The Mermaids Singing (9 page)

Grace and Michael had barely enough self-control to keep from mauling each other. They held back only because it felt better to go
slowly. For the first week they knelt facing each other in the cove, an imaginary line at their waists which they wouldn't go below. One day Grace couldn't stand it anymore, the pull to lie down next to him—or even better, beneath him—was too strong. She took his hand and floated toward the shore. They lay sideways in the shallow water, their heads cushioned on a nest of bubbled seaweed. Michael kissed her and whimpered occasionally. She thought it hurt him as much as it did her, not being able to get close enough. So she pulled off his bathing suit. She had to extend the elastic and maneuver it over his penis, which was pushed at a hard angle toward her.

“Grace?” Michael whispered, looking terrified.

“Shhh,” she said, moving up to kiss him. She kissed his neck and down his chest until he let his head fall back on the seaweed, looking to the sky in panic like he expected a guillotine. The hair below his penis was softly moving like the locks of a mermaid. Grace put her hand there and his penis jerked like it was startled. She stroked and pulled the way a boy in Catechism had taught her. She had whacked that boy off a few times, never looking at his penis, considering the action repulsive practice for the real thing. Michael was moving his hips now, in a graceful flow that reminded her of a swimming dolphin. It wasn't long before she felt the snaky throb of a vein at the base of his penis, and she watched as a milky eruption blurred the seawater. She'd never seen this part, and hadn't imagined semen would look so tasty. She kept her hand on the shrinking penis and moved up to lie next to him. He kissed her, sighing, his embarrassment gone. After a few minutes he rolled her over and, with his leg separating her thighs, stroked until she swelled beneath his fingers, finally settling on a spot which he touched long after she could not lie still beneath him.

 

The summer passed quickly and Grace began to dread the beginning of school. She would be starting her sophomore year at Scituate High School and Michael would be a senior two towns away at the boys' academy. What would happen during those hours
they were apart? Grace took comfort in the knowledge that he would rarely meet other girls, but she also knew he was obsessive about his studies and often stayed at the school library until dark. Soon it would be too cold for them to swim, and meeting in the house was too risky. Grace didn't mention her worries to Michael, mostly because she was afraid he wasn't worried himself.

The weekend before school started was Labor Day, and the Willoughbys had their annual party. Since Mrs. Willoughby's illness, they had entertained less frequently, but the Labor Day weekend was a tradition they held on to. Mrs. Willoughby was a strange caricature of her former self at these parties: she dressed extravagantly but something was always wrong. Her lipstick would be a shockingly ugly color, her hair unwashed, or she would mismatch her once fashionable accessories. The guests were condescending and spoke loudly to her as though she were deaf. She spent most of the party bothering Clíona about imaginary details. Grace almost felt sorry for her, the way the guests reduced her. She hated Mrs. Willoughby, but, after all, it was her party, and they treated her like a retarded dog.

When they were children, Grace and Michael would sit on the landing in their pajamas during these parties, listening to the clinking, hooting, and gruff laughter below. This year, Michael was forced to dress in a suit and be introduced to the guests. After helping Clíona and the caterers with the food preparation, Grace didn't have the heart to sit and listen with the twins, so she stayed in her attic bedroom, pretending to read one of Michael's library books.

Three hours into the party, Michael came upstairs and knocked on her door. He paced her little room, his hair grazing the rafters.

“Did you meet any nice young ladies?” Grace said. His eyebrows answered that he appreciated the joke, but he was too distracted to smile.

“Mom's in rare form tonight,” he said. “She keeps dragging me into the kitchen to ask me who Dad's talking to. Then he goes to
walk someone to their car or something and she freaks out. She wants me to go find him. Fuck if I'm going to follow him around all night.”

“She just needs the scheming to keep her busy,” Grace said. “No one else even talks to her.”

“Well, I'm not gonna help her anyway,” Michael said. “Fuck this. I've got her in one ear and some old fart telling me Harvard stories in the other. Then I get introduced to this pig they call a girl, who they want me to show the
garden
to.”

“You have better things to do?” Grace asked. It gave her a little thrill when he called that girl a pig.

“Yeah.” He grinned. “Let's go swimming.”

