The Brighton Mermaid

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘You don’t know how? ’ he repeats louder and takes a step closer to me. ‘Isn’t that what you do now, Nell? Isn’t that what you’ve ruined all our lives over? You find people. And you’re oh so good at finding people,’ another step closer to me, ‘you’re oh so passionate about it that you just had to give up your job to do it.’ Another step closer to me and I step backwards to get away from him. ‘You had to make sure that the Brighton Mermaid and all the crap that goes with it is all any of us could think about and you’re telling me that you don’t know how? Did you even think about what all of this would do to Macy and the children? Never mind me, I’m not important, but what about them? Do you know how her anxiety and her OCD have shot through the roof ever since you told her what you were planning? And since you were burgled and then this, it’s a wonder she stuck around this long.

  ‘But none of what this is doing to us occurred to you, did it, Nell? Because you’re selfish, you only think about what things mean for you, no thought for Macy and your parents and the children.’

  Shane wants to take another step closer to me, I can tell, but he’s restraining himself.

  He’s right. But I didn’t foresee these types of repercussions. When John Pope made his threat, I knew I had to do whatever I could to stop him. I didn’t think there would be other consequences, penalties that Macy would be forced to pay. I thought I was saving us all from what Pope wanted to unleash, but instead, I’ve sent Macy over the edge. She tried to tell me in the hospital and after the dead rat incident, but I didn’t really listen. Her warning was not as loud and forceful as Pope’s threat, but unfortunately it’s been just as devastating.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I had no idea things were so bad. And that it was because of me. You have to know that I would never purposely do anything to hurt Macy, the kids or you. I’d never do anything to hurt anyone.’

  Shane raises his hands and rubs them over his face. ‘No, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I’m so sorry, Nell. I didn’t mean any of that … I’m just panicking here, you know? I’m scared for her. She’s been so unstable recently, and I didn’t help the other week making that comment. If she’s hurt herself—’

  ‘She won’t have hurt herself,’ I cut in. I can’t bear the thought of it. And she wouldn’t. I just know she wouldn’t. No matter how bad things get, Macy wouldn’t hurt herself and leave her children. Just like I know she would never completely walk away from them without telling anyone where she’s going. ‘Do you know who her friends are?’ I ask Shane.

  He’s staring wide-eyed into the mid-distance, shocked and shaken. I remember this nightmare. I understand a bit of what he is going through, what it’s like to have someone walk out of your life and to have no idea what has happened to them.

  ‘I think we’d better go to the police,’ he says desolately.

  ‘We will, we will, but first let’s ring some of her friends.’

  ‘How are we going to do that, exactly? I know hardly any of her friends. She doesn’t go out, ever. Even when the school parents arrange nights out she doesn’t go. I go sometimes, but she never goes. Same with work people.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got her mobile – we can see who she’s called and messaged the most.’

  ‘Do you have her passcode? Because I don’t. And her phone works on Touch ID anyway. And I seem to remember her saying the latest update meant we can’t even download the phone’s information onto a computer without her passcode.’

  ‘Why don’t you know her passcode?’ I ask him, stunned.

  ‘For the same reason I don’t know your passcode and you don’t know mine,’ he replies. ‘I trust her – I don’t need to check her phone. She doesn’t need to check mine. We have a thing called privacy. What are you saying, Nell? That our relationship is odd because we don’t know each other’s passcodes?’

  ‘No, no, I was just … I just assumed if you’re in a long-term relationship you know everything about each other including things like passwords, etc.’

  ‘Well, you assumed wrong. When you get married or live with someone, you don’t lose your identity, you know. You don’t stop being a person who has their own life. Is that why you’re still single, Nell? Because you’re worried that you’ll stop being your own person if you open up and trust someone?’

  ‘No,’ I reply.

  ‘Right, yeah, sure,’ he says.

  ‘I’m so sorry for causing all of this,’ I say.

  ‘Hey, it’s not your fault. I was just angry earlier, shocked. I’m sorry. This isn’t down to you. This is all down to that policeman who made your family’s life hell. Triggered a lot of Macy’s anxiety, made you …’ He stops talking, and his eyes widen again because he’s horrified about what he was about to say.

  ‘Made me what?’ I ask, facing him full on.

  He colours up, a red that makes him glow. ‘Nothing,’ he says.

  ‘You might as well tell me,’ I say. ‘It’s not like things are going to get much worse, is it?’

  ‘Made you …’ He sighs and I can almost see him cursing himself in his head. ‘Made you so closed off. I think you’ve always been scared to let go and trust anyone and that’s why you haven’t had a proper relationship since, well, me.’

  ‘You think I’m closed off?’

  ‘It sounds awful when you say it like that. What I mean is, you always act like someone is going to stab you in the back or leave you. You don’t allow anyone to get close to you. Not even Macy.’

  ‘Is that what she thinks? That I don’t let her get close to me?’

  Shane’s cheeks are still scarlet.

