by Penni Russon
In the Silver Moon Café, Phoenix felt the moment of her discovery as if he’d been stung. A flood of memory, at once far distant but also suddenly new again, poured into him.
He remembered it – being a boy, so small in the face of the world. He remembered Jasper – he remembered being Jasper – the boy he was then. The boy he still was, though he had used the other name, Phoenix, for long enough now that he was hardly Jasper anymore.
He’d taken the three shards of ceramic from the mermaid’s throat and her neck had seemed so bare, her throat exposed. It was as if he’d taken something that belonged to the sand-maid, rather than simply removing some of her decorations. But the ceramic pieces were his: he’d found them and by that law alone they also belonged to him and he wanted to give them to his mama because he liked it when she smiled and she didn’t smile very often.
So he’d begun to look for something to replace them. Shells weren’t the right kind of something, they were spent coins – their magic had been used up. He wandered further. He heard Mim and Trout call him but that didn’t matter in the same way that finding something to replace the jewels mattered. He headed further into the rocks and then, when he was surrounded, suddenly he felt tricked, like the rocks had wanted him to come this way. They loomed, tall and black and hostile, pressing in on his periphery, and he couldn’t remember where out was. He kept moving but later he realised he’d been moving further in, to the heart of the rocks, away from the beach, from Lou and Mim.
And then Phoenix – Jasper – had seen another mermaid, her hair tendrilling around her head, wet and weedlike. He thought at first he’d done it, he’d brought her here, that his story had come true and she was a mermaid, come for the sister that he and Mim had made of sand. But this mermaid wasn’t made of sand. He looked again and saw she was made of girl like he was made of boy. And then he saw her face and he knew who she was. She was his sister, returned from the sea. He called out, Mama Mama Mama! but Mama didn’t come at first, Trout did. Jasper didn’t care, he just clambered onto Trout and held on tight. Phoenix remembered, he remembered being Jasper holding on tight.
He also remembered something else now, something he’d forgotten for all these years since that day on the beach. When he realised who she was, that she was his own sister, that she was Undine, he’d thought – just for a moment – that she had come for him. That she’d come to take him back to her home under the sea. Maybe, deep down, he still thought that though, so far, she never had.
And so it was Jasper that found her, her damp hair knotted around her head, her face peacefully arranged so that she might have been sleeping or dead. She was unclothed, curled on her side, wrapped in around herself. Grunt pushed past Trout and gathered her up; he held her across his body for a moment, looking down at her face. Her head was thrown back, her mouth slightly open, but Trout could see the rise and fall of her chest. Grunt hefted her in his arms to redistribute her body’s weight, and then began making his way carefully over the slippery rocks. Trout turned to follow their progress; he was a compass needle compelled to point north. Undine was north, she was always north. True north.
Grunt carried Undine back to the house and Trout carried Jasper. Although the boy became heavy as Trout walked, and he found it difficult to see where he should place his feet on the rocks, Jasper was not burdensome. Rather, Trout felt that in some way Jasper carried a part of Trout too, alleviating Trout’s own heaviness.
As he entered the path between the dunes he was aware of the broad, still sea behind his back. The angels watched them leave.
In the house on Beach Road, Grunt lay Undine down on a daybed that lived on the shaded veranda. Grunt looked away and so did Trout. On the beach her nakedness had not seemed so … revealing. But now laid out on the daybed, in this shaded place attached to the house, she was suddenly more than merely unclothed, she seemed exposed and it was uncomfortable to look at her. Lou covered her daughter with a crocheted blanket from inside the house, tucking it around her as if Undine was two years old and Lou was putting her down for a morning nap.
Trout went to set Jasper down on the ground, but Jasper clung as if he were a monkey, wrapping his legs tightly around Trout’s waist, and shook his head vigorously. Trout hefted the weight of him up again onto his hip.
Undine’s eyes fluttered open then closed.
‘Did I make it?’ she asked, her voice cracking in the dryness of her throat. ‘Am I here? Am I home?’
