Deeper (16 page)

“
We can sell them to get –“

“
I’ve tried.  My friends buy them to be nice, but...  I mean, look at them.  They’re all – there’s no sky, no land, just underwater scenes like some aquarium but with not so many fish in it.  What is it with you and water?   If you keep painting the same thing all the time, people will get sick of it.  You’re not really a mermaid, let’s stop this pretending, shall we?  Where are you really from?”

I searched my mind for somewhere that you’d find more acceptable than ‘the sea’.  Russia, maybe, I’d heard of that. 
Vietnam?  Wollongong, where Caz was from? Or just, ‘over there’.

“I’m going for a walk.”

I reached for my sticks.

“No,
you’re not coming.”

You
went outside, closing the door with a snap.  I lapsed onto the floor, hurt.

I thought
, there are still some places that I can go.  I can go where I can drag myself, or walk using sticks that you gave me.  But you can go anywhere.  You can go away from me.  What if you want to go far away from me? I can’t follow.  I have no legs, or might as well not.  I should have kept my tail.

When you came back, I’d cried myself almost to sleep, but I woke when you opened the door. You squatted beside me, as you had on that fir
st day, and put your hand on the back of my neck, circling.

“
We need to talk about what you’re going to do, Melur.  You can’t stay with me.”

“But I
want to.”

Where else could I go? If you didn’t love me,
what else was left?

Chapter 23

It seemed to me
in those last weeks that you spent even more time drinking beer and smoking than usual.  You didn’t bother to write your Book, or even to sit at your laptop staring at the place where it should be.  I think you’d given up. 

I began painting a
picture of home.  I used the yellow for a sand island, light blue for the channels streaming around it. 

You looked across at me sourly
.

“
What’re you painting?  Let me guess – water.“

“Home.”

You snorted.

“
It’s not like these things..” you waved at the paints, the brushes, canvases, “cost nothing.”

“Money
?”

Money, again.
Humans are always talking about money. I’m glad we have none.

You
dragged on your cigarette and frowned at me.

“
This place is full of your stuff.  There’s not enough room here.”

I think you meant
, my house is full of you, Melur.  Too full.

“I can
keep them outside.”

I didn’t care about the pictures.  I’d throw them all out if you wanted me to, if there was more room for us, if you’d stop frowning at me and fretting.

I slid over to you and pulled your hands onto my breasts.  You squeezed me, staring down at me, your hands covering me completely, in a way that I’d always loved.  Now it hurt.

“I can’t write with all this shit around.”

I went to the nearest picture and began dragging it towards the door. 

“Don’t.”

You got up and pulled me away, held me, tight, tense.  You were hiding something.

“
Just don’t be such a drama queen.”

Drama queen?

“You might as well know, I’m going back to the mainland tomorrow.  I can’t write here, the way I thought I’d be able to.  Nothing’s working out for me here.  I need people for inspiration.”

I
reached out to stroke your hair.  You pulled your head away and drank your urine drink.

“I still don’t know
a thing about you, do I.  You’re a secretive little bitch.”

I thought of the long nights spent lying together, your hands stroking my back, your penis inside me, your lips open on mine.  And still you can say
, you don’t know anything about me?

“I can take you to the mainland, but I’m sorry, it’s not my job to look after you.  I haven’t made any promises, have
I.”

Promises, no.
  Under your softness, you were sharp as oyster shells.

I had words now
, though.  I could use them to keep you.

“
But you owe me.”

I’d heard it said before. Caz had said it
. 

“I don’t ‘owe you’.” You snorted. “What do I owe you? It’s you who owe me.”

Your words were hurried, as if you didn’t want to linger too long over them.

“
I saved your life.  Don’t you remember?  When you fell from your boat, I swam with you to the sand and kept you warm till dawn.  Isn’t that worth something?”

You s
tared at me, head on one side.  It used to mean that you were curious and interested, but now it just meant that you thought I was mad.

“You
what?”

“I saved you.  You cut your head, and you would have drowned, but I held you up.”

“No, you didn’t, Melur.  Nobody was with me.  I had my life jacket on and got washed up on the beach.  Caz found me.  How could you, anyway – you can’t even walk, much less swim for miles with me in tow.”

You took my hand, patiently, as if
I was a boasting child.

“I was with you
then.  I swam with my tail.  I’m mer.  Mermaid. From the sea.”

“Yeah right.
  So where is this tail?”

“I asked
the spirits to give me legs.”

Your brows rose into your matted hair.  You hadn’t been combing it recently, or cutting your beard either.  You
were beginning to look more like my father, fierce and overgrown, even to the belly that rolled over the top of your jeans. 

“Uh huh.”

“I wanted to be human.  I wanted to be with you, so I asked the spirits to take my tail and give me legs.”

You shook your head.

“You’re completely off your head.  You’re not a mermaid.  You’re…I don’t know what you are, but you’re not a mermaid.  They’re made up. Like my book.  You’re real.”

