Gleam
By Noo
- 1945 reads
“I believe in the rapture for I’ve seen your face, On the floor of the ocean, At the bottom of the rain” – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
***
When you’re by the sea for any length of time, you begin to be able to read the sky. You can see each new weather front drifting in or blasting in, depending on the wind speed and the turn of the tide. There’s no need for weather forecasts here.
Watching the clouds scud past from her seat on her family’s terrace, Cally notices two things – how quickly blue can turn to grey and back to blue again, and how clearly you can see the curve of the earth when the horizon is visible and vast.
Cally knows how much is riding on this holiday, how much the next three weeks may affect her own future. Her mum and dad on the point of disintegration, coming away to this quiet, seaside town in Brittany to make or break things. In her head, Cally hears the capital letters on Make or Break and she’d roll her eyes and suck her teeth, Jeremy Kyle guest style, if only she didn’t feel so sad and helpless.
In the increasing, unpredictable chaos of her thirteen year old's brain, Cally accepts there’s nothing she can do about her dad’s drinking and her mum’s silence. She’s of an age now when she’s finding it hear to remember things any other way than how they are now. If, in fact, there ever was any other way than this. A time before when her parents really talked to each other and smiled true, not for her benefit, smiles.
Often, she wishes she had a brother or sister to talk to. But Cally has also inherited her grandma’s pragmatism and as she’d say, “there’s no point wishing in the kitchen”. So Cally dutifully adheres to the holiday routine. Up early and out on the terrace of the house they’re renting to drink chocolate milk and talk with one or other of her parents. Sometimes, her dad already smells of drink and Cally recoils when he puts his hands on her shoulders.
Days are spent on the beach in varying degrees of wind and brash, uncomfortable sunshine. Her dad on one beach mat, snoozing and failing to finish the crossword in front of him. Her mum on a parallel beach mat, wanly flicking through one of the Harry Potters that Cally read three years ago. Neither talks to the other, or to Cally; and it occurs to her that trying to solve something in timeless, never-ending silence was never going to work when it couldn’t be solved in the honed bustle of the everyday.
Back at the house, early evenings follow a familiar pattern. Vague talk of going out to eat as a family, but no one can really be bothered. No one really wants to. So they get pizza from the bar at the bottom of their road and they eat it in silence while her dad drinks.
One morning, Cally wakes earlier than usual and with no one else up, she goes outside to sit on the terrace. It’s pouring with rain and the sheets of water tumbling from the roof, hide the buildings across the other side of the harbour, making it look as though they’ve never existed. It makes Cally wonder if anything is ever really there at all anywhere in the world.
When the rain slows, she decides to walk down to the beach and that’s when she sees the woman for the first time. The tide is out and in the channels of water running through the streaky rocks, the woman is sitting facing her, combing her long, silver hair. Around her, the early risers, already grubbing for the winkles and whelks in the rock pools, seem to pay her no attention at all.
Cally thinks it seems a strange place to be sitting and she thinks it even stranger when the woman smiles and waves at her as she turns away to go back to the house. When she closes the gate, Cally looks back over the rooftops at the arrows of the TV aerials and satellite dishes, signaling a world that seem superficial and irrelevant here.
For the rest of the day, a feeling of disquiet inhabits Cally. A fear that she can’t pin down to anything specific and that in the end, she has no choice, but to ignore. But a strange thing happens later. Her parents decide that tonight is the night that they can finally risk going out to eat. That tonight, they are a functioning, family unit!
It doesn’t last of course. At the small, check table-clothed restaurant they’ve walked to, her dad stands up too quickly to go the toilet and knocks his head on the ceramic lightshade hanging over their table. It ricochets on to the one next to it, cracking it with a loud clatter in the quiet of the restaurant.
This is enough to set her mum off. She is unleashed, a tidal wave of the things she’s not said before. “Look at you, you pig. You disgust me. It’s not me, it’s never been me. It’s you. It’s fucking you.”
