The Brighton Mermaid

by Dorothy Koomson

  I stare at my sister, surprised that she’s doing this right here, wondering what has prompted her to bring it up right now.

  Her rolling pin is then directed at Shane. ‘And you’ve been with loads of women – why can’t you pretend Nell’s like one of them?’

  Shane may have downplayed our relationship to Macy when he told her he knew me. A lot . And by the point when she asked me about it, telling her the complete truth would have ruined her relationship with him, something I couldn’t do when she was so happy. Even before she officially told me she was dating, I could tell by how freer she seemed that she had met someone.

  ‘Look, this isn’t fair on any of us, you two carrying on like this,’ Macy says, dropping the tough-girl act. ‘I feel like I can’t invite you over whenever I want, Nell, because it’ll be awkward with Shane. And Shane, I keep making digs because the way you carry on makes it seem like you still have a thing for my sister.’

  She turns to me again. ‘Is there something I should know?’ She stares at me, eyebrows raised, lips curled into her mouth in a ‘tell me everything’ smile. I want to blurt out everything, get it all in the open, but that train left the station for pastures unknown seven years ago. Too late now to dredge it all up and see how she feels about how passionate our relationship had been.

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, there isn’t.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Shane says, far less convincingly than me.

  ‘Right,’ Macy says, ‘I am going to leave the kitchen and you two are going to have a normal conversation without avoiding eye contact and nonsense like that, all right? And when I come back you two are going to act like strangers, all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I confirm.

  ‘Right you are,’ Shane replies.

  She shuts the door behind her and once she’s gone, Shane finally turns to face me.

  He’s looking warily at me because I am glaring at him. I am still so cross with him for putting me in this situation. ‘You should have told her the truth from the start,’ I hiss.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he admits. ‘I just … I panicked. I know, I know I should have told her everything.’

  2000

  Nell

  Friday, 18 August

  ‘Thank you for coming to meet me,’ Shane said.

  ‘No need to sound so formal about it,’ I joked. ‘We’re not business associates.’ I nudged him and he laughed.

  He hadn’t changed that much in the four-plus years since I’d seen him. He still gave me a little thrill in my stomach when I’d walked into this little Mexican restaurant by the Lanes and seen him sitting in a booth with a ridiculously over-the-top cocktail in front of him. I remembered how my sixteen-year-old self felt about him, how she’d quivered every time she saw him. Then how she’d ached for him every day for the first term at university. She’d gone out and had fun, but she wanted Shane all the time. She’d cried for him at night, she’d cuddled the bear he gave her, she wouldn’t think about anyone else. She’d got over it – I’d got over it, but he was Shane and there was a part of me that still got a kick when I saw him. We’d bumped into each other in the street, and he’d asked if we could meet for a drink.

  He rubbed his hand briefly along my thigh, then leant in close. ‘It’s amazing that you’re here,’ he said. ‘I didn’t think you’d see me again after … after the way I was.’

  Shane had spent months trying to talk me out of going to university. He’d wanted me to stay with him, to leave home and move in with him. For us to have babies. When trying to talk me out of going hadn’t worked, he’d started crying – sobbing and wailing and letting me know how I was breaking his heart. When that hadn’t worked either, Shane had turned nasty. Nothing had been too low to spit at me, nothing had been out of bounds. He’d apologise, only to repeat his insults and worse when a month of phone calls to my halls of residence didn’t get me to come home to him. In the end, I’d had to stop taking his calls and returned all his letters unread.

  ‘I did have to think twice,’ I admitted.

  ‘I’m sorry. I’ve felt terrible about it ever since. I was so completely selfish. I was just really jealous, couldn’t stand the thought of you not being here and the thought of someone else touching you drove me crazy. Terrible, huh? I can’t believe I used to think no one had a right to even look at you, let alone touch you. Thankfully, I’ve grown up a lot.’ He sipped his drink and tried not to look as embarrassed as he so clearly was.

