Seahorses Are Real

by Zillah Bethell

  She crept under cover of the trees, up the bank and out of sight of the fishermen with their prying eyes and sullen rods – she didn’t want anyone else telling her it wasn’t all that cold. She would go by the way of the horses. She didn’t always go by the way of the horses because, for a start, they weren’t always there – the gipsies spirited them away at night for months on end and then they suddenly appeared again one bright fine day, tethered to their spikes like goats; and staring at the M25 with their wall eyes, their white eyes, their frightened eyes and their oh-so-very-human eyes. And then again, she couldn’t always bear to look at them, their moth-eaten coats, scraggy tails and ribs sticking out all over the verge. At first she’d thought of going to the pet shop and buying them bran and oats to feed them up a bit but then she decided it’d be worse for them when she went away to live by the sea which she would do soon enough with or without David. They would stand there waiting for her and she would never come. Best not get their hopes up. Better to live without hope if you could. As a child she’d cared for a pony called Zany who’d slept in a stable of soft golden straw. She’d fed him Maltesers and blackberries in the summertime and he’d nodded his head up and down when he ate them as if to say thank you very much; sometimes he spat them out! Once, the girl who owned him told her to get him some sugar and she’d come back with a packet of granulated. ‘Lumps, you silly fool,’ the girl had shouted. ‘He’s not having a flipping cup of tea!’ In the dark recesses of her mind Marly had hoped the girl might get leukaemia, like Helen’s cousin, and then Zany would be up for grabs. It didn’t happen like that though; instead the girl just got bigger and bigger until she burst out of her jodhpurs and little riding jacket and got rid of Zany in exchange for a great big showjumper; it was rumoured Zany had gone for slaughter. Better to live without hope if you could... the sound of cars got louder in her ears as she approached the spot where the caravan always sat, its great big wheels like chocolate Wagon Wheels, its green-painted sides with the cream and silver chrome dancing horse and the piebald that stood, tethered to a wheel, sway-backed and staring at the sky. Her heartbeat quickened as she stepped across the rain-soaked grass, holding her long grey skirt up high and peeping through the trees in the hope of seeing some shape, colour, pattern, movement... ah yes, there he was, old Magpie as she called him, tethered to a wheel and staring at the sky as always, the green-painted sides more chipped than ever, the cream and silver chrome dancing horse yellowing with age. A grey pony stood a little further away, tethered to a wooden spike stuck in the ground, his body hunched up against the wind and cold rain. A dog barked sharply and Marly froze mid-step until a man’s voice silenced it; the grey pony flinched and startled at the end of his metal chain. She felt sick with disgust and her bare fingers trembled on the barbed wire that separated her from the road and scrubby verge. She’d seen them riding their horses one cold January morning, red-cheeked and wild-eyed, careering madly over the scrappy fields around the motorway, whipping their horses over little boulders, thistles and tree stumps, bare-backed and high-handed and she hadn’t been able to tell whether the horses were happy or simply frantic. The grey pony stumbled along the muddy track of his own strange carousel, straining to get at the grass that lay just out of reach. Even from where she stood she could tell he was stick thin, neglected, stunted as a windswept thornbush and no doubt full of tapeworm, ringworm, sweet itch, you name it.... He suddenly stopped and looked in her direction over the motorway – which must seem to him like a roaring river full of cars that swirled and snapped like crocodiles – stared for a moment as if he could see her through the trees then dropped his head again under the weight of the chain that went like a noose around his twiglet neck. The tears streamed down with the rain on her cheeks and she took off her glasses and turned away, trudging back the way she came. When would he get to his warm golden stable; that little lost grey pony? When would he get to his fields of praise?

