‘Oh yeah?’
‘Young couple, you know, getting very frisky with each other... very frisky. Practically “en flagrante”..!’
‘In your dreams!’
He laughed delightedly.
‘Yeah, yeah, in your dreams you little munchkin!’
‘Eh? Honest it’s true! It’s true, it happens. I can see it now, it’s bound to happen! They’ll be splashing about there, you know, you’ll kind of cough, avert your eyes a bit.’
‘Mmm.’
‘And there’s a little kid scooting about on his skates all over the place. He’s gotta be careful he doesn’t get sand in ’em mind.’
‘That’s fun that.’
‘That’s right. And he’s talking to Jack, the old sailor. He’s sat on a great big barrel is Jack, wrapping his ropes around, sorting his ropes out.’
‘Oh yeah, they do that don’t they, fishermen.’
‘They do. Exactly. That’s the sort of thing they do when they’re not fishing,’ David grinned. ‘And, er, he’s got a pipe in his mouth, you know, not the little boy now, that’s the…’
‘Fair enough.’
‘…fisherman… and the little boy’s saying, “Tell us about the sea, mister. Tell us about the sea.’’’
‘Tell us about the sea!’ Marly laughed in mock disgust. ‘He’s not gonna say that is he?’
‘Course he is. He doesn’t know much. He’s never been to sea has he.’
‘He’d say: “Tell us about the critters in the sea.’’’
‘We-ell, I suppose he would…’
‘“Tell us about the octopussy,” he’d say.’
‘Yes, I suppose... no no, he’d tell him about the sea.’
‘Alright, carry on then, carry on.’
David made a noise somewhere between a snort and a cough. ‘He’d start puffing his pipe like that.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘‘‘I spent thirty years on thart sea there. Thirty years o’ my life on thart sea; and I tell yer what, I tell yer what, it’s a tough…”’
‘Is he Irish as well is he?’
‘No, no, no, he’s Cornish innit! My accent’s alright, it’s your hearing that’s funny.’
‘Yes, yes. Very good, very good!’
‘Puffing away on his pipe like a good’un he says: “I tell yer boy, it’s a tough life on the sea.” The boy says: “Tell us about the sea monsters then mister....’’’
‘Go on then, carry on.’
‘‘‘Oh, I tell yer, there’s some narsty sea monsters I’ve seen, the worst one bein’ the krarken!’’’
‘The kraken?’
‘The kraken, yes. He says: “The krarken... I was on the South China seas in my boat The Plimsole when…’’’
‘The Plimsole?!’
‘‘‘Thirty year ago. And I tell yer boy, I TELL YER, it was a right frightenin’ experience. There I was standing, I was Captain of The Plimsole, surveyin’ the surroundings, when all of a sudden a great slippery arm came up the side of the boat. And on the other side of the boat another great slippery arm came up. Then another three slippery arms came up each side of the boat: there were eight slippery arms! He was a giant octopus, that krarken, a great big giant octopus!’’’
Marly giggled.
‘‘‘He was I tell yer,’’’ excitedly. ‘‘‘He started rocking the boat and all the men were panickin’ but I didn’t, I didn’t, see….’’’
‘Course not!’
‘‘‘I kept calm, I knew what to do. We were transporting pepper see, we were transporting barrels of pepper that day to the South China seas….’’’
‘What they transporting pepper there for?’
‘They haven’t got it there that’s why,’ David replied in his normal voice. ‘Dear oh dear, you don’t trust me at all do you?’
‘No, carry on.’
‘Anyway, and he says: “I tell yer boy, I knew what to do. I knew the krarken had a very large nose so what I did was I said Come on Harry, get this barrel overboard. And we opened the top and we threw it overboard and all of a sudden his arms kind of started quiverin’, they started a quiverin’ on the side of the boat they did cos, you know, he’s affected badly, the krarken, by pepper… and he makes a sort of puffy noise and all of a sudden his arms flailed about and he went Awhoooshoo…!’’’
‘Didn’t that turn the boat over?’
‘‘‘I tell yer what it did boy, I tell yer what it did...’’’
‘What did it do?’
‘‘‘One minute we were in the South China seas...’’’
‘Yeah?’