  ‘Think we’ve both grown up a lot since then,’ I replied.

  Shane’s hand returned to my thigh, a fraction higher this time. ‘Is this OK?’ he lowered his voice to ask. ‘Is it OK to touch you there?’

  ‘Yes, it’s OK,’ I said. I liked remembering what it had been like to be with Shane before it went wrong. I was a bit lost, coming back to Brighton after over four years away at university. I hadn’t got used to being here, and even though I was renting a room in a house, I’d accepted that I’d probably have to move into my parents’ house in the middle of nowhere while I got a job and started to save for my own place. Being with Shane was a little bit of home – the Brighton and Hove I actually knew – and I liked being around him for that reason. So it was all right for him to touch my thigh. It was very all right.

  ‘Can I come home with you?’ Shane asked outside the restaurant. The owners had tried to get us to leave several times, and then had given up because we kept ordering more tapas so we could stay sitting together in their little booth. Now the restaurant was closed and, outside, Brighton was coming alive. It was Friday night and people were out and about. The air was alive with summer, and people, mainly in groups, moved in different directions, flowing towards the parts of town where the late-night bars and clubs were. Happy chatter rose up as they walked by. Drunk and simply merry people were spilling out of the bars and pubs that closed at normal times and were adding to the thrum that made Brighton a vibrant place.

  I wanted to stand in the middle of the road, throw my arms out, tip my head back, then spin. Spin, spin and spin until I took off.

  Shane took me in his arms. ‘Can I come home with you?’ he asked again as he nuzzled my neck. His hands moved down over my hips, resting lightly on my thighs. ‘Please?’ He slipped his hands up under the hemline of my blue and green silk skirt. ‘Please.’

  Much as I’d enjoyed this evening, I knew it would be a bad idea to do this with Shane. I didn’t want a relationship. I didn’t know what I wanted most of the time, but not to have a boyfriend. It wasn’t good, either, to go backwards. To look backwards and see where you had been, see why you were here because of where you’d been, yes and yes, but it was a bad idea to try to revisit it.

  Shane brushed his lips against my neck, his fingers stroked the skin on the inside of my thigh, and the scent of him began to fill my senses. I looked over his shoulder and gasped: standing in the doorway of a baby clothes shop was a man with his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched and a scar on his cheek that wasn’t visible from where we were standing. John Pope.

  I’d tried so hard to forget about him when I was away. I hadn’t seen or heard about him in nearly five years, but every time, every time I kissed a man, or I had sex, or I even thought about sex, I’d remembered his words: ‘Dirty girls … Dirty little sluts .’ I’d had to brush them aside. I’d had to stop myself trying to prove him wrong, trying to be a good girl, a clean girl, one who didn’t need to be shamed. One who wasn’t ashamed to want sex and physical closeness. I’d battled the ghost of his words for so many years. Now when I thought I had won, here he was back in the flesh to remind me that he was still around. Nothing had come of the arrest of that man for the Mermaid Murders. The police didn’t come for Dad again, but Pope hadn’t let it go. And now he was back to following me around.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Shane asked, pulling away slightly to look at me.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied. ‘Nothing.’

  I tugged my gaze away from Pope, back to Shane. I’m not a dirty g
irl , I reminded myself. I pushed my hands into Shane’s back pockets, pulled him closer to me, felt his hardness against my thigh. No matter what I do, no matter what I don’t do, I am not a dirty little slut .

  ‘Let’s go back to yours,’ I said.

  ‘I’ve … I’ve got a flatmate at the moment,’ he replied. ‘If you came back, you couldn’t go into any room except my bedroom.’

  ‘What if I need to go to the loo?’

  ‘Let’s just go to yours.’

  I glanced over his shoulder at Pope. His gaze didn’t waver, didn’t drop for a moment.

  ‘It’s your place or not at all,’ I told Shane.

  He moved his hands higher up my thighs. ‘OK, my place it is,’

  he said, and kissed me. Long and slow.