They snuck down the back stairs and took the path behind the swimmers' cabin in case guests were down at the dock, which was where they usually dove in. Approaching the cabin, Grace noticed that its lights were on.

“The party's moved to the tog room,” Grace said. The term was her mother's, and it always made Michael laugh.

“What would people go in there for?” he whispered.

“What do you think?” Grace nudged him. Michael dropped his mouth, exaggerating shock. “Let's look,” she said, and pulled him toward the window before he could answer.

Through the small pane they had a perfect view of the couple on the daybed. They were naked, their skin jaundiced in the lamplight. The woman was on top of the man, moving up and down, her torso and loose hair moving in circles, like a dancer's. Grace was fascinated. She watched closely, clutching at details and memorizing them—the way the woman's hands kneaded the man's shoulders, the circular thrust of her hips.

“Oh, God,” Michael moaned at her ear, and for a moment she thought he was as aroused as she was. Then she looked at the man under the woman. It was Mr. Willoughby. His glasses were gone and his naked chest revealed that he was smaller and hairier than he seemed when dressed, but it was definitely him. He craned his neck
toward the woman's hand and sucked her middle finger into his mouth, rolling it over and under his tongue.

Michael turned from the window and retched into a mound of beach grass.

“Hey,” Grace said, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Relax.” But he pushed her away, disgusted.

“I have to get out of here,” he said, and he ran off, down the path that led to the main road. Grace could have caught up with him easily, but his push had startled and momentarily paralyzed her, so she just watched him vanish in the shadow of trees.

 

Michael didn't come home until four that morning. Grace had helped her mother clean up, and after all in the house had gone to bed, she stayed in the dark kitchen thinking about Michael. She was trying to understand why he'd been so upset. She enjoyed finding out that Mr. Willoughby, who'd always seemed so proper and boring, had a sexy side. She didn't have a father, so she couldn't imagine what it would be like to catch her father cheating on her Mom. Maybe Michael felt he should be loyal to his mother, even though he despised her. Really, she thought, Mr. Willoughby should have been inside being nice to his wife, when no one else was willing to do it. Or maybe seeing his father having sex just disgusted him. If Clíona ever had sex, Grace certainly wouldn't want to witness it.

But he'd acted like he was mad at Grace, and that wasn't fair. Even as a little boy, Michael had been like this—easygoing to the point where you thought you couldn't affect him, and then, without warning, violently against you.

She decided she wouldn't get mad about how he'd shrugged her off. She needed to stay on his easygoing side. Michael's parents would never consent to their relationship; they thought she was beneath him. If Michael really cared what his parents thought he'd have to dump Grace eventually and marry someone like the pig at the party. But if he hated them—and it seemed he was beginning to hate his father as much as he despised his mother—then he would
think of Grace as his family, and he could take her away. Grace was desperate to leave that house and Clíona's suffocating judgments. She figured her only chance with Michael was if his parents kept fucking things up. If he wanted to believe his father was a bastard for sleeping around, then it was to her benefit to encourage him. She didn't think of it as manipulative, just as the best way to get what she wanted.

When Michael slipped in the pantry door, she stood up and kissed him before he could speak. She moved her tongue deeply in his mouth, pressed her crotch against his in the way that always hypnotized him. She'd never kissed him in the house before, and she briefly entertained the fantasy of throwing him on the kitchen table and straddling him. Michael pulled away and put his mouth beneath her ear.

“I'm sorry about before,” he whispered, and she nodded. “Is everyone asleep?” he asked, and she smiled and kissed him again, backing him toward the door. “Where're we going?” he said, but she signaled for him to be quiet.

She pulled him outside. “It's a surprise,” she said.

She brought him to the swimmers' cabin. He hesitated at the door but she managed to coax him in. The room was blue with moonlight, the daybed and pillows now carefully fluffed to look innocent. Grace tried to kiss him.

“This is the last place I want to be,” Michael said, sounding angry. Grace pulled off her T-shirt and stepped away from him. The blue light from the window curved over her breasts. Michael, distracted, leaned forward and ran his lips briefly over her nipple. Grace twined her arms around his neck. When he lifted his face, he looked like he was trying not to cry.

“Your father would hate it,” she whispered, “if he knew you were here with me.”

