The Brighton Mermaid

by Dorothy Koomson

  Zachariah. Zach .

  His name is Zach and last night I kissed him in the bar. When Mr Whitby had departed, when other people had left and we’d had three more shots in quick succession, I leant across and kissed him. He’d kissed me back, our lips tingly with lime and salt and long notes of tequila as they moved together. Kissing Zach made the tequila more potent; it swirled in my bloodstream, twirled in my head. With every shot, chased down with a long kiss, things seemed a little better. I forgot about the sheer terror of what I was undertaking in the coming year, I shrugged off the worry of how what I was doing would reverberate through my family, and I managed to shove the ‘He needs to see you’ text message to the back of my mind.

  Zach had told me he’d moved to Brighton that day for work and hadn’t sorted somewhere to live yet so was staying in a hotel. I’d asked him if his room was nice, and he’d said he’d show me if I wanted. I did want. And I had obviously made liberal use of his room service menu.

  ‘I will pay for it,’ I say, about the tequila and champagne.

  ‘OK,’ he says, still looking sceptical. ‘Fine. Whatever.’

  We stare warily at each other for a few seconds. His lack of facial hair, I realise, makes him seem completely open, since he doesn’t get to hide behind the expressions that are emphasised and nuanced by eyebrows and eyelashes. I haven’t met many men who are completely hairless, but to be fair, I haven’t met many men who are as good-looking as him, either.

  ‘Did we … you know … do it ?’ I ask, because I’m still intrigued about why I have my clothes on.

  ‘We did not,’ Zach states.

  I’m surprised because of the kissing. In the bar, where neither of us cared who saw us. In the lift, where we missed his floor more than once. Even on this bed … The kissing seemed to be a promise of lots of … you know … doing it . ‘Any particular reason why we didn’t?’ I ask.

  ‘You were very drunk. I don’t have sex with drunk women.’

  ‘OK. Good policy. But I should point out that I don’t usually get that drunk.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear that you don’t usually get that drunk,’ Zach replies flippantly.

  ‘You don’t sound very glad,’ I say.

  The world swims in front of my eyes suddenly. I’m going to pass out. Or vomit. Or both . I have to slam both hands flat on the bed to steady myself. As I do so my bangles and bracelets come together and sound again like a loud crash of cymbals rather than the tinkle of metal on plastic on metal.

  ‘You make a lot of noise with those bangles,’ Zach comments.

  ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

  ‘If you were ever in a life-threatening situation where you had to hide, I wouldn’t think much of your chances.’

  ‘Well, thankfully, I’ve never been in such a situation, and hopefully I will never find myself in one.’

  ‘Yeah. Thankfully.’

  I crank my head round to look at him askance. ‘Seriously? Seriously? We were that off our heads we thought going to bed together was a good idea?’

  With a small shrug he replies: ‘I guess I must have been drunker than I thought.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘It means I agree with you – you and me without booze doesn’t seem to be the best idea.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it sounded like you were saying you wouldn’t have looked twice at me unless you were drunk.’

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of saying something like that.’

  ‘Watch it, you, or I’ll … “room service” you again … but this time I won’t pay for it .’

  A smile nudges at his lips and he turns his head away before it becomes a real grin. ‘All right, all right, truce?’ he says.

  ‘Truce,’ I reply grudgingly.

  ‘Now we’ve cleared that up, you fancy sex?’

  ‘Hell no!’ I shudder at the thought of it. I have morning breath and hangover hair, plus neither of us has exactly covered ourselves in glory in these last few minutes.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he says with a shrug.

  Oh. Now that I’ve turned him down for sex, does that mean I have to leave? Because I don’t think my legs will work if I try to use them now. Actually, I don’t think I can move very far without chucking up . ‘Erm, you know how we’re not going to have sex?’ I begin.

  ‘Yes?’ he replies.

