The Mermaids Singing Page 25
“Hey,” Liam whispered. “Where are you?”
The mist was so thick I couldn’t see the ocean or the mainland behind it. There was nothing to orient me in the bubble of fog, but Liam, whose face looked clear and sharp, kissed me again with his swollen, salty mouth, his hands fluttering lightly up and down my sides, and for the first time in a long while, what lay beyond this island of singing rock and grieving, hungry sea didn’t matter.
CHAPTER 30
Gráinne
I set the table for Christmas dinner: eleven adults and fourteen children, Clíona tells me. At the end of the table nearest to the door, I add an extra plate, glass, side plate, napkin, gleaming silver cutlery.
After we have eaten, the sounds of laughter and bickering gone, the music of Liam’s flute only an echo, I will clear the table, leaving the unused place. Later, when all the others have gone to sleep, crammed five to a room on extra cots from the hotel, I will sneak down here, and wait in the darkness.
She will enter quietly, her bare feet squishing liquid prints upon the carpet. When she sits beside me, I will smell the dank, sexual odor of seaweed, of low tides, of the bed I was always welcome to crawl into as a child. In the shadows of blue moonlight, her hands will appear webbed, her long fingers connected by paper-thin fins. As she eats, her copper curls dripping beads of water onto the tablecloth, I will tell her about Liam, about the particular scent of his skin, about the kisses, and the condoms waiting in his pocket. She will laugh music, tease me, offer advice. I will tell her of my grandmother, my father, my cheery mob of a family—where the women adore the men, but only pretend to depend on them. About how their voices rise and fall like water, about how a part of me wants never to go back to a place where people don’t speak in tunes.
I will tell her I am no longer afraid of her dying. I know now that there are far worse ways of losing people, even when they’re right in front of you.
She will nod, smooth my short curls back from my forehead, kiss my raw red scar.
Gráinne, she will sing, naming me again.
She will recite poetry, without any pages to guide her.
A face haunts me,
following me day and night,
the triumphant face of a girl
is pleading all the time.
I will know exactly who she means.
Perhaps one of my little cousins will come downstairs for a glass of water or a secret snack, and see the retreating shadow of a woman, hear the gulp of water and the far-off moan of wind.
“Who was that lady?” the little girl will say, and I will settle her in my lap.
She is the pirate queen, Granuaile, who barges in, hungry and battle-worn, leaving her sword to glint by the fire.
She is the sea-woman, Muirgen, who transforms from the ocean at night, to steal one last look at her sleeping human children.
“She,” I will say, “was my mother.”
Acknowledgments
First, I thank my parents, Thomas and Ann Carey, for their generosity, patience, and humor, as well as the literal and figurative support they have given me during the writing of this novel. And my brother, Tommy, for being another artist, thus deflecting their frustrations.
I am grateful to the following for tea, shelter, palm readings, constructive criticism, personal loans, faith, and, in one fashion or another, for giving me the island I fell in love with:
Bernard and Mary Loughlin of the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig, Ireland; The Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers; the staff and faculty of Vermont College; the Islanders; Dana Brigham and Gang at Brookline Booksmith; Alan Paciorek, Sandra Miller, Gary Miller, Matt Swig, Justin Barkley, Noreen Ryan, Terry Byrne, Bridgid Walsh; Sara O’Keefe and her family; The Drisko Girls and Jim; Dr. Judith Robinson; Donald and Norah Alper; my agent, Elizabeth Ziemska; my editor, Jennifer Hershey; and my mentor, Douglas Glover.
Last, because it’s our favorite spot, my Best Friend, Sascha.
About the Author
LISA CAREY received an M.F.A. in writing from Vermont College, where she began The Mermaids Singing, her highly praised debut novel. The book has now been translated into seven languages and has been optioned for a film. Her most recent novel is In the Country of the Young. She lived in Ireland for five years and resides in Brookline, Massachusetts, with her dog Axel.
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Books by
LISA CAREY
The Mermaids Singing
In the Country of the Young
Copyright
“When You Are Old” reprinted with the permission of Scribner, a Division of Simon and Schuster, from The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats, volume 1: The Poems, Revised and edited by Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner, 1997).
Excerpt from “The Ambition Bird,” from The Book of Folly, copyright © 1972 by Anne Sexton. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. All rights reserved.
The author is grateful for the use of the following poem: “Fern Hill” by Dylan Thomas.
“Spring Tide,” “The Ship,” and “The Haunting” by Sorley MacLean excerpted from From Wood to Ridge, copyright © 1989, printed by permission of Carcanet Press Limited.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
THE MERMAIDS SINGING. Copyright © 1998 by Lisa Carey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Perennial edition published 2001.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carey, Lisa.
The mermaids singing / Lisa Carey.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-380-81559-1
1. Mothers and daughters—Fiction. 2. Irish-American women—Fiction. 3. Islands—Ireland—Fiction. 4. Ireland—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.A66876 M47 2001
813'.54—dc21
2001036192
EPub Edition © March 2010 ISBN: 978-0-06-189597-5
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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