PART TWO
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Undine leaned her head against the car window, feeling the thrum of the engine vibrate through the frame of her bones. The scenery blurred past her half-closed eyes. The sameness, the dryness, struck her. The earth seemed parched and she was too, her tongue thick with salt.
Every now and then Lou glanced over at her. Undine sensed a nervousness in Lou. In all of them. She felt as if she was one of those brightly coloured boxes, the ones from which snakes on springs shot out when the box was opened. Everyone handled her with tentative care, waiting for the hidden surprise.
When she’d seemed to pass out again after speaking those first few words, Mim had wanted to call an ambulance. Skimming the surface of sleep, Undine let their voices wash over her. Lying there with her eyes closed, she thought she could prolong the in-betweenness of things, that she could remain partially gone. Inside her she could feel that old energy, the magic. It pounded relentlessly, filling her head with a savage white noise and she knew she was home.
‘How do we know she’s really here?’ she’d heard Trout whisper fiercely. ‘She might just vanish again.’
Undine had struggled back to full consciousness, forcing her tired eyes open. Lou was studying Trout as if trying to interpret the meaning of his question from the expression on his face. ‘She’s here,’ Lou had said, but her voice had faltered uncertainly. And Undine wasn’t sure herself. Her eyes closed again.
‘Of course she’s here!’ Mim said impatiently, clearly frustrated by inaction. ‘We need to do something.’
Undine felt a hand on her forehead, stroking back her hair. Grunt knelt down beside her. ‘Hey, you,’ he said.
‘Prospero?’ Undine asked him. She saw the look on Grunt’s face and she knew. You’re too late, Prospero’s voice whispered in her ear. I’m already gone.
‘That’s why we’re all here,’ Grunt said. ‘Your father died two weeks ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Undine murmured, but even she wasn’t sure if she was apologising to Prospero, who could not hear her, or to Grunt, who could. She turned her head to face the wall of the house, looking at the blistering paint, the weathered boards, and squeezed her eyes closed. Prospero was dead, but no tears came. The harshness of the sea and salt had left her dry.
‘How are you doing?’ Grunt asked softly. ‘Are you hurt anywhere?’
Undine shook her head. The magic roared. She wasn’t used to it anymore, she was used to quiet. Grunt touched her forehead and the noise relented a little.
‘Sore head?’ asked Grunt.
Undine looked at him. ‘I don’t want to go to hospital,’ she whispered.
‘Well …’ Grunt frowned and looked back at Lou. It wasn’t his decision to make, Undine knew.
‘She’s awake,’ he said.
No one heard him – they were still discussing amongst themselves whether or not to call an ambulance – and he said it again, louder: ‘She’s awake.’
They all turned to her and stared, stunned, as if, even though she was the subject of their discussion, they’d forgotten the actuality of her, the physical, bodily, impossible presence of her.
‘I don’t need an ambulance,’ Undine said, struggling to sit up. ‘I just want to go home.’
Mim wasn’t going to give it up. ‘I don’t think—’ She looked pleadingly at Lou. ‘You have to be reasonable.’
Trout barked a monosyllabic laugh, as if to say, ‘Reasonable? What about this situation – about Undine’s whole life – has been reasonable?’
> ‘She wants to go home,’ Jasper said, with a tired, elongated O. ‘I want to go home too.’ He leaned his head against Trout’s chest.
Jasper had seemed to decide all of them, even Mim.
Now he was asleep in the car, his mouth open, his breathing heavy. Mim sat in the back seat with Jasper. She had insisted that Undine take the front passenger seat though Undine would have preferred the back. She wanted to be a child, like Jasper, a world away from the driving, decision-making, direction-choosing, grown-up part of the car.
Undine met another of Lou’s furtive glances and offered a weak smile. Lou mirrored it. It was excruciating, the close confines of the car, the long journey and the silence, brittle and vulnerable as a shell.
They dropped Mim off at her house first.
