Drowning, not drowning

Marina only realised it was New Year’s Eve at midnight, when somewhere outside, in the dark and distance, a crowd of people started cheering and the sky filled with fireworks. Her back was to the window, but she didn’t get up to look. Her mouth was dry, and she was shocked at herself when she thought for a moment about a swallow of crisp, cold champagne bubbling on her tongue. She reached instead for the polystyrene cup of water on the bedside table. Taking a sip, she realised she had no idea who had filled that cup for her, or when. The water was warm. Marina ran her fingers through her hair and looked back towards her son.
It had been six days since the accident, and those six days seemed far longer than the six years since Joe had been born. Now there were tubes going into his arms and nose, and he was such a mess of wires and beeping machines that Marina had almost forgotten how he looked without them, how he looked with any colour in his fragile skin. She held his fingers and pressed them softly to her lips. She was afraid of his hand, with the needles slipping into the veins. The skin under his nails had coloured like rancid milk. “Joe” she whispered. “Joey. I’m here Joey. Happy New Year.” Marina shifted in her stiff plastic chair and listened to the sounds from outside, the singing and fireworks. Eventually, to the soft constant of Joe’s heartbeat, she fell asleep.

Marina dreamt that she was out in the dark, watching fireworks splinter in the sky. In the dream, she felt a pair of warm arms circle about her. The man - it could only be James - brought his mouth to her ear and whispered, soft words that went like whisky to her heart. She nodded, just to feel how her damp hair brushed against him. She laughed, and knew that her lips parted and her white teeth flashed like fragments of moon. “Marina.” The voice came from darkness. She turned to be enveloped in his embrace, but instead found herself alone on the edge of a cliff. A storm was raging, and out on the sea a tiny sailboat was being driven towards the rocks. Another rocket shot skywards, and Marina saw that there had never been any fireworks. They were distress flares. A voice called to her above the waves and the lashing rain.
“Mummy! Help me, Mummy.”
It was Joe, out in that boat with its bright white sail. Marina tried to shout, but the words came out in a garble of vomit. She tried again, and this time seawater gushed from her lips. The third time, the words came. “Swim Joe, swim!”
“No” he shouted, “I’m frightened.”
“Swim, you stupid boy!” Marina was furious. He never listened to her. He was too stubborn, like his father. She screamed again and finally the tiny figure on the tiny boat stood, pausing only a moment before leaping into the waves. Somewhere, another firework rocketed into the sky. Marina turned to watch it, and when a faceless person handed her a glass of champagne, she took it and smiled, forgetting that somewhere in the dark sea her son was drowning.

