‘You need your strength,’ Pearl said. ‘Your mum would have told you the same, wouldn’t she?’
Stella wiped her eyes and nodded.
‘Did she like to cook?’ Pearl asked.
Stella nodded again. ‘She wasn’t very good. She always mixed funny things together to see what they would taste like.’
Pearl smiled. It was a real smile, the first Stella had seen, and for a moment, it transformed her face. ‘Your mum was always inquisitive,’ she said.
Stella looked at her uncertainly. ‘When did she… when did you…?’
Pearl drew a deep breath as if gathering all her resolve. ‘We came out of the sea,’ she said at last, ‘on the first day of summer, fourteen years ago.’
‘But if you’re not mermaids, who are you?’ Stella asked. ‘What are you called?’
‘We’re not called anything. We don’t need language in the way you think of it. Names are no use to us. We are just… of the sea.’
‘I don’t understand. You say you came out of the water, but how did you know what to do? How did you know how to speak English?’
‘We learn fast,’ Pearl said. ‘Really fast.’
She shook her head, seeing the doubt on Stella’s face. ‘It always amazes me,’ she said, ‘the way humans think they’re better than every other living thing. They honestly believe they’re the most intelligent, advanced creatures on the planet.’
She lifted her chin proudly as she spoke. Her meek expression had vanished, and it was possible to sense how she must have looked, years ago, when she was still full of strength. Stella caught her breath. There had been something familiar about Pearl when they first met, and now she knew what it was.
‘How do you think we avoided detection all this time?’ Pearl was saying. ‘Even when the submarines and sonar came, the islands of plastic, the oil spills, the factory ships and the drag nets… do you think it was dumb luck?’
‘I guess not,’ Stella said, feeling ashamed.
‘If you’ve always stayed hidden, why did you come up?’
‘Because of your mother. She’d always been fascinated by the land. It was that terrible curiosity of hers. One day she made up her mind. I tried to talk her out of it, and I failed. I was never good at getting my own way, even then. The only thing I could do was come with her. She needed protection, you see. We stole two fisherman’s coats from a boat out in the bay,’ Pearl said, her eyes filling with memory. ‘I can still see your mother’s arm, whiter than wave’s spray, reaching up to pull them from the boat railing. I can still hear her laughing.’
Twenty-seven
‘We were lucky to arrive on the first day of summer. Lastland Island was celebrating with a grand parade. Among the flags and costumes and marching bands, nobody paid much attention to us in our fisherman’s coats and bare feet. We walked down the main street, keeping close together, arms linked. But we couldn’t have been feeling more different.
Right from the start, I could tell that our new environment entranced your mother. She had her head up, staring at everything with a look of wonder, as if any moment she might break into a skip of delight. I was filled with unease, though, all my instincts telling me that I didn’t belong there.
I didn’t like the way I felt in my new skin. The flat thud of my feet, the dullness of my senses. Sounds were muffled, and when I looked around it was like peering at the world through a tiny, dusty window. Even worse, I’d lost connection to most of my body. My heart was beating, blood ran through my veins and nerves fired my muscles, but I couldn’t control any of it. I hardly even knew it was happening. It was like existing inside a machine.
We passed a row of stalls selling food, and the greasy smell of meat reached my nose, but apart from that, the air was empty of information.
It was so different in the ocean!
I was so different.
You see, water carries traces of everything it touches. Every shore and island, every pebble and paddling foot, every life within it. And we of the sea can read and understand it all, because our brains aren’t confined to a space inside our skulls. We can think and feel with our entire bodies.
In the ocean, my fingertip could analyse the chemistry of a single drop of water, my bones judge the force of a wave, my ears calculate the cruising speed of a tanker, three horizons away. In the water, I’d been connected to a million lives and a million stories.
Here on Lastland Island, people appeared to drift along without much connection to anything. How could they live like that? So separate and unaware. Did they ever die from sheer loneliness?
My present body seemed a poor exchange for the one I’d had in the ocean. It wasn’t only that I was physically far weaker, my spirit felt weaker too. I’d never been fearful before. Yet I was now. I stumbled along, tugging at your mother’s arm.
If she shared any of my discomfort, she didn’t show it. Her eyes ranged over the bunting hung across the street, the painted shop fronts, the crowds passing with their heavy shoes and sunburned faces. And she couldn’t stop smiling.
I wasn’t surprised. We of the sea have much of the human. We can take human form, after all. But your mother was born with far more than the rest of us. Already she was adapting to being on land.
A bulky, rosy-cheeked woman was handing out fliers on the corner of the street. She stared at us.
‘Here for the summer?’ she asked. ‘Do you need work? I’m scouting for girls to perform in my show.’
She handed us one of the fliers. ‘I’m looking for mermaids!’
We saw a picture of a woman with half of her body crammed into a fish-shaped bag and two shells stuck to her chest.
‘How’s your swimming?’ the woman asked. We glanced at each other, smiling.
‘Not… too bad,’ your mother said.
‘Foreigners, are you? Where’s your luggage?’
We shrugged, not knowing what to say.
