Saltskin (20 page)

Gilda:

There is a gush of water as loud as a dam burst. Faith is horribly
quiet except for grunts, and her face is red as she hauls stones too
big for her from the river, but her strength is magnificent. There is
trouble in the air.

We are in a forest. Water drips from the trees. Birds twitter
and shake the branches. For a time I can't see anything, as if
there is only water. It's not the sea it's the river — it is yellow with
floodwaters and moves fast and I look for Eve. I ask Faith over
and over but she cannot hear me. I am a ghost to her, a strange
breeze, and she looks up but barely as she works at the stones and
I am over her now, perhaps in a tree, and she works hard and
fast, rolling her boulders. A Hercules.

Her hair is mussed with leaves and mud and I am closer to
her now. I see the beat of a pulse in her neck. I look for Eve but
we are alone, yet I feel her, and then the water comes again like
a cloud overhead and I am sure of disaster — near or only just
passed — and then I see Eve down the mountain a little. She is
kneeling beside a woman, staring at her. The woman is still and
curled slightly, perhaps sleeping. And Faith yells to her mother:
her voice is screeching, urgent, panicking. When Eve does not
move, Faith stomps over to her.

Slowly Eve unbuttons the dress of the other woman. The dress
is partially wet and muddy, looking dragged. Faith watches as
her mother rips and pulls and tugs the dress off the woman. The
woman does not move of her own volition but her eyes are open.
The dress is removed from her body and the woman is naked.
I know this is good but I don't know why. I am sourly happy
about it, vindicated, but I'm not sure why they have undressed
her. Why her eyes are open and yet she does not move. I don't
know who she is but I don't like her.

Eve has the purple dress in her hands; holds it up unable to
believe its existence. Faith is crying now and pulling on the arm of
the slack woman, and Eve takes the other and they lug and yank
her body to the stones and lay her there. I see now that the shape is
that of a tomb, and they layer stones over her.

There was much change in Jacob's River. The fleets of whaling
ships were leaving to follow the migration of the whales,
packing up and slipping away as fast as an adulterous lover
leaping out a window. Almost overnight the population of
the village reduced to a handful.

The
Unicorn
left port one dark night, commandeered
by Jake. He set fire to a trail of whale oil on the sea to show
his brazenness, but Captain Angus could not have cared
less. He and Davy and Angelo stayed in Jacob's River. And
everybody noted in fascination — but said nothing — that
Angelo's hair had turned from a morbid grey to a vivid,
multi-toned golden red to match his eyebrows. It seemed
only right that love should change one's colour.

Everyone would always remember exactly where they
were when they first saw Eve. It was quickly and widely
accepted that she was touched with the brush of insanity,
that back in civilisation she would have been a contender
for the Bedlam hospital, but it only added to her charm. In
fact all asked themselves whether, if put in the dock, they
could claim themselves with impunity to be the full quid,
and none felt sure enough to throw the first stone. Besides,
she seemed to match Angelo like tongue and groove.

Angelo, his chest smelly with fish, cleaned and scaled
her mermaid tail and hung it in the cave to dry. He put
aside his worry that her skin was always cold, even the
inside of her mouth. For overall he was content. He cured
the skins in brine and had the cobbler make Eve a pair of
magnificent slippers in the modern way, one shaped for
the left foot and one for the right. The cobbler accepted,
with a shrug that meant he wasn't asking, when Angelo
told him it was local lizard skin.

The women of the Rusty Rose, those who had not
ventured up country or left on the boats, took Eve under
their wing, donating petticoats and undergarments and
rosewater and turquoise combs. Orchid, when she first saw
the waif dressed in a man's shirt, rushed away and returned
with two dresses, one red and one green, and they fitted
Eve as if they had been destined for her. The captain and
Orchid and Angelo beamed at Eve when she bundled up
the skirts as though trying to free herself from a net.

Eve was open, curious and delighted by the simplest
thing. Potatoes struck her as hilarious. She communicated
with chickens, her dress covered in shit where she lay down
to be at eye level with them. The most everyday thing was
special in her hands. For hours she would laugh while
wielding a hammer, smashing and banging things to hear
the sound and see the carnage.

Meanwhile Angelo, one eye on Eve, set about building
their house. With at least the basics of three-dimensional
thinking from tapestry-making he understood the
rudiments, and the rest was enthusiasm.

Eve was without malice or guile and purely enchanting.
She had a way with people, for she could see and hear
their every thought without judgement. When she turned
her attention on them they glowed and felt themselves to
be attractive, despite bald spots, pimples, missing teeth,
botched tattoos or pot bellies. Their self-satisfaction swelled
like yeast in dough, big and puffy. No character flaw was of
any importance in her presence.

