The Silver Dark Sea

by Susan Fletcher

  Kitty and the Jellyfish

  Dawn, eight years ago. On the dark, reflecting sand of Lock-and-Key there were wading birds and small, translucent crabs that skittered, and hid. The sea had left its marks – ridged, compacted sand. She felt it, in the arch of her foot. When she pushed down, the sand seemed to whiten with her sudden weight.

  A woman with midnight hair. She had twists of scarlet in it, and her hair was long – down to her waist. She wore a long, red dress – last night’s dress, for she had not slept or been to bed – and she had to lift her hem as she walked down the wooden steps. She knew nothing of beaches. She had never walked on a low-tide beach before and so she crouched at rock pools, bent down for shells. Her shoes were hooked on her fingers; she swung them as she trod over the mirrored sand.

  Her name was Katherine, and the night before she had danced in the fields for midsummer’s night. A local man asked her why have you come here? To Parla? He’d been handsome – tall, a shy smile. The cider had made her bold so that she’d looked him in the eyes and said to meet you, perhaps.

  That was the start of a story. What a fine start, too – bold, so that the listener might widen their eyes and say really? She said that? And Kitty smiled, as she walked – at her boldness, at the Parlan man who’d thumbed the hem of her red dress as if red was not a colour he knew. She picked up a stone that was perfect, sea-round: this will always remind me of now.

  And this: a jellyfish. Near the water’s edge she found it – sitting fatly and symmetrically, as if it had been placed there. Blue – but not an earthly blue; it was milky, opaque, lunar in some way, and its skirts were lined with a darker shade. She trod around it. Is it still alive? Can it survive, on sand? If not, should Kitty lift it up and carry it out to the sea? She considered this, but did not. Instead she thought, wistfully, it is just how things are … and she crouched beside this creature, gluey and round like an eye.

  I’ve never seen such a life as this … And as Kitty crouched in her backless dress, she realised that she wasn’t really meant to – no human eye was meant to see this jellied globe of life. It was designed for depths. It was meant to clench its way through a darkness that she would never know of, and perhaps only an hour ago it had been doing just that – rhythmic, beautiful. An hour ago, where had she been? In a hay barn with a man called Nathan Bundy – and no jellyfish was meant to see what they had done.

  It amazed her, as the whole island had.

  Kitty had come to Parla for a weekend, hoping for nothing but time on her own – peace, a place to recover from a failed relationship, to begin to mend from it. Just that. She hadn’t predicted Nathan. She hadn’t predicted a man looking at her as he had, or feeling what she now felt. She’d never imagined a jellyfish left on the sand.

  Later Kitty learnt this: that the creature she saw that morning had had no heart of its own. No brain, no blood, no stomach, no bones, no eyes or ears. She frowned, at hearing this. Then how could it be a creature? When it lacked as much as it did? And Kitty liked it less, for a time. But then she quickly pitied it. She thought of how she had clung to Nathan, not caring that hay-seeds were in her hair or that twine was rubbing the back of her thigh or that someone might find them or that this act – this impulsiveness – was not her sort of thing … She had grasped him, kissed him, and it was her heart that was making her feel like this – breathless, sore in the loveliest of ways. Poor jellyfish, then. To have no heart. To live a heartless life in a silent dark.

  * * *

  Kitty stands where she did, eight years ago. No red dress. There is grey in her hair, lines by her eyes.

  And no jellyfish. The sand on which she’d found that bag of milky blue is bare – unmarked, save for twine and plastic bottle tops. It is a long time dead, of course. It had been dead, no doubt, as she’d bent over it and considered its firmness, its halo of skirts in their different shades of blue. Is anything left of it? Probably not. No bones to unlock as the flesh gives way: nothing to clink down to the floor.

  No heart. No ache.

  She wants to laugh. If she does not laugh she will cry, and so Kitty bunches her mouth into a smile and looks up. I’d pitied it … She remembers that so clearly – pitying the jellyfish for it could never feel what she had been feeling at that moment; it would never know what she had known the night before and she’d said goodbye to the dead jellyfish as if she’d been the lucky one. She’d walked backwards, barefoot. Goodbye … Swinging those high heels.

