‘She didn’t look as if she knew what she was doing,’ Gramma told Stella.
It was surprising, Stella thought, how often Gramma got things right, without even realising it.
She wanted to ask Cam if she’d noticed anything different about Gramma, but Cam had problems of her own.
‘My parents are driving me crazy,’ she said, as they lay in the spring sunshine on the school playing field. ‘They keep breaking off their conversation whenever I come into the room. As if they’ve been discussing some big secret.’
She paused, her eyes narrowed. ‘I think they’re getting a divorce. Either that or a pony for my birthday.’
‘I hope it’s a pony,’ Stella said.
Cam stretched her long legs. ‘A pony would be too small. Perhaps it’s a horse instead.’
‘Where would you keep it?’ Stella asked, thinking of Cam’s pocket-sized garden.
Cam ignored the question. ‘I think I’ll ride it to school instead of going on the bus,’ she said. ‘It could graze here on the playing field while I’m in class.
Its poop could fertilise the grass,’ she added.
Stella laughed, although she was still worried about Gramma. The moment she got home from school, she went upstairs to see her.
‘Stella! What a lovely surprise!’
Gramma was wearing her cardigan inside out. She had never done that before. But anyone could make that kind of mistake, Stella told herself. Once she had gone to school with her skirt on back to front, and not even noticed until lunchtime.
Stella sat down on the sofa.
Her grandmother appeared distracted. She was pottering around the room, looking in the corners.
‘What’s the matter, Gramma?’
‘I have to get ready. Have you seen my shoes? The silver ones?’
Stella shook her head.
‘I need them,’ Gramma said. ‘Anthony is getting married today to such a lovely girl.’
She was talking about Stella’s mum. Gramma had gone back in time again, to the day of Stella’s mum’s wedding.
‘A lovely girl,’ Gramma repeated. ‘Do you want to know a secret?’
Stella stared at her uneasily. Gramma was far away, more fixed in the past than ever before.
‘I… guess so,’ she faltered.
‘She used to be a mermaid,’ Gramma said in a voice so low it was practically a whisper. ‘Now what do you think of that?’
Stella’s whole body went still.
‘There’s no need to look so surprised,’ Gramma said. ‘It’s perfectly true. I saw it with my own eyes.’
Was her grandmother making fun of her? But Gramma never teased, she was far too kind for that.
‘A beautiful tail and everything,’ Gramma declared, smiling at the memory.
‘Where was this?’ Stella said, finding her voice.
‘We were on holiday,’ Gramma murmured. ‘An island, I forget the name. End something or other… no… that’s not it…’ Her voice trailed off.
Stella almost cried out in frustration. She jumped up and tugged at Gramma’s arm. ‘But what did you actually see? Are you sure it was her?’
Gramma looked flustered. ‘Who?’
‘My mum. Please try to remember, Gramma!’
‘I can’t.’ Gramma shook her head in desperation. ‘I can’t.’
‘But you were talking about it a moment ago!’
‘It’s just like when I lost my bracelet in the ocean,’ Gramma said softly. ‘I tried to dive for it. But it’s so quiet underwater; you wonder where the sound went. And your eyes play tricks on you. It’s hard to tell the distance between things.’
Her grandmother looked so upset that Stella took her hand and squeezed it gently.
‘Don’t worry, Gramma, it’s okay…’
‘The bracelet looks so close,’ Gramma said, her voice small and sad. ‘But I can’t reach it, no matter how much I try.’
Eight
Stella went to her room and sat down heavily on the bed, gazing at the photograph on the bedside table. The way Gramma had talked – as if her mum was actually there – had made it feel for a moment as if she was still alive, and Stella was caught by a wave of grief and longing. She’d thought she’d got used to missing her mum, but she hadn’t. The feeling was as strong, and as terrible as it had ever been.
Why had Gramma said she was a mermaid? What had she meant by it?
Gramma muddled everything up, Stella told herself. It was no use trying to make sense of anything she said.