  Twelve

  She fixed herself some scrambled egg and a cup of tea, flopped down on the sofa and turned on the television. Three hours to kill before David came home and ten minutes to go before the Oprah Winfrey show. It was still raining outside and quite cold in the flat so she pulled the red sleeping bag close about her legs, balancing the plate of scrambled egg on her knees and the cup of tea on the upturned cardboard box (put out many months ago to pack away her few remaining possessions for when she went to live by the sea – with or without David). If the worst came to the worst she could get a bus to Bluewater and look around the shops – that would while away an hour or so. She didn’t much like the shops – too much stuff, too many people and you had to beware the beauty counters – but she liked to follow the little river map on the floor, read the poetry on the walls about old father Thames who kept rolling along down to the mighty sea, and look at the statues carved out on the ceiling of gods and goddesses and strange mythical beasts. ‘That unicorn’s real,’ David had teased her once. ‘It’s stuffed, from a museum,’ and she’d almost believed him for a second! Sometimes they walked hand in hand just looking at everything, pressing their noses up to the glass like a pair of street urchins; sometimes they went to the cinema. She hadn’t seen many films before David, she’d preferred reading books because in books you could see what you wanted to see whereas films were right up there in your face and you couldn’t even pretend that the heroine looked like you! Now she loved the hot and stuffy popcorned darkness, the people all crammed together, crunching and swearing and giving little running commentaries on the film. Once they’d seen a film and the old man sitting behind had kept asking ‘Has it begun yet?’ He just sat there the whole way through waiting for the film to begin. That’s how he got through a ton of popcorn and ice cream – just waiting for the film to begin, though it never did for him. It must be like waiting for death, Marly had thought, when you’re as ancient as he; life was the adverts, the popcorn and the ice cream; death was the feature film.... She sipped her tea, stared at the rain and wondered if the Christmas rush had started. Quite possibly. It seemed to get earlier and earlier every year – soon no doubt they’d have jingle bells dashing through the snow in the middle of the summer holidays. The Dartford town centre already had its Christmas lights up and the shops were merrily belting out the merry Christmas tunes. Last year Santa’s grotto had opened up on October 5th – she’d made a mental note of it because it had seemed so foolish. You could even get Christmas crackers in the January sales for the following year though you might not live that long, you might not even be here. (No wonder the old man in the cinema was confused. Come to think of it, he’d probably been talking about Christmas!) She understood the feeling though, of getting things done earlier and earlier – occasionally, when David went home to visit Anne and Michael effing Angelo, she ended up having her supper at 4 o’clock in the afternoon! If she’d had a cat she’d have put him out for the last time at 11am, the poor thing. Give her a few years and she’d be buying her crackers in the January sales with the other bargain hunters, just to be sure she had them in time, safe and tucked away in the cupboard under the stairs with the dusty fairy lights that never seemed to work and the second-hand bits of old wrapping paper she thought might come in useful. (How very much like her mother she could be.) ‘My life’s just an old Christmas cracker,’ David had muttered last year in his Harold Steptoe voice, after too much rum punch and too many mince pies, ‘tear me apart and all you get is a bad joke, silly hat, plastic moustache and bangless bang!’

  The Oprah show was on. They were doing a quiz about relationships – very simple, just five easy questions, yes or no answers, the expert said, and you would know if he or she was the one. Marly leaped up, grabbed a pen, paper, library book and cushion to lean on, flopped back down on the sofa and peered at the television, listening for all she was worth.

  ‘Is he reliable?’ the expert began, standing next to Oprah Winfrey and articulating very clearly.

  Oh yes, thought Marly. He was reliable as mud, predictable as
sticky toffee pudding, banoffee pie. He was reliable alright.

  The man paused for effect and looked around at the audience as if he could tell they were ready for the next one. ‘Does he satisfy you sexually?’

  Er... yes, after a fashion, in a manner of speaking, more or less she supposed that he did though she wasn’t much bothered about that sort of thing; it was more important to her that he treated her right and she could tell him pretty much almost anything.

  ‘Do you feel that you fit together?’ the man went on quite solemnly as if he were singing his way through a psalm.

  What d’you mean ‘fit’ Marly shouted at the television and Oprah smiled back at her, cool as a cucumber in her long white flowing gown. For heaven’s sake, man, what on earth do you mean by ‘fit’? Fit together like a jigsaw puzzle? My arm here, his leg there, the wart on the end of my nose in the middle... Golden Couple on Sunset Boulevard? Domestic Harmony at 120A East Hill? She reached the crease at the bottom of his chin and could rest her head in the crook of his neck if that was any good, in that sense she fitted him, strangely fitted him.

