Saltskin (10 page)

Angelo spun around, disgusted at himself for being
aroused by anyone other than his mermaid, and yelled:
'They're all hussies who have no regard for their own souls,
and I will not sully myself by succumbing to their impure
motives.'

They became aware of eyes on them, and out stepped
Jake. He grinned in an affable way, and as he approached,
four other raggedy sailors shadowed behind. Angelo
recognised them all from the
Unicorn
.

'Angie's a wild one all right,' drawled Jake, 'a perfect
match for you, Angelo. Two angels, like she says. Tasty
treat, ain't she?' He put his weight on one leg, casually
tipping his hat. He wore a cutaway tailcoat decorated with
military-style braids and cords, and a top hat. Charisma
burned off him.

Davy, standing behind Angelo, piped over his shoulder,
'Oh aye, and what would you know?' His body wired to
pounce.

'Wouldn't you like to know?' Jake laughed hollowly;
the posse behind him rustled. 'I know she's rich, I know
her parents died by shipwreck, I know she stood on their
drowning heads to save herself, and I know how her cunt
tastes.' He kissed the tips of his fingers. 'What do you know
about her?' He circled them menacingly, the other men
following suit.

'I know she wouldn't go near the likes of you,' spat
Davy, deeply insulted on Miss Swan's behalf. Tears stung
his eyes and he began to shake. He turned defensively,
trying to avoid having his back to any of them, but it was
impossible. They were surrounded.

'She sits on my face — that's how close she comes to
me,' Jake taunted.

'You shouldn't speak about a lady in that manner. It's
indecent.' As Angelo spoke, his arm shot out and punched
Jake hard in the jaw. Suddenly Angelo bounced on the
balls of his feet like a boxer, fists at the ready, prancing. He
laid another one on Jake's nose and a third in his ribcage.

Jake snarled, and at the flick of his head the other men
laid into Davy and Angelo who, full of sexual tension,
let it all rise up in violence. The crunch of flesh grinding
against teeth, of bone on bone, the oomphs and umphs of
knuckles in kidneys drew a small crowd to watch.

Jake punched with measured, well-timed strokes and an
economical technique. Angelo's punches were loose and
wild, with plenty of force when they hit the mark, but when
they didn't his whole body swung with the momentum.
Then he would stagger and trip over his feet, roaring as he
struck out. By luck he managed to wind two of the men.

Davy's punches were more defensive and he was
beaten down in a gale of fists and then kicks, until he lay
whimpering and cradled his head, knees tucked up.

Angelo thrust the palm of his hand up against the
underside of Jake's nose, setting him off balance, and
turned to rescue his friend. He came up behind Davy's
attackers and, with a quick duck and about turn, he
banged the two thugs' heads together with a loud crack.
The sound stopped the fight.

Davy was bawling. Angelo helped him up and held
him protectively around the shoulders. Both of them,
panting and sweaty, faced Jake who, apart from the blood
on his nose and a devilish ripped shirt, appeared as if he
had exerted no energy at all in the fracas.

Jake chuckled, as though entertaining guests before
dinner. Then there was an unexpected and oddly charming
sound as he dramatically withdrew a knife from his belt.
The crowd crowed. Angelo and Davy instinctively stepped
back. Jake spat on the blade and rubbed the spit with his
finger. His sigh implied it had all been a harmless game.
He held the knife up to his own throat and his face went
horribly blank as he slid the tip along his neck. A small
stripe of blood followed the blade. Angelo sprang at him
and grabbed the knife.

'Jesus,' said Davy under his breath.

'No harm done, boys. Why, don't be alarmed. I'm
touched you care,' said Jake.

'He's a lunatic,' said Davy, tugging at Angelo's sleeve.

Jake let them take a few steps before snatching back his
knife and returning it to its sheath on his belt. Then he said,
conversationally, 'Why is it, do you think, that people don't
eat swans? Is it true they are meant only for royalty? I think
a swan would be nice, plucked of all her pretty feathers,
gored and pegged with a stick up her arse and turned over
a fire, with the blood spitting on the sparks. Aye, doesn't
that sound good enough to eat? I might blackbird her
— wouldn't Miss Angie make a nice slave?' He cackled,
winked, and swaggered off into the Qualm's Arms.

The mob followed him to see what would happen
next.

It began to drizzle.

'Do you think he has bedded her?' asked Davy.

'I do not know or care,' said Angelo, but an image of a half-undressed
Angie, white throat, Jake on top, came unbidden to his mind, along with a
feeling he had not experienced since he was a boy. The sensation he had when
he heard Magdalene and Pierre in the bedroom; a sensation he could not put
a name to, didn't want to put a name to.

