Wednesday Story: Mermaid

Mermaid

There is a beach, the sand almost white, colourless. The sky is bright, early morning blue. The sea is lazy, calm, whispering its secrets to the beach. The woman walks slowly along the beach, right at the edge of the sea. The waves trickle over her bare feet, tickling and sucking the sand from beneath her soles. She wears a long white dress, which falls to an inch or so above her ankles. It flutters - slightly - in the breeze. She has long golden blonde hair that falls in loose crinkled curls that she pushes from her face as she stares up at the seagulls circling above her. A few yards in front of her are more gulls; strutting and fighting over what scraps the tide has left behind.

Occasionally, she stops and looks down around her feet. Sometimes, she stoops and picks up a shell, or a pebble, but she always drops them before moving on. A little further along the beach, she stops and bends down, crouching in front of a piece of driftwood still lapped by the waves. A tiny crab falls from it and scuttles off, back into the waves. The woman watches the crab go, almost smiling.

She turns back to the driftwood. It is a branch from a tree, worn smooth from a long time in the sea. She traces along the length of the wood with a fingertip, as though that fingertip can read it, as if, through touch, she can reveal, and re-live, the history of that branch. She can see it: growing on the tree, from a shoot, to a twig, to a stem, to a branch. She can see the birds that perched on it, and feel the insects as they crawled along it. She can feel the sap flowing, pulled by the leaves as they bask in the warm sunlight. She can feel its tight shudders as the tree stands solid against the wind, against the rain, against the snow.

Then there is the storm. She feels the wood scream as the gale rips it, amputates it, the long fall and the rough ride, helpless in the swollen river. And then there are the days, nights, months and years of floating, passing like a fevered dream; tossing and turning, backwards and forwards, never at rest until now.

The woman blinks twice, rapidly, her finger still resting on the curve of the driftwood. She looks down at her finger as though it could belong to someone else.

She stands up and looks around uncertainly, as though she is lost. She stands for a moment watching the waves. She glances down at the driftwood and touches it gently with her bare toe, stroking it. Eventually, she turns away and continues walking.

The woman walks to the rocks at the edge of the beach, under the headland. She walks with easy familiarity as though she has been here several times before, which she has. She goes straight to a long flat-topped rock that lies at a slight angle, as though presenting its top surface to the sea.

The woman sits on the rock, feeling in the pocket of her dress. She takes out an elastic band and ties her hair up in a ponytail. Sitting up slightly, she pulls off her dress. Naked, she folds up her dress. Using the folded dress as a pillow, she lies back on the rock, spreading herself as though she is a willing sacrifice to the power of the sun.

The woman lies unmoving, as the time passes. She lies with her eyes open. Sometimes, her eyes will follow the flight of a seabird or the languid movement of a rare cloud. Occasionally, her hand will move to flick away an insect, or to remove a grain of sand blown on to her by the breeze.

After exactly one hour, although she wears no watch, the woman gets to her feet. Leaving the dress on the rock, she walks carefully over the rocks and pebbles to the sea. Slowly, she enters the water, pausing for a moment each time a wave pushes into her, when the water reaches mid-thigh, the woman stops.

A large wave flows towards her, and although she rises up onto tiptoe, the wave washes over her pale pubic hair. The woman hugs herself and shivers, but she smiles at the same time. As if the wave has made her decision for her, the woman dives forward into the next wave.

She swims slowly, deliberately. At one point, she stops and treads water. She looks from one headland to the other, as though she is measuring distance. Seemingly satisfied, she turns back to face the shore and swims back towards the beach.

As the white foam waves begin to wash over her, she stands, letting the water drain off her. She wrings the water from her ponytail and removes the band, letting the sodden curls fall over her shoulders. She walks out of the water.

Between where she stands, and the rock where she left her dress, she sees the old man. He stands still, staring at her, a bag hanging from his shoulder and his rods and keep net in his hand. The woman walks up to him.

"Good morning Jack," she says, smiling.

"Morning Miss," the old man says. He looks around at the headlands, the sea, the beach.

The woman smiles to herself, as the old man looks everywhere else but at her. It has been the same every morning since they began acknowledging each other. Before then, she would see him, through half-closed eyes as she lay on her rock, passing slowly by.

"I used to think you were a mermaid," Jack says suddenly. His eyes flick towards her and away again, "Sitting up on that rock, with your hair blowing in the breeze."