The dream did not wake Marina. Instead she drifted into the soft oblivion of sleep, noiseless and faceless for a while. It was still dark when some unfamiliar sound woke her with a jolt a short time later. Assuring herself that Joe was still breathing, Marina stood to see who or what had disturbed her.
The Mermaid was half way down the ward, illuminated softly by one of the weak bulbs each empty bed had beside it. The room was mostly dark, but all light in it seemed drawn to the creature, and danced and shimmered about her like sunlight on the waves. Marina blinked, and rubbed her eyes, and tried to fathom what she was seeing. There was a Mermaid standing in the hospital and, by the looks of the black smudges around her eyes, the Mermaid had been crying. Marina took a deep breath, and then another. She squeezed her eyes closed, and when she opened them again she understood.
The Mermaid’s tail, for all it looked real, was clearly made of some kind of very expensive silk. It had been embellished with a thousand - a thousand-thousand - tiny sequins, in exquisite shades of blue and green. The whole thing shimmered and glistened like water. The tail clung to the woman’s slim legs but, somewhere mid-calf, swept up to the side, forking beautifully into a perfect, symmetrical fin. Attached to the centre of the fin, some invisible thread reached up and looped around the woman’s wrist. The tail swayed softly, almost as if it were a living thing of its own. It was probably the most beautiful thing Marina had ever seen.
The rest of the Mermaid’s costume was far simpler. Her stomach was bare, and she wore a bikini top made of cheap plastic seashells. Around her wrists green ribbons stood for seaweed, and there was a small toy crab glued to a hairclip and nestled in her off-blonde curls. Her face was almost, but not quite, beautiful. Her eyes were puffy and red, and Marina could see that she had been wearing too much cheap mascara, which had probably looked bad even before it had been smeared across her face. She was wearing only one earring, a small starfish that dangled from her left ear. But, like her tail, the Mermaid’s lips were perfect. They were full and shapely, and looked as if they had just been covered with a fresh coat of deep, glistening scarlet lipstick.
For the first time since the accident, Marina smiled. Something about the Mermaid reminded her of younger days; of fancy dress parties and of drinking until she cried for no reason; of falling asleep in James’s arms. But then she looked back down at Joe, the legacy of that love affair, plugged into machines that were helping him to breathe. The smile died on her lips, and she rested her hand on his clammy forehead. A loud sob from across the ward set her heart thumping. The Mermaid had not moved, but had started crying, her shoulders heaving and the black mascara streaking down her face along with the tears. Marina couldn’t bear the noise.
“Stop it!” she shouted, the harshness of her own voice startling her. The Mermaid looked up, mid-sob, surprise and fear shining in her eyes. Marina saw in them the shadow of some pain as great as her own, and was instantly sorry. She stepped from behind Joe’s bed, and opened her arms.
“I’m sorry.” She said. “Are you alright?”
The Mermaid didn’t hesitate. She tried to run forward, but her tail kept her legs clamped together, and she had to shuffle instead. She reached out for Marina like a child, and fell into the hug. Marina was shocked by how long it has been since she had held a warm, responsive body to her chest. When she finally let go, the Mermaid sat, uninvited, in the second seat next to Joe’s bed.
It was difficult to tell how old she was. With all the make-up streaked over her skin she could be anywhere between twenty-five and forty. The perfect, plump red lips suggested that she was young, but Marina noticed that her hands were dry and wrinkled and weather worn. Her eyes were a deep greeny-blue that sparkled with flecks of sliver and gold. Exactly the colour of the silky tail. There was something deep and knowing in those eyes, and they held Marina with their stare. As she gazed into them, Marina felt the edges of her vision blur. She didn’t notice when the tears began to come. She didn’t notice when she started talking. “His father’s name was James,” she said. “We met at a new year’s party, when I was seventeen…”
The clock struck one, and then two. Outside, the darkness was only rarely interrupted by the last of the straggling fireworks. No nurses came to do their rounds, and Joe’s monitor beeped on and on. Still Marina talked into the blue-green eyes of the Mermaid. She spoke of a hurried wedding on the edge of a cliff, and of making love by the sea. She spoke of how his parents had hated her. She spoke of the fear she felt when she knew she was pregnant, and she spoke of James’s eyes when she told him. She remembered how she had prayed for a miscarriage, how they had fought, and how she had stared at the sea and thought for hours on end about drowning in the grey swell. She confessed that she had never wanted her baby. She spoke about the day James had disappeared, and about how she had never tried to find him, never questioned why he left without his only pair of shoes.
“He was too young,” she said. “He knew he was too young.”
The clock struck three and still Marina talked. She spoke of those days alone, and then of giving birth to Joe. Of the midwife’s fat hands and disapproving gaze. Of when she had first held him, first kissed him, first danced with him, first slept a whole night without waking to his cries. She spoke about his first word, and when he had learned to ask about his father, and when he had learned to stop. She spoke about taking him to school, and for walks on the beach collecting seashells. She spoke of his grey eyes, and how earnest he was. How honest and how kind. How stubborn. How very sure of himself. She spoke of the holiday they had planned together. She spoke of the accident.
When she came to the moment they had dragged Joe’s body from the waves, his hair swept back and his limbs limp and lifeless, her body began to shake. The tears overtook her, and she hung her head and cried properly for the first time in six days. She did not speak any more.
Gently at first, but gradually louder and clearer, the Mermaid started to sing. It was like nothing Marina had ever heard before. It filled her head with the sound of the waves and the melancholy, aching song of the humpback whale. It was the tune of the sunset, of the stars that glisten over an endless blue horizon. The words were in a language Marina could not recognise, yet somehow she felt their meaning. They told her to rest. To forget. Her eyes grew heavy, her head felt dense as lead on her tired neck. She wanted, needed, just for a moment, to sleep. The music swayed and swallowed her. She was floating away on the song. She was a rowboat, cast adrift in the deep blue ocean, anchorless and free. There was nothing left to bind her to this waking world. And somewhere out there, her son was drowning.
Marina panicked. She struggled to open her eyes, but they were too heavy. She fought and they opened just a slit. She saw the mermaid leaning over her son, singing her siren’s song close to his ear. Joe’s eyes were open, but only the whites showed. He was gasping for breath and his back was arching against the bed. Marina struggled against it, but the tide of sleep overcame her. She was drowning, and the last thing she saw was the flicker of the heart monitor as it died.