There was a pause in which Michael shut his eyes tightly and a tear dropped off his cheekbone. Then he was kissing her. They didn't bother to go slowly. They stripped off their clothes so fast
their sneakers got tangled in the ankles of their jeans and they had to fall on the daybed to kick off the rest. Grace raised her knees and he was right there, pausing just long enough to ask: “Is it safe?” She nodded, thinking he meant would anyone catch them. It didn't hurt the way she'd been told it would. There was a brief hot sting and then she was filled with him. Even when it was over, after Michael had mashed his face in the pillow to keep from screaming, she touched and kissed him relentlessly until he was ready to do it again. She rolled on top this time, enveloping him. It came as no surprise to her that, at her orgasm, her insides squeezed and clung. As she watched Michael's face below her warp with love and misery, she clamped on with every part of her body, with all the strength and determination she'd been saving up.

In the morning, still half-blind from sleep, I thought I was in the cottage again. I could smell the sea, and Stephen cooking breakfast. I'd get up and check for a note from my Mom, then leave before Stephen saw me.

My eyes focused on an unfamiliar room, my blue suitcase looking like washed-up debris from another life. I was sweating from the heavy comforter and the aftermath of bad dreams. I'd dreamed there was a phone screaming under dark water and I couldn't find it to answer.

I got up. Outside of the bed, the air was freezing. I pulled on a sweater and jeans and looked around the room. Twin beds with colorful wool blankets and comforters, an antique-looking wood dresser and desk. Above the desk, hung by a piece of fishing wire, a carved black piece of wood. I looked closer.

The ridges formed a woman in the bow of a boat, a cloak covering her head, one arm raised and pointing a finger forward. I took the block off the wall. The natural hues of the wood were in just the right spaces to create shadowing in the picture. Scratched into the back was the name
Granuaile
, and under that,
Grace and Seamus O'Flaherty
. I wondered if my father had made the carving or just given it to my mother. It was the first object I'd ever seen, besides the engagement ring, that connected me to my father. Proof that he existed.

I opened the door slowly, afraid of who I might see, or not see, on the other side. I found the bathroom, which was damp-smelling, and wiped away some fog to look at myself in the mirror. I was still shocked whenever I looked at my bristly head. I found some hair spray and plastered down the hairs that stuck out on one side. I wished I could stay in that bathroom, lock myself in until someone came to take me home.

When I'd dragged myself downstairs, Clíona was baking bread. She took a huge round loaf from the oven and left it to cool on the breadboard. She started, putting a floury hand to her chest, when she saw me in the doorway.

“You walk as quiet as a ghost, girl,” she said. “Good morning to you.” She motioned for me to sit at the table, which was laid out with plates for breakfast. “You're an early riser, like your mother and myself.”

I felt lost and stupid in that kitchen, with no notes to tell me what to do. I sat down; at least it was warm in here. Clíona filled a large metal teapot with loose leaves and water from an electric kettle.

“I'm making breakfast for himself,” she said. “Will you have one?”

“I'm not hungry,” I said. Clíona wiped her hands briskly on a towel and turned to glare at me.

“See here, now. I don't know what you're after doing to yourself. Starvation, from the looks of it. But you won't be wasting away while you're in this house. Three meals a day and tea in the after
noons. Sure now, if the Irish breakfast's too rich for you, you can have brown-bread and fruit. I'll put something in that stomach of yours before you leave this table, God as my witness, I will.”

She seemed mad about the food, but didn't mention my taking off the night before. It would be like my Mom and Stephen, then. She'd leave me alone.

“I'll have some bread,” I said. She slathered some grainy bread with too much butter and set it down in front of me.

I'd sort of assumed I'd want to eat again once my mother had died. But since her funeral it had remained something to focus on: not eating. Like I was accomplishing something by leaving my stomach empty. I broke the bread into sticky pieces and moved it around my plate.

“That's a start, now,” Clíona said, looking suspicious. She started frying up slices of fatty pink meat and a chain of linked sausages. I hid some of the bread in my napkin.

“You told me my father would be here,” I said. Clíona looked embarrassed.

“He will,” she said. “He'll be at Mass.”

“What's that,” I said, covering my grumbling stomach with my hands, “church?”

Clíona nodded. “You'll be joining us, will you not?” she said, avoiding my eyes.

