The Mermaids Singing Read online

  She who inspires terror, I thought, like my mother had always wanted me to be.

  Liam sat down by an indent in the wall that looked like it had once been a fireplace. The stone above it was slightly lighter than the rest, and when I looked closer I saw that it was a carving. The upper half of a naked woman, her breasts pointy and severe, her head bowed so that her hair covered most of her face. Her eyelids peeked out, lowered in what looked like sadness. Her bottom half had fallen away; severed by the rough inside of stone.

  “That’s a mermaid,” Liam said. “There’s lots of these old carvings on the island. I wasn’t let to look at them as a boy, on account of what Nana called their ‘pornographic bosoms.’ The lads and I used to sneak around, peeking and poking at all the stone tits on the island.”

  “Couldn’t you find any real ones?” I said. I meant it to be flirtatious, but he took it as a geography question.

  “Ah, there’s real mermaids here as well. There have been for ages. Some of the island surnames, like mine and your Da’s, are supposed to be those of the descendants of captured merrows.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. How naive did he think I was?

  “That’s the story. My surname, MacNamara, means ‘son of the sea’ in Irish. The mermaids, they swim into caves like, and sing with sad voices, trying to draw in the lonely men. If a man follows, the mermaid grabs him and takes him down under the water, has her way with him, and drowns the eejit. ’Tis bad luck for a fisherman to see a mermaid, for it means he’ll drown if he’s not captured first.

  “But sometimes, the odd cute man can capture one of the creatures. Mermaids wear this enchanted red cap, the ‘cohullen driuth,’ and if you nick it, their fins turn to legs and they can’t return to the sea until they get it back. That’s how come the MacNamaras and the O’Flahertys are said to come from a union with a mermaid. Your man somewhere along the family tree snatched her up as his bride and she had his children before she could escape. There’s some that say she took one of her children under the sea with her, turned the girl into a baby mermaid who never grew any older.”

  “That was cruel of her,” I said, still suspicious but drawn in.

  “Ah, sure, she loved her husband as well. But the pull of the sea was too great and she had to go back eventually.”

  “You don’t really believe that,” I said, and Liam shrugged.

  “Doesn’t matter if I do or I don’t. There’s no harm in it. ’Tis just a story, sure.”

  “Have you ever seen a mermaid?” I said.

  “Ah, no. But I thought your Mum was one.”

  “My mother?” I said. “You remember my mother?”

  “The odd bit of her, yeah.” Liam was blushing now. “My Da used to tell me the stories in the cradle, and I remember your Mum being at Nana’s house. She talked funny, I thought, and I wasn’t allowed to the beach with her because she swam naked. She had all that red hair, and the eyes like seaweed, and she’d always be looking out over the water like she missed something. It was silly, I know, but I was only the wee boy. Then she vanished, and the relations were whispering, and my Da says I cried and cried because I thought she’d taken you under the water with her.” Liam snapped his mouth shut, like he’d just remembered I was listening.

  “I thought you didn’t remember me,” I said. He plucked a white flower out of the floor, twirling it in his dirty fingers.

  “I don’t, not much so,” he said. He wasn’t looking at me. “I just remember missing you.”

  I pictured my mother, with her hair the way it used to be, trapped in a world where she talked funny, and myself as a little girl, dragged screaming under the sea.

  “I wish I could remember you,” I said. I was tired of everyone telling me stories of a life I couldn’t recall.

  Liam looked up and smiled, shifted so he was kneeling by the window in the wall. When he motioned for me to join him, I was conscious of my own breathing and I licked my lips. Kneeling, we were the perfect height to see the ocean through the slit in the stone. Without looking at me, Liam took my hand, not entwining fingers like most boys, but like a child, gripping my palm and wrapping his fingers over the space above my thumb. His hand was dry and warm and it felt natural, not like the kind of pass that would send me into panicked expectation. A smell came hurtling back to me, smoke and salt and damp, and the warm grip of a hand, tiny and plump like my own. Liam let go, but I had remembered.