  ‘I was wondering, kind of hoping, actually, that I could go back to sleep? Here? I know it’s a bit cheeky – well, a lot cheeky – and I know the last few minutes haven’t been the most fun of your life, but I am so very tired I have to swallow my pride and ask you, beg you, if necessary, to let me catch a couple of hours of sleep. I promise I’ll be no trouble, I’ll just close my eyes and go to sleep. I’ll even take off my bangles so as not to disturb you.’

  He is silent for a few seconds. His eyes roam over my face like curious fingers learning and mapping out my features. ‘All right. Fine. Go to sleep. But only if you don’t plan on staying all day when you wake up.’

  Charming . ‘As soon as I wake up, I will leave. I’m already dressed so I won’t even need to go near the shower. I can walk straight out of here and right out of your life.’

  ‘Eurgh! You’ve got to use the shower. What sort of filthiness is that?’

  ‘I was just trying to make sure we keep this as short as humanly possible.’

  ‘Yeah, well, there’s short and then there’s filthiness. You have to have a shower before you go. In fact, I insist on it. Don’t commit a crime against your fellow travellers by being that commuter.’

  ‘I’m not going to commute anywhere – I live in Brighton, remember?’

  ‘Fair enough. But you still need a shower.’

  ‘All right – shower, dressed again, outta here.’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  I chance a glance in his direction to find him staring me, a small smile on his face – he was smiling at me like that at the bar, just before I spoke to him, I remember that.

  His smile makes me beam at him. More and more of our time together last night is seeping in now: the firmness of his body against mine, the way his hand felt resting in the small of my back, the soft sigh of wanting more and more of his kisses.

  ‘See you later,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, Nell, see you later.’

  1993

  Nell

  Saturday, 26 June

  ‘Tell me again what you two were doing out so late?’ the policeman asked us.

  Jude and I were sitting in a little room with three chairs at a table, two on one side and one on the other. We held hands, trying to comfort each other but in reality we both seemed to take it in turns to shake so violently we made the other quake with us.

  I was cold. Really cold. My lips felt coldest, or maybe it was my fingertips, or maybe it was the centre of my chest where my heart was. I was cold and shaky.

  Every time I blinked I saw her: the untroubled face, the motionless body, the detail of her tattoo. Every time I breathed I realised that the woman with the Brighton mermaid tattoo wasn’t going to do that ever again. Every time I looked at my hands I saw the remnants of the black ink they used to take our fingerprints, and was reminded that they thought we’d done it. The police thought we were responsible for what had happened to the woman we found on the beach.

  Their behaviour since they’d taken us from the beach – the policewoman sitting stonefaced between us in the back of the police car – right up to this moment showed that they thought we were guilty of a crime. They’d said they were taking our fingerprints to eliminate us from the investigation, but it felt as if they were actually checking in case we’d been in trouble before. They’d said they would call our fathers but it felt like hours since we’d been there, and they hadn’t arrived. They said they wanted to know what had happened, but whenever we explained they didn’t seem to believe us.

  And this police officer, he kept coming back to this room. He was the one who had asked us the most questions. The others kept coming and goin
g, some of them standing by the door, arms folded, keeping an eye on us, others coming to sit down opposite us and start up the same battery of questions: ‘Who is she?’ ‘Are you sure you don’t know her?’ ‘What were you doing out there at that time of night? ’ ‘Were you drinking?’ ‘Taking drugs?’ ‘Engaging in sexual acts? ’ Over and over, on and on. They were hoping, I realised, that we would slip up. This officer, though, out of all the other ones, seemed most determined to prove we had done something.

  ‘I’ve got a child about your age,’ he said when neither of us spoke to answer his question. ‘He’d catch all sorts of hell if he was out behaving like you two at that time of night. Unless he had a very good reason.’ He had a hard edge to his voice now. ‘So tell me, what were you two doing out at that time of night?’ He folded his arms across his chest. ‘What very good reason do you have for being out there at that time of night?’

