It Knows Where You Live (20 page)

Her eyes—open so wide when I found her—were now closed. The thin, papery eyelids flickered; I could see the movement of her eyeballs beneath. She blinked, but the eyelids moved sideways instead of up and down. I grabbed the shower head and pointed it at her body, then turned on the water. The shower spray made her body shiver, as if a series of tiny orgasms was gripping her. The flippers on the ends of her hands and feet slapped lazily against the hard enamel sides of the bathtub.

I wetted her body for fifteen minutes. Then I turned off the shower and dressed her wound as best as I could. Her right flipper lifted momentarily and brushed the side of my face. It felt soft and surprisingly warm.

I was sitting outside, thinking, when Henry arrived. He’d walked the short distance from town.

“Evenin’,” he said. It was only then I noticed it was dark.

“I got something to show you.”

He didn’t flinch. He’d known me long enough to realise it was probably something serious.

“Okay. So show me.”

I took him inside, opened the plastic bi-fold bathroom door, and waited for him to say something.

It took him a while.

“What the fuck is it?” His old face was more creased than it had been.

I sighed. “I don’t know. Found her on the beach this afternoon. She was wounded...I thought she was dead.”

“But she isn’t? She’s alive?”

“Yeah, she’s alive. She’s breathing.”

“Through them gill things?”

“Yeah...watch them for a little bit. You should be able to see them moving.”

We waited, watched, and saw the gills twitch as she took in air.

“How are you keeping her alive?”

“I’m not sure. She seems to respond when I douse her with water, so I’ve been doing that every half hour or so.”

“With the shower?”

“Yeah, the shower. She likes it, I think.”

“Has she spoken?”

“She hasn’t even opened her eyes. Not since I brought her in here, anyway. They were open when I found her. Now they’re closed. I think...I think she’s resting.”

“You know what this is, don’t you?” He turned to me, his face ashen. “You know what she is?”

I shook my head.

“She’s a mermaid. She’s a fuckin’ mermaid.”

“She doesn’t have a tail,” I said, aware of the absurdity of the statement but unable to even smile. “And mermaids don’t exist.”

“Maybe they do, brother. And maybe they don’t look like that. Maybe they look like this.” He swept his hand in an odd gesture, as if encompassing the tiny room and everything in it, not just the motionless figure in the bath.

“I need a drink,” I said.

“Good idea.”

We went back outside. I grabbed the whisky bottle and two glasses on the way. We sat down and I poured the drinks. Henry finished his drink in a single gulp.

The next hour or so passed quickly, and neither of us seemed to have much to say. I knew Henry was thinking about the creature in my bathtub, but all I was doing was staring out at the sea and wondering where the hell she had come from.

Presently, Henry shifted in his seat. He put down the half empty bottle on the ground at his feet. “Can I go and take another look at her?”

I should have recognised the look on his face, but I didn’t. I’d seen that same slack, hungry expression once before, just before he’d molested a post office worker we’d abducted so we could give her gambling-cheat of a husband a little scare. But this time, I didn’t see it coming. I blame the night and the cold, fresh sea air, and the fact that nothing about this situation seemed entirely real.
 

“Sure,” I said. “Give her another spray while you’re in there.”

I waited a long time before I realised he should have come back by now. I set down my glass and stood, watching the horizon waver before my eyes. Too much whisky, too little sleep, too much weirdness...

I went back inside, grabbing the doorframe to steady myself as I stumbled over the top step. I could hear the noise as I approached the closed bathroom door: heavy breathing, grunting, like a pig at the trough; the word “Bitch” being repeated over and over again in Henry’s hard-edged whispery growl; something slapping repeatedly against the sides of the bathtub.

I dragged open the door and saw him lying on top of her in the tub, his pants dragged halfway down his legs and his big white arse pumping up and down, rising and falling like some horrible moon. He had his hands on her wrists directly beneath the flippers, pressing them against the enamel. For some reason all I could focus on was his missing thumb. Her legs were spread awkwardly, squashed against the sides of the narrow tub, and her lower flippers were flailing around in panic.