Later, after the town had quietened and Davy snored in
his hammock, Angelo snuck out of his and tiptoed along
the deck, balancing himself against the sway and creak of
the Unicorn as she rocked in the harbour. He made his way
past the steering-house and over the coils of rope. The sails
wafted like ghosts. The drizzle had ceased but the deck was
slick and slippery with it. A large drop of water went splat
on Angelo's head and he looked up accusingly at the ropes
criss-crossed above his head like finger-knitting. He looked
at the silver sliver of the moon. The night was very cold.

He needed to touch the mermaid. He shimmied his
way to the prow of the ship and employed all his agility
to winch himself onto her hips. He stared up at her vacant
eyes.

'I won't forget you,' he muttered, like a rosary prayer.
'I know you're out there and I will never cease my quest
for you. I will seek you even if it takes all my time on this
earth, for I live only for you. We are meant to be together.'
He fell silent. His words did not ring true — he felt he had
betrayed her. He wept like a child.

He clung to her wooden body and wished with all his
heart that she could be made flesh, with blood in her veins.
Within his heart he called out to her. He called her.

Further out to sea a mermaid swam, her hair snaking behind
her on the current. She dipped and wove in the swell, and when
her face broke the surface she sang joyously and flipped her tail,
delighting at the play of the descending moonlight on her fish
scales, for mermaids are very vain.

She lay on her back and admired the glory of the sun, new
born on the horizon. The sky was awash with pretty pastel that
tinged her pale arms the dawn's colours, glistening on her skin.
She laughed and sang louder.

She caught sight of the fifty-odd ships moored in the bay, so
far away they appeared miniature. Then a mournful lament
struck her, like a gong through her ears. Her heart stilled: surely it
was the soul call for which she had waited over 200 years — her
invitation to mortality.

The mermaid stopped to listen. She knew she shouldn't sing
so close to ships, for her song was deadly. But she simply had to
respond, so she whispered back a wordless, beckoning sound. Cooee.
She paused for a response but heard only her echo. Her body
tingled. How long had she waited for this very call? How often
had she met human men on the ocean, fishermen and sailors,
each time hoping this would be the one who would love her more
than he loved anyone else, and thus fulfil her destiny to love and
be loved?

But each one was not that man. Each man saw only a catch.
They lied to her and tricked her, lured her with the idea only of
mauling her, making a trophy of her.

How she craved to be mortal, to experience the enlightenment
of human love!

Her eyes squinted with the effort of listening. Nothing.
Her heart dipped. She doubted she'd heard the call and hung her head, diving
back into the spectral underworld. Her tail made ripples that undulated like
whispers between lovers.

The morning inspired the birds and their singing carried
to the Unicorn, anchored two miles offshore. Angelo's ears
twitched; he thought he had never heard a lovelier sound
than the dawn chorus. His breathing stilled, his stomach
belly-flopped and he opened his eyes to see before him the
sunrise and the beauty of his carved mermaid.

Meanwhile, Captain Angus had not slept all night. He
was disturbed by his own thoughts, ever busy in his skull,
and plagued by the malaise of sleeplessness. Around and
around his monotonous thoughts ran, like a thousand
flies on a dead face in the desert. He stood at his cabin's
porthole to distract himself and stared out to sea through
his telescope. The sky was a magnificent display. One of
the best things about being at sea was the sunrise. Each one
was unique, each one made Angus feel humbled and awed
by Mother Nature: a mastermind who made sunflowers
and spiderwebs and stars and more creatures than man
could count or document.

Angus stared down the tube full of the sunrise and he
heard a sound that stirred him like wind music. Could it
possibly be? The sound he had heard all those years ago
as a young sailor — the cradling resonance that none could
imitate? You old coot, he scolded himself, even as he
jerked his telescope left and right, searching the surface of
the sea. Then he caught the merest flicker of movement
way out. His heart jagged in his chest, he clutched at his
vest with one hand, but the pain was too much. His chest
was overpowered by a terrible notion of sadness and he
collapsed, wincing, on his chair.

Be still, my heart, he cursed, and his telescope fell
to the floor. Just a whale's tail is all, just their love song
is all, you lonely old fool. He talked to himself, gasping
and digging his fingers into the stabbing around his heart.
Minutes passed and he wondered incredulously: is this the
end? But the pain subsided and his pulse steadied.

Angelo eased himself off the mermaid carving, his fingers
frozen, his honking nose numb with frost and the scar
tissue of his bung eye taut, like tight knitting. He made his
way back on deck, his feet sliding on the ice-slick wood.
He stretched, and his whole being burned with heat, as if
he had rum in his blood.