  Fool. Things change. She should have guessed at it – that an adult life is not row upon row of sex on hay bales and it is not fireworks and it’s hard to stay in love. How she’d been as she’d walked on a beach at dawn – flushed, newly opened, still smelling of him – had been exceptional, magical. How could it have lasted? That hope? Being so alive?

  So yes, she pitied the jellyfish, then. But there have been moments since when in fact she’s envied it. Who could not, sometimes, envy it? She longed to just exist. To move without thought, or feeling. Just to have a languid, rhythmical life where no-one else could find her, where her life was easy – where she could simply be.

  * * *

  Nathan has not forgotten. He remembers that night, too – the dust that came off the hay, the way she’d held his gaze and said maybe to meet you.

  Eight years. And he knows nothing of the jellyfish. He has no idea that his wife ever saw it and hasn’t quite forgotten it; he does not know how its meaning has changed for Kitty over time. Once, it was proof of what she had found; now, it’s proof of what she doesn’t have.

  He sits at the back of High Haven. He turns his wedding ring over and over. This – his ring – is his version of it: it was love, at first. It was love without end. Now he feels broken to look at it. She deserves better … Always did. Hasn’t everyone he’s loved deserved much better? He says Kitty and he closes his eyes. Eight years on, and his heart still gives its own clench in the darkness to hear her name – just to hear her name spoken or to see it written down.

  Ten

  The day after my tears, Hester came to me. The Morning Star had docked and she was dropping mail off, as she sometimes did – door to door. So – have you heard?

  Heard what?

  The pig farm? Our Fishman can use a hammer … And I felt her eyes on me as I took my mail, smiled.

  Yes, everyone knew. He’d taken Kitty’s tools on a Wednesday afternoon; within twelve hours it was known as much as all truths are. And perhaps it was the newness of it, or the thought of seeing inside Tavey when it had been locked up for ten years or more, or maybe it was the fact that the Fishman would now be visible – no longer mostly at Lowfield but out in the sun, shirt off, working hard – or something else entirely: who knows? But people were intrigued. What will he do with it? What state is it in? As I passed the shop I heard Milton say that place must have some view from it … I said nothing. I kept walking whilst thinking yes. It does.

  I stayed away for two days. I lifted up lobster pots, lowered them back down; I looked at the gold ring on my left hand.

  But others went. Tabitha, of course. She called out knock-knock, left her shoes by the door. She moved through its rooms, remembering – for she’d been in Tavey when she’d been younger; she’d played in its fields, when the pigs had gone. This place, the nurse said, could be wonderful … She fingered its walls, sat on its bed. And later, she brought over candles, cushions and a rug for the floor. A feminine touch … That’s all.

  Ian went. Him, of all people. I saw him walk with purpose; he carried a hand-saw – orange-handled, with a plastic guard that covered the saw’s teeth – and he gave no greeting or polite exchange. He merely said this is better. Nathan’s saw is … A wave of the hand, dismissing it. Blunt. Old. Useless, frankly. If you want to saw wood, saw it with that. Ian who did not trust this man; Ian who had few words.

  And Nan. I was walking near Litty when I heard her – a wild, shrill yee-arr! that sent up a herring gull, and pricked the sheepdog’s ears. I shielded my eyes.
What is …? And I saw Nan swinging onto the Fishman’s back. She yelled stand up! I’ll be so tall! He rose very slowly. He grew, and grew, so that Nancy gripped his shirt, laughed a fast, delighted laugh and it was at that moment that I thought I can trust him. It came, as I watched them: yes, I can. For she laughed with joy – a laugh I had not heard on this island for far too long. And he was so gentle with her when he set her down. I was moved by it. I put my fingers to my mouth and kept them there. Had I seen this before? This moment? It felt tender, recognised. But I knew I had not seen this; it was the first time I had seen this happen, in my life.

  Nan, in her blue dungarees. Bossy, radiant Nan.