I reached down and grabbed him by the back of the neck. He was a big man, but I lifted him easily. He didn’t say a thing, and his body went limp, accepting what was about to happen. I didn’t stop hitting him until his face was a red tattered mess and long after he’d stopped struggling.

I went over to the bath and looked down at her. She was stiff, unmoving. The dressing on her belly had come loose and something had spilled out: it looked like red seaweed, trailing across her lower abdomen. For the first time I noticed she didn’t have a belly button. It was a small thing, a minor detail, but at that moment it seemed vital, a sign of something more significant than this tawdry scene.

I dragged Henry outside and hoisted him onto my shoulders, in a fireman’s lift. I had a little boat I kept tied up in a rock pool down by the shore. It wouldn’t be the first time I’d disposed of a problem in this way. He had been my friend, but after what he had done I no longer recognised him. He was just as feral and venal as the rest of the scum I dealt with. Whatever had once been special about him was long gone.

I saw the thing on the beach as I approached the cliff top. It would be impossible not to see, because it was so big, so alien on the night-time sand. What came to mind were those old pencil-sketch artist’s impressions of sea monsters, the ones you see in old books about the ocean. The ones I loved to look at as a child.
 

At first I thought it was some kind of beached whale, but as my eyes adjusted to the moonlight I realised it looked nothing like a whale. It was more like one of those giant squid things from old sailors’ charts—what they used to call a kraken. Its body was long and plump, with eight suckered octopus-like arms it was currently using to pull itself up the beach towards the cliff.
 

It moved oddly yet gracefully, flowing like black ink against the starry sky and the flat sand. It had a beaked face, but there was something human about the rest of its features...big, dark eyes, a delicate brow, high, sharp cheekbones. The first word to enter my head as I stared at it was ‘beautiful.’ It was only later when I realised how much the thing’s face resembled that of the woman in my bathtub, at least in general terms.

I threw Henry down the cliff and hoped it was enough to appease the thing that had come up from the depths. I had nothing else to give, nothing left to offer up as a sacrifice. The best of me had withered long ago; all that remained was dust and shadows.
 

When I turned around, she was standing there before me, backlit by the meagre caravan lights. I hadn’t even heard her approach. The dressing had fallen away from her belly, and smaller versions of those octopus arms I’d seen on the thing on the beach were emerging from the cavity to wave around in the air...or maybe it was just her innards spilling out, and I saw what I wanted to, what I needed to.

She lifted one flipper and touched my forehead. I felt calm, cool, collected, just like I always do in the last few seconds before a fight. I reached out and she took my hand in her smooth, soft flipper, then she led me down the narrow pathway to the beach, where the other thing waited, crunching disconsolately on Henry’s bones.

Close-up, its hide was thick and leathery. There were ugly gouges and gashes along its flanks, as if it had been fighting with sharks or orcas or crashing through huge, ancient coral reefs as it travelled through the night-black depths. Part of me realised it could be a whale, mortally wounded, torn up from some battle. But the rest of me wanted to believe it was something else.
 

I stared at the creature, drunk on its wonder. It was an awesome sight; it was a leviathan of the imagination, a creature more fantasy than fact. But even as I watched, its body began to sag and fade. The life seemed to drain out of the thing as I stood there and watched it perish.

She stepped forward and approached the waning giant, pulled aside a flap in its belly, tearing it apart to create an entrance. Its body shuddered once, and then went still. Dull red light seeped out of the rent in its side, coating the sand like blood. The tent-like interior looked warm and dry...and it was welcoming, like a heated shelter on a cold day. There were no bones, no internal organs I could see. She bent down and slipped one leg inside, and turned to me, beckoning with her long, pale, boneless arm.
 

I thought about the life I would be leaving behind if I joined her inside this strange vessel. The gym, the fights, the bad women and even worse men...all the minor battles and skirmishes my life had become; the constant struggle for meaning in a world that had none.
 