She did, however, earn the reputation of being a thief,
on account of the fact that she took anything that caught
her fancy — just spirited it away; she didn't hide the stolen
object but paraded it. Angelo apologised repeatedly for her.
The Chinaman selling fruit and vegetables on Saturdays
just let her have whatever she wanted. The men catching
fish on the wharf smiled indulgently as she picked fussily
through their fish hooks until she found the prettiest ones,
hooked them in her curls and glided off in the hovering
way she adopted to avoid putting too much weight on her
legs. Their gaze followed her.

Eve loved the stray cow — no one knew who owned it
and therefore it belonged to all. Eve was often found at
non-milking times tugging on its teats. She simply adored
its big soulful eyes with its pretty lashes, and she wanted it
to feel special so she decorated it with shells and flowers.
It let her sit on its back and it became her means of
transport; she lumbered along the dirt tracks and the beach
on the back of the happy cow. And because Eve needed
no sleep, it was the cow with whom she spent the early
morning hours while Angelo snored in their bed.

But when he awoke she was always there, staring at him
expectantly. And so would begin her incessant questioning,
and Angelo spent much of his time explaining to Eve the
ins and outs of etiquette. For the plainest notions were as
foreign to her as could be. Sometimes Angelo would laugh
hysterically over their situation, and she would cover his
face with her little cold kisses or climb over him like an
exuberant crab. In the end it was Eve who decided which
conventions were worth adhering to and which were
nonsensical.

As if it were already in existence and just needed to
be plucked from the sky, Angelo, with the help of many
hands, finished the house for his bride. The cow was used
to winch up the walls. Angelo erected a spectacular, though
not perfect, turret on the roof. He was puffed up proud, his
face red with pleasure for days, and he began searching for
something else to make.

One evening, struck by inspiration, he set about making
a mosaic of a mermaid, which it would take him seven
years to finish.

The only soul unhappy about Eve's presence was Angie
Swan.

Angie had not been seen in the village since the day
Eve arrived. She had been stunned to see Angelo hand
in hand with a maiden wearing only a man's shirt, and it
had affected her as surely as a leech sucks blood. Now the
landscape spoke of autumn.

Orchid fed Angie a medicinal broth from the almanac
The New and Complete Illustration of the Occult Sciences
, by
Ebenezer Silby, which lay open on the bed. She tipped the
bowl to scrape up the last. The six previous concoctions
had failed and Angie's morning vomiting continued.
Orchid felt like a woman practising the art of cheesemaking:
blown by many variables, all of them ephemeral
and fickle. Angie, shallow in the bed, swallowed, eyeing
Orchid as she would her captor. Orchid pretended not to
see as she wiped Angie's mouth of dribbles.

Angie's pregnancy bump was indecently small. Her
arms lay on the quilt, putting as much distance as possible
from the lump between them, disowning it. The wedding
band on her finger had rashed her skin. By her marriage
she had hoped to prompt Angelo into a declaration by
the lever of jealousy. Her pride had forbidden any other
more direct approach. To ask him to have her seemed
impossible. Even in a godless, lawless land such as Jacob's
River, and even as unconventional as Angie was, she could
not — would not — suffer the humiliation of being mother
to a bastard bairn. Her confinement in itself was not to be
mentioned.

'I'll fetch more at sunset,' Orchid said, consulting the
book, snapping it shut and preparing to leave.

'It's your wedding night and you intend to come to
me? The witch can be in two beds at once . . .' Angie said,
wondering how and when her governess had become
pretty and herself plain. Angie's eyes, once fiery coals, were
folded now within an excess of skin, and a drooping had
set in around her mouth. One could tell by looking at her
that she had little kindness left to give — for herself or for
others. The sarcastic darts she shot were no longer hitting
their mark. She turned her head into the pillow.

Her thoughts returned again and again to her lost
chance with Angelo, and the baby inside her absorbed
the information without question. Her whole life snagged
on that one night, with her dress around her waist and
Angelo grunting above her. She missed him. The foetus
moved inside her and she hit her stomach. She did not
want a child without him. She wanted to be his. And in
her womb the human growth cowed and knew itself to be
ugly and unwanted. Its bones did not develop well, the
face hesitated in forming, and the heart made at its centre
a hole. It listened to its mother's thoughts.

Orchid stroked Angie's hair and clumps of it came away
in her hand, even though her palm was gentle. Bald patches
and dry skin. Angie had lost much of her plumpness; her
skin hung on her, yet Orchid knew the girl had strength yet.
Even half drowned she had the will of a lioness. There was
cunning in Angie — Orchid just didn't yet know what the
plan was to be, and wouldn't know until it was too late.