He opened his arms wide and roared at the sky, 'Here I
aaaam
!' His breath steamed the air, a dragon's vapour, his
body straining with shouting. The veins of his neck stood
out purple; his face was contorted and red. 'I'm heeeerre!'
He looked every bit the man crying out for salvation. He
breathed in deep and yelled one last long, poignant note,
then, spent, he fell to his knees and whispered, 'When will
I find you?'

Captain Angus was stirred by Angelo's call, as though
he had voiced his own heart. He went to a drawer and, with
a key hung by a strip of leather from his neck, unlocked it
and withdrew a box decorated with shells, the kind a young
girl might have on her dressing table. He opened the lid
and withdrew a woman's hand mirror. He caressed it.

The mirror was encrusted with the finest jewels: yellow
diamonds, topaz clear in their allure, clusters of rubies,
chunky emeralds, sapphires and onyx. It was a fabulous
mirror only a princess of the most royal blood could have
owned.

He had stolen it.

The guilt of it had never quite left him, even after twenty
years. At times he doubted his past, for he felt his history
seemed to change with the telling. He had not spoken of
the mirror for such a long time, as if it never was. It was
the talking that gave stories meaning, weight, life. He really
wanted to talk now. Wanted to spill all his secrets — wanted
to expose all his flaws to one person and be forgiven. And
he wanted to sleep forever.

He felt the weight of the mirror, rubbed his calloused
fingers reverently over it and turned over the white-gold
handle. The glass was rose-tinted and in it his worn face
appeared young and vital. He wept with the vision of the
young man he could have been, if only he had found a
way to be both master and servant of love.

Mary the mother sashayed into the kitchen, her hair
freshly curled by fat furry rollers, her lipstick red and glossy
eyes sparkly with blue eye shadow. She wore new navy
slacks and a crocheted jersey over her pointy bra, visible
through the loops. Gilda came up almost to her elbow
now. She skipped along behind in her school pinafore,
sticking-plaster on her knee, a bird's nest at the back of her
unbrushed hair.

Her mother turned up the radio and a song — about a
woman going to Georgia, to California and even to paradise
but failing to find herself — made Mary pick up her little
girl and dance with her on her hip. A horn tooted and
Mary stood Gilda on the table and rushed out, flushed,
slamming the door. From the window Gilda watched and
heard her silver slippers clip clop on the wooden veranda.
Mary paused and blew a starlet kiss to Gilda, who blew one
back. When the car drove away with a reckless skid, Mary
was sitting in the middle of the front seat, right beside the
driver.

When Mary came home she was not the brassy woman
who had left; her eyes seemed different eyes. As if someone
else were inside. Gilda hoped her mum would get better,
but her eyes stayed dull, like the scratched marbles you try
to swap but no one wants. Gilda slept with her mother's
pillow-soft body close and her mum's arms wrapped tightly
about her, her tears wet on her back. And Gilda felt sure
she had her mother to herself forever.

The little Gilda always knew when a visit to the attic
was looming — when her mother would take the shell box
from its hiding place and disappear up there for hours.
Gilda knew, the way some people know it's going to rain
before the sky darkens.

The box held a fascination for Gilda, for it was covered
in the prettiest polished shells in a swirly design as intricate
as a hand-beaded evening bag. Pastel pinks and peaches
and in the centre a real seahorse, frail and brittle like the
skeleton of a bird. But mostly she liked it because her
mother liked it so much. Gilda never got to touch it.
What's innit? Not for little girls like you.

It was old but it was new to Gilda, and to Mary too, and
it was very special.

Gilda made one for herself, using a shoebox. Her tongue
stuck out of her mouth in concentration as she pressed on
clam and mussel shells and the conical shells she found on
the beach, too heavy for her flour and water glue.

When her mum got ready to take the shell box to the
attic Gilda was anxious to help, handing her more things
she might need: a doll or a book or an apple, as if her
mother were leaving town on a train. Mary thanked her
and accepted them all, with her faraway smile. But Gilda
was never allowed to go with her to the attic. It was just for
grown-ups. Too adult for you.

Mary would take the iron key from the porch shelf,
high above the oilskins and gumboots, and ascend the
three flights of stairs to the attic, where she would lock
herself inside. Gilda would wait, and one day she swapped
lemonade bottles for chocolate lamingtons and yelled her
surprise through the door but still she wasn't allowed in.
Not ever. Never ever ever ever.