David paused for dramatic effect. ‘‘‘Thirty seconds later we were in the South Indian seas, I tell yer! He sent us flying through the air he did!’’’
‘Bet he did!’
‘‘‘Honestly, I tell yer boy that’s the truth.’’’ And then in the little boy’s voice: ‘‘‘That’s a load of old rubbish mister!’’’
‘I bet he did,’ Marly laughed. ‘I bet he said that’s a load of old crap you fucking...’
‘‘‘That’s a load of old rubbish mister. There’s no such thing as a kraken.” “...I’ll kraken you round the head in a minute young boyo…. Run along my lad, run along...’’’
‘I bet he says you fucking nobhead doesn’t he.’
‘Well,’ David laughed, ‘he doesn’t say you fucking nobhead no. He’s not quite at that age yet!’
They dissolved into helpless laughter for a while and David took a sip of water from the lipstick-clouded glass by the side of the bed. Marly smiled dreamily and nestled her head in the crook of his arm. ‘You tellin’ the truth now?’ she asked, childishly hopeful.
‘That’s the truth yeah, that’s how it’s gonna be. It’s guaranteed see.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘And I’ll get myself a little job mending shoes just down the road. You can come in of a lunchtime, I’ll be sorting the soles out on a pair of alligator skin tips!’
‘Fair enough.’
‘So, you know, at the end of the day you shut up shop; you say: “Go away everybody. The shop is shut, it will not be open now...’’’
‘Do I live at the top of the shop?’ Marly asked suddenly.
‘Oh yeah, it’s a lovely little flat overlooking the sea. You’ve painted it up and you’ve got all your bits there...’
‘Is it big, the flat at the top?’
‘It’s a cute little flat, a cosy little flat, not cramped, not the sort of thing you’d give yourself a neck-ache standing about because the roof’s so small. You can stretch about in it, it’s very nice; and, you know, Snowdrop and Tipperary will be up there – they’ve got little baskets there.... And I come along from the shoe shop, me hands smelling of leather, I come up and you cook a nice little pasta meal for us, nice little pasta meal,’ he repeated, nudging her.
‘I see. I cook it up do I?’
‘Oh yes. Course you do! I’ve been slaving away in the shoe shop. I’ve been trying to nail some soles on, mush!’
‘I’ll nail a sole on you in a minute, darling!’
‘That’s not very nice is it? I mean I’ll do the washing up.’ His voice became gentler. ‘Anyway, at night we can go for a walk down to the beach can’t we. We can walk down the little cobbled street down onto the beach, Tipperary and Snowdrop following us. We can take our shoes off and run down to the sand, get the sand between our toes and have a little paddle in the water.’
‘Oh, it’s nice.’
‘You can feel the waves sort of lapping up; we watch the sun going down; listen to the seagulls squawking. We can go and stand there and hear the silence of the sea sort of coming at us.’ He took hold of her hand and they both lay very still. ‘I’ll hold your little hand, Tipperary will be down by my side, Snowdrop will be down by yours, paddling their feet. See that? And we’ll sit on the shore we will, watching the sun dipping itself into the water until it’s gone.’
She murmured something, her eyes staring.
He went on slowly, inte
ntly. ‘You can see the boats in the distance, you can… the ships going off to far flung lands, going off to America, going off to Africa, to China… Australia…. We’ll wave at them and they’ll wave back.’
‘We wouldn’t see them if it was dark,’ she pointed out in spite of herself.
‘We-ell, I mean they can. They’ve got fantastic equipment these days, these ships. They can see us and we can see them... sailing off….’ He waited for a moment.
‘And then late at night we can walk back home, back to your little flat. Snowdrop and Tipperary are rather tired now: they’ve had a busy day, you know, cos Tipperary’s been trying to get his fish, Snowdrop feels rather stuffed up with orange segments….’ They laughed together and the mood lightened. ‘So we walk back through the quiet streets and the only noise you can hear is like a piano being played and a sea shanty being sung down at the er... Lobster Basket on the corner. You can hear this sea shanty being sung about “The Krarken and how I fought with him!’’’
‘Oh yeah? How does that go then?’
David sang in a Cornish accent, ridiculous above the sheets.
