CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Where’s Oliver?
He is not there the next morning when I go to the orangery, my skin flushing as I remember what I did in his name last night. Eleanor is at the breakfast table by herself, folders piled beside her plate as she discusses today’s schedule with her assistant, a fair-haired young man called Gerald.
“And there is that museum opening at—” She breaks off when I walk in, and Gerald pauses his incessant scribbling in that notebook he carries everywhere with him.
“Grace, there you are,” Eleanor says. “How did you sleep? Gerald happened to be passing your room last night and he said that you were thrashing around in your bed. Like a woman possessed, he said. Not bad dreams, I trust?”
I was dreaming of Ceto, sitting in her chair in the Shadowlands, counting the pearls in her tail. One, two, three, she began, touching each pearl in its turn. Thirteen, she said, staring at me. Remember that, little mermaid.
“I want to be sure that my guest is happy, while you are here,” she says. “And we don’t know how long that will be, after all. Not too long, of course. I’m sure that you have your own family to return to. Do you have family, Grace? Brothers? Sisters? A mother who misses you? I bet your mother looks just like you, doesn’t she?”
Eleanor waves a hand at the seat beside her, gesturing at me to sit. “You’ll be wondering where Oliver is,” she continues. “He’s in his room, I think, but I wouldn’t disturb him when he’s in one of these moods. So like his father, that one. Best leave him to it.”
And so it goes. Day after day. Did Alexander Carlisle also spend days disappearing from sight, turning into a ghost, slipping away before anyone could catch him? Oliver’s crumpled napkin is on his plate when I arrive to the orangery for breakfast, no matter how early I wake up. Eleanor and I, side by side, and she always has so many questions.
Where are you from? Who are your people? Blink your eyes once for yes and twice for no, Grace. We must be able to communicate in some manner, since you can’t read or write. Most unusual in this day and age. If Oliver was here he would say, Stop it, Mother, there’s no need to interrogate Grace. But he’s not here. He’s never here any more.
At lunch he has always gone out with ‘the boys’, hunting or riding, servants following with picnic baskets of food and drink. I am not invited. “Boys will be boys,” Daisy says, attempting to reassure me as I stand by my bedroom window, watching them leave. “It’s nothing personal, Grace.”
And maybe it wouldn’t feel so personal if my life wasn’t resting in his careless hands. It wouldn’t feel so personal if I hadn’t made the sacrifices I have in order to be with him. Why is he punishing me? It was he who initiated the kiss, not me.
The only time I catch a glimpse of Oliver is at dinner, but he doesn’t sit with me now. It is always a grand affair, the guests are business people and members of this country’s parliament, others in dark sunglasses that they refuse to remove, even indoors, as if disguising their unusually attractive faces. Tonight, there is a man on either side of me, the duke of something on my left and a Mr Large Gold Watch on my right. “Gosh, you’re pretty,” Gold Watch says, open-mouthed, his wife opposite him frowning at me, as if it was my fault.
During the course of the meal, Oliver drinks glass after glass of red wine, signalling to the waiter once the bottle is finished. “Another round, garçon,” he says, snickering, and Eleanor leans over and touches his arm.
“Maybe you’ve had enough, dear?” I can see her whisper to him, glancing nervously at the rest of the guests. “Remember, we have company.”
Oliver shakes her hand off. “You can’t control all the men in this family, Mother.” He speaks loudly and a hush falls over the table.
“Oliver, that’s not fair. I didn’t try and—”
“Oh,” he says, ignoring his mother’s pleading expression. “Oh, I think you did.”
After dinner, Eleanor has invited a few guests to accompany her to the drawing room. I have joined them because I have nowhere else to go; Oliver left before pudding was served, beckoning Rupert and George to follow him. I tried to look like I didn’t mind.
The drawing room is Eleanor’s favourite place in the house; it is where she spends the most time, besides her office. It is floor to ceiling glass walls overlooking the sea, curtains and chairs in a primrose silk with the outline of roses picked out in cream thread. The handful of guests remaining after dinner include Henrietta Richmond, a woman with skin stretched tight across her bones, and her husband, a balding man called Charles. “New friends,” Eleanor crowed when they agreed to stay for a nightcap. I had heard her tell the assistant earlier to ensure these two guests were particularly well cared for. (“Wine, Gerald,” she said, “and lots of it. I want the Richmonds feeling very merry and very generous.”)
