In Her Wake

by Amanda Jennings

  ‘Anyway, I pleaded for him to change my tail for legs so I could go and find her. Well, now it was his turn to cry.’

  ‘Too sad to see you go?’

  I nod. ‘But he could see it was what I really I wanted, so he gave me a special magic potion to make my beautiful tail vanish and a pair of legs appear in its place.’

  ‘Is that what you’re drinking now, the potion. Does it keep your tail from popping back?’

  I laugh. ‘It does. It keeps the pain away too, because even though he warned me it would be like a hundred needles stabbing—’

  ‘A thousand.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said it was a thousand needles stabbing.’

  ‘Did I? Well, it’s lots anyway and it hurts, but the potion helps, because you can’t imagine what all those needles stabbing at you all the time feels like. It’s really sore.’

  She grimaces and looks warily at my legs.

  ‘So here I am. On land. A real mermaid.’ I smile at her and take another drink.

  ‘Did you find your mother?’

  The smile falls from my face. ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Was she very happy to see you?’

  ‘She was almost dead from sadness.’

  The little girl gasps with shock. ‘Will you stay with her or will you go back to the sea?’

  I shrug and shake my head. ‘That’s what I’m trying to work out.’

  The little girl inches forward and uncurls my fingers from the bottle. Her touch is cold, like ice, and I shiver.

  ‘Take me swimming,’ she says as she places the bottle on the floor. ‘I want to see your beautiful tail.’ She pulls at my arm. ‘Come, it’ll be fun.’

  I hesitate, but she tugs a couple more times, and eventually I stand, struggling to keep my vision focused. I bend shakily for the vodka bottle. ‘I have to keep this with me. For the needles,’ I say, and she looks at me in sympathy.

  Outside my eyes take a while to adjust to the darkness. There are no stars and the black, racing clouds hide and reveal the moon in snatches. The wind is raging and heavy raindrops are driven hard by the rising gale so they sting my face. I follow the girl down the lane towards the sea, every now and then I catch the familiar scent of her. She walks quickly on white-slippered feet and occasionally I lose sight of her and have to hurry my steps. By the time we reach the cliff edge my bottle is drained. I lurch from side to side, tripping over the half-buried rocks. Once I fall and graze my hand. We continue for some time, me stumbling, her trotting beside me like a faithful dog as the wind swirls around us.

  ‘Stop here!’ She has to shout to be heard. ‘We can get down to the sea from here.’

  ‘Are you sure you want to go in?’

  ‘Yes!’ she says. ‘I really do! It’ll be wonderful!’

  ‘I don’t think we should, you know.’ I am cold now and the darkness makes the thought of the water terrifying. As drunk as I am, I have sense enough to realise that swimming in wind-whipped waves that crash against jagged rocks in near-pitch black is no activity for a small child.

  Then the clouds part and the cliff is lit by dappled silver moonlight.

  ‘Look, look!’ she squeals, as she kicks off her slippers. ‘You can see all the way down. It’s fine.’

  And then she skips away from me down the sloping grassland that leads to the cliff edge. I call out for her but either my words are taken by the wind or she ignores me.

  ‘Hey!’ I call. ‘I was joking about being a mermaid! It was a story. We shouldn’t go. It’s too dangerous!’ I watch her deftly skipping over tufts of grass and rocks and around gorse bushes. ‘Stop!’

  The clouds close in overhead and the cliffs are plunged into blackness once again. And then the heavens open and the rainfall comes fast and heavy and angry. There is a rumble of thunder in the distance.

  Hager-awal.

  I start to run after her. Calling for her to stop. Please stop. Please. The sea’s too dangerous. It was a story. It isn’t real.

  You mustn’t go into the sea.

  I reach the edge of the cliff. The land drops away beneath me now, steeper, more severe. Desperate to see through the dark, I squint and scan the cliff. Panic begins to grab hold of me, restricting my breathing, setting my heart racing yet again.

  Where are you?