  ‘It’s not true,’ I state, trying to keep the tears out of my voice. I won’t convince him it’s not true if I start crying. ‘No, I haven’t had a long-term relationship since you, but I’m not unusual in that. Loads of women are long-term single out of choice like me. And Macy is … I’m closer to her than I am to anyone else on Earth. She’s everything to me. I can’t believe she doesn’t know that. After all this time, everything we’ve been through, she doesn’t know that she’s the only person I’ve ever felt close to.’

  ‘Look, this isn’t helping,’ Shane says. ‘I don’t know how we got side-tracked onto this conversation. We just need to work out how to find Macy.’

  I furiously blink back my tears, clear my throat. I thought Macy knew that she is the person I am closest to, that I have no one beyond her who I trust implicitly. But is that true? I haven’t told her I am working with Aaron, that I am essentially controlled by Pope, that my ex-sort-of-boyfriend turned out to be a police officer, that Shane and I spent that night together after college. There are loads of things I haven’t told Macy and yet I still think of her as my best friend, my closest confidante. Am I really deluded in all of this? Deluded in a way that neither Macy nor Shane are?

  But Shane is right, none of this is helping. We have to focus on finding Macy. ‘Let’s go through the class list and call everyone on it if we can’t get into her phone,’ I say.

  ‘Or go to the police,’ Shane suggests.

  ‘Or we can go to the police,’ I agree. ‘What would you say?’

  ‘That she’s gone missing.’

  ‘All right, we’ll say that a thirty-six-year-old woman has walked out leaving behind a note explaining why she left. If someone told you that, let alone if you were a police officer, do you think you’d investigate?’

  ‘But this isn’t like her. She wouldn’t walk out on her children.’

  Except she would and she has. Shane clearly doesn’t know this. Only Macy and I know how low she got after Clyde left, how one time she disappeared for two days and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone, I just had to look after the children. But then, he said it himself: just because you’re with someone, doesn’t mean you know everything about them.

  ‘Yes, I agree, but do you really think the police are going to see it like that? Look, if you get me the class lists, I’ll go through and call everyone and then we’ll see where we are. It might be that w
e have something solid to give to the police. Something one of them says might be enough for us to track her down.’

  ‘I’m really worried that something’s happened to her, you know?’ Shane says.

  ‘I know. But we mustn’t think like that. We’ve got to stay positive until we know something else.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Shane says. ‘You’re right.’ He comes towards me, this time in a less threatening manner. ‘I’m sorry … about earlier. I shouldn’t have said those things. They’re not true. You’re not selfish at all and you weren’t to know how bad Macy’s got recently. I don’t think any of us has wanted to face up to it. When we get her back, I’m going to make sure she goes to the doctor and gets some medication.’

  I nod. Good luck with that , I think. You won’t manage to persuade her to do that. But that’s all pointless thinking right now. The most important thing is to find her and get her home .

  Macy

  Tuesday, 15 May

  I have not done this in an age.

  I have not sat in a bar on my own in what feels like a lifetime. That lifetime that is being a mother. Even before I got together with Clyde I didn’t go out much. Mummy and Daddy weren’t exactly OK with either of us going out with friends after Nell and Jude found the dead body. And after Jude disappeared and everything that came after that, I didn’t even bother to ask to go out.

  I went to Brighton University so that I could live with my parents and didn’t go out that often. I went out a bit, would sometimes stay out if things were extra fun, but mainly I was a homebody.

  After I got together with Clyde, we went out a lot. We had a roaring social life that involved so many friends and going to lots of different places. He opened up my world. When I got pregnant, the partying slowed right down. Clyde didn’t really seem to mind and we planned the next two to get it out of the way. It was exhausting, and I sometimes look back and wonder what I was thinking, what type of madness had taken over my brain to do that to myself. Love, of course. Love, the most crazy-making drug, had seized my brain and made me do that.

  I would have done anything for Clyde. Almost anything, as it turned out. When he wanted me to leave the children to go on an adventure with him, I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Actually, when it came down to it, I didn’t want to leave them. I loved being with my children. I couldn’t stand the thought of being away from them no matter how hard and arduous, draining and gruelling it was; I wanted to be with my children, always.

  Oh, the irony – I wouldn’t leave my children for their father, but I’ve left them for Nell.

  I take a sip of the wine in front of me.

  She’s proved since she moved in that she’s better at this than me, so I’ve left her to it. Everything I ever do is for my children, and if someone is going to be better at looking after them than me, if someone isn’t going to foist upon them all my anxieties and worries and nervous habits, I have to give them the chance to be happy. They’re my reason for living so it’d be selfish to stick around when someone like Nell seems to take everything in her stride. It was like that last time, too. When I told her Clyde had gone and she heard what I was actually trying to say and came straight away, she just coped. She stepped into my shoes without a moment’s hesitation, a second’s worry about what to do. She took over and she pulled us away from the brink.

  My anxieties are slowly becoming out of control, I can see that. Shane can see that. Nell can definitely see that, which is why she took over again. I was being paranoid the other day when I thought she wanted my life. She doesn’t. Of course she doesn’t. She just wants to take care of the children. She just wants to keep us from getting too close to the edge again. She just wants to show them what normal is like. She just wants to push me out little by little until who I am in their lives has been diminished, which means the damage I can do them is diminished too.