  ‘Has he stuck by you through thick and thin, through the valleys and the shadows, the bad times and the testing times?’

  She sighed and supposed that she had to admit he’d stuck to her like superglue – though sometimes she’d wanted to prise him off and now he was starting to use his fists....

  ‘Would you be unable to cope if he wasn’t around?’

  Of course she wouldn’t be unable to cope. Who on earth did they think she was? She could cope on her own easy peasy lemon squeezy – and she would have to soon enough when she went away to live by the sea with or without him. (But you have no financial capability, he had said when she’d raised the question of leaving.) Any­one could cope on their own if they had to, it was simply a mindset, a hardening of attitude. Of course she wouldn’t be unable to cope....

  ‘Hallelujah, count your scores!’ the man suddenly cried in apparent jubilation. One or two people tittered, others cheered (they were always cheering on the Oprah Winfrey show) and Oprah’s teeth gleamed in delight. ‘If all your answers were NO then I have to tell you you’re with the wrong person.’ The relationship expert shook his head, suddenly sorrowful. ‘What are you doing with this guy? You’re on crazy street with Mr Crazy and you gotta get outa there.’

  There were several groans from the audience and Oprah smiled sympathetically. ‘We’ve all been on crazy street,’ she said gently. ‘We’ve all been there.’

  ‘Sure have,’ the expert agreed.

  ‘You just gotta get the crazy bus outa there!’ she quipped.

  ‘You betcha!’

  They smiled at each other under the lights then turned to the audience. The expert was about to continue when the camera shifted to a middle-aged woman in the audience who was standing up to ask a question. She was shaking nervously under the spotlight and seemed particularly excitable. ‘What if you got the bus outa there and ended up back on crazy street with another Mr Crazy? For twenty year I been…’

  ‘Just keep riding those buses ma’am,’ the expert said quickly, smiling broadly. ‘Ride ’em all the way along to Kansas if you have to. There’s some real nice folks live up there.’

  The audience erupted into spontaneous applause and the woman sat back down looking dazed.

  ‘Well now,’ the man continued, stroking his moustache, ‘if you got a coupla NOs then it may well be you’re with the one before the one, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘No I do not,’ Marly shouted again at the TV. You could go on forever and a day like that: the one before the one before the one before the one.

  ‘And if you got one NO or less...’ he paused again for effect.

  That’s me, thought Marly in suspense.

  ‘Then I suggest...’

  ‘What, what?’ she cried, leaning forward and almost knocking over the empty cup on the cardboard box. There were one or two stifled whoops and hollers from the audience.

  ‘I suggest that you…’

  Oh for goodness sake, man, get on with it.

  ‘Book the church!’ he cried at last, punching the air with his fist. ‘Book the church!’ The audience went wild – throwing slips of paper about the place, cheering, hugging each other, stamping their feet.... The expert kept punching the air with his fist, egging them on. It was obvious the whole thing had gone to his head. ‘Just take that crazy bus round to the minister’s house,’ he shouted, ‘and book that goddamned crazy church!’

  It looked like Oprah Winfrey was trying to calm him down when they cut to the commercial break.