‘I knew a kra-ken
And he tried to get me back-en
I’ll get him back-en
One of these da-ays.’
‘That’s a fucking good song innit? I’ve never heard such rubbish in me life. Call that a sea shanty?’
‘It’s a shea shanty of a short,’ he chanted.
‘It’s a shea shanty of a short.
It’s a shea shanty of a short!’
They collapsed into giggles and he went on as if winding up the story. ‘Then we go back to your door, you see, and in runs Tipperary and in runs Snowdrop; then you turn round and give me a kiss on the chops.’
‘Ah, nice that!’
‘It is nice that. You likes giving me kisses!’
‘Yeah, yeah, I do and I don’t.’
‘Eh? I thought you’d enjoy that bit.’
‘I did enjoy that bit.’
‘Anyway, you go upstairs, put Tippers to bed, give him a kiss and say goodnight little Tippers!’
‘Tippers!’
‘Goodnight little Snowers… give him a pat on the head, then you put your jim-jams on but before you hop into bed you stare out the window, see.’
‘Oh?’
‘Stare out the window up at the sky, the perfectly clear sky, looking up at the stars twinkling.’
‘Aaah.’
‘Looking for Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Ursa Middle...’
‘What ones are they then?’
‘Eh? They’re constellations ain’t they, I don’t rightly know do I? I don’t know much about it. Anyway, you’ll be looking up at them, watching their reflections twinkling on the sea.’
‘Lovely that,’ Marly yawned.
‘Then you hop into bed and have nice dreams about fish… and... paintboxes... and…’
‘The kraken?’ she murmured sleepily, turning onto her side.
‘No, not the kraken no,’ David replied, moulding his body round hers and tucking the blanket up high about her long cold neck. ‘He’s a bit frightening.’ And he lay there listening to her drifting peacefully off though his own head, too busy for sleep, sang songs and watched the headlights of cars as they passed like searchlights across the curtains; and waited for the dawn.
Part two: Between Scylla and Charybdis
Five
Terry lived in a very white house with a very red car parked outside. Too red, Marly always thought, for a spiritual man. The inside was no better: lots of bright clean spaces and thickly, discreetly carpeted floors for souls, no doubt, to lay themselves down and almost, but not quite, bare all. It might have been a cross between a mosque and a tea shop with its strange blend of smells, wails and murmurings from behind closed doors, its spiritual mumbo-jumbo on the walls (Go-with-the-sunshine Dr H cures Mr Kwon’s lumbago with crystals and acupuncture, love and light) redeemed in part by the certificate signed (by some meteorological society), sealed and under glass, of the ‘Terry & June’ star. It twinkled above the rest like a saint bathed in reflected glory and Marly often imagined two stars in twin beds, one of them tall, grey and thin with wide, vitiligoed arms, the other short, fat, rotund with a pink rinse and pearls. Unearthly pearls the colour of amethyst, unearthly pink rinse the colour of candyfloss or coral before it bleaches, before the algae flee it. Or maybe she just ate too many raspberries, being a nutritionist; it was known, after all, that too much beta-carotene turned you orange – like something out of the chocolate factory, Augustus Gloop was it, or Verruca Salt? What you ate had a profound effect, especially in fairy tales: drink me – spinach – fairy-moonface cakes. Eat your greens, it said – above Hello! magazines and appointment cards – and you’ll grow forearms like Popeye. Amazing what you believed in, thought Marly, stepping briskly up West Hill, her feet tapping out the rhythm of sea green mushy pea green jelly bean green greens, when you lost your faith in everything else. (Ivy chewing on pineapple skins, wrinkling like a crocodile; purple fingers mashing ’em up, smiling a crocodile smile.)
