The Colour of Mermaids

by Catherine Curzon

  “It’s nearly as warm as a bath!” Eva braved herself to go down the steps until her feet were on the bottom rung and the water had almost risen to her shoulders. It lapped against her, and more of the paint sloughed off. “Come on in, Mr Scott-Carswell!”

  “You look like one of those bosomy mermaids in your painting,” Daniel observed. “A siren in a painted sea.”

  “Maybe you should paint me as a mermaid!” Eva turned on the steps and pushed away from the side, coasting through the water until she reached the other side of the pool. She slicked her hair back and spouted a jet of water from her mouth. “I could paint you as a saucy merman.”

  “I like that. What colour would my scales be?” Daniel climbed nimbly into the water and around him. As the paint dissolved, she saw a cloud of red and yellow, with a swirl of blue from his feet. He turned to await her reply and reached up to hold the steps. Muscles tensed beneath his skin, toned and defined, and the glint in his eye told Eva that he knew it too.

  “Your scales would be silver and shimmery, reflecting all the colours in your ocean home.” Eva began to swim across the pool to Daniel, laughing as she went. Today was like a holiday.

  “When you paint my commission, put us both into it?” Daniel swam out to meet her in the middle of the pool. He caught his arms around her before finishing the thought. “A merman and a mermaid, swimming together beneath the pier.”

  “I’d love to! They won’t be doing anything saucy, will they?” Eva raised an eyebrow. “Though that could be arranged, in a special private version, if you’d like?”

  “Something vast and oceanic and romantic sweeping right across the bedroom wall?” Daniel raised his hand above the water and gave an expansive gesture in the air, showering them with droplets. “Get rid of some of this bloody white. It’s like being in a hospital sometimes.”

  “I’m glad you’ve said that. Your house is lovely, but make it more personal and it would be even lovelier!” Eva slipped one arm around his shoulders, while swirling the other in a figure of eight to keep afloat in the water. “Shall we paint your bedroom together?”

  “Why stop there? I don’t know if an entirely white house does much for a bloke’s sense of inner calm. I need some colour.” Daniel tightened his arm around Eva and piloted them safely back to the edge of the pool. “What you said about some time off, I’m going to try it and see what happens to my art. Maybe we’ll see a bit more colour there too.”

  “Turquoise and yellow and pink, rather like your pool!” The water had changed from blue to a kaleidoscope of colours as the paint had washed off their skin and swirled and merged around them.

  “Art’s everywhere you look.” He reached out and pushed the sunglasses into Eva’s hair. “I hope you tell your kids that. I saw so much wonder in them today, Eva. They reminded me what I got into this for. You were right, I need to move forward.”

  “I always thought you were brilliant, I just wanted you to be more brilliant because I knew you could be.” Eva clung to him. “I’m so glad we met. We’ll have so much fun, you and I.”

  “I don’t know how easy the next few months are going to be while I try and get my shit together,” Daniel told her honestly. “And all this stuff from the past, I know it’s a lot to take in, but I love you, and I have changed. I’ve still got some work to do, but I’ll get there.”

  “I know you will,” Eva said. “And whatever you have to go through, it won’t be alone, I promise.”

  “Is it too early to go to bed?”

  “No! It’s nice to go to bed when it’s still light outside, it feels terribly decadent.” Eva propped the sunglasses up in Daniel’s hair. “We’ve got that wine to finish…and there’s plenty we can do to amuse ourselves.”

  “Would you like me to wear my sunglasses and you can ravish me?” His voice, an exotic purr, now grew brighter. “Then we can eat jam and look at your work together, before a bit more ravishing.”

  “I vote for as much ravishing as possible. Ravishing, loving and jam!” Eva rubbed the tip of her nose against his. The warm water of the pool and Daniel’s strong arms wrapped her up in happiness.

  Daniel reached up and flicked the Wayfarers down onto his nose. Then he growled, “Let’s go to bed.”

  Eva tipped back her head and laughed at the raw sex in that growl. “Carry me? I don’t want you to let me go.”