Her mother died on Gilda's seventh birthday. In the
morning with the February sun bright in the sky Gilda had
run to her mother, who sat at the table in the tower, already
drunk. Cigarette butts and ash overflowed in the ashtray.
A half-empty vodka bottle lay leaking under the table,
and Gilda walked her little bare feet over the stickiness and
enjoyed the sensation of the soles of her feet peeling off
the lino.

Mary was gazing milky-eyed at a photograph in her
hand, of a man. He was standing outside the house next
to a Mark III Zephyr, all fluted, the paint shiny thick
enamel and peppermint green. His hair was long with the
density of wet sand, slicked back as if he'd just bathed,
comb tracks visible. It was evening and summer, because
the rata tree behind him was in bloom. He wasn't smiling
but his expression was tender, the kind of look reserved for
lovers, yet professional, like a movie star. Beside his feet
lay a discarded pair of women's evening shoes, silver and
sparkly, and a scarf Gilda recognised, for it lived under her
mother's pillow. He looked like he was leaving.

Gilda had pulled the photo from her mother's hand
and climbed on her lap. 'Is it my birthday today?' she
asked, and her mother smiled weakly and said it was, and
her breath was warm and unslept in. Gilda gently pulled her
mother's split-ended red hair over her shoulder, separated
the strands into three equal parts and began to braid it. Her
mother was so pretty. Mary shifted beneath her and told
Gilda she had a bony bum.

'How old am I today, Mum?'

'Seven,' her mother said, and Gilda watched as old
tears pooled in her mother's eyes and she told Gilda, once
again, that her name meant sacrifice. Mary's temperament
was both pitying and accusing.

Gilda lowered her eyelids. She wanted her mum to
be in a good mood today. She put her hands on Mary's
cheeks. 'How do you know how old I am?' she asked. Mary
took one of Gilda's hands in her own and squeezed it,
absorbing the sweet, small softness in her own. Gilda made
a fist and Mary opened it, one finger at a time, like peeling
the petals off a budded rose.

'There are rings on your fingers like a tree, and they
change with every year, and sometimes if life is sad they
add more.'

'I'm not sad,' said Gilda, and her mother laughed.

'No, you are not sad. See?' she said, pointing to the
rings. 'One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.'

Gilda hugged her hand to her chest with pride.

The girl child followed her mother at a distance through
the sand dunes, which shifted daily, swept into peaks or
raked by the wind. The sun was bright and she felt it hot
on her back, right through her cotton sundress with the
little ties at the shoulder and the red flower print and the
skirt that swirled when she turned, just like a princess.

Gilda giggled under her breath because her mother
didn't know she was following her. Her hand pressed over
her mouth and her eyes were scrunched up with glee.
Sniggers escaped her hand and she had to press the other
over the top. Her breath was high and quick in her chest.

Mary walked languidly as though she were walking with
her invisible sweetheart.

Gilda was gaining on her so she sat in the base of a
toetoe and shook the stems so the fluffy feathery stuff
sprinkled over her, taking peeps at her mother further
along the beach. Mary started twirling, her arms akimbo
and head back, round and round and round and round.
She was gorgeous. Her hair, orange in the sun, floated
about her, and piece by piece Mary began to take off all
her clothes. First her cardigan, then her blouse, then her
wraparound skirt and underwear, and they fell a little way
from her, blown by the breeze.

Gilda had to suppress her giggle again: nude, nuddy,
naked. Mary twirled her way to the water's edge, where the
waves left suds. The sea was broad-bean green that day, and
the tide was just turning, to mosey back in. A flock of birds
flew overhead and Gilda looked up. The white blaze of the
sun made her close her eyes, and for a while she looked at
the red-pink of her eyelids. When she opened her eyes it
was all black spotty and Mary wasn't there any more. Gilda
ran on the beach, hopping and ouching on the burning
sand, stepping on driftwood where she could, until she got
to her mother's clothes. She tied the skirt around one foot
and the blouse around the other and wobbled to the sea's
edge, shading her face against the sun and looking out with
her own lilac eyes to the ocean. She could just make out
the angle of her mother's swimming arms.

'Mum?' she shouted. And again. And again. Then
Gilda couldn't see the triangle arms any more and began to
doubt she had seen them. She turned on the spot to see if
Mum might be somewhere else, maybe picking mussels off
the rocks or collecting pretty shells. She spun round and
round, just as Mary had done, until she was dizzy, and let
herself fall on the sand. She was disorientated and fell in
the water and the shock of the splash and the salty water in
her mouth made her cry. But no one was there to comfort
her so she stopped.