  Having dismounted, she took his arm and shook it. The air was filled with her happy chant of again, again, again, again, again!

  * * *

  Leah wears a flowered top and jeans that are rolled to the knee. Grasses brush her shins; she feels the wind against them. Still the north wind. Still the bathroom vent’s tut-tut.

  She takes the coastal path, and glances down. The sea is calm as it has been for over two weeks now; she has seen the sea far wilder than this. She’s seen a wave so vast that when it came towards her she’d thought it is alive – a real, breathing, sentient thing that had its own intentions. She’d thought it comes to take me – and it had terrified her. Made her go indoors.

  The sea scares her far less, now. She is proud of this, as she realises it. But she still is not ready to walk on Lock-and-Key.

  The Fishman has dust in his hair and beard. He holds a nail in his mouth which he takes out as he straightens up. Come in.

  Thought you might need some help.

  He smiles. You want to help? There are jobs if you want them …

  She steps closer. What are you doing to it?

  Not much – it does not need too much.

  Finding its former glory?

  Something like that. He glances around them. I reckon it was lovely, once.

  Piggy. Pig-smelling.

  Maybe. He smiles. But the views …

  There are cobwebs, bird droppings. In the corner there is dust that is blue-coloured, hairy, and it makes a rough, singular movement away from Leah as she passes by it. She can remember Tavey before it was boarded up. She remembers the tourists who came and went – binoculars knocking against their chests, or with wetsuits hanging out to dry. Is it for you? Will you live here?

  No. I can’t really stay.

  No? Why not?

  It’s not where I come from. He smiles. I know that much, at least.

  Leah says can I say something? About you? I know your memory’s gone. And I know that it’ll come back. And I know there are people on Parla who want to know what your name is and how you came to be here. But I think, maybe, that I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear you’re a lawyer or a dentist who fell overboard or some guy who swam from Utta for a dare, or … She shrugs. My dad says you’re just playing us. And I hate that. I hate that he says it. I want you to know that it wouldn’t make me happy – to have that as the truth.

  She can’t explain it better. Leah cannot put this into words. It would take too long and too much out of her to talk of her illness, the weight she bears, the way she misses her uncle even now. She does not try. Nor does Leah want an answer from this man; she had asked him no question so how could he answer? She wants no explanations. She has no wish to learn what caused the circular scar on his hand or why he says sea … She likes what she has chosen to believe: that he is the Fishman. She likes the wild, impossible, beautiful truth she has decided upon – that he says sea because he misses it; that the scar was caused by a squid’s beak or a conger eel and that those huge, broad hands of his have spent years underwater, fingers fused together and pulling his body through the dark.

  She starts to sweep. A small job but it helps. She pushes the blue-coloured dust into the light. Neither of them speak. What can he say? She’d said be the Fishman. Stay the Fishman, please – and he’d blinked at Leah, given a single nod.

  * * *

  Kitty stands at the quayside. Her eyes are rimmed in kohl. She is going to the mainland for two days and by her side she has three canvases that are padded and wrapped up. Please, she tells Ed, be careful with them … She watches as he carries them into the wheelhouse. Safe, he assures her, and sound.

  Rona, too, is there. She hands five airtight boxes to George, who carries them on board. Lemon sponge, apple tarts, a tiered chocolate cake.

  They look sinful – gorgeous … Kitty tells her.

  Maggie has been on Pigeon. She leaves her lobsters on the quayside, in their plastic crate.

  After this, she goes to Tavey. She steps in to find Leah, who has a broom in her hand and a cobweb in her hair.

  Hi.

  Hey, Leah. Is –?

  Yes. He’s outside. Leah tries to hide her smile – a tiny, understanding one.

  Maggie and the Fishman do not go very far. They only walk to the small shingle beach, look out at the water.

  Merme is out there, somewhere.

  He tries the word, considers it. Where Abigail is from.

  Her mother was. You know?

  I’ve met her. Seen her book.

  Ah … Maggie smiles. Of course you’ve seen the book.