Made up?

You squeezed my breast.

“Real.  See?”

It hurt.  You meant it to.

“Real and mer.
Mermaid.” I said stubbornly, clasping your knee as if my body could convince yours, flesh to flesh.

“Don’t
tell lies.  You’re not stupid so don’t act stupid.  You need professional help.”

I pulled up my skirt.

“See these lines?”  I drew my finger over the thin red lines that ran like arteries up the inside of my legs.  The spirits had left them there out of spite, to remind me.  If they’d wanted, of course they could have given me legs like you, or like Caz.  They gave me these things for a joke.

I
took the knife that you used for gutting fish, drew it up from between my knees to the place where my thighs parted.  Where human thighs parted, but mer tails began.

You grabbed the knife from me, almost cutting my hand
in your alarm.

“
Ok, so you had some kind of operation.  I’m telling you, you need help.  Caz can find you, I don’t know, a hospital.  You know what a hospital is?  You look as if you’ve been in one before.”

You put the beer
down, and your head in your hands.  Through your hair you eyed me.

“I should’ve known.  Stuck on an island with a madwoman who cuts
herself!”

“No.
I didn’t cut myself.  My grandmother cut me. Spirits cut me.”

You
leaned forward, tweaking my nose, but not in a friendly way.

“
Spirits, huh.  I might have known.”  You rolled your weary turtle eyes.  “You’re only human. I guarantee it.”

How could I show
you?

“Why don’t you just stop telling stories
and tell the truth for once! Real life’s not about stories.”

“What’s your Book
then?”  I pointed to your laptop.  “If stories are bad why do you spend so much time making them up?”

You made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a snort, put your head down between your hands.  I wriggled between your knees.

“Do you love me?”

You said nothing for a while,
then you looked into my eyes with your long light lashes.

“
I don’t think I believe in love.”

I looked back at you with despair in my heart.  If you don’t
believe in love, then what thing have we been sharing, all this time? This thing that I’ve built, and shaped, and breathed all my spirits into, this creature of wind and fine sand. What is this thing I feel for you then? Alone?

“
I like you sometimes, Melur, I really do, and we’ve had some good times.  Even though I think you’re completely round the bend.  Maybe you’re right, you’re not really human.  I’ve always thought there was something weird about you.”

Weird.
  Not human.  Those are insults, as ‘human’ and ‘dolphin’ is among the mer.  I laughed, because suddenly I thought of Father saying, “You don’t want to become like a human!” as if I’d asked to become a groper or something.  How we despised your kind then!

You took my arm and pulled
me to the bed, and took me, as always, covering me with your body.  You reminded me of Guntur, an old male staking his claim, proving his virility.

“
You know what, don’t you ever get tired of missionary?” you said, leaning on your hands above me.

“
Missionary?”

“
Like this.”

“
But how else?”

You laughed.

“Who would’ve thought I’d be making out with a mad foreign girl who can’t walk and thinks she’s a mermaid!”

Chapter 24

The next day, the day of your leaving, you began to walk around your house in a hurry, picking things up and putting them down, and smoking all the while, and talking to me or maybe yourself.  You didn’t look at me.

“I’m going to
move down south this time and live in the city for a change.  Melbourne, I reckon.  There’s a lot of other writers in Melbourne.”

City?
I’d seen pictures.  Many, many humans, a gigantic meet of humans and their growling boxes.  Cars.

I knew you weren’t intending to take me.  You couldn’t put me in a box.

“I want to come with you.”

“You can’t.  You have to go to your own place, wherever that is.”

“I don’t have my own place.”

“Oh that’s right, you’re a mermaid and you live in the sea.  Don’t you understand,
Melur, it’s not my problem.  You have to find your own way!”

“Why?”

“Because I need my own space.  Writers need freedom, that’s what we have to have, to write.”

They sounded like they were someone else’s words.

Freedom. What do I have to do with your freedom? I don’t tell you what you can do, where you can go.

“I could
live with Caz.”

You sat down opposite my chair.  You were ashamed, frustrated.

“Caz will be living with me.  In the city.”

“But
Caz –“

“We made it up.  We’ve known each other a long time, Caz and me.  How long have
we
known each other, Melur?  A few months? Three? Four?”

Something about you reminded me of Grandmother.

“But you said you wanted space..”

“Space away from you.”

There was a silence.  I couldn’t believe it.  Caz, and you.

“
We’ll take you down south with us, if you like.  Only I’m not going to be responsible for you.  It’s not the right time in my life for me to be responsible for anyone.  Hell, I haven’t even got kids, let alone some strange girl from nowhere who can’t speak English.”

I saw that
you didn’t love me at all.  You probably didn’t love Caz either.  I watched you put some of your things into boxes.  Most of the things you left where they were, because you said you couldn’t afford a truck –

“What is a truck?”