She swept in through the stained-glass porch, past the receptionist who stank of scent and always said: ‘May our wishes come true this month, this week, this afternoon’; and went to sit on the one remaining chair in the hallway, the other being occupied, astonishingly, by a delicate little dark-haired girl reading Black Beauty. Marly felt like saying, as she perched, clumsy, old and ridiculous, beside her, that the remainder bookshop in town sold hundreds of horse books – the Black Stallion series for a start. She knew because David brought one back for her each week wrapped up in a brown paper bag.... Only a quid, they were brilliant… about a boy who got stranded on an island with a horse; he fed him carrageen (it’s a seaweed) and learnt to ride bareback, his arms straight out like an aeroplane, into the waves.... But instead she sat there silent and staring at sunshine messages through superglued glasses, trying not to sneeze at all the scent in the air and listening to Terry’s voice coming from one of the darkly, discreetly, closely kept doors. What a danger his soul must be, she thought, privy to a hundred-and-one little secrets. What did he do all day with those fears, anxieties, sores and complaints? Did he feed off them in the thick, foetid air, a vitiligoed mushroom in a dark space; or did he leave them there, a shadowy mantle to be put on, put down and passed along, like some modern day Elijah or John the Baptist, his burden the psyche, sciatica, haemorrhoids, the curse.... She blinked at the sunshine through blue-tacked glasses, a migratory bird, twitchy, wanting to be off; overly conscious of the girl at her side and wondering why the longer the silence, the harder it was to break. The girl coughed and turned a page; and Marly shuffled uneasily around in her seat, trying to catch her eye so that it wouldn’t seem so abrupt when she asked, a little stupidly: is that Black Beauty?
‘Is that Black Beauty?’ at last, out loud.
‘Yes.’ The girl seemed quite unsurprised to be asked, totally composed and at ease with Marly’s proximity.
‘Oh, that’s a good book.’ How easy it was. ‘I love that book.’
‘I’ve only just started reading it,’ the girl explained, indicating the page she was on.
‘It’s a good book,’ Marly repeated. ‘The Black Stallion books are good too. Have you read any of them?’
‘No.’ The girl’s eyelashes splashed against her cheek. The tip of her nose, Marly noticed, was freckled.
‘They’re very good as well.... Have you got a horse?’
‘No... but I have riding lessons.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘I ride a horse called Tarka.’
‘Oh,’ smiled Marly. ‘What’s he like?’
‘He’s a chestnut with a sock,’ the girl announced proudly. ‘He can jump as high as three foot six!’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Marly enthused; and was about to get into a good old discussion of dapple greys, blue roans, cavaletti and palominos when the door opened and Terry came out saying ‘You’ll feel like a new woman,’ to a little, old, sad-looking woman
in a grey suit who disappeared through the stained-glass porch. He beckoned Marly in.
Smiling an apology at the girl, she went into the bay-windowed room to her seat in front of the old piano, wondering, as she always did, if he ever gave anyone a tune, for healing purposes of course. (Give us a tune, said the old Dad. Can you play Chopsticks, Érotique, the Waltz of the Blue Danube? My piano teacher used to get very close and talk about murders and bargains.) She took off her glasses from vanity or habit, folding them up in her lap, and everything became very vague like an impressionist painting. She knew there was a book of dreams on the table in front of her, described and interpreted Victorian style and a variety of cards from well-wishers and grateful patients; somewhere to her left, a suitcase filled with pills and poisons in differing potencies with strange names like Belladonna, Pulsatilla, Sepia and Natrum Mur; and best of all, on the wall opposite, a picture of a woman with a row of children behind her, all in the shape of a cross – the woman being the stem of the cross, the children its arms. Marly liked the picture very much. The woman had green eyes; and it reminded her of something out of a dream or a memory.
‘How have you been?’ Terry asked, settling himself into his black leather chair and smiling kindly.
Marly hesitated, staring at his bad gangster face with a myopic eye and wondering what to say. Sometimes she told him things quite unconnected with her illness, though never the whole story, never the full picture, despite his air of having heard it all before. She had a feeling he was more interested in affairs of the heart than in bowels and stools, headaches and depressions, his own having been quite broken as a young man near Wormwood Scrubs. He had an unflurried ease about him, as though he’d been surprised long ago, many times, and had now grown calm on a surfeit of wonderdom. And yet, she always thought, he also gave the impression of regarding the world with a perpetually raised eyebrow, like a newborn, as if to say that although he’d been here countless times and knew his way around the block, he was willing, even eager, to try it again by another route. ‘I’m learning too,’ he sometimes said, much to Marly’s dismay.
Seahorses Are Real Page 4