  Daniel scooped her into his arms and together they ascended the flight of blue mosaic steps up onto the patio. She snuggled against him as he carried her into the studio, kicking the door closed behind him, then out into the foyer and that sweeping, film-star staircase.

  “I’m not risking spiral stairs,” Daniel admitted with a laugh. “I’m not that confident.”

  Eva gazed up at the staircase, swinging her feet with the excitement of a child. “We should be accompanied by an over-the-top string arrangement and a chorus line!”

  “We wouldn’t be naked then, though, would we?” With another kiss, he whisked her up the staircase and into the bed where she had woken alone after their frantic, desperate coupling. There was no desperation this time, though, as Daniel laid Eva down on the rumpled covers, his lips barely leaving hers. He settled beside her and, drawing the duvet over them, left the world behind.

  * * * *

  Time passed by somewhere, but Eva and Daniel barely noticed. Nothing beyond the bedroom mattered. As the light faded over their joined bodies, the room sank from golden to blue. The shadows that had begun to lengthen as they finally fell into a doze had been banished by a lamp’s soft glow when Eva opened her eyes to find Daniel still at her side. He was snuggled deep in the duvet, her sketchbook open in his hands as he looked through the pages at the work she so rarely shared.

  “Evening,” he whispered with a smile. “Did I wake you?”

  “No, it’s the evening, it’s when I’m most awake!” Eva glanced away from her sketchbook. “Don’t laugh too much, will you?”

  “I raided the kitchen for jam while you were sleeping and found more wine.” He turned a page of the book. “I don’t laugh at anybody’s work, especially when they’re as good as you.”

  “Jam and wine!” Eva piled up the pillows and sat up against them, but she was still embarrassed to see him going through her work. “I don’t really settle on a style, do I? Pastel sunsets one minute, charcoal leaves the next, mermaids and the pier following close behind! I really couldn’t decide on that— Ink, I thought, but if you want it painted…”

  “I want you to do what your instincts tell you.” He turned another page. “So long as I get my mermaids.”

  “Very well…” Eva half-closed her eyes and thought of the beach and the salty sea breeze in her hair. “I might do it as a mixture, the pier in oils because it’s supposedly the real world, and the mermaids and mermen in watercolours, because they belong in the sea.”

  “If you want to use the studio here as inspiration, treat it as your own.” Daniel closed the book and reached across to the bedside table. “Jam?”

  Eva grinned as she reached for the jar. “It would be the best place to paint a picture like that, wouldn’t it! Thank you, Daniel. As long as it won’t distract you, having someone else working in your studio?”

  “Probably,” he admitted with a shrug. “But maybe I’ll put my black and purple away and get out some colours if you’re there to keep me company. I need a bit of a shake up, as some annoying would-be critic with an amazing bum told me at my Brighton launch.”

  “Did they now? And just how amazing was this bum?” Eva laughed, and dabbed jam on the end of his nose then kissed it off.

  “It was so amazing that I drifted over to impress her with my artistic prowess just in time to hear her listing my professional deficiencies.” He sucked in his cheeks and pouted. “But I forgive you.”

  “So you were going to chat me up?” Eva bit her lip. “Whoops, nearly ruined that, didn’t I! But yes, you have forgiven me, several times.”

  “I wasn’t going to chat you up
, I was going to let you be dazzled by my presence and fall into my manly embrace,” Daniel deadpanned as he popped a jam-coated fingertip between his lips. “So it’s worked out just as planned, Miss Catesby.”

  “Oh, you think so?” Eva grinned as she circled her hand around his wrist and pulled his finger from his mouth, licking off what remained of the jam. In reply he gave her a devilish look, dark eyes glittering.

  “I’m sure of it.”

  “I only wanted to go to a private viewing.” Eva nuzzled against his neck. “I wasn’t expecting to end up in your bed, covered in my mum’s Boozy Damson Jam! But as it happens, it’s not a bad old turn-up for the books, is it?”

  “And my first date in a long time.” Daniel set the jar aside and took her in his arms. “I’ll wear black and sunglasses, like a real rock star. How does that sound?”