Orchid glanced at Davy, who nodded and approached
the bed, fussing with the covers. His movements had no
melody. Then he turned from his prize, his wife, and
walked Orchid out the door. Once outside both sighed.

Whaling season was nearly upon Jacob's River again,
and from the village a festivity of sounds floated up. A
gong echoed, banging itself against the mountain.

'Captain Angus is a most fortunate man,' said Davy,
bowing slightly, but he did not mention Angelo and Eve
and the double wedding planned for the day. Although he
dipped his head when he saw Angelo, the man now held
no relevance for him. All that mattered was his new family.
His prime aim was to provide, to give.

Orchid's smile was bright. She waved and moved off
down the mountain, pulling a rope tied to a wooden crate
containing her tools, her potions.

Davy hesitated and then came after her. 'Will the
medicine heal her?'

Orchid looked at the sky for a moment, then back at
Davy. 'Maybe she doesn't want to heal.' She went to move
away but Davy halted her.

'Wait. I must ask again. Will you make for me the
potion I saw in the . . .' he broke off, nodding towards
the books.

'Don't ask — it would not be right. I am a novice. I am
not gifted. I may only attempt to ease physical pain through
the apothecary of nature. Love is the realm of spirit.'

'It
is
a physical pain.' To hold a woman whom you
cannot move is like an illness, thought Davy, for although
she let him have her whenever he wanted, her attitude was
so unyielding, her passion so absent that he only ever took
her from behind.

'It would be a sin. There is no potion to make Angie
love you.' For Angie loves another: the unspoken words
hung in the air like the leaves of a weeping willow. And
Angelo did not know it. As if the night on the beach had
been an illusion the likes of which is seen in parlours.
Impulsively, Orchid embraced Davy.

The sweetness of her kindness took his breath away.
She released him and spontaneously he bent and picked
her a bunch of rosemary, which grew in lush patches like a
weed, and thrust it into her hands.

She accepted the posy, collected her ropes and said
benevolently, 'Just love her, and the baby. You'll see. Time
shall forge new irons through her heat.'

Angie gave Davy such a look as he entered that he
turned around immediately and headed away into the
bush to hunt.

She swung her legs over the bed, lifted up her nightdress and
admired the dried scars mixed with the purplish-white streaks of her stretchmarks.
From under her pillow she took a rusty nail and dragged it across her belly.
Then, dressing calmly and feeling serene, she set about sweeping the hut.

Beside the river where the bend was swiftest, Orchid married Angus and Eve
married Angelo. None could fetch Eve to make her mark the registry —
the first entry, the first legal document of the village. She could not be
reached, for she stood in the river up to her abundantly round baby mound,
steady and untouched by the current, catching fish with her hands.

Davy returned with a skinned goat, which he put on the
table. He didn't look at his wife. The spirit of the room did
not include him. Always unwelcome. He kissed her with
closed eyes on the forehead and left without saying where
he was going.

Angie took a knife and began cutting up the carcass. As
she split it between the ribs and cracked it open, her waters
broke, running like urine down her leg.

It was quick. She clung to the edge of the table with
the mutilated animal partially gored, and pushed. Angie
gathered her skirts about her middle, the way she had that
night with Angelo. She squatted and pushed; her bladder
and bowels emptied on the floor. Then the baby oozed
out, feet first but caught in Angie's vulva.

She gripped the child's ankles and tugged, for she
wanted rid of it, wanted the hated thing out and away. She
groaned and the baby came loose and she let it go. It fell
to the floor, swinging by a crimson cord, and the birth sac
came out after, landing with a squelch on the child.

Angie stared at the baby and felt about on the table for
the knife. She hacked through the cord and once free she
scooted herself, pushing with her feet, her backside sliding
a trail of blood along the floor until her back reached the
wall and stopped her.

The baby made no sound.

Two moons later, Eve was with Angelo on the beach when
her waters broke. The gush of it made Angelo jump out
of the way as it trickled along the sand and headed to the
ocean with the magnetism of water. They looked at each
other, startled, and then they laughed. She waddled around
in circles on the sand. She wore only a white petticoat
made for a bigger lady, her tresses loose and lush.

Angelo punched the sky and jigged. Each clench of
Eve's laughter squeezed more water out in squirts and she
lifted her petticoat, laughing, and watched the water spurt
from her. She aimed it at Angelo.

Her pregnancy had been a joy.

Eve's contractions were tiny, little pings on a wire.

Angelo carried her to their bed, crooning to her. The
wood of their new house still had the aroma of being freshly
sawn. He plopped her on the bed and she grinned, opening
her legs with the casualness of a yawn, and the child, as if
greased with fat, slipped out. Angelo pulled down Eve's
bodice and put the child to her breast. He reverently cut
through the umbilical cord with a blade.