‘I expect it was stolen,’ the woman said. ‘Foreigners are easy targets.’ She gave us a sidelong look. ‘I can’t pay you much, you understand…’
She ushered us away, down a side street. We went with her, though I didn’t like the way she looked at us. As if we were things.
Things that she wanted.
‘I’m Marcie,’ she said, although she didn’t ask our names, and wasn’t curious about where we’d come from. The only thing that interested her was how well we might perform in the tank. When we told her we wouldn’t get in unless we could wear long-sleeved tops as well as mermaid tails, she rolled her eyes in impatience. But her attitude changed once she saw us in the water. The tails slowed us down and it was hard not to laugh at the plastic coral and fake seaweed. Even so, after thirty seconds Marcie’s mouth was agape.
‘We’ll call you Pearl and Aquabelle,’ she announced, the instant we got out of the tank.
And, having no names ourselves, Pearl and Aquabelle we became, even to each other.
Marcie told us we could stay at the Crystal Cove, sharing a room for as long as we needed. I don’t think she wanted to let us out of her sight. We began performing the next day. And from the start, we were a sensation.
NEW MERMAIDS ‘MAKE WAVES’ AT THE CRYSTAL COVE! ran the headline in the Lastland Gazette. Marcie read the article aloud, her voice gulping with excitement:
‘The Crystal Cove has become the hottest show in town with the arrival of newcomers, Pearl and Aquabelle. Their speed and grace leave the audience literally gasping with amazement. Apparently trained ‘somewhere abroad’, according to the Cove’s owner, Marcie, the pair can stay submerged for astonishingly long periods of time. This reporter recorded nearly twelve minutes, without either performer showing any strain. Pearl and Aquabelle are clearly perfectly at home “under the sea”!’
It wasn’t true. I didn’t feel at home. Instead of growing used to my new life, I became more and more restless as the days passed. I hated my mermaid tail. It weighed me down and made my skin itch. I hated having to come up for air every few m
inutes, and the way the audience stared at me with their mouths hanging open as if I was a freak.
Most of all, I hated Marcie.
She fussed over us, bringing blankets for our beds and hot drinks at the slightest sign of a sniffle, buying us new clothes and showering us with flattery. But not long after we arrived, I glimpsed a different side to her.
The afternoon show had finished. I was still in the dressing room, and when I came out, I saw Marcie. She was kneeling on the platform, leaning out over the water. One of the performers was below. Marcie was shouting at her for not smiling enough during her routine.
‘Happiness!’ I heard her bellow. ‘Joy!’
Suddenly her hands shot out and she pushed the girl’s head underwater. She held her, flailing and thrashing, until she grinned in just the way Marcie wanted.
After that, I wasn’t fooled by Marcie’s sweet talk any more.
Twenty-eight
Every day my loathing of the Crystal Cove grew. But every day, Aquabelle seemed to enjoy it more. She made friends with the other girls. She wanted to know about their families, the towns they’d come from, their plans to travel the world, or start families of their own. She would sit for hours, sketching on a sandwich wrapper, asking endless questions.
She told me she longed to learn about art, and history, and the names of plants. How to ride a bike and drive a car.
I listened to her dreams with a sinking heart.
‘Can’t we stay just a few days longer?’ she would say whenever I spoke about returning. ‘Just a couple of weeks…’
The queues of visitors to the Crystal Cove grew longer, and Marcie began to make serious money. She increased the ticket prices, and then increased them again. She bought flashy chandeliers and a new carpet for the viewing gallery, and talked about installing filming equipment to record the show.
The success of the Crystal Cove made her feel like a star.
One morning she appeared in a red satin jacket, and more fancy clothes quickly followed. Silk shirts, a white suit with mother of pearl buttons, a pair of cowboy boots with silver tips and spurs. She started going out every night.
Time passed. One night I saw a young man talking to Aquabelle. He’d seen the show and wanted to meet her. He was with an older woman, his mother. He came to the show again the following night, although this time he was by himself.
He was on holiday, Aquabelle told me. His name was Anthony. He knew about art and history.
When their holiday was over, his mother went home. But the young man stayed, and Aquabelle went out with him three nights in a row. The next week, they spent the whole of her day off together, and when she got back to the Crystal Cove, there was a light in her eyes I’d never seen before.
After that, she stopped saying, ‘just a couple of weeks more,’ or, ‘a few days longer,’ when I talked about returning.
She changed in other ways too. She grew distracted. One evening, during a performance, she forgot to pretend to come up for air, and drifted above the plastic coral, smiling to herself, until the audience grew uneasy, and then alarmed. What made it worse was that Marcie had installed the camera she’d been talking about, and was filming the entire show.
I had to pinch Aquabelle to remind her where she was. I pinched her harder than I needed to, out of jealousy as well as fear.
I’ve thought about that pinch many times. It wasn’t such a terrible thing to do, yet I’ve always regretted it, because it was one of the last times I ever saw Aquabelle. Marcie found out our secret that very night.
Once again, it was forgetfulness that was to blame.
Twenty-nine
We’d formed the habit of slipping into the tank late in the evening, when the other girls had left and Marcie had gone out. With the Crystal Cove deserted, there was no need for our costumes. We could move with ease, relishing the feel of the water against our skin.