Charles owns a company Eleanor wants to acquire, and she is determined to have it. This world of money and business that Eleanor thrives in seems so complex, full of knots that must be untangled, never-ending problems to be solved. Eleanor is half-nursemaid, half-warrior, manipulating, flattering and bullying those around her to get her own way. It is most bemusing.
They clink glasses, ignoring me, then Eleanor reaches over to say cheers to the man they call “Captain”. He is sitting by the fire, hands in his lap, while the two women are cuddled on a chaise longue. I am in an armchair opposite the Captain, Charles standing at the drinks trolley, examining the labels carefully.
“Charles,” his wife says. “Maybe you shouldn’t have any more.”
“It’s a party, Hen. Relax.”
“Come now, Captain,” Eleanor says quickly as Henrietta’s lips disappear into a thin line. “You must have some tall tales for us, good man. The Captain is one of this country’s most reknowned sailors,” she explains to the others. Sailor? “Well, he is more of an explorer, really, aren’t you, Captain? Going places where no other man dares to go.” I look at him more carefully, this captain, this man who takes to the seas in search of adventures. What could he have seen, on his voyages? “He is famous for his story-telling,” Eleanor continues. “And he is most sought after company because of it. The last time he came for dinner, he gave the most wonderful account of his trip to Antarctica.” She smiles at the older man. “Where have you been these last few months, Captain?”
“I do love a good tall tale,” Charles says, throwing back his drink. “The more outrageous the better, if you please, kind sir.”
“They’re not tall tales,” the Captain says. His voice is deep, and so low that each of us has to strain to hear him. I have seen him at Eleanor’s dinner parties before now, but I have never heard him speak until this moment. He always seems to be on the periphery, watching everyone else. Watching me. “I only tell the truth. The things that I have seen are beyond mere exaggeration.”
“Oh, how exciting,” Henrietta says. Her face is beginning to perspire from the heat of the fire and she wipes sweat away from her upper lip self-consciously. “Like what, Captain?”
“Things that cannot be explained,” he says, without moving his gaze from the fire, as if he doubts Henrietta’s ability to understand. “Things that do not make sense to the rational mind, but which I have seen with my own eyes and know to be true. Things that can never be proven, so scientists dismiss them as fanciful delusions; the ravings of men spent too long at sea, the salt melting their brains.” I shift in my seat, leaning forward so I can listen better. Go on, I urge him. Tell us what you have seen. I need to know.
“Come now, old chap,” Charles drawls. “Don’t keep us in suspense. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve sighted at sea?”
“That depends on your definition of weird, I suppose.”
“Perhaps this was a bad idea,” Eleanor interrupts, holding her wine glass so tightly I’m surprised it doesn’t shatter. She looks curiously pale, as if she has suddenly taken ill. “It’s not fair to expect the Captain to entertain us. He’s probably tired anyway – it’s getting late…”
“Now, now,” Charles says with a wink. “You started this, Eleanor. I was promised extraordinary stories and I want to hear them.”
“Okay,” Eleanor says, her lips white. “Carry on, Captain.”
He grunts. “I have seen creatures that are half-human and half-fish, flesh and scales made one,” he says, and my heart lingers slow, anticipating what he will say next. There is a high-pitched ringing sound in one of my ears, and I rub the lobe roughly to make it stop. “I have seen them swimming past my ship, waving at my men,” the Captain continues. “Calling to them. Tempting them. Trying to lure them to their deaths.”
“Wait,” Charles says. “Do you mean mermaids?” The Captain doesn’t respond, and Charles bangs his fist off the table with glee, causing Henrietta and Eleanor to jump. Eleanor doesn’t look at all well, and I wonder what is wrong with her. “You do mean mermaids,” Charles says and time winds down, the clocks softening their ticking.