  “We’re still friends,” he said. “We’re just after a gap is all.”

  I watched the tide recede and thought of Stephen’s hands sliding my fingers down cool ivory keys.

  What does it mean, I wanted to ask Liam, This is my body, it will be given up for you? Why does it make me think of Stephen, of kissing, of marooned blood clots, and my mother’s hair like abandoned nests in the wastebasket?

  Liam was saying something about Seamus and Clíona, and my mother leaving the island.

  “They were brokenhearted, the both of them. Nana just made herself busier, you know. Seamus did as well, but for years he had this desperate look about him. He used to meet the ferry in the evenings, said he was just getting his post, but everyone knew he was wishing to see you and Grace on the quay. Then, about a year after you’d gone, he disappeared for months. Folks were hoping he’d followed after you both, but he came home alone and didn’t talk about where he’d been.”

  “He doesn’t even want to see me,” I said. “He left a note saying he can’t face me.”

  “Ah, I doubt that’s the whole truth of it,” Liam said.

  “What is, then?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  Which Seamus is my father? I thought. The Seamus staring out to sea, waiting for me? Or the neat-handwriting Seamus who ran away?

  When we rowed out again it was dark, and the moon was huge and textured, glinting a road of light across the water. Liam paddled around the side of the harbor, so he could bring the curragh to a cove closer to the hotel. The water was still, but there was that same far-off moan of wind which rose and fell in a rhythm, and now it reminded me of seagulls below cliffs.

  “Do you hear that, Gráinne?” Liam said, when the moan rose to its highest pitch, echoing over the water. “It’s the mermaids. They’re singing.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Grace

  After the Willoughbys’ party, school days and family dinners were chores Michael and Grace had to get through until nighttime, when they could meet at the swimmers’ cabin. Grace was exhausted during the day and infused with energy at night. She couldn’t pay attention in class, and her first report card was so bad, Clíona wouldn’t shut up about it for weeks.

  “It’s not unintelligent you are, so you must be plain stupid bringing home these marks. Nothing but education is going to get you the fancy life you’re looking for.”

  Grace smiled to herself. School no longer mattered. Love was the immediate and lasting thing. Michael kept his grades up with barely any effort and in November he received an early acceptance notice from Harvard. He told Grace before anyone else.

  “I’ll get an apartment instead of a dorm and you can stay with me every weekend,” he said. She was delighted, already imagining what the freedom of their own place would be like.

  The swimmers’ cabin was hidden from the house by trees, and once everyone was in bed they could sneak out, light a fire in the wood-burning stove, and make love until they collapsed. The wood would crackle with gunshot pops while they thumped on the daybed, startling them and making them cling tighter. For the rest of Grace’s life, the smell of burning logs would make her think of sex. As would the sound of the sea.

  They went on like this, undetected, all winter long. Clíona had not been as watchful as usual, for she had started dating a man named Jacob Alper. Grace saw him when he came to the house to pick her mother up, but she didn’t bother looking closely at him. Grace hadn’t much interest or faith in her mother’s taste in men. She couldn’t imagine where the two had met, unless
it was at the supermarket—which seemed pitifully middle-aged to her. She was just glad to have her mother out of the way on weekends.

  In the spring, when the grounds man brought the motorboat out, Grace became excited at the prospect of swimming again. No more days cooped up in a classroom or that tense house. She could immerse herself in the ocean, where she was alone and in charge. This was what she was thinking about in her room when she heard the crash of pottery from downstairs, then what sounded like Mrs. Willoughby screaming. This was not out of the ordinary, so Grace just kept looking out her window. After some more thuds, she saw Mr. Willoughby stomping across the driveway. He got in his car and drove away with a violent screech of tires. Clíona came up to the attic, shutting the door behind her.

  “What now?” Grace snapped. Clíona was flushed and breathless from running up the stairs.

  “Your woman is upset,” she said. “Your woman” was how she always referred to Mrs. Willoughby.

  “What else is new?” Grace said.