The woman laughs. "Perhaps I am, Jack. Perhaps I am a mermaid."

The man looks down at his hands, at the rods and net, as if he has to remind himself of why he is there; on a beach talking to a naked woman who is young enough to be his daughter, his granddaughter. He rubs his chin with the back of his hand, feeling the rasp of his white bristles. She knows he feels ashamed of his unkempt appearance, his lined and creased face, his unshaven bristles and the fact they are white. His faded and worn jacket with the ragged cuff and ripped pocket embarrasses him.

The woman knows he wants to stay, wants to look, but can find no reason to stay, no words he can say which will keep her in front of him. She knows as well, without knowing how she knows, that she is his secret. She knows he never mentions her, or their meetings, to his old fisherman friends as they sit in the smoky bar with pints of dark ale in front of them. He does not mention her even when the talk turns to dark stormy nights; strange sights, strange disappearances and strange appearances at sea and in the dark twisted roads and lanes. He does not talk of her even when the talk turns to mermaids.

The old man shrugs his bag higher onto his shoulder and tightens his grip on his rods; his gaze lost on the horizon as though he was still out at sea.

"Anyway, miss," he says, and turns towards the rocks where he will spend his morning looking out to sea, as his rods lie forgotten, and wishing he was still out there, somewhere beyond the horizon, and what he would do if a mermaid ever sang to him.

"Yes, good-bye Jack," the woman says, the smile in her voice equal to that on her face. The old man turns towards the headland and walks away. For once, he looks down at his feet instead of the distant horizon.

The woman stands at the edge of the sea; the waves trickling over her feet, watching him walk away. At one point, he stops to rest, sitting down on a rock and wiping his brow with a handkerchief. He looks up, back towards her. She waves. Jack waves back with his handkerchief.

"Yes, Jack, perhaps I am a mermaid," the woman says softly before turning to walk to her rock.

This time, the woman lies on her stomach, shifting a few times before she is comfortable. She lies with her hair fanned out over her shoulders and over the rock, her arms straight by her sides with the palms turned upwards. She lies with her cheek against the white dress and her eyes closed.

Jack sits on a distant rock. Occasionally, he turns his head and sees the woman spread naked on the rock. He tries not to watch her, tries not to look too often. He believes that if he stares she will not come again. He believes the power of his eyes will drive her away. He knows she will be going soon, but he hopes that, by taking only the occasional glance, he will be able to see her again tomorrow and for all the days of the summer after that.

He knows he has few summers left. He knows he should let his eyes drink freely in the short time he has remaining, but he is afraid she will no longer return to her rock if he does stare too much. The thought of days without her on her rock, no matter how few he has left to him, is too much for him to bear. So he tries to ration his glances, turning back to look out at the sea, at the horizon. He hopes, sometimes even prays, that she will not leave the rock forever, not in the days he has left to come. He hopes that she will not leave the rock until he is long gone.

He finds the idea of her returning to the rock long after he has gone, long after he has died, a strange comfort. The same comfort he feels when he stares into the eyes of his grandchildren.

Exactly one hour after lying down, the woman rises again. She looks out across the beach, shading her eyes with her hand. She sees movement and colour. The town is slowly waking up, and the holidaymakers are beginning to appear on the sand. She can hear the shouts of children, carried on the breeze. She sighs, stands and slips the white dress over her head. She shakes her long curls and combs her fingers through the salt-stiffened tangles.

Slowly, the woman walks back along the beach. The tide has moved farther back, but the sand is still moist under her bare feet. She looks down and sees the piece of driftwood in front of her. She looks at it for a moment, indecisively. The wood seems to call out to her to take it, to take it home with her. She can see it, in her mind, resting on the heavy old sideboard in her cottage.

She shakes her head and turns to go. She stops and turns. She pauses and takes a single step, then another, back towards the driftwood. She looks down and touches the wood with her toes. She crouches down and tries to touch it, but she cannot force her finger to make contact. She bites her bottom lip, glancing around at the beach. The crowds are coming closer, small family encampments spreading out along the sand, fortified by chairs and windbreaks. Scouting parties of shouting, eager children rushing out to claim shells, pebbles, seaweed.

The woman sighs and stands up, wiping non-existent sand from her hands. She walks away from the driftwood, back to the small cottage. She does not look back.

THE END

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