  The clouds unveil the moon again and in the light I see her. She is far below me, dancing like a pixie down towards the cliff edge. I run, slipping on the wet grass, my skin tearing as it catches on gorse and brambles. I reach the edge and the rocks make a treacherous stairway down to the sea. I crouch low and using my hands and bottom I clamber down. I reach the rocks at the foot of the cliff. She is standing on the one furthest from me, a flat rock, like an island amid the crashing waves. I call out, but she doesn’t turn. I begin to climb out towards her, cutting and grazing my shins and ankles as I slip and stumble on the rocks. A wave breaks, spraying me with freezing saltwater, rolling smaller rocks like marbles at my feet. The spray stings my eyes and the scratches on my legs. There is a flash of lightning. The wind roars in my ears. The sky closes in above me and I can’t see a thing.

  Another roll of thunder.

  I call out for her again, but am hit and nearly bowled into the sea by another breaking wave.

  ‘Stop,’ I gasp as I reach her. ‘Stop, you can’t go in. You’ll be killed.’

  I breathe deeply, trying to catch my breath and smell her again. I finally place the smell.

  Pears Glycerine.

  It’s the soap Elaine used. The soap we both used when I was growing up. How she loved the smell.

  ‘Don’t do it.’

  ‘You’re a mermaid remember? We’ll be fine. Come on. Can’t you hear that beautiful singing?’

  When she jumps, I scream.

  No, Bella!

  My hand reaches blindly for her, desperate to grab a part of her, desperate to stop her. But she is gone. I call out for her.

  I search the white, foaming water, boiling like Hell at my feet, but there is nothing, only crashing waves that soak me with every break. And then, quiet as anything, the singing. An exquisite noise carried softly up from beneath the water. The singing calms me enough that I have a moment of clarity.

  I have to save her.

  I draw in a breath and then jump and I am instantly surrounded by an implausible stillness.

  The sea is neither cold nor warm. There are no rocks and no pain and I am surprised to find I am no longer scared. I hold my breath and search for her. And there she is, up ahead, her blonde hair fanned out in the water like a shimmering halo. She reaches out to me, smiling, tiny bubbles escape from her mouth. Then she takes my hand and we swim out, and as we swim the darkness begins to lift. Fabulous-coloured shafts of light cut through the water, showing iridescent fish, and seaweed that glows with neon brightness. It is magnificent.

  ‘See?’ she says, pointing at my legs. ‘You are a mermaid. I knew you were.’

  I look down at where she points and see that instead of a pair of jeaned legs there is a tail. I stare at it. It is the most fantastic thing I could have imagined, plastered with a multitude of mother-of-pearl scales that shimmer in an array of greens, purples, reds and blues. Beads of brilliant light flare across its surface as if it were on fire. I move my tail back and forth, feel its strong, muscular pull, and then we’re off, cutting through the silken water like a hot iron through ice.

  Everything is so beautiful, so tranquil. So safe. I laugh. Of course. This was what Henry Campbell had meant in his letter.

  He wished me peace and at last I’ve found it.

  SIXTY-FIVE

  Voices lure me like distant fairground music. Snatches of conversation, no discernible words, mumblings that make no sense. I am floating, though not in water. My hair flutters softly, my arms are stretched out like wings. There is sunlight, though I can’t tell from where it comes. The voices drift away from me and I fall back into the dark, as if listing on a gentle swell.

  Then there
is a hand on my forehead.

  ‘Morveren.’ The voice is a siren’s call. I recognise it.

  I struggle to open my eyes and manage a crack. White light blinds me. I see her, but only a glimpse of her, her face bathed in a raft of light.

  Then I hear her call urgently. There are more voices, this time nearer. I try to reach out to them, hoping someone will catch me before I float too far away.

  ‘Morveren.’ It is a man’s voice. ‘Can you hear me? Morveren?’

  There’s a hand on mine. Try to focus.

  ‘Sweetheart.’

  I turn my head in the direction of Dawn’s voice.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘The little…’ My throat hurts like I’ve swallowed razorblades. ‘A little girl.’

  ‘Shush,’ whispers Dawn.

  ‘Try not to speak,’ says the man.

  ‘No,’ I rasp. ‘The girl. Did you find her?’

  Dawn shakes her head.

  ‘Who’s she talking about?’ the man asks Dawn.