“What's my father like?” I said. What I really wanted to know was what was wrong with him. Why my mother spent all that time acting like she'd forgotten him.

“Oh, he's a grand fellow altogether,” Clíona said. She was stirring the bacon and sausages furiously. “Quite handsome. Dark, like yourself. His father was a fisherman from the island, and his mother from the North, God rest them. Poor woman. Died while having him, she did, and him her first child. Seamus was a lovely little boy, though. I'd mind him on the odd weekend. His father did a fine job, being on his own as he was. Seamus went to university in Dublin—the smartest one around, that lad.”

“I thought he was a fisherman,” I said. I didn't think of fishermen as the kind of people who went to college.

“Sure, it takes more than an education to pull the love of the sea from a man. Writing's how he spends most of his time, though. Articles for newspapers in Dublin and such. A bit of the poet, himself. He travels quite a lot, as well. But Seamus is an O'Flaherty, sure enough. You'll never see him long from the water.”

He didn't sound so bad. I thought there must be something she wasn't telling me, but I didn't say so. Marcus came into the kitchen.

“Howaya, Gráinne? Sleep well?”

I nodded. I vaguely remembered his thick arms sheltering me from the wind. He was wearing a brown wool suit, and his neck looked pinched in his white collar and print tie. Clíona put a plate piled with fried proteins in front of him, poured him a cup of tea.

“Ah, you're a lovely woman yourself, Clee,” he said, squeezing her middle with one arm. She batted him away, smiling, and returned to the stove. Marcus winked at me. I wondered whether they still had sex.

“You're lucky I've time to make you breakfast at all, with the state that hotel's in,” she said. “I'd a guest looking after toilet roll this morning.”

“It all falls apart without you,” Marcus said, his mouth full of sausage. I thought they might start arguing, but Clíona was hiding a smile.

“Liam may call in later,” Clíona said to me. “He's happy to see you back.”

“Who is he anyway,” I said, “your son?”

Clíona laughed. “God, no. Your Mum was my only child, though I raised most of Marcus's pack, as well. The twins and Tommy are living in England, and you met Stephanie and Mary Louise last night. They work at the hotel as well. Liam is Mary Louise's boy. You're the same age; Liam was born just two months before you. He was your best playmate when you were just a wee girl.”

God, I hated the way she said that. Like she knew so much about me.

Marcus clinked his silverware on his empty plate, sat back in his chair, and burped loudly.

“Mind your manners,” Clíona said, rising and clearing his plate. “Or, sure, your granddaughter will think she's living with a pig.”

I'm not living here, I wanted to say. Only visiting.

 

At ten o'clock, we went to Mass, walking up the graveled road toward the steeple. People were swarming at the door, greeting one another. I was introduced and fawned over by women in shapeless dresses. I heard them murmuring about me as I passed through; saying I looked like my father. I saw Liam standing with a pack of teenage boys. They all wore baggy jeans like the boys at my school—jeans that hung so low, the bottoms of the back pockets lined up with their knees. Liam's mother, Mary Louise, kissed me and said I looked “fresh and well.”

I hadn't really looked at her the day before. She didn't look much like Marcus; she had his gold-red hair, but her face was thin, with a delicate nose. She looked me right in the eyes, which made her seem more trustworthy than the rest of them.

“Have you seen my father?” I said to her, and she frowned.

“I haven't,” she said. “And I'm none too happy about it.”

I didn't get a chance to answer because Clíona hushed me as we entered the church.

Inside, the one large, high-ceilinged room was dimly lit by stained glass windows with images of religious people; blue and red light puddled on the smooth brown pews. Up front, where a robed priest waited silently, there was what looked like a miniature and ancient city, white carved steeples and windows lined in gold. In the center was an ornate golden door, like a little recessed treasure chest. The scent of wax and burning wicks passed through me.

Other than my mother's funeral, I'd never been to church in my
life. I had to watch Clíona so I'd know when to stand and kneel and bow my head. The crowd chanted out foreign music around me.

“'Tis the Our Father in Irish,” Clíona whispered, afterwards. “You'll learn it soon enough.”

“What's the Our Father?” I whispered, and she looked angry.

“A prayer, girl.”