‘I’ll call you,’ Mim said to Lou. And then she opened Undine’s car door and gave Undine an impulsive hug. ‘It’s so good to see you,’ she said, as though Undine had shown up in quite an ordinary way. Undine hugged Mim back. ‘Look after yourself,’ Mim whispered into Undine’s hair.
‘You too,’ Undine said. The rising dread she had been feeling ever since she’d arrived back in the world seemed to suddenly overwhelm her, and though it was time for the hug to end, Undine clung a moment longer. She was struck by a sudden, fleeting vision of Mim in darkness, alone. But of course, Mim was in fact light and bright in the sunshine. Mim waved, worried but smiling, as the car pulled away.
Lou turned into Myrtle Street and Jasper woke up, blinking sleepily.
‘Are you okay to walk up the steps?’ Lou asked Undine. Undine stretched out a leg. She felt bruised all over. Lou glanced towards the Montmorency house. ‘I can probably get one of Trout’s brothers—’
‘No. No!’ God. Richard or Dan carrying her up the stairs? Dan would probably want to throw her back down again. And Richard … ‘I’m fine.’ And she was. She stood up, and some of the bruised feeling went away. Undine had been right, the magic had protected her, carried her safely back to the Bay. She should have drowned, or been lost at sea, battered by the rocks, burnt by the sun. But here she was, whole, fine, walking up the steps, home.
Home. She had never realised how empty it would be without Stephen. It had never been so suddenly emptied of him before. After he had died, he had disappeared by degrees, over such a long time, traces of him remaining in corners of the house, flotsam settling in drifts on the sea’s edge. But this was abrupt, shocking. Yesterday this house had, for Undine, been full of Stephen. Now he was gone. He was really, truly gone. She looked at Lou coming in and detected the same emptiness within her. She saw Lou’s loss as if Lou was living it all at once – the entirety of his death, all the years of his absence, in one moment. How could Lou bear it? How could Undine, all over again?
‘Okay?’ Lou asked her, still holding Jasper on one hip, her bag on her shoulder and keys in hand. She managed to hold the front door open, as though Undine might want to leave if the house didn’t meet with her approval.
Undine nodded tightly, biting back her grief. ‘Do you want me to take something?’ Undine asked, and she held her arms out for Jasper. Jasper stared at Undine without saying anything, neither recoiling nor reaching forward as he might normally.
‘Oh no, I’m fine,’ Lou said, and for a moment Undine’s arms gaped emptily, then they sagged down to her sides. Lou shrugged her bag off her shoulder and put the keys down on the kitchen bench. She sat Jasper down on the bench too. ‘I’m hungry,’ Lou said. ‘What about you two? Do you want some lunch?’
Undine nodded. She watched her mother rummage through cupboards and the fridge, throwing together sandwiches with thin supermarket white bread, pre-sliced cheese and tomato. Jasper was silent, watching Undine with round, hollow eyes. Lou, Undine knew, was trying to cover silence up with food, first the busy preparation of it, then the consuming, filling silent mouths with reasons not to speak.
Observing her mother’s activity, Undine was adrift in the lounge room, as if the space she occupied was a ship and she was floating past an island inhabited by Jasper and Lou. In her mind she could hear herself saying: ‘This isn’t your place. You don’t belong here. You know you can’t stay.’
Trout eased the bike round to the back of the house. Riding home had been like travelling through a wormhole. He’d entered at the Bay and all of a sudden he was home, with only a hazy recollection of the ride.
He tapped on Reina’s window. She appeared almost immediately. She flung the curtain back, beamed at him and then scrabbled around with the lock on the exterior glass door. Trout felt a sudden rush of affection as she finally let him in.
‘Come and see what I’ve done!’ she said, grabbing him by the hand and pulling him inside. She ran up the stairs, still holding his hand. He was happy to be caught in her wake. ‘Look!’ Reina had finished mounting the photographs. They stood against the walls in the lounge room. She looked at Trout’s face.
‘Oh, Reina, that’s … wow.’ He blinked, trying to occupy the present though he felt part of him was still on the beach, surrounded by rocks, surrounded by her.
‘There’s more.’ She handed him a small booklet.