  Dawn shrugs and rubs my hand.

  ‘She was in the water. I tried to save her.’ My head pulses painfully with each word.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ says Dawn, who strokes my forehead.

  ‘I’ll check out the girl with the police and the lifeguards. It could be the morphine.’

  I close my eyes.

  ‘She was there. She was in the sea.’

  ‘Get some rest.’

  SIXTY-SIX

  Craig and Dawn found me in the early hours of the morning.

  ‘I’d hoped you’d come back to the flat, you know, after you’d calmed down, but when you didn’t I got worried. I called Craig and he came with me to the hostel, but that girl with the purple hair hadn’t seen you. It was Mum who put the idea of the church in my head. That was where she always used to escape. Craig said it was worth a shot, so he borrowed his dad’s car and we drove out there. Your bag was by the bench with the mermaid on it.’

  They say it was fifty-fifty which way they went, up onto the road that led back to St Ives or down towards the sea on the coastal path. The storm had quelled by then and Dawn was thankful that it was starting to get light.

  ‘I don’t think we’d have gone onto the cliffs in the dark. I think we’d have chosen to search the roads.’

  They followed the footpath along the coast and just as they were about to give up, questioning why anybody would wander out this way in a storm at night, they found the empty vodka bottle lying next to my trainers.

  ‘Did you see a pair of slippers? Small. White?’

  ‘No,’ she says. ‘There were no slippers.’

  My shoes were near the shallowest part of the cliff, where the grass and heather rolls down to the sea, and she guessed with growing dread that I’d gone down to the water.

  ‘We got nearer and nearer the edge and I was sure I’d find you drowned.’ She kisses my hand and tears roll down her cheeks. ‘And there you were, sprawled at the foot of the cliff, your skin as white as snow against the black rocks, your hair all matted around your face with seaweed knotted into it so I couldn’t tell what was hair and what was weed.’ She swallows and kisses my hand again. ‘I thought you were dead and I knew at that exact moment that I loved you more than I could ever love anyone.’

  She describes how grains of sand and grit were stuck to my bluish lips. How I was bent, contorted, my shoulder cut badly, one arm half-skinned, and how the sea lapped at my feet as if it were kissing me.

  ‘I’ve never seen the sea that flat. It was like a mirror.’ She smoothes the bedcovers that lie across me. ‘I told Craig not to move you. For all we knew you’d broken your back or your neck or whatever. So he took off his jacket and put it over you, and then I laid down next to you on the rocks, hoping my body would keep you warm. Of course, there’s no bloody mobile reception anywhere around Zennor, so Craig ran back to the pub and hammered on the door until they woke and he could use their phone to call in the coast guard. The helicopter was there within fifteen minutes.’

  Dawn tells how she shielded me from the wind caused by the helicopter blades and cupped her hands over my ears to block out the sound. They hovered above us, let down a stretcher, then flew me away from her.

  ‘We were lucky,’ she says. ‘Half an hour more, they said, and the tide would have risen over us and we’d have drowned.’ She strokes my forehead. ‘I’d never have left you. I’d have stayed with you until the end, until the sea took us both.’

  Later that afternoon a doctor appears and sits on the edge of my bed.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ he asks.

  ‘My arm is sore, and my ribs are a bit tender, but otherwise, I feel fine.’

  ‘You’ve had quite a day or two.’

  ‘Actually, it’s been quite a month or two.’

  ‘So I gather. The papers have been camped outside the hospital since you arrived.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that.’

  He smiles. ‘Oh, don’t worry. I quite like it. I pretended I was a celebrity yesterday and went out with my sunglasses on. And,’ he says somewhat triumphantly, ‘you’re trending on Twitter.’

  My stomach turns over. ‘How long will I have to stay in?”

  His face falls serious as he remembers he’s a doctor and not a film star. ‘A few days. We need to keep you in for observation. And you have to finish the intravenous antibiotics. You were lucky you didn’t break anything. Something or someone must have been looking out for you. Not that I believe in that kind of thing.’ He laughs. ‘And there’s something else.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Are you aware that you’re pregnant?’

  ‘That’s not possible.’ I shake my head. ‘I can’t be.’