You didn’t answer.  And you didn’t need them anyway.  A writer doesn’t need things, you said – surrounded by more things than I’d ever seen in my life as a mer – and anyway they’d be useful for the next person.

“
What next person?”

“
The next person who comes to live here”, you said.

“
So another human will come to live here?”

“
You could stay and keep them company,” you suggested, and put your arm round my waist and squeezed my bottom, showing your white teeth.  

You put your boxes into the boat. 
I looked out at the sea.  It was blue, sunny and empty as you.  I couldn’t even see dolphins. 

“
Last swim?” I said, taking your arm, quietly, smiling a secret smile, like yours.

You were relieved that I
wasn’t going to make a scene or ask you to stay or even to take me with you.  You felt guilty, but not guilty enough to matter.  You rubbed my shoulder quickly, not lingering in case I took it as a sign of more, or weakness.

You’d already put your shorts,
which you used for swimming, in a box.  You shook your head. No swimming.

“No clothes?
Just..”

I took my dress off,
the smothering stuff that Caz had given me.  I had nothing on underneath.  It’s funny, I’d worn clothes for so many weeks now that I felt strange and bare without them, like a real human would.

“Alright.
I’ll skinny dip with you.  But we have to be quick, I want to start for the mainland before the wind comes up.”

We went down to the beach, me
walking with my sticks.  I left them on the sand.  I wouldn’t need them any more.

You waded out into the water,
stopped and gasped when the cold hit your balls.  That always made me giggle, but not today.

I felt weightless
back in the water – almost, as if my tail never had been cut.  I let myself float, rocking in the low surf.

W
e stood waist deep and I pulled at you, stretching out towards the sea.  The waves were gentle and hardly broke against the beach, nothing to be afraid of. 

“
No, I’d rather not.”

You were
still nervous.

I
pulled myself up against your body, put my lips to yours and felt your arousal, even though you didn’t want to be distracted by that.  Little by little I drew you out, kissing, stroking, until the laplets sipped at your bare chest.

“Not missionary.”
I said.

We made love standing up. 
For you, I think it was a way of saying sorry - but also because you wanted to have me for the last time, your strange mad fish-girl from who knows where.  I felt you speed inside of me.

After, we stayed locked together in silence as the waves moved around us.  You tried to walk towards the shore, but I coiled my legs around yours and put my strong arms around your neck.  Mer are stronger than humans, even the females.  All day we pull against the currents, using our long arms to take the darting fish from the thick panicked school.

“I want to go in now,” you said, reaching down to untangle my legs from yours. “I’m getting cold.”

I felt anger, at last.  It began as pins and needles, a trembling in my belly and a cold unease that spread like iced water from my thighs to the back of my neck.

You sensed it.

“I didn’t ask you to love me,” you said, reaching out to touch my arms in the bright, surging water. Silver droplets trailed along the hairs of your forearm, trickling back into the foam.

I tried to put my anger into words, human words.

‘I’ve given everything for you, my whole life, it’s nothing now, and you..’

I stopped.  I
couldn’t put the enormity of my feelings, my hatred and pain, into mere words.  Or perhaps I could have, into mer words, but not yours, not this human language that I still grappled with as if it were a pair of unfamiliar crutches, awkward and inadequate.

You
stood there, chest deep, silent.  I breathed in the spirits of the sea air, felt myself grow with each intake, my body expanding with rage, with hopelessness, my fingers laced into the wide blue sea, my heart a whirlpool, my mouth a cave big enough to swallow you and all the humans on the Deep.  Grandmother, I never left you behind, I thought, you’re in me, and your dark spirits, too.

Your
eyes widened, the pupils flared.   I drew my lips back from my teeth, the sharp unforgiving jaws of a mako, fast, powerful, deadly.

I
reached out and put my two hands softly on your strong, once-dear throat. How delicate it was. I could feel your pulse, a lone human signal in the vastness of the ocean.  Now I was warm, hot.  Heat raced to the end of my fingertips, to the long fingernails which rested lightly around your carotid artery.  In my mind the nails became claws, rock-hard, stone-cruel, coral-sharp. Grandmother’s claws.

You’re drawing blood.

Did you say that or did I? My mind and body were full with blood, bursting with it.  Even the sea seemed tinged with red, though it would be hours till the sun set.  I put a hand to my mouth, tasted the salt thickness of it.  I saw you as you would be, soon, ripped end to end, entrails slipping out into the current, swirling, dark blood warm against my body.  I would wrap myself in them, lashing them around and around, till you were hollow and I was clothed triumphantly in your torn, wet organs.  I would suck out those mud-brown eyes, round and soft like oysters, feel your screams slide down my throat and swallow them with eager, fierce gladness.  I would take you by the hair and hold your face against my teats, struggling and choking, till the water ended you.  I would..

I
held you close.  Your body rose to the surface, there was air in you still, but no life.  I cried out, a thin, whistling sound no human could make, threw my arms around you and let the under-current carry us both together towards Deep Sea.