by Jane Gardam
Now, beneath the waves the sea was similarly alight with glowing corals and brilliant sea-flowers and a bower was set up for the seventh mermaid and the prince and she danced with all the mermen who had silver crowns on their heads and St Christophers round their necks, very trendy like the South of France, and they all had a lovely time.
And the party went on and on. It was beautiful. Day after day and night after night and anyone who was anyone was there, and the weather was gorgeous—no storms below or above and it was exactly as Hans Christian Andersen said: ‘a wondrous blue tint lay over everything; one would be more inclined to fancy one was high up in the air and saw nothing but sky above and below than that one was at the bottom of the sea. During a calm, too, one could catch a glimpse of the sun. It looked like a crimson flower from the cup of which, light streamed forth.’ The seventh mermaid danced and danced, particularly with a handsome young merman with whom she seemed much at her ease.
‘Who is that merman?’ asked the prince. ‘You seem to know him well.’
‘Oh—just an old friend,’ said the seventh m., ‘he’s always been about. We were in our prams together.’ (This was not true. The seventh m. was just testing the prince. She had never bothered with mermen even in her pram.)
‘I’m sorry,’ said the prince, ‘I can’t have you having mermen friends. Even if there’s nothing in it.’
‘We must discuss this with the Sea Witch,’ said the seventh mermaid, and taking his hand she swam with him out of the palace and away and away through the dreadful polypi again. She took him past the last whirlpool to the cave where the Sea Witch was sitting eating a most unpleasant-looking type of caviar from a giant snail shell and stroking her necklace of sea snakes.
‘Ha,’ said the Sea Witch, ‘the prince. You have come to be rid of your legs?’
‘Er—well—’
‘You have come to be rid of your earthly speech, your clothes and possessions and power?’
‘Well, it’s something that we might discuss.’
‘And you agree to lose soul and body and self-respect if this interesting mermaid goes off and marries someone?’
There was a very long silence and the seventh mermaid closely examined some shells round her neck, tiny pale pink oyster shells each containing a pearl which would be the glory of a Queen’s crown. The prince held his beautiful chin in his lovely, sensitive hand. His gentle eyes filled with tears. At last he took the mermaid’s small hand and kissed its palm and folded the sea-green nails over the kiss (he had sweet ways) and said, ‘I must not look at you. I must go at once,’ and he pushed off. That is to say, he pushed himself upwards off the floor of the sea and shot up and away and away through the foam, arriving home in time for tea and early sherry with his wife, who was much relieved.
It was a very long time indeed before the seventh little mermaid returned to the party. In fact the party was all but over. There was only the odd slithery merman twanging a harp of dead fisherman’s bones and the greediest and grubbiest of the deep water fishes eating up the last of the sandwiches. The Sea King’s old mother was asleep, her heavy tail studded with important oyster shells coiled round the legs of her throne.
The five elder sisters had gone on somewhere amusing.
The seventh mermaid sat down at the feet of her grandmother and at length the old lady woke up and surveyed the chaos left over from the fun. ‘Hello, my child,’ she said. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Yes. The prince has gone. The engagement’s off.’
‘My dear—what did I tell you? Remember how your poor sister suffered. I warned you.’
‘Pooh—I’m not suffering. I’ve just proved my point. Men aren’t worth it.’
‘Maybe you and she were unfortunate,’ said the Sea King’s mother. ‘Which men you meet is very much a matter of luck, I’m told.’
‘No—they’re all the same,’ said the mermaid who by now was nearly fifteen years old. ‘I’ve proved what I suspected. I’m free now—free of the terrible pangs of love which put women in bondage, and I shall dedicate my life to freeing and instructing other women and saving them from humiliation.’
‘Well, I hope you don’t become one of those frowsty little women who don’t laugh and have only one subject of conversation,’ said the Sea King’s mother. ‘It is a mistake to base a whole philosophy upon one disappointment.’
‘Disappointment—pah!’ said the seventh mermaid. ‘When was I ever negative?’
‘And I hope you don’t become aggressive.’
‘When was I ever aggressive?’ said Senorita Septima ferociously.
‘That’s a good girl then,’ said the Sea King’s mother. ‘So now—unclench that fist.’
STONE TREES
So now that he is dead so now that he is dead I am to spend the day with them. The Robertsons.
On the Isle of Wight. Train journey train journey from London. There and back in a day.
So now that he is dead—
They were at the funeral. Not their children. Too little. So good so good they were to me. She—Anna—she cried a lot. Tom held my arm tight. Strong. I liked it. In the place even the place where your coffin was, I liked it, his strong arm. Never having liked Tom that much, I liked his strong arm.
And they stayed over. Slept at the house a night or two. Did the telephone. Some gran or someone was with their children. Thank God we had no children. Think of Tom/Anna dying and those two children left—
So now that you are dead—
It’s nice of them isn’t it now that you are dead? Well, you’d have expected it. You aren’t surprised by it. I’m not surprised by it. After all there has to be somewhere to go. All clean all clean at home. Back work soon someday. Very soon now for it’s a week. They broke their two week holiday for the funeral. Holiday Isle of Wight where you/I went once. There was a dip, a big-dipper dip, a wavy line of cliffs along the shore, and in this dip of the cliffs a hotel—a long beach and the waves moving in shallow.