Marina dreamt again. This time her dream was clear and sharp. She watched the Mermaid, deep beneath the sea, her silken tail ploughing through the waves. She was searching, her eyes wild. Marina recognised the look of terror on her face. She had lost something precious. She swam back and forth, almost in circles, running her hands over the sand, looking behind rocks, tearing at her hair. Then a sound came, a terrible, crying sound of pain and fear. Marina looked up, and the Mermaid looked up, and above them the great grey sky of the ocean was darkened by the shadow of a ship. A net had been cast, and it in the creatures of the sea were struggling and fighting. A thousand silver fish writhed against each other, and an old turtle twisted against the net, tangling her flippers past all freedom. Amongst them, Marina saw the eyes and face of a child. It was a young boy, maybe six years old, with off-blond curls, perfect lips, and a tail of silken green and blue. His hands reached out to her, and then, with a sudden heave of the net he was gone. Water rained down on the surface of the sea, like a million tears.

Even in her dream Marina understood. She understood why the Mermaid had come to the hospital, weeping in the night. She understood what she had lost, and what she was seeking. She understood that the Mermaid had not found her own son amongst the bodies in the morgue, amongst the sleeping or the dead. Who knew if he had been tossed back into the sea, or taken away to some place with white walls, to be sliced down the middle? Marina understood too, that the Mermaid had found Joe, and would take him with her, back to the ocean. Even in her dream, she felt her heart break against her chest.
Twelve hours later Marina awoke to the sight of an empty hospital bed. The sheets were rumpled and the tangle of tubes that had been attached to her son were strewn across the bed and floor. The imprint of his body was still on the mattress. The smell of him lingered in the air. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stifle the sound of the pain that welled in her chest. She turned away.
Joe was on the other side of the ward, sitting on the windowsill, staring out towards the beach.
“Joe!” Marina sobbed the word and ran across the room, grabbing him and gathering him in her arms.
“Ow! Careful Mummy, you’ll squeeze me to death.” But Joe was laughing, smiling again, alive. Marina thought she might never let him go.
“When did you wake up, baby? Why didn’t you get me?”
“Oh, I woke up hours ago. You looked sleepy. I just wanted to look at the sea. Was I gone for a long time, Mummy?”
“Yes, Joe. Nearly seven days. Where did you go?”
Joe didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned forward and breathed onto the window. Then, with his small, slim finger, he traced the line where the water met the sand.
“She asked me if I wanted to stay with her,” he said, suddenly thoughtful.
“Who did, my darling?”
“The pretty lady. The one who kissed me.”
Marina touched Joe’s lips, and looked down at the scarlet lipstick that came off on her fingertips.
“But I told her I wanted to stay with you. Who was she, Mummy?”
Marina looked out of the window, over to the beach and the endless sea beyond. She
shaded her eyes against the afternoon sun, and somewhere in the distance she saw a glimmer of silk on the ebb of the tide.
“She was a friend, Joe. Just a friend.”
Marina pressed her hand against the glass, and gently wiped away the line drawn in Joe’s warm breath.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Thank you.”