ache in my lungs slows my pace and it’s then that I’m aware of my name carrying on the breeze. ‘Lu! Lucinda! Come back!’
I stop and tread water in a slow circle; my heart lurches at just how far I have swum. I look at the Sprite in the distance and at the rocks closer by. The swell of the water is being sucked inexorably towards them until the waves crash into their craggy faces. I can make out Mellyn standing on the diving platform waving her arms as if she’s being attacked by a swarm of midges. ‘Come away from the … ocks. It’s too dan …’
I make the shape of the okay sign with my fingers, unsure if she can see it, and toss a strand of wet hair out of my eyes to look to my left. In the few seconds I have been treading water, the current has pulled me even closer towards the rocks. Prickles of adrenalin course through my veins again, but for different reasons; against the tide, getting back to the boat will be much harder than the outward journey. I draw a breath and swim.
‘My God! You gave me one hell of a scare. I wanted to come with the Sprite and get you, but you were too near the rocks!’ Mellyn kneels down on the platform and holds out her hands to me. I wave them away and just cling to the rail until my heart stops thundering in my ears and my breathing becomes less laboured. ‘Are you okay?’ she says, her voice wavering.
I clear water from my nose with thumb and forefinger and nod. ‘Yes … perfectly. Just … not used
… to sea swimming. Loved being back in the water so much … I didn’t think about currents.’ I take a few long deep breaths and then catch the look of concern in her eyes. ‘Hey, I’m fine, honest.’
‘Thank God,’ she says, holding out her hands again, and this time I take them. ‘I had no idea you were used to the water and then you took off like an Olympian!’
With her help, I heave myself onto the platform and she throws a thick towel around my shoulders. ‘Not quite an Olympian, but I did swim for my county for a few years.’ I rub my body briskly with the towel. ‘There was talk of the Olympics actually, but once I’d started work there was little time to practise.’
‘Well, let’s get a warm drink inside you and then you can tell me all about it.’
The bright morning turns to a mellow afternoon and the conversation to more pertinent areas. Once I’d recovered from my swim we’d had coffee and cake, then later, sandwiches, strawberries and champagne. The champagne is another treat to celebrate our reunion and I recline on the back seat, my feet up, fizz in hand, and gaze up at the sky’s mackerel underbelly. I feel like a star on movie set; things like this just don’t happen to me.
Mellyn is sitting on a swivel chair opposite me with her feet on an upturned bucket. As the boat rocks gently on the swell, the sunlit water casts dappled patterns along her arm like an ever-changing tattoo. I pluck up the courage to ask if she’d tell me about Joe. Mellyn gives a sad smile. ‘Joe. My beautiful Joe.’
‘Was he?’
She frowns at me, head on one side, then understands. ‘Beautiful, you mean? Oh yes. He was the most handsome boy in the school, taller than most, muscular, eyes the exact same colour as this turquoise water.’ She nods overboard towards the shallows. ‘But sometimes they looked greener, a bit like yours. And he had the same jet-black hair as you. Bright as a star, a straight-A student – he had it all.’
I watch her eyes dance as she remembers him, a magnet for the blues flecking the deeper ocean. It’s good to hear an account of the past not told in her distant voice. Perhaps she only reserves that for upsetting memories. ‘Were you in the same classes?’
‘Yes, in the younger years, but not later as we chose different options. He was the scientist, I was the arty one.’
‘So, when did you start dating and who asked who?’
She smiles and looks into the middle distance as if she’s watching memories on a screen. ‘He asked me. It was at the Christmas disco when we were fifteen. He’d borrowed his dad’s aftershave and overdone it a tad. He came up to me and my friends at the edge of the dance floor when “Hello” by Lionel Richie was playing and, after a few stuttering false starts, asked me to dance. I said yes, of course, because as I told you, he was the most handsome boy alive, but as soon as we’d set foot on the dance floor the music changed to “Karma Chameleon”! No smooches on the dance floor that night.’ Mellyn flushes and looks at her hands. ‘Though we made up for it on the walk home.’
‘How long were you together?’ I ask, hoping that this question holds within it the seeds of my existence. I want a response that will present a bouquet of fully formed answers, blooms for my nectar-hungry inquiries.
Mellyn pokes at a bit of dried seaweed on her ankle and shrugs. ‘Around a year, I guess. We would still have been together now, as I said, but everyone conspired against us. His parents, my parents, the school, everyone.’ The distant faraway tone is back. She licks her finger and rubs at the seaweed.
‘I was fifteen and he’d just turned sixteen. His parents had managed to get him into a prestigious college in Plymouth to do A levels in all the sciences. He was going to be a doctor, you see. When he found out about you, he refused to go, said he’d get a job, we’d get married and that he loved me more than any career he might have had.’
She pauses and looks at me, her bottom lip trembling. I fold my arms tight across my chest to keep a ball of emotion from reaching my throat.
‘I loved him so much. I knew being a doctor had always been his dream, so to give it all up for me, us, was a testament to how much he cared.’
The next pause becomes large, solid, and heavy with past regrets, and I know she needs a lifeline. ‘Did your parents like him?’ An almost imperceptible nod makes purchase on the line. ‘Then why couldn’t they help you make it work?’