She picked up the photograph, fingering the stone around her neck as she stared in concentration at her mum’s image. Her head and shoulders were at a slight angle, with her face turned towards the camera, and her hair flowed down her back in a fiery wave. Stella peered at the background, hoping to find some detail that she’d missed before. But it was only a pale, fuzzy blur. The picture had been taken in a studio. They had left the background out of focus on purpose, so it wouldn’t distract from her mum’s face.
Gramma muddled everything up, Stella thought. But she didn’t make things up. In her own way, she was the most truthful person that Stella knew.
She turned the photograph over. The back of the frame hadn’t been opened in a long time, and the hooks were stiff. Stella removed the glass cautiously, and then the photograph itself.
She hadn’t really been expecting to find anything, and sure enough, she didn’t. Just a sheet of white cardboard with a rectangle cut out of it, and another, thinner sheet to keep the photo in place. It was only when she was returning the pieces to the frame that Stella discovered that there was one of her mum’s drawings on the back of the second sheet of cardboard. She caught her breath.
It was a pencil sketch of a mermaid.
Below the drawing, in her mum’s handwriting, were the words:
Crystal Cove, Lastland Island.
The sketch was about ten centimetres high, and had been made with a few quick lines, although the head of the mermaid had been drawn in much more detail.
It was delicate-looking, fine-boned, surrounded by a wispy cloud of hair. Her nose was long, and her heavy-lidded eyes held a faraway gaze, as if the owner of the face was lost in some memory. If so, it was perhaps not a completely happy one, for there was a hint of discontent in the line of her narrow mouth, and something impatient in the way she held her body, as though she was longing to turn away, but for some reason couldn’t.
One hand was raised, the palm flat and rigid. Was she waving, Stella wondered, or gesturing in protest? Neither explanation seemed quite right.
The drawing was odd in another way too, although it took Stella a moment before she worked out why. She had seen many images of mermaids, and while they varied widely – realistic-looking or cartoony, mysteriously beautiful or childishly cute, they were alike in one important detail. They were all images of something – a mermaid – rather than someone.
But this drawing was different. There was nothing generic or standard about it. The face was far too individual for that. It was a portrait. Her mum hadn’t made it up, or copied it from a book.
She had drawn a picture of somebody real.
Nine
Next day, Stella couldn’t wait to tell Cam about the drawing and what Gramma had told her, although when it came to it, she didn’t know quite how to begin.
‘Gramma said something really strange yesterday,’ she ventured.
Cam smiled. ‘I love your Gramma. She says the funniest things.’
Stella hesitated, and then tried again.
‘Do you remember me telling you I used to think my mum was a mermaid?’
Cam shook her head.
‘I know only little kids believe stuff like that,’ Stella said. ‘I mean, I knew it wasn’t true or anything, but then Gramma said Mum was. She said she’d actually seen her. She said she had a tail and everything.’
‘Wow!’ Cam said.
‘I know, right?’ Stella said, feeling encouraged. ‘I thought it was just G
ramma getting muddled, but then I found one of Mum’s old drawings.’
She pulled it out of her bag and handed it to Cam.
Cam examined the picture. ‘Your mum was really good at art.’
‘Doesn’t that look like someone… real?’ Stella asked.
In her head it all fitted together, like pieces of a story. The way Gramma had spoken, despite her confusion, and the eerily life-like quality of Mum’s drawing. The way she swam, and had taught Stella to swim, talking to her all the time: You moved through water before you were born, all you have to do is remember. There was her beauty, her difference, her painting of the ocean, that look on her face when she’d said there were no such things as mermaids, the necklace with a stone she called the word of the sea. And every story about mermaids seemed to end with loss and desertion and death. So that was part of it too.
All this flashed through Stella’s mind in an instant. But she couldn’t find the right words.
‘I thought… I don’t know, it’s just strange, like too much of a coincidence,’ she said. ‘I mean, what if Gramma is right?’