  “She’s just after saying something that disturbs me. So I’m asking you is it true.” Grace rolled her eyes. Clíona continued. “Has Mr. Willoughby ever…did your man touch you somewhere inappropriate?”

  “Mr. Willoughby?” Grace sputtered.

  “Your woman seems to think you’re bedding her husband. I wanted to make certain he’d made no advances on you,” Clíona said.

  “Of course not.” Grace tried not to laugh.

  Clíona paused, looking relieved, and sat down on Grace’s bed. “Have you gotten yourself in any trouble?” she asked, in a voice that was kind, for her.

  “No.”

  “Sure, if you did, you’d know well you could talk to your mother about it.” Clíona looked uncomfortable.

  This was not a role Clíona was good at, Grace thought—the supportive mother. “Everything’s fine, Mom.”

  “I just wanted you to know that,” Clíona said. “That you can come to me.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Grace swallowed her sarcasm. The last person she would ever want to confide in was her mother. Clíona wouldn’t understand. Grace was young and in love and planning for the future, while Clíona was stuck in the past. Grace wouldn’t allow herself to be pulled into her mother’s muck.

  That night she waited over an hour for Michael at the swimmers’ cabin. When he arrived he didn’t even close the door behind him.

  “I can’t stay,” he said quickly. “We have to cool it for a while. Mom’s breathing down my neck.”

  “She thinks I’m sleeping with your Dad,” Grace said, and Michael nodded.

  “I know,” he said. “She’s nuts. But she’s right to suspect something. Dad’s sleeping around and you’re sleeping with me. She’s bound to figure it out if we’re not careful.”

  “So what if she does?” Grace said. “We’re leaving in the fall anyway.”

  Michael looked at her strangely. “Your Mom could lose her job,” he said. “And then where would you live next year?”

  Grace had been fantasizing that Michael would end up taking her to Harvard with him, but she’d never mentioned it. A bit of fear tingled in her throat, but she swallowed it and smiled.

  “I can be discreet,” she said. “I’ll be the picture of virginity.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Michael said, kissing her. He grunted happily when she pushed her tongue in his mouth. She put her arms around his neck, hoping he would be easily convinced to stay. He broke away.

  “Mom’s waiting,” he said. “She thinks I’m making her tea.” And he left.

  Michael avoided her for over two weeks. When he wasn’t at school, he was sitting with his mother, who’d taken to bed with one of her imaginary illnesses. Grace moped around the house, avoiding everyone. Mr. Willoughby wouldn’t look at her if he came across her path accidentally, and Mrs. Willoughby muttered “slut” or “tramp” if Grace passed by her open bedroom door. Grace spent most of her time in the attic, trying unsuccessfully to catch up on the schoolwork she’d been putting off. She failed three of her five final exams anyway. At night she’d take long walks on the beach to avoid Clíona’s worried stare.

  On the last day of school, Grace stayed home with a sore throat. Clíona was shopping, and only Grace and Mrs. Willoughby were in the house. Grace was told to listen for the woman’s bedside bell.

  She dozed half the morning and woke to a faint, persistent ringing. She stumbled down the attic steps and over to Mrs. Willoughby’s room.

  “Yes?” she said in the doorway. Mrs. Willoughby was sitting in her rocking chair, rude pink blush smeared on her cheeks, an afghan draped on her lap. She looked ancient, though she wasn’t even forty.

  “Where have you been for the last twenty minutes while I’ve been clattering this damn bell?”

  “I was napping,” Grace said. “I have a cold, you know.”

  “Lying slut,” Mrs. Willoughby growled. “You were off fucking my husband in the grass someplace.”

  “I wouldn’t look twice at your husband,” Grace said, turning to leave.

  “Michael told me; it’s no use hiding it now,” Mrs. Willoughby said. Grace turned back.

  “Told you what?” she said.

  “Told me about your cheap affair with my husband. I suppose you must suck him off. Men go for that sort of thing.”

  Grace felt dizzy. “You’re lying. Michael wouldn’t say that. He loves me.”

  Mrs. Willoughby grinned. “Oh, really?” she said. “Is that what he told you? What a cruel trick to play on the servant’s girl.”