I wondered if it was a prayer for fathers; if my father would have taught it to me had I ever known him. I looked back toward the doorway every few minutes to see if he was there.

At one point the priest asked the audience to “think of Gráinne O'Flaherty, who has returned home to us all.” It took Liam and the others nodding at me to realize that it was me he was talking about. At first I was only shocked: I didn't think anyone was singled out in church. Then I got mad. My name wasn't O'Flaherty. My mother and I had the last name Malley, without the
O
. Who did these people think I was, some kidnapped waif returned to civilization? I slumped in my seat, tried to glare at Clíona, but she wasn't paying attention to me.

When the priest began the bread-and-water ritual, everyone around me seemed to plunge into serious thought. They knelt on the cushioned knee platforms, stopped fidgeting, hung their heads between clasped palms. My grandmother's mouth moved almost imperceptibly along with the priest's.

He was telling the story of the Last Supper, mechanically, as if he'd memorized it. I had seen paintings of the Last Supper in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. They had been my mother's favorites; she used to look enviously at the group of men gathered at the table. She said she had a soft spot for table settings—which was
why she had so many dinner parties, and had developed the bad habit of dropping small fortunes at Crate & Barrel.

After removing various goblets from a gold door behind the altar, the priest held up a wafer the size of his palm.

“Jesus broke the bread and offered it to them, giving them thanks and praise. He gave it to his disciples and said: ‘Take this, all of you, and eat it. This is my body. It will be given up for you.'”

The priest raised the wafer over his head and a ringing echoed throughout the church. When it was quiet, I noticed one of the robed boys at the altar trying to set down a little bell without jingling it further. The priest broke the wafer in half, carefully letting the crumbs fall into a goblet, and crammed one large piece into his mouth. He lowered his head and chewed with difficulty, his eyes closed, his palms clasped in front of him.

The priest held the crumb goblet out and the other boy poured red wine and water into it from crystal pitchers. The priest raised the goblet in front of him.

“Jesus took the wine. Again he gave them thanks and praise. He gave the cup to his disciples and said: ‘Take this, all of you, and drink from it. This is the cup of my blood. The blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all, so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.'”

The boy rang the bell again. The priest took a sip of the wine and then wiped the goblet rim with a cloth napkin. His hands were graceful and reverent and reminded me of Stephen's at the piano.

I thought it was all very odd, and I was embarrassed because I didn't know what it meant. I looked at the monstrous cross hanging above the priest, Jesus' bruised and bony body, blood running down his palms and feet. He looked starved, like he'd been ill for a long time. Not like those paintings of the Last Supper, where he glowed at the head of a table full of food.

After it was over (everyone but me got to go up front and get a sip of wine and a small wafer), I was introduced to the priest, Father Cullen. Away from the stage he was a plump, bald man with a nice
smile. I was suspicious of him, though, after how he'd announced me.

“I'm sorry for your loss, child,” he said quietly, shaking my hand. He turned to someone else before he could see that I was almost crying. I swallowed it, breathing deep.

In the corner, to the left of the stage, was a line of candles on a brass shelf. Behind them stood a statue of a woman, with dark circles under her eyes and an appealing look. I walked over to it. There were fresh bouquets of flowers surrounding her.
SAINT BRIGID
, the plaque said. She looked hungry, too.

“Do you want to make an offering?” Clíona said, coming up behind me. I turned around.

“My name is not O'Flaherty,” I whispered meanly. “It's Malley. And I'm not the returned property of this place.” Clíona looked hurt, but I didn't care. She deserved it.

“He was just trying to make you feel welcome, he was. You go by any name you like.” She gave me a twenty-pence coin, and showed me the slot in the middle of the candles.

“Make an offering,” she said. “Your man Stephen says you're fond of the poetry. Brigid is the patron saint of poets,” she added, leaving me there.

I stood seething for a moment, then put the money in the slot, conscious of the loud clank. There were wooden matches and fresh candles in a little drawer beneath the brass holder. I put my candle in the center, struck the match and set it to the wick. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to offer, other than the coin. Maybe I should have said a prayer, but I didn't know any. Where's my father? I asked the saint instead. The candle flame flickered. I wondered if my mother had ever prayed here, and who it had been for. I stood there until the wax began to gather in a puddle and drip down the candle's sides.