Sea Hearts (13 page)

I met Able at Lawson’s stile, so we should not be seen together and commented on. We walked out unspeaking, not at all the way any other lad walks out with a girl of Potshead town. Soon we stood at the top of the cliff at the Crescent, looking down on the many silken bodies lying ashore like poor-piled bolsters, sand-bags, jelly-bags.

‘Which one of these, then, is your wife?’ I laughed, hands on my hips. Someone flapped her flippers below; some seal-bab croaked and yowped after his mam, and the mother crooned back, somewhere between dog- and person-sound.

‘Does it matter?’ he said. ‘Aren’t they all equal of beauty inside that lard?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said, and laughed again. ‘But beautiful or ugly as a sow’s backside, you are only getting the one. If she ends up the Misskaella of seals, that is your trouble, and the price remains the same.’

‘There’s worse than you,’ he said kindly, because he was feeling kind towards everything this day.

‘There is, and worse we might see. Be prepared.’ I had no fears, not really; but I could not, now we were so close, resist testing our bargain yet again, just to watch it hold. Several ways I had begun to spend that money in Able’s coat, that the wind was bouncing against his belly. New boots I would have first, not Hardbellow’s clumpers that all of Rollrock wore, but something Cordlin-crafted, of softer leather and sweeter style.

‘Come, then,’ I said. Now that we were on the point of this, I did not want him turning to straw on me, or bringing to mind some nuisance pronouncement of the parson’s. I waved him to the head of the path. ‘Lead me the way.’ If he decided at the last chance to run, I wanted to be behind him to block him, slap him, maybe, bring him to his senses — or rather, keep him from
coming
to his senses, for this was not a sensible enterprise. I wanted to keep him dreaming, then, and dazzled. I wanted him foolish and greedy and fixed ahead on his magical wife.

‘Which, then?’ he said as I ran into the back of him, stepping down onto the sand. ‘Near or far? Or middle?’

‘I’m not to know — whatever takes your eye. Pick a healthy one, a nice specimen, a model of its kind. There. Or what about that one?’

‘Gad, they stink, don’t they? Will I have to train her to the toilet?’

‘Have I ever trained one?’

‘You might have, for all I know.’

‘Did you ask Fishers, whether they had to clean up any mess of her?’

He made a face. I slapped his arm. ‘Dolt. As if you’ll care, once she rises up naked from her trammellings. Come along now, Able, make your pick. Let’s get on.’

At last my expecting and gesturing brought him to heel, and he concentrated, walking where he could among the slumped bodies, some of which cared as he passed them, nosing after his smell, fixing him with their dark-wet eyes, others who lay only stunned, sacks of sun-warmth, barely more alive than the rocks they lounged on. Off away among the crowd of them, the bull heaved himself up, but it was not our intrusion that bothered him, but another bull, rearing from a little gang of them that sulked in the shallows. They closed to duel, clumsy lumps of rage that they were; how could my springtime lover have emerged from such a beast? And little Ean, son of that spring moon, where was he now? Could I have dreamed it all, the birthing and the nursing of him, the knotting-up of his weed-blankets? I wished I had, but I ached all through me at the thought of him, at the sight of his father’s ignoring me, busy about his beast-life. I knew all too well it was true.

‘This one. This will do.’ He had chosen one slightly more brown than grey. He put his hand on her to claim her.

‘Let me look at her. All of a piece, is she? Neat as new-made, this one. She’s a fine choice. Now stay by. I should not want her bonding with me like a new-hatched duckling, if you are not in her waking sights.’

I undid the bands. The seals’ attention veered towards me like a change in the wind.

‘What’s all that?’ said Able fearfully, eyeing the crowd of them.

‘Nothing to worry about.’ I tangled the seal’s gaze with mine. How much surer of myself I felt, this time! A hugeness of mind and a benevolence came upon me, as I looked for the girl within the beast, and brought the grains or runnels or sparks of her inward. She began to form pale at the centre like an almond in its fruit, and the seal-ness shrank outward to become fruit-flesh, to become coat. I went very carefully, and sought and sought for lights I might have missed in her. Then I raised my two hands into a point, summoned my resources, cleared my throat and clove the seal-skin top to bottom.

‘Come and stand here,’ I told Able, and I put him where I was. I went to the head, propped it up with my knee and pulled apart the seal-skin there.

Able’s face blossomed. ‘Ivy!’ he said joyfully, and put his hands out to her. And up she sat, her black hair tumbling, then spreading on the long shaped back of her and into the wind, her bottom as neat as a boy’s. She put her long white hands into his befreckled ones, and stood unsteadily on the coat, which was thick and slippery as yet. She stepped off it, onto the safer stone. She coughed; she coughed out words: ‘What have you done to me?
’

I rolled up her skin; it thinned and dried and dulled a little as I went. I was wobbly from the effort of transforming seal to girl, and with relief that she had come out right, that she was whole, that she could speak, that she was fastening to Able — and he to her, cooing and exclaiming.

‘Put on these under-drawers,’ he said to the girl, ‘and get yourself modest, before someone happens along the cliff and looks down.’

‘What is
modest
, Able Marten?’ she said as she stepped in.

‘Why, it is something you will need to learn of smartly.’

I bundled and tied the seal-coat; we had agreed, he and I, that I would take and mind it for now, so that his girl could not easily retrieve it, and escape. Now it was no more than a blanket-bundle, though not so heavy as that, and smoother, quite different to the touch. Different to the mind, too, with all its lights drawn off it, all its seal-life stifled flat. Quickly I tied my bands into crosses again, so that I should not feel so sharply the skin’s suffering there at being so reduced, its hopeless straining after the girl who had stepped from it.