‘You could have relatives who are mermaids, or mermen, or whatever they’re called,’ Cam said.
‘Merpeople!’ she added.
‘So you do think she might be right?’ Stella said eagerly. Too late, she saw the expression on Cam’s face. Cam believed her, but only in the way she believed she was getting a horse for her birthday, or that she was adopted, or that someone’s squeaky shoes might actually be a rat running around the school: because it was fun to believe things like that, because Cam liked to be dramatic and funny and interesting.
Cam stared at her for a second, then started laughing.
‘You really think your mum was a mermaid? You really mean it?’
‘I didn’t say she was! I only said might…’
Cam laughed even louder.
‘I only said might!’ Stella’s face flushed. She snatched the drawing from Cam’s hand.
‘Hey,’ Cam said. ‘Why are you getting so upset?’ She was still smirking, though. She was still laughing at Stella inside. The school bus was pulling up. Brakes hissed and kids jostled, pushing to be first on.
‘I’ll go there, to Lastland Island, you’ll see,’ Stella said furiously. ‘One day I’ll go there and find out.’
She couldn’t stop thinking about the way Cam had laughed, so loudly, so hilariously. Cam hadn’t laughed just because she thought Stella’s theory was ridiculous; that would have been bad enough. What had made her really crack up was the fact that Stella actually believed it. And that felt far worse.
Ten
Stella was late next morning and missed the bus. Mrs Chapman had to drive her to school, so she didn’t see Cam until later, by the lockers.
‘I have major news,’ Cam announced, as if she had completely forgotten about their argument.
‘Really?’ Stella said, her voice flat. Cam’s news was always ‘major’, no matter how petty it turned out to be. The bell rang, putting an end to any conversation, and Stella trailed off to class without another word.
She didn’t see Cam again until lunchtime, when Cam sat opposite her in the canteen. Now Cam was strangely quiet. She stared at her plate of chicken, making track marks in the sauce with her fork.
‘It’s not a divorce or a pony,’ she said.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘My parents. Their big secret. It’s a new job.’
Stella stared at her.
‘We’re moving,’ Cam said.
On the other side of the table, a boy flicked a piece of broccoli off his plate, and a girl pushed back her chair with an outraged shriek.
‘You mean, like, to another house?’ Stella faltered.
‘Another town,’ Cam said, naming a place Stella had never heard of. ‘It’s on the coast.’
‘That’s… hundreds of miles away.’
Cam nodded. ‘It’s a really big deal for my parents, they say we won’t have to move again for ages.’ She was talking even faster than usual. ‘We’re going at the start of next week, the removal guys are coming to take our stuff so it’s there when we arrive.’
‘Next week?’ Stella repeated. She wanted to shout: You can’t go! You have to tell them you can’t! But the memory of Cam’s laughter got in the way.
‘I wish it wasn’t so soon,’ Cam said.
Stella thought she would cry, yet she didn’t. She sat through the rest of lunch, and English class, and all the way home on the bus, carrying her tears inside her, afraid they would spill if she moved too fast, or spoke too loudly.
At home, she went to the spare room, and sat staring at the painting of the ocean, her mind as bleak and empty as the picture itself.
‘Are you okay, Stellabella?’ Her dad was hovering in the doorway.
For a second, Stella thought of telling him what had happened. But although her dad had met Cam, and spoken with her from time to time, he didn’t really know what she meant to Stella. She could try to explain it to him, but what would be the point, when Cam was leaving in a few days anyway?
It wasn’t until she was having tea with Gramma that the tears finally came.
‘My poor darling,’ Gramma said, putting an arm around her. ‘You have a good cry, get it all out.’
Her grandmother had lost so much, Stella thought. Her years mixed up, her memories scrambled. Yet her kindness was still there. The more she lost, the more the kindness showed, like a rock on the beach when the tide was going out.
Stella pressed her face against Gramma’s arm and cried even harder.
Eleven
Over the next few days, as the school year wound down, Stella grew quieter and quieter, and the less she said, the more talkative Cam became.