‘Beautiful Broken Things,’ he read out loud.
‘It’s an exhibition guide. We can change the title if you don’t like it.’
Trout opened it up. ‘Reina! Two hundred and fifty dollars? Each? I can’t charge that.’
‘I rang Mum and that’s what she said. She said part of being an artist is learning to value your own work. You know how much Mum loves your stuff.’
‘I know your mum is very polite about my stuff.’
‘Nah, she’s never polite about art.’
‘Anyway, this is all great. Thanks, Reina.’ Trout heard a hollow note in his voice and was annoyed with himself. He really did appreciate everything Reina had done, but in his mind he kept seeing Undine in Grunt’s arms, her head thrown back, the quick pulse at the base of her throat faintly visible.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Reina asked. She sounded a bit peeved at Trout’s palpable lack of interest – and fair enough too.
‘Oh it’s not that. It’s great, really.’ Trout tried to smile, but he couldn’t sustain it. ‘I’m sorry, Reina. It’s nothing to do with you.’
Reina’s dark eyes were wide and watchful. She waited, one of her eyebrows curled like a sideways question mark.
‘It’s Undine,’ Trout said, and her name seemed to draw all the breath from him. He closed his eyes. The curve of her lips, her long neck, her fluttering pulse … ‘She’s back.’
‘Back?’ Reina’s voice was quietly incredulous. ‘How can she be back?’
Trout was more baffled by the question than Reina. In this case, he thought, the more you knew, the less you knew. ‘She was missing. And now she’s not.’
‘At sea. She was missing at sea! People aren’t missing at sea for months and months and months. Where’s she been?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And she just …?’
‘I don’t know.’
Reina bit her lip. Quietly, she asked, ‘Are you okay?’
‘I don’t …’ He looked out the lounge room window. Usually the street outside was busy with pedestrian traffic, but at that moment no one was walking past. He could see the houses across the street and, between them, blue slivers of river shimmered. ‘No,’ he said. He pressed a finger against the bridge of his nose. He felt tears swimming in his eyes.
He walked across the room and looked down at one of the framed photographs, one of a dented metal teapot. He felt dented; he could still perform all his functions, he was whole but bruised, bent, showing his imperfections.
Finally he looked back at Reina, who was clasping her hands together in front of her, looking at her toes. She seemed paler. He remembered she used to be a ballerina and now she looked poised and kind of turned inwards, as if she was on stage, waiting for the music to begin.
Undine sat on the edge of her bed. Lou had apologised for the state of
her room, standing at the bottom of the stairs, fluttering her fingers together nervously. But still it had been a shock to find the space looking so different from how she remembered it. And so different from the room she had lain down in the night before.
At some point Lou had begun packing all Undine’s things away but had apparently lost heart for the project, because her room was cluttered with empty or half-filled boxes and there were things strewn on the bed, on her desk and the floor. Looking down on it now, it all looked like junk: books, soft toys, clothes, old bus tickets, half-used scrappy exercise books, a broken magnifying glass, posters pulled from the wall, a princess jewellery box, CDs … all the assorted ephemera that made up the bedroom of an ordinary girl. She didn’t need all this stuff, it didn’t mean anything.
She sighed and began picking toys up off the bed to clear a space, placing them neatly into an empty box. When she had filled one box she began another. And another.
‘Undine?’ Lou called as she climbed the stairs, her voice quavering on the second syllable. ‘Everything okay?’ Lou stood in the doorway. She looked past Undine at the straightened, emptying room and the growing stack of filled boxes. ‘What are you doing?’
Undine realised it might look to Lou as though she was packing. That was the last thing she had done in this bedroom, packed her things to go to Greece, choosing which things to take and what to leave behind, hesitating over this skirt, or those shoes, as if it mattered.
‘Just tidying up a bit,’ Undine said.
‘You don’t have to pack it all away,’ Lou said. ‘You’re home now.’
‘I know,’ Undine said quickly. ‘It’s just … some of this old stuff … I should have already done this, a long time ago.’