Able had the dress on his Ivy now. He sat her on a rock and showed her the shoes, brushing her small feet clean and remarking on their whiteness, their well-madeness, their lack of use. He slipped the shoes on and tied their stiff new laces, explaining all the while.

‘They do feel strange,’ she said politely. ‘This all feels strange, to be so bound inside, away from the weather.’

‘Exactly,’ said Able. ‘Warm against the weather and the wind. And the shoes, against stones, you know, on the ground, and sharp shells, and thorns should you walk in grassed places.’

‘Grass?’ she said uncertainly, and looked around. ‘My sisters might swim out without me,’ she said, her hands in her skirts. ‘And our king. Then who will protect me?’

‘I will protect you, my maid. It will be my role and duty, and my pleasure also, once we’re wed. Come, we must walk to the wharf and catch the boat to Cordlin. I have sent ahead a letter to the parson there; the banns are out this long month, and by tonight, we will be man and wife.’

This settled her, though it would not have settled me.
Who the gracious are you?
I’d have wanted to know.
And
who says I’m to marry you?

‘Ready, Misskaella?’ said Able; he couldn’t tear his eyes away long enough to grace me with a glance.

Ivy looked at me curiously, but he did not seem to think it necessary to introduce us.

‘Let us go, then,’ said I drily, to show him I was steering this, not he. ‘Are you content with the young lady, Able?’ I reminded him.

‘Oh. Yes and yes! Most content, Misskaella. Here.’

And there on the shore the moneys crossed, notes with the wind in their edges, coins with their music. And all was transacted, and I put my pocket away. This was how it was done, then, and this was how it would be, each man buying his misery from me, believing it would be his wedded bliss. Now that Able had his Ivy, no Rollrock man would be able to settle for a redwife. And all those girls who flung their skirts and hair and laughter about, and curled their lip at me or wore their pity so loudly in their eyes and voices, they would know first-and-freshly the treatment I had always got from men, the scorn, the overlooking, the making-invisible.

I patted my pocket. ‘Thank you, Able. And the rest whatever happens.’

‘As agreed. Hold tight to that coating there, though. Who knows her yet, and what she might do?’

So up the cliff path I followed that pair of clasp-handed lovers. Able was alight with pride and satisfaction, the sea-maid learning to manage her feet and skirts as she went, struggling and reliant as he wanted it.

I walked with them to the waterside, as we had also agreed; seeing me there, folk would not ask Able what he was about. So long as no one fetched the parson, Able and his Ivy should be able to put off without hindrance or protest from any man or woman.

But of course, our standing there together would show me for what I was, for what I could do, and had done. Everyone would know, from this day forth, that I was not just Froman and Gussy Prout’s daughter, the unmarried one, the one that came out last when there were no looks left for Prout girls. In part I was proud to have made this seal-girl and this bargain on my own, and out of my own powers. But the idea of folk knowing, and judging, and fearing or scorning me — that gave me the chill it always had.

I held tight to the bundle of money under my skirt-band, the only consolation I had. The
Fey
put out, the two heads red and black in the window. The little crowd left a space around me and a silence; the men and especially the women cast glances of
What are you?
at me, and
What
manner of evil have you wrought?
and
What will you
conceive of next, witch-maid?
I stood in the sun and the blow, with the parcel of the seal-skin in my arms.
That
can only be one thing, that bundle,
they would be thinking. And the boat chugged away.

W
e were about to go to bed when she knocked. Indeed, Geedre was already abed, getting that ‘beauty sleep’ Mam said she needed now. (
You certainly do,
I’d told Geedre.
You need a
lot
of beauty sleep
. Then while she pinned me down and slapped me,
You ought to be sleeping
every hour of the day! Seeing if you can work up some beauty
for yourself!)

Even the knocking was anxious. ‘That’ll be Sophie,’ I said. ‘She’s been bothering Mam all afternoon.’

‘Why’d Nase marry her,’ said Snell, ‘if he wasn’t going to stay home with her?’

‘I don’t blame him,’ said Byrne. ‘Two screaming babs and her twittering.’

‘Quiet, you boys.’ Mam came through thin-lipped, opened the door, then stopped the doorway with her own body, hiding Sophie from us. ‘What is it, Sophie? You can come right in, you know. Don’t stand there knocking and making us run to you. You’re family now, you know.’ Which she’d said a hundred times. But Sophie would never do it; she was too afraid of us, and of Mam the worst. She was afraid of everything. Her wedding day was the only day I saw her happy and settled-seeming.

‘Only, is he here? I won’t bother you if he’s not here.’

Snell sat forward and wrung his hands with an anguished look,
just
like Sophie. Byrne snorted and covered his face.

‘Of course he’s not here,’ said Mam. ‘Why would he be, this time of day? He’s a wife and two babs.’ As if Sophie might not have noticed, she was so dim.

‘He’s not at Wholeman’s either.’

‘Well, that’s a blessing. Speaking of which, who’s minding them? The babs?’

‘Knitty Thomas across the way, just while I look. She’s got an ear out.’

‘Get home, you silly girl. A man doesn’t want his wife bleating about after him in the town. If he goes to Wholeman’s now, they will chaff him half to death because of you. Go home and don’t be an embarrassment.’

‘Only, he’s so late,’ said Sophie. Snell made a mawkish face and Byrne rolled around on the floor.