Over stone trees.
But it was long ago and what can stone trees have been?
Fantasy.
So now that you are dead so now—
Sweetie love so now that you are dead I am to spend the day with the Robertsons alone and we shall talk you/I later. So now—
The boat crosses. Has crossed. Already. Criss-cross deck. Criss-cross water. Splashy sea and look! Lovely clouds flying (now that you are dead) and here’s the pier. A long, long pier into the sea and gulls shouting and children yelling here and there and here’s my ticket and there they stand. All in a row—Tom, Anna, the two children solemn. And smiles now—Tom and Anna. Tom and Anna look too large to be quite true. Too good. Anna who never did anything wrong. Arms stretch too far forward for a simple day.
They stretch because they want. They would not stretch to me if you were obvious and not just dead. Then it would have been, hello, easy crossing? Good. Wonderful day. Let’s get back and down on the beach. Great to see you both.
So now that you are dead—
We paced last week. Three.
Tom. Anna. I.
And other black figures wood-faced outside the crematorium in blazing sun, examining shiny black-edged tickets on blazing bouquets. ‘How good of Marjorie—fancy old Marjorie. I didn’t even know she—’ There was that woman who ran out of the so-called service with handkerchief at her eyes. But who was there except you my darling and I and the Robertsons and the shiny cards and did they do it then? Were they doing it then as we read the flowers? Do they do it at once or stack it up with other coffins and was it still inside waiting as I paced with portly Tom? Christian Tom—Tom we laughed at so often and oh my darling now that you are dead—
Cambridge. You can’t say that Tom has precisely changed since Cambridge. Thickened. More solid. Unshaken still, quite unshaken and—well, wonderful of course. Anna hasn’t changed. Small, specs, curl
y hair, straight-laced. Dear Anna how we sat and worked out all. Analysed. Girton. We talked about how many men it was decent to do it with without being wild and when you should decide to start and Anna said none and never. Not before marriage you said. Anna always in that church where Tom preached and Tom never looking Anna’s way, and how she ached. So now that—
Sweet I miss you so. Now that you are— My darling oh my God!
In the train two young women. (Yes thanks Anna, I’m fine. Nice journey. First time out. It’s doing me good. Isn’t it a lovely day?) There were these two women talking about their rights. They were reading about all that was due to them. In a magazine.
‘Well, it’s only right isn’t it?’
‘What?’
‘Having your own life. Doing your thing.’
‘Well—’
‘Not—you know. Men and that. Not letting them have all the freedom and that. You have to stand up for yourself and get free of men.’
We come to the hotel and of course it is the one. The one in the dip of the cliffs almost on the beach, and how were they to know? It’s typical though, somehow. We didn’t like them my darling did we, after Cambridge very much? We didn’t see them—dropped them in some way. We didn’t see them for nearly two years. And we wondered, sometimes, whatever it was we had thought we had had in common—do-good, earnest Tom, healthy face and shorts, striding out over mountains singing snatches of Berlioz and stopping now and then to pray. And you were you and always unexpected—alert, alive, mocking and forever young and now that you are—
But they were there again. In California. You at the university and I at the university, teaching a term; and there—behold the Robertsons, holding out their arms to save America. Little house full of the shiny-faced, the chinless—marriage counsellors, marriage-enrichment classes oh my God! And one child in Anna and one just learning to walk. We were taken to them by somebody just for a lark not knowing who they’d turn out to be and we said—‘Hey! Tom and Anna.’
And in Sacramento in a house with lacy balconies and little red Italian brick walls and all their old Cambridge books about and photographs we half-remembered, we opened wine and were very happy; and over the old whitewashed fireplace there was Tom’s old crucifix and his Cambridge oar. And I sat in the rocking chair she’d had at Girton and it felt familiar and we loved the Robertsons that day in sweaty, wheezing Sacramento because they were there again. This is no reason. But it is true.
We talked about how we’d all met each other first. Terrible party. Jesus College. Anna met Tom and I met you my darling and it was something or other—Feminism, Neo-Platonism, Third World—and there you were with bright, ridiculous, marvellous, mocking eyes and long hard hands and I loved you as everyone else clearly loved you. And the Robertsons talked sagely to one another. They were not the Robertsons then but Tom and Anna. We never became the anythings, thank God. There was no need because we were whatever the appearance might be one person and had no need of a plural term and now that—
Sweetie, do you remember the smell of that house? In Cambridge? And again in Sacramento? She liked it you know. She left dishes for a week and food bits and old knickers and tights in rolls on the mantelpiece and said, ‘There are things more important.’ Under the burning ethic there was you know something very desperate about Anna. Tom didn’t notice her. Day after day and I’d guess night after night. He sat in the rocking chair and glared at God. And meeting them again just the same, in Sacramento, you looked at the crucifix and the oar and at me, your eyes like the first time we met because there we both remembered the first time, long ago. Remembering that was a short return to each other because by then, by America, I knew that you were one I’d never have to myself because wherever you were or went folk turned and smiled at you and loved you. Well, I’d known always. I didn’t face it at first, that one woman would never be enough for you and that if I moved in with you you would soon move on.