  Grace straightened her shoulders and marched up to the chair.

  “Fuck you, lady,” Grace said. Mrs. Willoughby put a hand to her mouth, pretending to be shocked. “If your husband finds you repulsive it’s because you are and it’s got nothing to do with me,” Grace said. Any trace of sympathy she’d ever felt for this woman was gone. “You’re pathetic. Your husband thinks so and so does Michael. Someday they’re both going to dump you.”

  The look on Mrs. Willoughby’s face made Grace blush. It was as if the woman had just been told she was dying. It occurred to Grace for the first time that Mrs. Willoughby really believed that they were all out to get her, unfairly. That she was a martyr. And of course she would, because Michael, Clíona, everyone let her think so. Grace had just shattered something, and she could almost see the shards slicing through what was left of Mrs. Willoughby’s mind.

  “Get out!” Mrs. Willoughby screamed, standing up and knocking the rocking chair backward. Grace scurried. When she closed the door behind her she heard something break against it. On her way down the stairs she heard more slams and crashes. It sounded like the woman was trashing her room; it wouldn’t be the first time. Grace wasn’t going to stick around for when Mrs. Willoughby emerged.

  She left through the back door and went down to the beach. She stripped to her underpants and dove off the dock. The water was brilliantly cold, but she kept her face toward the sun and swam fast until her muscles warmed. As she relaxed into the familiar rhythm, she began to feel bad for having said those things to Mrs. Willoughby. Grace knew what it felt like to be hated by your own family. Didn’t Clíona constantly disapprove of her? No wonder Mrs. Willoughby made so many scenes. Grace would do it herself, if she thought it would get her anything.

  She’d been swimming about twenty minutes when she heard the motor start up. She stopped to tread water and looked in the direction of the dock. The motorboat was coming at her full speed, Mrs. Willoughby at the engine, her hair flying madly behind her. In the instant before she was afraid, Grace was surprised that Mrs. Willoughby looked so excited—almost as if she were happy for the first time in years.

  The next few minutes Grace would barely remember. She knew she dove to avoid the bow of the boat, which was rushing at her head. Then something grabbed her by the hair and held her down so she couldn’t come up for air. She pulled on it and there was a rumble under the sea, which must have been Mrs. Willoughby falling in. Grace
swam without looking back, her legs tingling with fright at the thought of something grabbing and pulling her under. When she got to shore, she turned and saw the boat charging empty out to sea. She was sure Mrs. Willoughby was swimming in after her, so she ran, her arms crossed over her naked breasts, up to the house door, which she bolted behind her. She went to her attic room and climbed soaking-wet into her bed, hiding like a child under the covers. She was crying, wanting her mother. What would she do when Mrs. Willoughby came up after her?

  When she didn’t hear anyone come in the house, she tried to get up. The walls breathed in and out around her and she shook violently from the cold. She lay back down to clear her head.

  Her mother was leaning over her.

  “Grace?” she said. “What are you still doing in bed? Where’s your woman? I can’t find her anywhere.” Grace started crying. “Did she ring for you at all?” Clíona said. Grace shook her head. Clíona smoothed the fringe from her daughter’s forehead.

  “Jesus, child, you’re roasting.” She pulled down the sheets. “Why haven’t you any clothes on?”

  “I was cold,” Grace said, realizing too late that this made no sense.

  “You’re dosed. Get these flannels on you. I’ll call the doctor.” Clíona stood up.

  “Mom,” Grace said, “don’t leave me, please. Stay here, okay?” Clíona looked suspicious at first, but her face softened.

  “All right, love,” she said gently. “You’ll be well enough in a day or two.” She sat with her daughter until she fell back to sleep.

  Grace came down with pneumonia. While she was still in a fevered delirium, Clíona told her that Mrs. Willoughby had drowned. Grace cried like a baby, but couldn’t say why she was crying.

  “Hesh,” Clíona said, fixing the bedclothes and avoiding Grace’s eyes. “No tears now.”