  By the time we broke apart, Pope was gone.

  Friday, 18 August

  ‘I see you’ve learnt a few new things,’ Shane said as we lay entwined later. Out of breath, out of energy, floating on a different level.

  ‘Right back at you.’

  ‘I … I never stopped loving you, you know? All those years apart don’t have to mean anything.’

  I stopped myself from sighing out loud. I knew I shouldn’t have done this. Knew it. But seeing John Pope had made me panic. I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t a dirty girl , and at the same time show that even if he thought I was a dirty little slut , I didn’t care. What he thought didn’t matter.

  ‘We’re different people now,’ I said to Shane. ‘Different people, different lives.’

  ‘Is that your way of saying you don’t want to pick up where we left off?’ he said sadly.

  ‘It’s my way of saying we’re different people with different lives.’

  ‘The thing is, Nell, I can’t be friends with you. It’s got to be all or nothing.’

  Is Pope going to be waiting outside this building? I wondered as I began to mentally remember where my clothes had landed when we undressed each other. Or will he be outside my building, waiting for me to come home so he can make me feel grubby and low?

  ‘I understand,’ I said to Shane. I did, I really did. I just couldn’t do this with him again.

  ‘Nell, why won’t you just give it – us – a chance?’

  ‘It’s not what I want,’ I said. My socks were scrunched up by the door – they were the first thing I’d taken off when he’d ushered me quickly through into his bedroom. My top was probably there, along with my skirt. My bra and knickers he’d taken off when we were on the light brown leather love seat he’d had in the other flat. My bracelets were still on my wrists, thankfully. If I had to sit up and put them all on, it would simply prolong this agony to the point of cruelty.

  I really shouldn’t have done this. He was going to be hurt all over again, and I didn’t want to hurt Shane. I’d loved him once. Not now, though. Unlikely to ever love him again.

  Shane started to kiss my bare shoulder. ‘We could just do this for a bit, maybe? What do they call them? Fuck buddies. We could do that, see how you feel in a few weeks?’

  I closed my eyes. There was no way he’d settle for a ‘just sex’ relationship – he’d simply be waiting for us to get together properly. And when that didn’t happen, he’d probably flip out again. I couldn’t do that to Shane. We had to end things tonight.

  ‘I better go,’ I said rather than answer what he’d said about being fuck buddies.

  ‘No, no, stay. Please? Please?’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘OK.’

  Saturday, 19 August

  I felt bad about sneaking out at 3 a.m. when he was out for the count, but I just couldn’t deal with the drama of a morning goodbye. I didn’t hear from or about him again until the call from Macy saying, ‘You know my new boyfriend? He’s called Shane and he says he knows you – intimately.’

  Now

  Macy

  Saturday, 31 March

  Those two think I’m stupid.

  They honestly think I have no idea how intense their relationship was. Nell used to sneak away from school to see him. I never saw him or found out who he was, but I remember how different she became. Secretive but happy; then, as the time came for her to go to university, instead of being excited because she was getting out of Brighton and away from everything that had happened to her here, she would regularly come home with red, puffy eyes. Obviously from crying at the thought of leaving her boyfriend, whoever he was. I remember her disappearing more and more as the time to go to university drew closer, and how distressed she looked all the time.

  I’ve given them so many chances to tell the truth. To admit that it wasn’t a quick thing, that they were shagging when she came back from university, when she was living at Mummy and Daddy’s place. But they don’t. Won’t. Can’t. Whichever. The fact is they haven’t. Because they think I’m fragile. Poor Macy, can’t cope with the truth. It’s them being secretive that’s the problem, not the fact they used to go out together.

  Well, that and the fact Shane and I haven’t made love in nearly eighteen months.

  I press my ear against the kitchen door. Will they talk about it?

  There’s silence. Absolute silence from the other side of the door. They’re probably kissing, probably plotting how to be together. I know they’re not. But they could be. It’s not that far away from the realm of possi—

  ‘Mama, what are you doing?’ Aubrey asks.