  This policeman acted like a man who was taller, wider and more imposing than he really was. His dark blond hair was cut severely at the sides, his shoulders were slightly hunched, which made him look thinner, and he had a scar on his cheek. Whenever he spoke his eyes narrowed and his lips became distorted with a sneer. It was him, I was sure of it, that was keeping us here, stopping us from seeing our dads. I didn’t even care that I was going to be in huge amounts of trouble with my parents – I just wanted this to be over.

  ‘You’re going to tell me,’ he said. ‘Whether you want to or not, you’re going to tell me what you were doing on that beach with that girl. You’re going to tell me which one of you hurt her. Killed her .’

  Jude broke down. She couldn’t take any more. She clung on to my hand, bent her head forwards and started to cry. Her shoulders were shaking and she made small gulping sounds that I’d heard before but not very often. Jude was the strong one, the one who took risks, the one who’d convinced me to lie to my parents and say I was staying at hers for her birthday. Once her mum had gone to work, her dad had told us not to stay up too late because he was heading to the club in Brighton to meet his friends, as he did most Friday nights. We’d told the police this. We’d told them that when her dad had gone out, we’d got ready and gone to a party a sixth-form boy from school was having.

  We’d been invited last minute, and Jude liked the boy even though I thought he was far too full of himself. He over-gelled his hair, sprayed on too much aftershave and kept commenting on girls’ ‘juicy butts’. But when he’d found out Jude’s birthday was on the same day as his, he’d come up to her – right in the middle of the canteen – and said, ‘Come to my party, if it’s your birthday too. Bring your mate with the juicy butt.’ And he’d winked at her and then at me and walked away. Everyone around us had just stared and Jude had told us we were definitely going to go.

  I hadn’t wanted to go. But Jude had persuaded me. Had said it would make us two of the popular girls at last. No, Jude , I should be saying to her right then. It has made us two girls sitting in a police station being told off by a police officer .

  I wanted to cry. But I knew, even if I didn’t know anything else, it would make this man happy if we both started crying. He hadn’t managed to catch us out, so now he wanted to make us cry. And he’d succeeded with Jude. She was the strong one, usually, but I was the stubborn one – always.

  I stared at the man’s scar, a dark pink curve that turned his cheekbone into an oval. He glared at me for staring at his scar, and I could almost see him decide it was my turn to cry, too. Jude was probably wise to get it over with, but I wasn’t going to let him do that to me. I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary – other girls sneaked out of the house all the time and often did properly wild things. They didn’t go to parties and stand at the edges feeling out of place amongst the other people who were drinking and chatting and fitting in with each other – everyone at the party had seemed to know how to be together and we hadn’t. The sixth-former who’d invited us to his party had been super-nice – offered us drinks, told us to have some snacks, told us we should go upstairs and play Spin The Bottle if we wanted. But Jude and me, we weren’t like them. We were different, younger, and we didn’t really belong there.

  We’d stuck around for a bit longer, daring each other to try the punch, to try a beer, to try something bright blue that people were downing from small glasses. But neither of us was brave enough. We sat on the sofa and watched the older kids get drunk, then we’d both eventually decided without actually saying anything to each other that it was time to go home. Jude hadn’t known what time her dad would get back from the club, so we’d decided we’d have to sneak in and pray that he was still out or asleep. And as we’d been coming home, there she was … The girl we found.

  And now here we were, the two girls being broken by a policeman.

  I’m not going to cry , I thought. I. AM. NOT. GOING. TO. CRY .

  He could see that I wasn’t going to give in. ‘You two are a couple of those dirty girls, aren’t you,’ he said quietly. ‘You act all good and prim for the parents, but really you’re always out, catting about. You can’t keep your legs shut. You’re dirty girls. Dirty little sluts.’

  His words were vicious and cruel, like arrows fired rapidly from a bow, and they made Jude cry more, her weeping loud and uncontrolled. Those words, nasty as they were, made me even more determined. I gently let go of my sobbing best friend’s hand and sat back in my seat, folded my arms across my chest and stared right at him. Right at him.