Then I thought again of the words I’d contemplated before and how apt they might now become: that thing about living in the gut rather than the head. There was meaning here, but it lay just out of reach. Perhaps if I were an intelligent man—a thinker rather than a fighter—I might be able to grasp it. Then I went blank, taking the easy way, refusing to think of anything at all. Thinking was not what I did best. Doing was my thing, and I usually did it well.

Accepting this felt as if I were severing the last remaining link to everyone and every single thing I had ever hated.

“Fuck it,” I said.

Then I smiled, walked forward, and entered into the brilliant unknown.

IT WON’T BE LONG NOW

Please, have another drink. Could you pour me one while you’re at it? Thank you.

So. How do you feel?

Good, good...

Did you get much sleep last night?

Well, yes, I suppose you were anxious.
 

And the money? Everything went okay with the electronic transfer?

That’s good. We’re all ready, then. Ready to go.

It won’t be long now. I’m sure. Don’t be nervous. I’m not. I’m more than ready for this. I’ve been preparing for a long time. Preparing mentally. I’ve made my peace. I hope you can do the same.

Mmm... lovely. I will miss this, though. Good whisky. I won’t miss much else, I don’t think.

(pause)

Apropos of nothing, I remember when I was a small child. We used to have family holidays by the sea. Even my father used to come along, if he wasn’t too busy. I always loved the coast... that sense of
hugeness
. The sea doesn’t judge. It doesn’t remember. It just
is.

Do you know what I mean?

Perhaps not.

I’m sorry. I’m rambling. It’s the excitement, you see, the thought of so much preparation finally paying off. Maybe I shouldn’t have had another drink after all. I want to be sober during this. I want to savour each and every second. It isn’t every day something like this happens. It is—if you’ll forgive the bad pun—a real once-in-a-lifetime experience.

(pause)

Those? Yes, they’re the... tools. The apparatus. Don’t worry. They’ll show you when they get here. Everything will be explained. I’m sure you recognise some of them—you had medical training in your home country, didn’t you? You were some kind of doctor?
 

That’s why your name was on the list.
 

Those other items on the table...well, they might look a bit strange, but I assure you they’re ‘fit-for-task.’ They’ve been designed specifically for the job.

(pause)

I hope you have steady hands.
 

A surgeon? Were you really? Well, that’s good. My people must’ve done their research well. As a surgeon, you should be able to appreciate all of this. I’m sure you have a full understanding of the nature of pain, too, and how to control it.

Yes, yes... I know doctors are meant to value the sanctity of life, but, in a way, that’s what this is all about. The sanctity of life... and how by defiling it we can create an entertainment.
 

I know. I know you don’t approve... and, truly, I’m sorry about that.
 

Excuse me? The camera? Yes, they’re bringing all that gear with them. It’s all digital now. Nothing to set up: just point-and-press technology. Natural lighting. Sound recording is built into the camera. All very clever stuff, not like the old days when we had to spend hours prepping for a shoot. I suppose I’m seeing it all from the other side now, a different angle. Rather than organising everything behind the camera, I’m the star of the show.

(pause)

Well. Isn’t this cosy? I’m glad I had the chance to get to know you a little before, well, before it’s done. Before you do it.

(pause)

Your family... they’re glad of the money, yes? I suppose it means a lot to them—to their lives, where they live. Africa, isn’t it?
 

Ah, yes. I’ve read about that place in the papers... civil war, drought, disease. I’m not surprised you needed to send them money. I’m glad I could help them get out of that mess. Please, send them my regards when you see them. And treasure them... life’s too short not to cherish the ones we love.

Believe me, I know.

The world is experiencing terrible times, times of great change and austerity. Each man must do what he must to put bread on the table. I’m right, aren’t I? And during such times, businesses like mine will continue to flourish. It’s not something I’m proud of—it’s simply an economic fact.

Indeed, in times gone by, people like your family would’ve been the ones here, in my place. But these days our customers have more...
sophisticated
tastes. Can I even call it that? Sophisticated? It doesn’t seem right somehow. Perhaps ‘esoteric’ would be a more appropriate choice of word.