  “I love it!” Eva laughed. “And what shall I wear? My red satin dress again? Or something else equally flattering to my rear?”

  “The red satin. And I’ll book us a room at The Mallard, Mr Carswell and guest?”

  “Mademoiselle Sirène!” Eva giggled. “What a wonderful first date we’ll have. Do you have anywhere in mind? Dinner somewhere?”

  “I don’t know the place, so you choose. Daniel Scott and Salome has a ring to it, doesn’t it?” He grinned, giving her a deliberately arrogant wink. “My name can usually secure a table.”

  “Shall I send a taxi to collect you?” Eva quirked an eyebrow. “A mystery drive. Maybe they’ll think you’re my male escort for the evening. You come highly recommended by some woman called Eva.”

  “I hope she gave me a good review. She’s a demanding customer.”

  “She’s saucy, that one.” Eva was not ignorant of the fact that Daniel was getting hard again, and she caressed him. Neither of them would sleep much tonight, but it didn’t matter.

  Chapter Twelve

  The sun was already rising. Eva had no idea what time it was, but it must have been early. Too early. But something had woken her, prompting her wide awake, poised for unknown danger.

  There it was again. That sound. A voice, distant, murmuring.

  Daniel, his eyes screwed shut, his head jerking against the pillow, his face sheened with sweat. His body was rigid, as if cramping in every muscle, his hands balled into fists against his chest. His eyes opened wide, wild, then closed again, and she wondered for a second if he had taken something, but somehow she knew that he hadn’t. This wasn’t cocaine.

  Eva wasn’t sure what to do. Never wake a sleepwalker. She knew about that, but she couldn’t just lie there as Daniel was tormented by whatever horror was so real to him beneath the pall of sleep.

  And so, tenderly, Eva placed a light kiss on Daniel’s face. It seemed to make it worse for a moment, then she slipped her arm around his shoulder, gently embracing him.

  She pressed her mouth to Daniel’s ear. “It’s all right, you’re safe, I’ve got you.”

  A shiver ran through Daniel’s muscles and Eva went on whispering, consoling, bringing Daniel Scott back.

  The change, when it came, was almost shocking in its violence. Every muscle untensed for one second then grew taut once more, and Daniel flipped onto his side. He snapped into a tight ball and clung to Eva as deep, silent sobs wracked him.

  Eva rocked him gently, hushing him as if he were a frightened child.

  “I’m sorry.” Daniel’s voice was small, broken. “I don’t sleep. I woke you.”

  “I was awake anyway.” It was better to tell a gentle fib. “The sun’s coming up.”

  He nodded and snuggled closer. “I love you.”

  Eight years in a children’s prison. Is that what it did to you?

  Or was it something else, was Daniel trying to reach back through time and save his mother from her own hand?

  “I love you too.” Eva stroked his hair. “Can I get you something? A glass of water?”

  “One of those hugs of yours?”

  “As many as you’d like, darling.” Eva held him against her, caressing him, whispering gentle words. “Whenever you need them.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  After being in Daniel’s house, her own home seemed small and cluttered. But it was homely, that was the main thing. And, as far as Eva could tell, nothing had been moved.

  Eva sat on her sofa with her laptop on her knee, trying to decide on a venue for their date. Somewhere exclusive, or quirky? Elegant or trendy? But her search was constantly interrupted with thoughts of him, of Daniel. They had made love and cuddled, and made love again. She had lost count of the number of times their bodies had been brought together, and even his night terror couldn’t spoil her memory of the time they had spent with each other.

  What a scar to leave behind, though. Despite his wealth and his success, inside Daniel Scott there was still a terrified child.

  Eva opened another tab on her browser, which was already crowded with what felt like every restaurant and bar in Brighton.

  Daniel scott middlesbrough

  Nothing came up, other than a suggested search for a show of his at the Baltic in Gateshead. Maybe whatever he had done that had landed him in prison had been forgotten by the Internet? It had been a long time ago, after all, twenty years. Maybe it hadn’t even made it to the Internet.

