Saltskin (22 page)

Water is dribbling from the corners of the ceiling and now running
in swift streams. It's pooling from the pores of the walls and
spurting in geysers and blowholes from the floorboards, filling
the room like a bath. My flesh is splashed and the moistness is
putrid, fetid and old. It is not seawater, or from a river or lake;
it is as though the water is from a well no longer used, archaic,
abandoned, and dark things float in it: lockets and locks of hair,
ribbons and letters with faded stamps, and trinkets with worn
gold and lost jewels.

And I know I am in a dream: a lucid, waking dream. My
feet stand in puddles that deepen and the level rises and I am knee
deep and I wade through to try the door but the door dissolves
as I get nearer. I am in a hermetically sealed room and the water
is rising to my waist and it is foul — the odour of decay and
the sludgy film sticks to my skin — and now my head is pressed
against the ceiling, where the flood has pushed me, and weeds
grab at my legs, binding me like manacles, and now I am under
the surface with my breath held, and yet already my lungs scream
for air and I know that soon I will take a breath — I must, I will
die for a breath, and the current turns rough, a liquid tornado,
and I am dashed in its rolling waves, and it does not want me
here any more; it is impatient and urgent, and I must breathe,
and so I open my mouth to the watery air, and before I can suck
in I must first release the trapped air, and just as I know my next
gasp will be fatal, the water evaporates as if it were never there
and I am standing in a room that is familiar, a window behind
me, and I find myself before a giant wall-hanging: a tapestry of a
mermaid made long, long ago.

She is ancient as a goddess. At first I feel nothing. I am
indifferent in my little black heart. I step closer to the work of
art, for all that I am not ready for has arrived, and I hold a box
in my hands and I am unsure how it came to be and I realise I
do not want it — that it is not mine to hold — and I release it, let
it fall to the floor. I watch it bounce and roll, and from within a
mirror is spilled and smashes into a million small diamonds that
fly up and cut and graze like hail at my skin and it is impossible
to repair and I am relieved of a pressure.

The shards of glass hang like dust molecules and slowly drift
down as if gravity has changed its pace. I am pleased it has
broken, and a yellow light like a buttercup under the chin blooms
to encompass all, and a billow of joy flutters up in me. A carefree
emotion I have not experienced since I was a child, and the glow
fills the room like a halo, a Gloria, and continues to grow. Its
scope is infinite and the tapestry is reflecting the rainbow prisms of
the splinters of glass and I am mesmerised by the mermaid's face.

I feel I have seen it before. I am intimate with it, as though
I created it with my own mind and hands, and I am struck by
an impression. For the briefest of moment I see myself, with my
inner eye, clearly: as I used to be before my mother died, before
heartache, before I built for myself a golden cage. Me unscathed by
the tortuous rewards of grief or the drag of longing or the effort to
suppress my hopes, and then the sharpness of it is gone, leaving me
changed through insight, for I realise I am still that same person
and I wonder what I have done to myself.

What have I done to myself? The light is radiant, omnipresent
and glaring white and there is an echo — voices carried on a wind
from an unseeable place — and I feel the gateway of my ribs opening
to let in the whisper and I comprehend, finally, what my dreams
want me to understand. The echo speaks of loss, of inherited loss,
the flagellation of longing, and I conceive many things at once,
as if a spell has broken. I acknowledge that this is the last of the
dreaming, the last of the memories, that there will be no more,
and I worry, for who then will keep the memories alive?

Within the tapestry I see my naïve mother swimming in the
silken threads of the sea, swimming away to die rather than stay
on shore and drown in the lies in her head. And another woman,
fleeting, releasing her blood to free her sorrow, and I see that
they loved others more than their life, and I am their innocent
misplaced pain, their sweet illusions, and I am the wiser of them.
The echo whispers and their lives are part of me, knitted in my
bones, and my heart goes out to them.

The white radiance is glorious and mystical, intensifying its
rhapsody. I am not alone any more and the epiphany is heavenly
and the light swirls like a sandstorm and my body is pushed about
by warm zephyrs and the spirits of my ancestresses are a mist, the
way emotion charges a home. They are there for me, brushing
against my body, stroking, caressing, and I know the mind has
no place, and my arms are raised and I recall all that has been
forgotten, vivid and fleeting as a darting bird.

Once told, the tales can again be forgotten, to fade, to leave
me be, for new memories, new stories will be etched in the future,
and I am strong without fight, with faith. The room agrees with
me and these spectres, these shrouds of feeling, kiss me a thousand
kisses on my arms and face, and I am twirling in their midst like
a child, and then they are gone, vanquished. And the light lifts me
and I am ascending, yet my feet are still on the floor. I am soaring
in my soul and I am in the heights of euphoria and the light, that
rapturous light, is wonder, and I float on its vibration, as though
I have no body and I know a purer way of being and I am flying,
yet so still.

A man stands between the tapestry and me. And I know him.
He smiles and nods and runs fingers through his rosy golden hair,
and I see his beauty spot, just like mine, and he takes my hand
soberly and squeezes it against his chest and gazes, with a mixture
of regret and hope, into mine. He is calm and he says all the
heartache has been put to rest and he anchors me with his peace. I
bow my head and he kisses me on my forehead with the worship
of a father. He says it is time, and invites me to make a wish, and
I turn to ask what for and he is gone, yet I still feel his comfort.

The light subsides and dims, fades to wisps, and the dreamscape
departs, as if no time has passed. It is just me in the room. Broken
glass dead on the floor. Just me standing in front of the tapestry of
the mermaid as at an altar, and yet the sacrifice has already been
made. I feel refreshingly cold and it makes me feel alive. And I
know who I am. I am Gilda.

I make a wish.

I wish for an ordinary love with an equal, as plain and lifegiving
as soil. I wish to be both loved and lover, and that will be
enough.

I turn now, beckoned, as if my name has been called, and
through the window I see on the lawn the people I belong to
and who belong to me. And I am touched deep in my heart, where
once a stone was lodged and is no longer, and I realise I am the
love I seek: I am a vessel from which love overflows. I am no
longer afraid of its power, now that I see I am able to give real
love.

As I look from each countenance to the next I know that faith
is the opposite of fear. And I am weeping and laughing, for it is
simple. And there, Joel's good face, smiling at me through the
window, his eyes flinting and sparking with white light, and a
rush of gratitude is hot in me for I realise: I want what I already
have. For this man sees me as I really am: my perfection as well
as my flaws, and I know I am ready to engage, to take the gamble
where loss is the risk and part of the game, and I am confident,
this time, that I can't lose.

So many kind people helped me write this book. Thanks
to Michael Gifkins for giving me a crack and taking it to
the next level. Thanks to Harriet Allan, fiction publisher at
Random House, for also seeing the merit of the work and
running with it. In the early draft days, thanks to Bridget
Wilson and Derek Williams for their belief, and my little
sister Bronwyn for her enthusiasm. And later, Marc and
Laura, without whom I would have floundered, and to
my sister Carol: thank you for regular grocery drops and
roast-chicken dinners. I am very grateful to my mum for
so many things and being such a nice mum; Dad and my
brothers, too. Thank you to the Aramoana community
for their welcoming spirit and, in particular, Emma and
Christy for their serenity and friendship. Thanks also to
The Fortune Theatre. And finally, right at the end, thanks
to darling Hector for his bluntness and his praise.