All I can hear is my breath, shallow. Mermaids don’t lure men to their deaths, I want to say. We are not Rusalkas. And then I think, maybe this man knows about my mother. Maybe he was on the boat that captured her. I look at his strong hands and I picture them knotting around Muireann of the Green Sea’s neck, so thin, so pale, and I shudder.
“Tell us more, Captain,” Charles says, perching on the armrest of the chaise longue. “Are they very beautiful, as the legends always say?”
“Some of them are,” the old man says. “Some of them possess beauty of an inexplicable nature, beauty that would never be seen on earth.” He looks at me as he talks, his eyes narrowing, and I edge back into my chair to make myself inconspicuous. Could he know my secret? I should rise, indicate tiredness and go to bed, but somehow I feel unable to do so. This is the closest I have ever been to discovering the truth about my mother. I cannot leave. “And then there are others who are plain eerie,” he says. “Green hair and jagged teeth, wild eyes. Hungry, those ones are. Ravenous.”
“Interesting,” Charles says. “Of course, stories about mermaids have been around for centuries, and in many different cultures around the world, do you know. I read a marvellous book a few years ago and it said the first mention of these creatures was in Greek mythology and it dates to around fifty BC—”
“One thousand BC, darling,” Henrietta says.
“— when a goddess called Ataractic fell in love with
a—”
“Her name was Atargatis, darling.”
“All right, Hen,” Charles continues. “I just thought everyone might like a bit of background. It’s all guess work anyway, really, what would happen if cross-species, eh, copulation, took place.” He chuckles as if my kind are nothing but a fanciful joke to be bandied about at parties. “Shouldn’t make such rude comments with young girls present, now, should I?” he says, and looks at me. I wish he wouldn’t. I need the Captain to keep talking, to tell a story of a mermaid caught many years ago. A mermaid who looked just like me.
“Yes, Charles,” his wife says, re-arranging her skirt. “I wrote my thesis on folklore and fairy tales, don’t you remember?”
“Inter-species copulation, this book said,” Charles repeats, as if Henrietta hasn’t spoken. “I wish I could tell you all the author’s name; he sounded a terribly clever chap.”
“Rachel Conlyons.”
“What?”
“The author’s name was Rachel Conlyons,” Henrietta says again. “And it was my book, Charles. You took it from my nightstand.”
“Hmm, yes. But it would make you wonder, wouldn’t it, Captain?” Charles says. “Bit of a coincidence, the similarities between all these myths. So, you think there could be some truth in it, then?”
“I don’t know anything about coincidences, sir,” the Captain replies, back to staring into the fire. The humans do this, I’ve noticed, with fires and with water. They stare into the elements as if they hope to find a missing piece of themselves within. “There have been stories, but none proven as no mermaid has ever been caught, not in living memory.”
No mermaid has ever been caught? My breath catches, elbowing the sides of my throat. But what about—
“I have heard of men who have fallen in love with the maids from the sea,” the Captain says. “But it does not last very long. How can it? These creatures will always pine for their homes and, one day, the lure of the sea will prove too much for them. They will abandon husbands, children, it does not matter what attachments they have formed; they will throw them aside for the trace of salt upon their skin. These beings are not the same as you or me.”
“No,” Eleanor says, standing up. She places the wine glass carefully on the table. “They are not.”
“Eleanor,” Henrietta says. “Are you quite all right? You’re as white as a ghost.”
“I’m tired,” Eleanor says. “I do believe it’s best we all retire now.”
Another two days pass.
No mermaid has ever been caught, not in living memory.
The Captain’s words sharpen in my mouth, seizing in my gums. They are all I can taste now.
No mermaid has ever been caught, not in living memory.
Then it is three days since the dinner, and the last time I saw Oliver.
I try and sleep but my sisters whisper in my ears as I drift into unconsciousness. I see Cosima and Zale, my father wrapping black seaweed around their wrists, bonding them together. Come back, Muirgen, my sisters cry. Help us, Muirgen.