‘Because I was fifteen, naive, would have had no prospects for the future, and the school had said they would expel me. Mum and Dad said that with no qualifications I would have no chance at all.’
‘But Joe had said he’d get a job—’
‘I wouldn’t let him. I loved him too much. We agreed that he’d go to college, university, and then we’d make a life. We could give you so much more then.’ Mellyn shifts in her seat and the bucket rolls across the deck. ‘You see, we had agreed that we would keep you. I would get a flat, and social services would help if I was kicked out of my home—’
‘They threatened to kick you out?’
‘Oh yes. That’s not all, they said that I should get a termination at first, go back to school and sweep the “whole mess” under the carpet as if it never happened … as if you never existed.’
Five words – as if you never existed – roll into one and swirl in my mind, collecting snippets of thoughts from my past that still hide in corners and behind screens. Recriminations, anger, sadness, worthlessness, abandonment are sucked into the word-tornado and shredded. I had been so close to never existing, but this woman sitting opposite, a defendant before my jury, somehow fought against the odds … because here I was. Realisation that it didn’t matter that I’d been adopted, wasn’t rejected, hadn’t been at fault, whirls so hard in my head that I think I might pass out. I owe Mellyn my life. Literally.
Mellyn reaches out her hand. ‘You look pale. I expect this is all very painful for you.’
I take her hand and wanted to kiss it, tell her I love her, but something stops me. A huge surge of affection seeks acknowledgment, but I’m not sure it’s time. I’m not sure what I feel. I squeeze her hand and say, ‘Yes, of course, in one way. But in another I feel so lifted, relieved and very, very thankful to you.’ A warm smile smooths her frown and she squeezes back my hand and then rights the bucket. ‘So, what happened next?’ I say.
Mellyn clears her throat and folds her hands on her lap. ‘We told our parents of our plan and they rubbished it. Our love, such a wonderful thing, shared between us, and just for us, was put on show and ridiculed – made sordid. We had a meeting at their house with both sets of parents. It was autumn and pouring with rain. As I listened to their objections, through the window I watched leaves float from a tree onto a pond in the garden. Their red and yellow hues muddied as the raindrops pounded them from above and water sucked them from below. Soon they sank, brown, soggy, useless. I realised that our love was just like the leaves. We had no chance.’
She stands, picks up the champagne from the ice bucket and raises an eyebrow at me. I nod. I need something to wash down my anguish. ‘They discussed us in the main as if we weren’t there and my parents persuaded his that a termination was the best way forward. Joe and I were adamant that wouldn’t happen, and they relented – they couldn’t force me, after all. My parents said that I would have a roof over my head but on the condition that we had you adopted.’
I want the champagne to go to my head, but it refuses. ‘My God. That must have been so hard, given that you both wanted to keep me.’
She makes a noise in her throat and takes a big drink. ‘Hard? It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, bar none.’ Mellyn looks at me and then away over the ocean. ‘Joe went off to college and we kept in touch every day. I told him that I wouldn’t give you up and I’d do what I said I’d do before – go to social services. He encouraged me and said I could move down to be near him. I couldn’t live with him, though, he was staying with his aunt while he was in Plymouth. It all started to feel a bit hopeless by then to be honest. Social services said I wasn’t homeless, so there was nothi
ng they could do. They also said that given my age, it would be extremely difficult to manage without anyone to support me – said it would be best for you to be in a loving home with parents who could give you everything you needed. Joe and I hoped they were right, eventually agreed, and three days after you were born, they took you away.’
The pain in my heart is too much to bear but bear it I must. I have to be strong for her. I hate that distant tone to her voice and the way her body seems to have slumped as if her limbs suddenly weigh too much. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry … but they were right. You had no choice, and I couldn’t have wished for better parents.’
She dabs her eyes with the corner of a towel. ‘I’m so glad you understand, and I’m so glad you don’t hate me.’
I borrow her towel. ‘Of course, I don’t! I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you. You and Joe. Did you keep in touch with him afterwards?’
‘Yes, but our phone calls became less frequent. He was so busy, you see, and he’d made other friends of course. I felt out of it, awkward. I was back at school, but we didn’t seem to have much in common. In the end I felt I didn’t really know him. One day he phoned, and I told my mum to tell him I wasn’t in.’
I sense that she’s on the edge of breaking down, so I say in the most matter-of-fact voice I could find, ‘He became a doctor then?’
‘Not sure. But knowing Joe, I think so. Like I said, we lost touch and I couldn’t bear to look him up later. The wounds were too raw, still hurt even now.’
That much is obvious. I think about asking more, but both of us have had enough for one day. ‘Perhaps we should head back to the harbour now?’ I stand and put my arms around her. She stands too, and we study each other’s faces. ‘It’s been a wonderful day and I’m so glad we found each other again,’ I say, but then stop; my throat has closed over.
‘It has been my absolute pleasure, Lu. I hope we’ll have many more wonderful days.’ She gives me a quick hug and then holds me at arm’s length, just looking at my face as if trying to memorise it. Perhaps she can see a whisper of Joe in the contours. I know she deserves something special and I want to give it to her.