  His eyes flashed outrage, and his lip curled as he accepted the challenge – the gauntlet that I, a weedy little teenager who was already in huge trouble with her parents, had thrown down in front of him.

  I am not going to cry , my face told him.

  You think you can take me? his nasty smile replied as it slimed wider and wider on his face. You really think you can take me, little girl?

  He came to the table and slammed his hands down, leant forwards, right into my face. It felt at that moment that it was just him and me in there. Just the two of us about to fight it out. He’d win, but only after a long battle. I wasn’t going to make it easy – I wasn’t going to cry at the first drop of his toxic words. It would take so much more than he realised. His lips drew back as he loaded more of his poison-tipped words into his bow, ready to fire them at me. I stared straight into his eyes; I was not looking away. He’d made Jude cry, and that was not right. I might be young and I might not know very much, but I did know what he was doing was wrong. We were, at best, witnesses. He had no reason to think of us as suspects, to treat us like convicted criminals.

  He snarled: ‘How many—’

  The door flew open, and suddenly, standing there, big, tall and muscly, was my dad. He seemed to take up the whole of the doorway. I looked down from the policeman and stared at the table because now I was going to cry. Now my dad was here, I was going to break down and sob. I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I had ever been so happy to see my dad. Now he was here, this policeman would stop.

  Straight away the policeman stood upright and backed away from the table.

  ‘Tell me you were not questioning my daughter without an adult present,’ Dad said. His voice – outraged but authoritative – sounded amazing to my ears.

  The policeman looked at my dad with so much hatred, so much anger. He probably didn’t like being stopped mid-flow; he probably hated someone speaking to him with such authority. ‘She – they – didn’t need an adult because I wasn’t questioning them,’ the policeman replied.

  ‘I am not stupid,’ Dad said. ‘Judana is crying and my daughter is shaking. What were you doing to them?’

  ‘This is a police station,’ the officer replied, suddenly irked that my dad had taken control of the situation. ‘I ask the questions here.’

  ‘Not if you will not tell me what you were doing to my daughter and her friend,’ Dad stated.

  The policeman smirked nastily. ‘Are you going to cause problems?’ he asked. ‘Are you going to need to cool down in
a cell and think about how you’re talking to a policeman … in a police station?’

  ‘I will talk to you however I deem necessary,’ Dad replied.

  ‘I think we should all calm down,’ Mr Dalton, Jude’s stepfather said. The man Jude always called ‘Dad’ was standing behind my dad, but I hadn’t noticed he was there. He was a big man – not as tall as my dad, but still bigger than the nasty policeman with the scar. With him was the policewoman who had left the room earlier, right before the horrible policeman had started calling us sluts.

  Jude, who’d stopped crying when Dad walked in and started talking, began to cry again when she heard her dad’s voice. Now she was crying because she was in trouble for sneaking out to go to a party. This was what we were meant to be crying and shaking about; this was why we were meant to be scared. We weren’t supposed to be sobbing about being called names and being made to feel less than human by this horrible man.

  ‘I think it’s fair to say this has been a less-than-ideal evening,’ Mr Dalton said, ‘and I think we would all be better off going home and sleeping on it.’ Mr Dalton was a solicitor so I knew he talked to the police all the time. He’d probably spoken to this policeman before. He sounded polite and calm, as though he knew that if everyone was reasonable, everything would be cleared up in no time.

  ‘They are not going anywhere,’ the policeman said, but the snarl had left his voice now that he was dealing with Mr Dalton, a white man who was also a solicitor. ‘We still have to take their witness statements.’

  ‘Enelle, we are leaving,’ Dad said. I didn’t need to look at him to know that although he was talking to me, he was staring down the policeman. Despite how Mr Dalton was trying to manage things, Dad’s disgust at how we were being treated was not going away, and he was not backing down.