‘Mum says it will take nearly two days to drive to the new place,’ she chattered frantically. ‘Can you imagine? Nearly two whole days in the car with smelly Bubble! I’ll die, swear on my life. How can an animal that tiny stink so bad?’
Cam talked so much about the move that Stella began to think she couldn’t wait to leave. They sat on the school bus and Cam described the packing she had to do, her new school, her new house. The house had a porch – she’d seen a picture. It was on the outskirts of town, barely a mile from the sea.
Outside, on the long straight road, pools of heat shimmered black. The clouds were scratch marks on the hard surface of the sky. Stella leaned her head against the wall of the bus, sick with misery and envy.
A mile was no distance. Cam would be able to see the ocean just by looking out of her bedroom window. No wonder she was glad to leave.
‘I’ll really, really miss you,’ Cam said for the hundredth time. ‘But we’ll still talk to each other. We’ll talk every single day, for hours, won’t we?’
Cam exaggerated everything, Stella thought, you couldn’t rely on a word she said. Hadn’t she pretended to believe Stella’s story about mermaids?
At home, Tina was lying on her back on the living room floor, with her phone in the air, taking a selfie.
‘Hi!’ she called out as Stella went by. ‘How was your day?’
‘Awesome,’ Stella said.
Tina opened her mouth and then shut it again. ‘Oh… good,’ she said, sounding confused.
Cam might be leaving, but there was still Gramma. Stella could visit her to chat and drink tea, just like she always did. She hadn’t shown Gramma the drawing of the mermaid yet, and it occurred to her that the sight of it might jog her memory. Perhaps Gramma would be able to tell her more, or at least explain what she had meant by her strange words. Stella went to her room and opened the drawer in the bedside table where she had hidden the drawing.
She stared at the image. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that it held the key to Gramma’s memory. Her hand trembled a little, and she took a deep breath to steady herself. But all the way up the stairs to Gramma’s apartment, she could feel her heart pattering faster and faster.
She knocked
on the door and waited for what seemed like a long time. She was about to lift her hand to knock again, when the door opened.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ Stella said in a rush. Then she stopped.
Gramma looked different, taller, and yet somehow further away. She smiled at Stella.
Something was terribly wrong. Gramma’s smile was uncertain, oddly polite.
‘Hello?’ Gramma said, making it sound like a question. ‘Are you here to visit someone?’
Stella’s grandmother forgot a lot of things. She forgot the years, and what she had just said, and who people were. But she didn’t forget Stella. She couldn’t.
‘It’s me,’ Stella said. ‘It’s me.’
Gramma’s smile faded, her face was puzzled.
‘I live here,’ Stella said, her voice beginning to shake. ‘I see you every day.’
Gramma looked even more puzzled. ‘How nice…’ she said. Then she brightened. ‘You must be a friend of Anthony’s!’
‘Dad’s grown up,’ Stella whispered.
‘You look so sad. Why, you’re crying! Has Anthony done something to upset you?’ Gramma’s voice was full of concern. ‘He doesn’t always know the right thing to say, you know. But he has a very good heart…
You mustn’t worry,’ she added. ‘Everything will be all right.’
Stella shook her head. ‘It won’t… it can’t…’
She turned and ran downstairs, the world so bright and broken by her tears that she could hardly see where she was going.
Back in her room, she sat numbly on the edge of the bed, her face wet. Cam was leaving the day after tomorrow. Stella might never see her again. And now even Gramma looked at her as if she was a stranger.
There was nobody in the world left to talk to.
Twelve
Stella was still holding the drawing. She looked down at it blankly. Cam had been right to laugh at her, she thought. Only a child of five would wonder whether her mum had been a mermaid or not. And even then, the child of five would have to be pretty stupid. The sort of child, Stella told herself, who caused people to shake their heads and whisper behind their hands.
The Girl Who Thought Her Mother Was a Mermaid Page 3