I wake, sweating, unwilling to go back to that state, down in the depths of my dreams where I have no control over what I will hear and see. Instead, I have begun to walk to the sea at night, my heart thirsty for the salt water. This world is awe-inspiring to look at, that cannot be denied. Every day there is something new to see, to smell, to hold between my fingertips to make real. But I had not realized that this world would be so loud. It seems as if people surround me constantly, wanting to touch my hair, to comment on my dresses, to tell me that I am beautiful. Their piercing voices, scratching at my ears; and before long I am tired of all this newness. And so I go to the sea. The sea is familiar. The sea is easy. The sea is quiet. I sit there and I watch the moon track the sky, warning me. No time. No time. No time left, little mermaid.
One night, as Daisy untangles the day’s complicated hairstyle, I find myself rushing to the toilet to vomit. There are black spots bursting in my eyes as I heave over the toilet. It is like I am trying to dislodge some of this torment and spew it out of me. Daisy rubs my back, murmuring, shush, shush, my pet. I slump on the bathroom floor, watching my feet warp, as if my eyes were made of flawed glass. The Sea Witch’s spell is falling apart, taking chunks of my flesh with it.
“We need to call a doctor,” Daisy says. “This is too serious, I can’t—”
I rear away from her, shaking my head. “Okay,” she says gently, as if taming a wild beast. “But it doesn’t feel right, Grace. I’ve never seen anything like this before and it’s getting worse, not better. I could lose my job. If Mrs Carlisle finds out I kept this from her…”
We both start at the sharp knock, Daisy kicking the basin of bloody water under the bed.
“Grace?” A voice from the other side of the door. A woman’s. “It is Mrs Carlisle. May I come in?”
Did she hear what Daisy said?
Daisy manages to pull the duvet over my legs just as the door opens. “Good evening, m’am,” she says.
“Thank you, Daisy,” Eleanor replies. She is dressed in the violet dress she wore to dinner. (Spindly candles in silver candelabras, flowers blooming through the centre of the table, but no Oliver… “Busy, I’m afraid,” Eleanor had told the guests and they waited until the president of a neighbouring country engaged her in conversation before they started to gossip. “I mean, really,” they whispered, “how can Eleanor Carlisle be trusted to run an entire company if she can’t get her own son to attend a dinner party? The market is so volatile right now, did you see that latest report from…” These people have no uneasiness about speaking this way in front of me, of course. No one is wary of a girl who is mute.)
“You may leave,” Eleanor tells Daisy now. “I would like to speak to Grace before bedtime.”
Daisy doesn’t move, standing by my bed as if she is my guard; like the armed escort that flanks my father on the rare occasion he leaves the palace.
“Daisy,” Eleanor says. She sounds like Oliver, the same imperious tone, barely masked irritation at not being instantly obeyed. “I asked you to leave so that I can speak to Grace in private.”
“Yes, Mrs Carlisle.” Daisy backs out of the room, widening her eyes at me in warning behind Eleanor’s back. What is she trying to tell me?
“So,” Eleanor says when we are alone. “May I?” She gestures at the bed and I nod in acquiescence. It’s oddly intimate when she settles beside me. We only ever sit at opposite sides of the breakfast table but when we are this close, I can smell her perfume, floral with a hint of something woody, can make out the criss-cross of fine lines around her eyes and mouth.
“I see you, you know,” she says. “Night after night. I see you going down to the water. What is it about the sea that fascinates you so?” I shrug, the very picture of guilelessness, for how can I tell her that I need the sea? I need a respite from all the noise and the clamour of this world. She catches hold of my elbow. “You really are astonishing to look at,” she says, but there is no emotion in her tone. She doesn’t say it the way others have said it, as if beauty is something I should be celebrated for, as if my face is all I need to be deemed worthy of love and respect. She doesn’t say it like Oliver does either, like he’s blaming me for making him feel something he does not want to feel.
“I have heard tell of another woman with eyes so blue and hair so red,” she says, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “One whose beauty could rival your own. It’s quite some time ago since I first heard of her, I never actually saw her. Not in real life, anyway.” She laughs, a dry humourless sound, like the cracking of a whip, and I feel very cold. Is she talking about…? “But her face, oh, her face haunts my dreams.” She peers closely at me. “And sometimes I cannot tell the difference between her face and that of your own. Isn’t that peculiar, Grace?”