Cally watches as her dad sways a little and then sinks back into his chair. He looks smaller somehow and she notices the oil from the fish he’s eaten shining in greasy rivulets as it runs down his chin.
All at once, she can’t breathe and she has to get out of the restaurant. She doesn’t ask permission, but as she leaves, she catches her dad’s eye and sees a look she neither likes, nor understands.
It’s raining again and on her walk along the beach, the whole world looks like it’s shimmering in the wind and water. A couple of boys, maybe two or three years older than her pass her, looking her up and down and laughing. In response, she pulls the hoodie she’s wearing tighter round her chest. Once the boys have gone, the beach is deserted.
On the cluster of rocks, on the sand near their house, Cally sees the woman again. She’s sitting on the rock that Cally thinks looks like the head of a horse and she’s looking out to sea. The rain has stopped and the moon is rising, a silver path across the water. It’s as though she’s heard Cally, because she twists her head round to look at her - even though the only noise Cally has made is the crunch of the sand under her flip-flops.
The woman lifts her hand and waves at Cally, as she did this morning, although the movement looks less wave-like now and more as though she’s beckoning her. Then, she puts her finger to her lips. And above the lapping of the waves, gentle now, Cally thinks she can hear the hush sound the woman makes.
When she gets home, Cally goes to bed straight away, hearing her parents come home about an hour later, slamming doors and shouting, disturbing the quiet dark of the house. As she falls asleep, she has the same feeling of fear, of indefinable dread actually, that she felt this morning.
Later, at some time before dawn, she’s woken up by the creak of the loose floorboard by the side of her bed. It moves backwards and forwards and she opens her eyes to see her dad standing there in the moonlight coming through the window. He’s naked and she can see the expression on his face. It’s the same, unknowable one she caught sight of as she left the restaurant.
As he climbs in to her bed, Cally hears the crash, hush of the waves and it’s this sound she concentrates on. Afterwards, as he leaves, he whispers to her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry”, he says.
Cally doesn’t think she’ll be able to sleep, but she does despite herself and when she wakes in the morning, her instant feeling of dread is soothed by the rain and the sea, calling to the water in her body. Calling to her sudden, surprising tears.
She gets out of bed, puts on her shorts and tee-shirt and walks out of the house. Down to the sea. She’s not thinking about anything. She’s not thinking about her dad. She’s not thinking about her mum. She knows there’s no point in telling – you can’t break what’s already broken.
The sea is silver this morning, like the moon path. Like the woman’s hair. And now, Cally is walking on the beach. Then she’s loping, then jumping, falling over. Flailing on the shells by the line where the sand ends and the sea begins. From her prone position, she flips over and looks at the sky. It’s mottled now; not blue, not grey.
Her last, human thoughts are – my legs are no more. What’s between my legs is no more. He can’t hurt me, he can’t slice me in two. I am fused. I am not me.
The waves wash over her and as she prepares to go deeper, she sees the woman swimming in the shallows, waiting. And in the hesitant sun rising above the water, Cally quickly and instinctively follows the flick and gleam of her fish’s tail.
***
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Comments
then, but to ignore [it]. You
then, but to ignore [it]. You could also ditch the 'then'. I'd drop the first paragraph. It takes wings after meeting the 'woman' on the rocks. I wonder how much backstory you could cut to get there? Really liked this and worth the effort.
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This is absolutely
This is absolutely beautifully done
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This is our Facebook and
This is our Facebook and Twitter Pick of the Day as well as our Story of the Week!
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I rather liked the back story
I rather liked the back story bits, as I think it increases the impact of what comes later. It is a beautiful piece, and very well done on the cherries and picks. The image of the fusing together of the legs in response to what has happened is one of the best I've ever read in stories around this subject, and it will stay with me. Thanks for posting this.
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Subtle and devastating. The
Subtle and devastating. The magic realism works well in dealing with such overwhelming feelings. So well written.
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