  And he listens as she talks about the stories: not the ones in Folklore and Myth, but the others that she knows, the ones that have not been written down – of the whale that answered the foghorn, the gannets that give the fish they’ve caught to the people they like, as a gift. On Say, there was a woman who cried so much that the gulls took pity on her, and cried on her behalf. It’s why they sound as they do – the gulls. She shrugs. I like that tale.

  He wants her to say more than this. He wants to hear all her stories – hers. Of the child she was. Of the dreams she had. What she loves – he wants a list of them to keep. And in turn, the Fishman longs to sit Maggie down and tell his own stories – of brine, of pain, of a flashing light over a night-time sea.

  He wants to lay his own gifts in her lap – not silver fish, but words. But what does she believe in? She will not believe in my words.

  Maggie likes how he looks, today. He is browning with sun; the lines by his eyes look deeper, as if he’s smiled more. When she shows him how to skim stones – bent knees, a fast wrist – she likes how his forefinger curls so neatly round that stone. Snug.

  When you start to remember – your name, or your story – will you tell me?

  The wind catches a strand of her hair. He takes it, smoothes it back and says you will be the first person I tell.

  * * *

  To the north, a girl with an ankle bracelet and a floured apron picks up her mobile phone. She leans back against the oven door, begins to write a message. She has the low, tight feeling in her belly that she has with eagerness or simply with the thought of him.

  Saw K leaving. How long for? Can you stay tonight?

  She pushes the phone across the worktop and looks out of the window. It had been hard to see her – hard to be standing next to her. When Rona had first seen Kitty this morning, in her long grey dress with a navy trim and a fabric lily pinned into her hair, her first thought had been she knows; she is leaving because Nathan’s told her. But then she saw the small overnight bag, the three rectangular shapes wrapped up in brown paper and heard Kitty laughing, so that Rona thought no, she isn’t leaving. No, she still doesn’t know.

  Guilt. Like a hole that she knows is there, always, and yet tries to tread round. Don’t think of it. Don’t think of it.

  Think of him, not her.

  * * *

  Jim can hear a hundred things. He hears stash … stash … he hears the gull above him. He hears his own belly and it is asking him for food. Also, Jim can tell that the Lovegroves’ cat is here, reaching up from the grass and padding at the bells. Jim can hear the new, uneven sing-sing-sing so that he knows exactly where she is. She will soon grow bored. She will start to groom herself, or lie down in the shade.

 
He can’t remember the last time that Abigail mentioned the old pig farm. Years have gone by without its name being spoken. If Abigail has ever mentioned Tavey, it has only been in passing – as she gave directions to a tourist or talked about the voles which live near there. It has been lost to her, perhaps.

  Jim knows why she does not discuss it. Tavey has its stories. It has seen things, as she has, that she has no wish to talk of. Tavey. Once, before they married, Abigail whispered into his ear what Tavey had been to her, as a child. I used to hide there … We all did. And it troubles Jim enough – the mere thought of his wife, aged eleven or twelve, choosing to hide inside those half-moon shelters with the pigs and their pig stench. It troubles him – so how must it have been for her? Her, who did the hiding?

  He said what were you hiding from?

  But he knew. Her father was Jack Bundy Senior who Jim knew – they all knew – treated his sheepdog better than his wife. Mercy lost a tooth for every year. She would cover her mouth when she spoke, in the end. And so when she died Jack Senior must have looked elsewhere.

  No-one would think to look in a pig sty … And so she told him how they’d charge over the fields – Jack, Thomasina, and the puffing Abigail – and clamber in amongst the pigs, amongst the mud, urine, kitchen scraps, bristled skin and excrement. They’d try to breathe quietly. They’d sit in a line with their knees to their chests and hear their names shouted over the fields. Don’t you try to hide from me!

  Afterwards, they always swam. They’d swim fully clothed to wash the dirt away and hang their clothes on the back of kitchen chairs at night so the fire might dry them as they slept. Jim hated this knowledge. He had always known that Abigail’s scent was her own sweat and a little wood-smoke and now he knew why. How often? How long? What happened if they did not run fast enough? Too many questions which he never asked, and he has no wish to ask her now.