Everyone wanted you. When we got married there was a general sense of comedy and the sense of my extraordinary and very temporary luck.
It is not right or dignified to love so much. To let a man rule so much. It is obsession and not love, a mental illness not a life. And of course, with marriage came the quarrelling and pain because I knew there were so many others, and you not coming home, and teasing when you did and saying that there was only me but of course I knew it was not so because of—cheap and trite things like—the smell of scent. It was worst just before the Robertsons went away.
But then—after California—we came here to this beach once and it was September like now, and a still, gold peace. And the hotel in the dip, and the sand white and wide and rock pools. And only I with you. You were quieter. You brought no work. You lay on the beach with a novel flapping pages and the sand gathering in them. We held hands and it was not as so often. It was not as when I looked at you and saw your eyes looking at someone else invisible. God, love—the killing sickness. Maybe never let it start—just mock and talk of Rights. Don’t let it near. Sex without sentiment. Manage one’s life with dignity. But now that you are dead—
And one day on that year’s peaceful holiday we walked out to the stone trees which now I remember. They told us, at the hotel, that in the sea, lying on their stone sides, on their stone bark and broken stone branches, were great prehistoric trees, petrified and huge and broken into sections by the millenia and chopped here and there as by an infernal knife, like rhubarb chunks or blocks of Edinburgh candy, sand coloured, ancient among the young stones.
Trees so old that no one ever saw them living. Trees become stone. I said, ‘I love stone,’ and you said, ‘I love trees,’ and kicked them. You said, ‘Who wants stone trees?’ And we walked about on them, a stone stick forest, quite out to sea, and sat and put our feet in pools where green grasses swayed and starfish shone. And you said—despising the stone trees—there is only ever you—you know—and I knew that the last one was gone and the pain of her and you and I were one again. It was quite right that you loved so much being so much loved and I am glad, for now that you are dead—
I shall never see you any more.
I shall never feel your hand over my hand.
I shall never lean my head against you any more.
I shall never see your eyes which now that you are—
‘The sandwiches are egg, love, and cheese, and there’s chocolate. We didn’t bring a feast. It’s too hot.’
‘It’s lovely.’
‘Drink?’
‘I don’t like Ribena, thanks.’
‘It’s not. It’s wine. In tumblers. Today we’re having a lot of wine in very big tumblers.’
(Anna Robertson of evangelical persuasion, who never acts extremely, is offering me wine in tumblers. Now that you are dead.)
‘It’s nice wine. I’ll be drunk.’
The children say, ‘You can have some of our cake. D’you want a biscuit?’ They’ve been told to be nice. The little girl pats sand, absorbed, solemn, straight-haired, grave like Tom. The older one, the boy, eats cake and lies on his stomach aware of me and that my husband has died and gone to God.
And you have gone to God?
You were with God and you were my god and now that you—
The boy has long legs. Seven-year-old long legs. The boy is a little like you and not at all like Tom. He rolls over and gives me a biscuit. I’m so glad we had no children. I could not have shared you with children. We needed nobody else except you needed other girls to love a bit and leave—nothing important. You moved on and never mind. I didn’t. I did not mind. The pain passed and I don’t mind and I shall not mind now that you are dead.
The boy is really—or am I going mad altogether—very like you.
The boy is Peter.
Says, ‘Are you coming out on the rocks?’
‘I’m fine thanks, Peter. I’m drinking my wine.’
‘Dri
nk it later and come out on the rocks. Come on over the rocks.’
See Anna, Tom, proud of Peter being kind to me and only seven. They pretend not to see, fiddling with coffee flask, sun-tan oil. ‘Wonderful summer,’ says Anna.
‘Wonderful.’
‘Come on the rocks.’
‘Peter—don’t boss,’ says Anna.
‘Leave your wine and come,’ says Peter, ‘I’ll show you the rocks.’
So I go with this boy over the rocks my darling now that you are dead and I have no child and I will never see you any more.
Not any more.
Ever again.
Now that you are—
It is ridiculous how this boy walks.
How Anna wept.
‘Look, hold my hand,’ says Peter, ‘and take care. We’re on old trees. What d’you think of that? They were so old they turned to stone. It’s something in the atmosphere. They’re awful, aren’t they? I like trees all leafy and sparkly.’
‘Sparkly trees?’
‘Well, there’d be no pollution. No people. Now just rotten stone.’
‘I like stone.’
He kicks them, ‘I like trees.’
And I sit down my love because I will not see you any more or hold your hand or put my face on yours and this will pass of course. They’ve told me that this sort of grief will pass.
But I don’t want the grief to change. I want not to forget the feel and look of you and the look of your live eyes and the physical life of you and I do not want to cease to grieve.
‘Look, hey, look,’ says Peter and stops balancing. ‘The tide is coming in.’ The water slaps. The dead stone which was once covered with breathing holes for life takes life again, and where it looked like burned out ashy stone there are colours, and little movements, and frondy things responding to water, which laps and laps.