  Carswell middlesbrough

  Eva jumped, her laptop nearly skidding onto the floor, as her screen filled with pictures, with words, with a name. Lee Carswell, The Middlesbrough Monster

  How could she have not realised?

  Child A, as he had first been named, who had pushed a little girl off a cliff, and her body had never been found. The embargo on naming an underage suspect had been lifted as soon as the boy had turned eighteen and been released. And renamed. Though that new identity had been hidden from almost everyone, much to the gnashing-teethed fury of the press. It was an extraordinary case and in the name of public interest the media had printed the wide-eyed boy’s mugshot, taken eight years earlier, under the banner ‘MONSTER’.

  Which was what Eva had called Daniel on the day he…he was bad, so bad, and as Eva scrolled and clicked, she found a photo of his mother. An attractive woman, with Daniel’s dark hair, posing in a snapshot taken in a garden that was about to burst into bloom. Only one newspaper had claimed that she had been hounded to death by the press, but the public had been out for blood—bad mother, bad son. No one cared that she had died of alcohol poisoning.

  School photos of the blonde and pretty Emily Shaw smiled out from newspapers, and her parents had cried on the television about the death of their little angel, killed by a feral child who had been raised by a bad mother. A spokesman from the coastguard had described their fingertip search for her, but the currents there were too strong, they had said. The body had been carried out to sea.

  And Eva hadn’t been allowed to play outside for the rest of that summer.

  The case had cast a shadow over many childhoods. In Eva’s Foundation Year at art college, someone had attempted an Andy Warhol-style repeating print of Lee Carswell’s mugshot. They had called it The Beast at Large and it had sent a shiver down Eva’s spine.

  But the shiver hadn’t been fear of the boy, but fear of a panic that could whip up sane, level-headed people to call for a return to the death sentence for just this one case, calling on the state to kill a child. That, Eva knew, was the real monster.

  Mr Carswell. The mysterious figure in black, his eyes hidden behind dark lenses, the boy who had—

  At Eva’s elbow, her mobile buzzed. The screen lit up with a simple message, sent from the man who had stolen her heart.

  Missing you, mermaid. Xxx

  Eva cradled the phone. How could she tell him that she knew? But she couldn’t hide the knowledge from him. She closed down her browser, the screen showing her desktop image of the outreach children holding up their paintings with Daniel smiling in the middle of the picture.

  She passed her hand over her eyes, tears building as her heart thudded heav
ily.

  Missing you, Mr Carswell. Can I ring you? Xxx

  And the reply took seconds.

  Anytime, Miss Catesby. Xxx

  Eva pressed the icon of the green phone and it began to call. Her throat tightened, but she couldn’t risk sending him a text. What if it came out wrong? It was bad enough that she had researched him, but if he hadn’t wanted her to know, would he really have kept calling himself by his real surname?

  “I’m painting,” Daniel said merrily as soon as he answered. “In sunglasses.”

  “It’s a lovely day again. I bet the sun’s really bright in your studio! Good light for painting.” Eva folded an arm across her stomach. Could he hear it in her voice, that she knew? She could picture him in those loose pyjama bottoms, which he had put on that morning when they had finally got out of bed.

  “You know you could come over and make the best of it if you want? There’s room for another artist in here.”

  “I need to put some washing on. Water the plants.” Eva knew how feeble that sounded. There was no point in dithering, she would have to say it. “Daniel…I… I don’t know how to put this, exactly.”

  There was a long silence from the end of the line and she pictured him in his studio, waiting, suspecting. Finally he said, “Go on.”

  “I’m sorry, darling. I was just curious, that’s all. You said you’d been to Middlesbrough, and I couldn’t find a Daniel Scott there. And then I tried…” Eva’s voice caught in her throat and turned into a sob. “I should’ve remembered, I don’t know why. It just didn’t occur to me.”

  “What are you—” She heard him swallow, his voice a sudden rasp. “What?”

  Eva’s tears flowed now. She could well be on the verge of losing him all over again. “I love you, I really do. More than I’ve ever loved anyone. This doesn’t change anything. I want you to know that.”