  Book the church, Marly wrote on the little scrap of paper, giggling to herself at the expert’s antics. She doodled a heart and a childish D 4 M then scribbled them out again in embarrassment, her nose almost touching the page it was getting so dark in the flat. She wouldn’t go up to Bluewater, she decided, after all, what with the Christmas rush and everything it would be too packed. She would stay right here, quite quiet in the flat, listening to the rain drumming on to the roof and waiting for David, perhaps a snooze in the red sleeping bag, another cup of tea, an afternoon film. She spun herself round until she lay lengthways along the settee, propping her head up on a cushion, turning off the television and closing her eyes. It was a relief to know that she didn’t live on crazy street and David wasn’t a Mr Crazy (though he used his…). He might not be a Mr Right but he was at the very least a Mr Reasonably Okay. (Was that what Terry meant by accepting?) How could she ever have doubted it? Had she been blind? It wasn’t too late to turn it all around. It wasn’t impossible that she could be well. If they went away to live by the sea who knows what could happen. They might even get married in a crazy church – she could see it now: Michael effing Angelo ridiculous in a top hat, Anne with her painted toenails and her father... well, her father wouldn’t come but they would be married nonetheless in a church full of flowers and prayer books in Ariel boxes (at Ivy’s funeral the prayer books had all sat in Ariel boxes) and crazy Roman candles that lit up the stained-glass windows – what a lot of scrubbing the choir boys must do. They would go this very weekend and pick out a gown at the bridal shop in Bluewater, with the other young couples that sauntered by, the girl always dragging the boy by the arm and saying ‘Isn’t that dress beautiful?’ and the boy saying ‘No, I think it’s horrible’, not having a clue what she meant, not having a clue what lay in store. Amazing how you got swept away by the dream – you’d practically take a gnome up the aisle for the most beautiful dress in the world; and yet you’d give it all up for the greatest man on earth. David wasn’t the greatest man and nor was she the greatest girl but they might do very well far away from the little grey wounded street. If they lived in a cottage on top of a cliff with roses round the door and honeysuckle creepers; a cottage with a washing machine and cookery books, wooden floors and patchwork quilts and a gate that led to the path to the beach.... Ah yes, there she was, racing down the cliff-top path, picking flowers as she went with no Hades in sight, just acres and acres of clean white beach where David sat building sandcastles with a sturdy robust little boy with roses in his cheeks. The sky so blue as if it had just been washed by an enterprising set of little angels – what a lot of Ariel they must use... her hair, her skin, her eyes so clear and bright, her legs so tanned as if she’d just stepped out of a TV advert, the three of them strolling hand in hand, catching the rays and counting the seahorses on the waves. How they plunge and dance – she points them out to her son – graceful as the Ballet Rambert. How their manes glitter up in the sun, like lots and lots of granulated sugar... she is mixing them bran mashes in the kitchen full of cookery books! She is teaching the boy to play Bach and he plays – how strange – with purple fingers. She is sleeping safe and warm and tight underneath the patchwork quilts for there are no sad ghosts here. Only happy ghosts haunt the cottage with the roses and the honeysuckle creepers.

  She woke up with an hour or so to go before David came home. It was almost
completely dark in the flat and she groped for the lights, feeling her way into her slippers as she went. There were sounds of thumping from down below and she figured Jason was back already though normally he was quiet as a mouse, peering through his optical lenses no doubt or stroking his golden fleece. She turned the radio on to drown him out and set to work about the flat. She would have it spick and span for when David came home... he would be so pleased. Her mind was quite clear after her short nap and a vague sense of contentment still clung to her. They would soon be away from this little grey street! She polished and dusted, hoovered and hummed, occasionally breaking into song along with the radio when she knew the words. She just did things that needed to be done, without thinking or feeling and it was good to act without thinking or feeling: she repositioned the rat trap, dusted a small ornament, rinsed out a peanut butter jar. She prepared a little pasta sauce (à la David) with lots of mushrooms and onions, courgettes and tomatoes – just the way he liked it. She dug out the Limes application form from her bag, settled herself at the table and meticulously read through it. The anglepoise lamp got quite hot against her cheek as she strained her way through the questions, putting down answers she thought they wanted to hear and struggling to fit her large unwieldy writing into the small spaces; though at the end there was a great big space to fill and she didn’t have a clue what to say.

  ‘What qualities do you think you would bring to the job?’ She sucked her pen, stared at the walls, nipped back and forth along the tiny corridor to check the pasta wasn’t boiling over and still didn’t know what to say. In the end she wrote: ‘I have great sympathy for others,’ and then, to fill the space: ‘My grandmother is very old and my mother died in traumatic circumstances.’ It was a fair point to make, she felt. It showed she had an under­standing of the mad, the flawed, the senile and the useless (she being all four)! She knew their fear, hopelessness, dissolution and constraint. She sealed up the envelope, put it on the chair to post then went back to her random little acts of cleaning. She bustled about quite merrily, spotting one job to do after another and another. The more she did, the more she spotted what needed to be done; but it was good to act. They would soon be away from this little grey street! Her future sparkled up at her like a bright new shiny pin as she fluffed and hummed with her dusters and dishcloths.