She sat on the sand until the sun rose and rose and
then dipped and dipped, and then the pretty glow of the
sun going to sleep, and then black, and the sparkly popping
of stars. Gilda sat there all night long. She didn't make
another sound. Just sat waiting. Waiting like she did in the
red Holden while Mum went in to buy the Listener to see
what the movie was. Waiting like she did outside the pub
with the other kids while Mum had one more. Waiting like
she did for her mother to come and tuck her up for the
night, when she sometimes wouldn't come at all, but if she
did she would pull the bedclothes so tight it was the closest
Gilda got to an embrace from her. She waited like she did
for Mum to come out of the bedroom when she had a man
in there and sometimes it would be nearly teatime again.
She waited like she did sitting on the edge of the bath
for Mum to get out and sprinkle talcum powder over her
body and maybe puff some in her face. Wait while Mum
put on her good red dress and let Gilda hold the hairdryer
over her rollers. Wait while Mum went into the grog shop
for a long time and came out with her lipstick wrong and
her face grim and a bottle of booze in her freckled arms,
holding it like a newborn baby. She waited patiently like
she did for baby Jesus to answer her prayers and make them
all happy in a house made of lollies and make it Christmas
every day with Easter eggs and candyfloss and boiled eggs
with soldiers that Mary would cut up if Gilda was good
and would just
wait
.

It was the bloke from the bottle shop who found Gilda,
shivering. She would not move for him or speak to him
but she told him in her head she was waiting. He wanted
her to wait in his house but she wouldn't move, then he
wanted her to wait in his car but she wouldn't move, and
then he wanted her to wait on his lap, and instead he sat
behind her and his fingers went like wiggly worms inside
the elastic of her knickers. But she would not take her focus
off her waiting.

When he went away she waited and waited and waited.
All through the night and when the morning arrived it
came suddenly and the sun was hot but she didn't move
and the sun made her face red and blistery, burning on more
freckles. She waited and waited and waited and waited. Just
the thought of the word 'Mum' made her feel like crying
and a croak burned in her throat, so she didn't shout it
out but she did in her head and when people walked past
her on the beach she didn't notice them and when Maggie
lifted her up off the sand, where she had peed, and folded
her in her arms, she stayed still and rigid, sat like she had
on the beach, and when her aunt put her in her bed Gilda
stayed sitting and waiting with all her heart.

When the doctor tried to uncurl her, the way Mary
had unfurled her fingers to count the birthday rings,
Gilda wouldn't let him. And when he put a needle in her
arm she didn't say ouch. But she thought it. And when
she fell asleep she didn't know she had done it or else
she would've stayed awake to wait.

When Gilda came to, they had a wake for her mother,
and Gilda thought:
This is when they wake Mum up
, but Mum
wasn't even there. Just an empty box like what a giant shoe
might come in.

She did not speak to her aunt but watched her because
she looked so much like her mum, and that was so sad, as
if all of her had seeped out and into the floor and into the
dirt and down all the way to China. And sometimes the
world would go black and she would sleep for days and not
even know she was, and sometimes she would dream and
dream and dream, like eating a stack of the most amazingly
delicious food in the universe. Even though she knew
dreaming was bad she couldn't help herself.

Whenever she seemed to forget her mum she would
remember and instantly go rigid into her cross-legged pose.
She waited for her mum and with enormous faith she
waited. And her dreams came to her and she pushed them
down because she knew she couldn't dream before she was
born because her mother had told her. Her mother had
said:
What do you know about love? You don't know anything.
And what was anything if Mum wasn't there?

She waited all year.

Her cousin Martha would sit with her. 'You're waiting,
aren't you?' she would say, first as a question and then as
an answer. 'Oh, you're waiting, aren't you.' Or 'Let's wait,'
and they would wait together.

They would wait on the beach.

Under the bed.

Behind the couch.

Up trees.

On the bonnet of the car.

Sometimes they would sit side by side and sometimes
they faced each other. Gilda made sure her eyes were blank,
because you needed to wait with your entire mind or else it
wouldn't work and Mum would never come back.

She liked hearing people speak — the way their voices
lilted and rose it sounded like singing. But Gilda didn't
want to make any noise any more. She tried to once
or twice but the words caught in her throat. She would
literally choke on them and her aunt would thump her
back and out would spit the words she never spoke, and
they would hang there in mid-air waiting for instructions,
like thought bubbles in a cartoon. All the words she didn't
say, all tangled up, moving and merging into nonsensical
sentences, with shapes and colours of their own that she
could taste and smell and touch with her fingertips, waiting
for Gilda to syntax them, to make sense of them, just like
later in life she waited for a man to make sense of herself,
something to go with her.