I shrug again, surreptitiously wiping my sweating palms on the bedcover.
“I’ve seen the way you look at my son,” she says. “There’s no need to be embarrassed.” She reaches out to take my hand in hers, and grips it too tightly, rubbing at my knuckles as if she wants to wear the flesh away. “Oli is a handsome boy, and charming when he chooses to be. But I don’t want you getting hurt, Grace. You don’t want to know what it’s like loving a man who is in love with another woman. It can send you…” She laughs in that strange way again. “Well, it can send you quite mad.” I stare at Eleanor’s hand, the heavy jewelled rings on her fingers. All paid for by Eleanor, with Eleanor’s money. Everything in the house belongs to her.
“Oliver’s girlfriend died,” she says. “Did you know that?” Viola, with her blunt haircut and those long legs. The way Oliver looked at her: he has never looked at me like that. “Oliver and Viola were childhood sweethearts,” Eleanor continues. “The Guptas are an important family in this county, and Viola was much sought after, beautiful as she was.” She was beautiful, Viola. I wish I had her brown skin and her brash laugh. I wish I had her voice. I wish I had any voice at all. “Oli and Viola would have been married within a few years, and we were all delighted. A very suitable match; it’s not like Oliver Carlisle could marry any old stranger he picked up on the street. Or the beach, as it were.” I bite my lip to stop its tremor. “But I do not tell you this to hurt you. I tell you this for your own good. My son is grieving, more deeply than you could ever understand.” And what do you know of me? I want to ask her. What could you ever know of the sorrow that I have endured? “Oliver does not see you in that way,” she says. “Not now, not ever. It’s important for you to retain a little dignity. That is all I came here to say.”
Eleanor stands in a rustle of silk, placing a hand to my forehead as if she’s blessing me, like Cosima did on the night before I left the palace. Maybe they were both secretly cursing me.
Then she’s gone. I take a huge gulp of air, as if I had forgotten to inhale for the duration of her visit, and I pick up the hand mirror on my bedside locker. The face in the glass; the eyes so blue, the hair so red. And I see the woman who haunts my dreams. I see my mother. Was Eleanor talking about— The sea, I think. I need the sea.
I throw the covers away from me, dragging myself out of bed and tiptoeing down the stairs on these broken toes. Each step is white-heat, acid in a gaping wound, licking the edges with a caustic tongue. The front door thrown open. The marble steps. And then the sea, oh, the sea.
It is calling me, but it doesn’t speak to me, it doesn’t call me daughter any more. Its voice is as lost to me as my own and I’m not sure which hurts more. I soak my feet in its waters, the pounding solace, throw my head back to show the night sky the gaping hole where my tongue used to be. I wish I was able to talk to someone, that I had someone to hold my hand and tell me that they cared about me. I realize at that moment I am lonely, and I have been so for as long as I can remember. I realize that a part of me broke the night my mother left, that night of my first birthday. And I am not sure if I know how to put myself back together again.
My father told us that she abandoned us that day, that she chose to indulge her selfish obsession rather than stay close to home with her children. She was dead, he said, she was captured by the humans. He said that he would have saved her if doing so hadn’t meant endangering the entire kingdom. (But I think we should remember, girls, that maybe she didn’t deserve to be saved, he would say, waiting for us to nod in agreement. He needed proof that we loved him the most.) And yet the Captain said a mermaid had never been captured in all his time at sea. He would have heard tell, surely, it would have been the talk of the county.
I promised myself I would discover the truth about my mother’s fate but I have been so consumed by Oliver, by my determination to make him love me, that I forgot about Muireann of the Green Sea. And for what? Oliver makes me feel something that I do not understand, something that I cannot name. But… but he does not love me, his mother says – and he never will. He loves a girl called Viola, and she is dead. What am I doing here?
I look at the star-smeared sky – only two weeks to full moon, two weeks, and how am I supposed to make this man love me if he’s never here to see me, to witness my beauty? I thought I knew despair when I was under the sea. I thought I knew true loneliness. As a tear trickles down my cheek, falling salt on my lips, I realize that I was wrong.