  I take another swig of wine.

  Which is fine. Because I can do things like this. I can sit in a bar I’ve never been to in my life before and drink wine in the early evening.

  I can spend the day getting my shoulder-length relaxed hair professionally put up, I can get my nails done and I can go for a facial. I’ve bought some new clothes, some new shoes and other new accessories to wear, too. I feel like a different woman. So I’m behaving like a different woman, sitting in a bar, having a drink on my own. The name – The King’s Coats – doesn’t sound that inspiring, and it’s not much to look at, but it has panoramic views of the sea, and apparently the food is great.

  This wine is going down well. Really well. Its tartness teases my tongue, slides down my throat. And it’s making me feel all fuzzy and warm. I’m sure I’m smiling as I sit here. Smiling to myself and drinking wine.

  Why don’t I do this more often?

  I should do this more often. I should have wine more often. When it was just me alone with the children, I didn’t dare drink in case there was an emergency and I had to drive one of them to the hospital. Even when Shane came on the scene I didn’t dare drink because he’d often have a beer or two and if I drank as well, there’d be no one to drive the children to the hospital if necessary.

  But I’ve been missing out. Truly.

  I pick up the bottle from its bucket of ice water and read the label again. I’m sure I’ve done that three times. I want to remember what it is, though. So I can have it again. Maybe I should take a picture of it? Genius idea!

  I scrabble around in my bag, searching for my phone.

  Oh. I remember. I left my mobile behind so they would know I was serious about leaving. No mobile. No picture of the nice bottle of wine. Boo!

  ‘Hello, Macy,’ the person who I’ve been waiting for says.

  ‘Zach!’ I say with a grin. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’

  Macy

  Sunday, 20 May

  Every morning I wake up in Zach’s bed, I have to reset my mind and remember that I am not at home and I don’t have to listen for which one of them is up first, wonder how much longer I can linger in bed before I have to get up and start the day.

  I roll over, and the weight of the wine I drank last night rolls with me. I’m glad he closed the blinds last night because I could not handle any amount of daylight right now. The downside, of course, to drinking is the morning after.

  ‘Do you want to get some food?’ I asked Zach the other day when he met me in the pub. ‘I’m starving. Let’s get some food for while we talk.’ Before he could protest, I raised my hand and beckoned over the waiter who was standing at the bar using his pen to dig out his ear. Once upon a time that would have had me walking out of there, disgusted and horrified by what the chef was likely to be doing behind closed doors, but not that day. Not after wine, not after feeling like a different woman, not when Zach had actually shown up.

  The waiter brought us menus but Zach didn’t even pick his up.

  ‘What’s going on, Macy? You said you wanted to talk about Nell?’

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I replied. But I was put out. Why did he have to bring her up within six seconds of sitting down? ‘But not right away.’

  He put his head slightly to one side. ‘How did you get my number? You implied in your text that Nell had given it to you, but she didn’t, did she?’

  ‘Her mobile gave it to me,’ I replied.

  ‘You went through her phone?’

  ‘No. Not really. She put it down for once and left the room and I got your number from it.’ Of course her passcode is the day Jude disappeared. ‘I had to talk to you. I had to find out why you dumped her. Is it because she’s sleeping with my other half ?’

  Zach stared at me really hard for several minutes, it felt like. I had to keep taking lots of sips of my good buddy white wine to counteract the potentially sobering effects of that stare. ‘What are you playing at, Macy?’ he asked. ‘You go through your sister’s phone, you have a makeover so your hair, your clothes and your nails make you look exactly like her, and now you’re trying to what – make me jealous? Make me an
gry? Hurt me? By saying that about her sleeping with someone else. Are you having some kind of breakdown?’

  ‘How dare you,’ I said to him. ‘I’m just trying to …’ What was I trying to do? I’d wanted to talk to Zach because it would hurt Nell. Even though they were clearly not together any more, I’d seen how she was with him. She liked this guy a lot and I wanted to hurt her like she’d hurt me by taking over my life rather than talking to me about what I was doing wrong. ‘I’m just …’

  Zach sat back in his seat and folded his arms. I did the same. Just so he’d know that he wasn’t the only one who could look serious and authorit-ta-ta … and serious.

  ‘How much have you had to drink?’ Zach asked eventually when I kept looking at my wine glass because I wanted more but I didn’t want to be the first person to unfold their arms.

  ‘Only the one … bottle ,’ I replied. ‘Before this one.’

  He shook his head and I crossed my arms even tighter and huffier just so he knew that I didn’t care if he disapproved. ‘I didn’t dump Nell,’ he said. ‘I … I kind of neglected to tell her some stuff about myself and she’s refused to speak to me or see me ever since.’

  ‘Huh!’ I unfolded my arms because I really needed wine. ‘She’s one to talk. I guess she never got around to telling you that she’s slept with my other half, Shane.’

  He looked sceptical.

  ‘It’s true! She went out with him when she was about eighteen.’

  ‘So more than twenty years ago?’

  ‘And after college, too. Although neither of them will admit it.’

  ‘She’s slept with him while you and he were together. Is that what you’re saying?’