  That’s a very pertinent question. What am I doing? I’m listening at my kitchen door to see if my sister and my partner are kissing. Have I lost my mind or something? Sometimes I think there are two people in my head – the one who does ridiculous things, and the other one who doesn’t stop her.

  ‘Nothing, sweetheart,’ I say and stand away from the door. I place my hands on his little shoulders and his father’s face looks back at me.

  I love Shane. I love everything about him. But, I hate to admit, I loved Clyde more. I sometimes wonder if that’s what it’s like for Nell and Shane. People say you never get over your first love, and from the way those two carry on, it’s obvious they were each other’s.

  That’s probably why Shane and I can’t seem to get it right any more. We used to make love, have sex, fuck all the time. Then he rejected me three times in a row. Four weeks later when he was in the mood, I certainly wasn’t. Then when I wanted to be close to him again, he wasn’t interested. The seesaw of interest has carried on like that for eighteen months. One up, one down, on and on, never really managing to balance out so we can edge along the central beam of the seesaw and meet in the middle.

  We did sort of manage it once, about six months ago. We got all the way to penetration … then we both seemed to lose the will and interest at the same time. He rolled off, I pulled the duvet up and we cuddled until we both fell asleep. Neither of us mentioned it again.

  Is it because of Clyde and Nell? I look at Aubrey and I see his dad – does Shane look at me and see shades of Nell and know that I simply don’t match up?

  ‘You were doing something,’ Aubrey says, appalled that I’ve claimed otherwise.

  ‘OK, I was listening at the door.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘Because what?’ my ten-year-old replies.

  ‘Because what what?’

  ‘Mama!’ he says, frustrated that he’s unwittingly walked into the what-what loop that gets me out of sticky conversations at least three times a week.

  ‘What?’ I reply.

  He sucks in air, turns on his heels and marches back to the living room to watch TV and sulk about how difficult I am.

  I don’t know what to do about my relationship with Shane. I know we have to fix it, but I don’t know if we can do that with Nell around. And the last thing I want is for Nell not to be around.

  Nell

  Saturday, 31 March

  Shane and I have made a Herculean effort to be normal with each other. To talk, tease and ignore each other like two people who haven’t previously had (a lot of) se
x and made many declarations of love. It’s been difficult, but done.

  Macy looks pleased and relieved and I feel guilty that all this time she’s been feeling like this and I’ve had no idea.

  ‘Oh, Nell,’ Shane says as I’m leaving. I’ve helped put the children to bed, and if I stay any longer I will end up falling asleep on the sofa. Besides, Zach told me to text him when I was free if I fancied going over to his new place in town.

  ‘Yes, Shane,’ I reply. I even look him in the eye when I say it, now that we have to do that.

  ‘I was, erm,’ he looks over his shoulder at the living room where Macy is and lowers his voice, ‘I was, erm, talking to this guy at the gym—’

  ‘Do people actually do that?’ I cut in.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Talk to people at the gym? I’ve always thought it was somewhere you go to exercise, not to start random conversations with random people.’

  Shane looks pained. He’s obviously remembering that I can be annoyingly off-topic at the drop of a hat. ‘What are you talking about, Nell?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing. Carry on.’

  ‘I was talking to this guy at the gym. He was saying how he wanted some genealogy research done but didn’t know where to start. Wasn’t going to do it himself, but didn’t know who to pay to do it. I said I knew a woman who did that and that I would pass on his number.’ Shane reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a slip of paper that is folded in half. He holds it out to me. ‘You never know, there might be a few quid in it. He was talking about how it was to do with a will or something.’

  ‘I don’t charge people,’ I say.

  ‘I know that, but he doesn’t. And it’s stupid not to charge people for your time. Or for the records I’d imagine it costs to get copies of.’

  ‘I manage.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be nice to not have to “manage” for a while though?’

  ‘You sound like my dad. No, actually, you sound like my sister.’