Aquabelle enjoyed it, but I craved it. It was the only time I was able to feel like myself again.
Swimming free like that, we were twice as fast, flickering from one side of the tank to the other in an instant. Mostly we rested, suspended in the water, as relaxed as if we were lounging in the park.
We were there as usual, the night I pinched Aquabelle to remind her to come up for air. She was happy; I could sense it through the water. It was a kind of total happiness, the sort that leaves no room for any other feeling, or any other person, except for one.
I sighed, my mind wandering to thoughts of home. To the labyrinths of kelp and coral and the ocean currents running like avenues from pole to pole. To volcanoes glowing in the miles-deep dark, amid the lights of fish no man has ever seen.
Wrapped in our separate dreams, we lost track of time.
We forgot how hard it was in the water to hear any sound outside. The front door could have banged shut with a noise like a gun going off, and footsteps thundered on the wooden ramp, and we would have heard nothing.
Lulled by the silence, half-asleep, I caught a movement in the corner of my eye. I turned my head. There was a gap in the curtains covering the front of the tank.
Marcie was standing there, perfectly still, looking in.
I saw her red satin jacket, glowing like oil, and her wide, staring face. For one long, dreadful second our eyes met. As long as I live, I’ll never forget her expression. It wasn’t shock, or fear, or even surprise. It was greed.
Her whole face shone with it. The edges of the curtain were bunched in her fists, and her cheeks burned, redder than her jacket.
It was as if I’d seen her soul.
I jerked away, faster than light. When I looked back, Marcie was gone.
We scrambled out of the water, clumsy with panic, all too aware of the danger we’d caused by our carelessness. We knew we had to leave at once.
In the few minutes while our bodies turned and our skin grew dull again, we made our decisions. I would return to the ocean, but Aquabelle would remain on the land. There was no time to try to talk her out of that. Besides, I could tell it would have been useless. I’d never seen her more frightened – and yet more certain – of anything.
She wanted to be with Anthony, she told me. They would go far away to a place where she couldn’t be found. She would live a human life.
I accepted her choice, although I didn’t understand it. The ocean had always been world enough for me. And now that the time had come to go back, I was longing to be gone.
We pulled on our clothes and ran hand in hand down the ramp behind the tank, into the dark props room below. Beyond lay the viewing gallery, the front office – and freedom. We reached the props room door and stopped short. Aquabelle tried the handle.
It had been bolted from the outside. Marcie had thought fast. She was ahead of us.
She was standing on the other side of the door. I could hear her breathing. Aquabelle rattled the handle. She raised her fists and beat on the wood until I pulled her arm to make her stop. Then Marcie began speaking.
What she’d seen in the tank, it didn’t surprise her, she said. She’d known we were special, and she would keep our secret. After all, it wouldn’t suit her plans if people knew the truth. We would keep on performing, wearing our costumes and pretending to come up for air. But now that Marcie knew what we were capable of, we’d no longer be appearing at the Crystal Cove. She would sell the place, and create a new show for us, a show like no other.
Our new tank would be huge, Marcie told us, her voice rising with excitement. She could already see it in her mind’s eye. High-tech lighting, a grotto glittering with semi-precious stones… maybe live animals too. A couple of tiger sharks, an electric eel. Perhaps jellyfish! Marcie’s voice rose still higher. Could we imagine the effect of that? Hundreds of poisonous jellyfish drifting around us as we swam…
She sounded unhinged, I thought. As if she’d gone completely mad.
The show would be too big for Lastland Island, Marcie continued, her thoughts hurtling along. Too big for the town on the mainland, o
r even the nearest city. She would take it around the country, and then the world, performing in only the most glamorous cities. She’d always wanted to travel, to stay in four-star hotels and go to cocktail parties with celebrities. She’d fit right in because, after all, she’d be a celebrity herself…
Aquabelle found my hand in the dark.
‘We’ll never be part of it,’ she said in her beautiful, clear voice. ‘We’ll never do what you say.’
‘Oh, I think you will,’ Marcie said, her voice thick with satisfaction. She explained that the camera she’d installed was motion-sensitive. It had turned on the minute we’d entered the tank, and recorded the whole of our late-night swim. She had the tape in her pocket. If we didn’t do as she said, she would show it to the world.
Aquabelle and I looked at each other. We knew we had no choice.
Thirty
Marcie was never good at thinking things through. She locked us up in separate rooms, yet she gave no thought as to how to keep us there. The idea that we might get help from outside didn’t seem to occur to her. For all her cunning, she was a very stupid woman.
She informed everyone that we’d been locked up because we owed her money. Aquabelle somehow managed to send a message to Anthony, and he immediately came and demanded that she be let out. There was nothing Marcie could do about it. Not long after, Aquabelle and Anthony returned to get me too. But this time, Marcie was prepared.
She told them they had come too late.
I’d been put in a small utility room at the back of the building. I didn’t know Aquabelle had escaped until one of the other girls whispered the news to me through the keyhole.
The Girl Who Thought Her Mother Was a Mermaid Page 8