While the child suckled, Eve splayed one tiny foot, and
for a moment a peculiar sadness came over her, washed
over her the way a cloud overcomes the heat of the sun.
She had imagined that maybe, just maybe, the child might
be a baby mermaid. And always she would watch her
daughter closely for signs that she was her own — of the
sea. Before the time of forgetting, when her child would
seem a munificent stranger.

Angelo was delighted that his child did not have fins or
gills or scales.

They named her Faith, for faith had delivered.

Two infant girls were born.

Each had a beauty spot above her lip.

Each had ginger hair and a pale body.

They were almost identical, except that one was not quite right
— like a distorted, wax copy of the original.

Davy named his child Grace. He began to avoid town
altogether, for fear that Angelo might see him and claim
what was his. Davy planned to leave Jacob's River for
good, just as soon as his young family seemed fit enough
to voyage.

Angie turned twenty years old. She performed all the
tasks of a mother except those of affection and attention.
She did not hold the child except for feeding and cleaning.
The child learnt not to whimper when alone with her
mother, and her voice-box for ever after was faint and
underdeveloped.

Orchid visited her old charge once a week, climbing
up the mountain with supplies, jams and pickles strapped
to her back and her own little boy tied by a cloth to her
front. On these visits she gave Grace nourishing potions
and draughts. She brushed Angie's hair and dressed it in
a becoming style; washed Angie's neck and hands and
sprinkled her with rosewater.

Angie refused to go with her down to the village, and
Davy discouraged it.

Orchid was the woman who cuddled little Grace and
rubbed the child with oil, massaging it into the chubby,
awkward limbs.

Similarly she visited Eve.

Eve was an irresponsible mother. She left the bairn alone
to go off, intrigued by a smell or a sound. She squirted her
milk wastefully in the air just to see it arc. She put baby
clothes on stray cats and left her baby nude. Her sense of
hot and cold never quite found its balance and she'd lug
the child out, ill-equipped for the weather. When the wind
was wild she climbed trees with the dexterity of an animal,
and once up high she'd sit for hours, leaving the child who
knows where. She took Faith into the foaming sea, and
early on the child learnt to swim or die.

Faith realised she must take responsibility for herself
and so established a variety of squeals, peeps, cries and
screams that Eve in time recognised and occasionally
responded to. There was plenty of leeway in this for both
parties. Often it was not until the baby's wrap was actually
burning that Faith would use the 'I am on fire' emergency
scream. Only when her hunger bordered on the ridiculous
would she employ the 'Milk now, please' cry.

Angelo was a nervous father. He hovered around the
child in case she should be injured. He loathed leaving her
in Eve's care, for he had seen Eve jump up to greet him and
Faith fall with a thump to the floor. Eve was like another
child rather than a functioning wife. Her cooking efforts
always ended with a charming but inedible concoction.
She had no concept of flavours or the basics of preparing
meals, so almost every chore fell on Angelo.

He was frustrated and overworked.

Angus reminded him, quietly, that he was not to doubt
his love, ever, for vengeance was sure. He urged Angelo to
be grateful for having Eve at all, for the chances of finding
a mermaid were less than the chance of riding a star in the
Milky Way, let alone transforming her tail to legs. Angus
asked Angelo to pay mind to his children's children.

At these sessions Angelo was humble, and he glanced over at
the glory of Eve in one of her gowns, chuckling with the child on her hip,
and their eyes met and a pure white ribbon of love flowed between them, like
a cord from one to the other, a soul thread. Angelo's chest keened and swelled,
a crescendo of orchestral music, and he vowed, once again, never, ever to
doubt.

Almost seven years passed and one day, after Orchid had
dressed Angie's hair and left already for her own home,
Angie studied her reflection and realised her pain had
lessened, as if God only allowed the mind to suffer over a
doomed love for a certain period of time. She decided to
go into town.

She dressed carefully in her purple gown. Her figure,
heavier and slack in places, was pulled together in the
dress, and the seams bulged over her curves. She scrubbed
her face and applied beetroot juice to her lips and cheeks.

Grace followed along behind her mother. She was very
small for her age, her bulbous eyes and moon face framed
by red curls. She looked like a cherub.

Together they walked down the mountain. It was
summer and the trees were a vivid myriad of greens. The
salty tang of the sea wafted on the breeze and both breathed
in deeply and smiled. The lustre and shine had returned to
Angie's hair, and her pale skin was once more the perfect
canvas for the light freckles across her nose. She felt almost
giddy of mettle, and even stretched out her hand to her
daughter; then a burst of tenderness broke within her and
she pulled the child up into her arms.