  ‘It’s early, only two or three weeks.’

  ‘But I can’t be pregnant. We’ve been trying. The doctors said it was unspecific infertility.’

  ‘Infertility is a difficult call.’

  My disbelief is replaced with a vivid recollection of the vodka I’d drunk. ‘But the other night. I drank so much.’

  ‘Your baby should be fine. You’d be surprised how good the body is at protecting the foetus. Most alcohol-related complications during pregnancy occur when the mother gets drunk and falls over.’ He laughs, which seems inappropriate, so I don’t smile. ‘Don’t worry, Morveren. A binge or two in the early days of pregnancy is unlikely to do any harm.’

  He stands, checks the chart that hangs over the foot of the bed, then leaves.

  How can I be pregnant?

  I rest my hands against my stomach. I remember feeling tired, faint even, but put it down to stress and the nightmares that plagued me. I remember occasional sweeps of nausea. The baby is Greg’s, of course. We’d not used protection. I told him it was fine because I couldn’t get pregnant. Why Greg? I hate Greg.

  When I tell Dawn, she beams. ‘That’s wonderful.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘How could it not be? It’s a baby.’

  ‘But I don’t want to be with Greg.’

  ‘Well, you’re married to David, so first you have to decide whether you still want to be with him, I think.’

  My stomach twists at the thought of David, of my infidelity, of his desperation to have a child, and I close my hand around the healed cut from the photo frame and wonder briefly if he’d accept the baby as his.

  ‘I’m scared, Dawn. Scared of telling David and scared of being a mum.’

  ‘You just have to be honest with David. And as for being a mum? You’ll be brilliant.’

  Later that afternoon, a nurse appears at the door. ‘Morveren, dear, you’ve another visitor.’ She sets a fresh jug of water on the table beside me and clears away my lunch plate. ‘It’s your husband.’

  ‘David?’

  ‘Have you got more than one?’ she says with a laugh.

  I feel myself panic as I remember that my wedding ring is in the drawer of the bedside table at the hostel. I swear silently. Maybe I could pretend it came off in
the sea. He couldn’t be cross with me about that, surely?

  ‘The doctor said I can take the drip out now. Let’s get it out before he comes in. You’ll feel more comfy then.’

  I hold out my arm and she removes the cannula, wipes my arm with a piece of cotton wool, then sticks a small white plaster on it. I watch a pinprick of blood bloom on the white and have a flash of the little girl’s arm that night in the church. She had the same plaster on the inside of her elbow. The same prick of blood. This flash triggers a second memory, like a row of falling dominoes, a subliminal memory I can’t recall having had before. There’s a bed with clean white sheets, the smell of cleaning fluids and disinfectant. Henry Campbell is there. He’s stroking my head. My mind fuzzes. Or is it me? I try everything I can to grasp the memory but it slips away before I can grab hold.

  My heart begins to beat faster. I recall my voice calling into the raging wind and rain just before I swam in the sea.

  No, Bella!

  My head throbs. There are things I can’t remember. Snatches and flashes like pieces of a scattered jigsaw. Why can’t I remember? I push my fingers into my temples until it hurts.

  The nurse bustles out and takes the old water jug with her.

  ‘Can’t you stay with me?’ I call after her without thinking.

  She turns to me. ‘Won’t your husband want to talk to you alone?’

  ‘Please stay.’

  I see a knowing look spread over her face, and her eyes look at me kindly. ‘I’ll be outside. You need me – for anything – you call me, OK? You can press the button or shout. Or,’ she says, ‘I can tell him you don’t want to see him.’

  She looks at me for moment or two and I know she understands, but then I shake my head. ‘No, I have to talk to him.’ I try to smile, but can’t manage it.

  When she leaves, I turn my head to look out of the window. It overlooks the hospital courtyard and out to the wards on the other side. The brick between the windows is grey and grimy, the glass puncturing it like dull, black mirrors. Behind each I imagine people lying in beds in rooms that look like mine. Why were they there? Appendicitis. Cancer. Undiagnosable diseases with poor prognoses? Every window held a different story. Was any as strange as mine?