Washed Up

by Pippa Gladhill

It lay next to a rock pool, flip flopping, on the sand. Mrs Banks bent over to see.

‘Are you all right?’

The eyes glittered green …. turquoise …. the colours ebbing and changing like sunlight and cloud over water. Mrs Banks felt herself pulled giddily into the watery gaze.

‘Now dear, no need to try your tricks on me. Just checking – are you ill?’

She placed the laundry bag, containing clean sheets and towels for the holiday cottages, on the sand, and bent down for a closer look. Wrapped around the body was a piece of orange netting.

‘You’re trapped,’ Mrs Banks exclaimed, ‘let me untangle you.’

‘ ssshhh …. ssshhh…. ssshh, ’ it sounded like waves over pebbles.

‘It’s all right,’ said Mrs Banks, ‘I’m used to this sort of thing.’ She lowered herself down, groaning, onto the sand.

‘ Relax – this won’t hurt - that’s what they always say, isn’t it’

and she unwound the netting.

‘There you go. You’re free.’

Mrs Banks sat back on her heels.

The tide was out and the boats in the small harbour lay on their sides, the ropes criss-crossed to the mooring chains. She levered herself off her knees to sit on the nearest rock.

‘I’m not surprised, finding you here. I’ve seen things before. Once it was porpoises. Ken – my husband didn’t like things like that. He’s dead now. He was a builder – killed in an accident at work. There’s me and Stewart – that’s my son – and he’s getting on a bit. Time he found himself a girl and moved out. That’s what I say to him. There’s his aquarium fish as well. You’d like those.’

It lay still as if it was listening.

‘ The porpoises were lovely.’ Mrs Banks said. One morning early, from the path above the village she’d seen their glistening curving movement, plumes of water rising up from their exuberant play. They’d swum across the bay before turning and heading out, past Gull Rock, to sea.

She’d tried to describe to Ken and Stewart the effect it had had on her, at the tea table, but it seemed to lose something in the telling, with the men chewing stolidly away, the warm indoorish fug of the electric fire. Ken’s cup had paused mid air.

‘Saw a vision go past today, as well,’ he’d said, ‘when I was up the ladder – wouldn’t of minded a bit of action with that –’ and he’d guffawed coarsely.

To erase this predictable laughter and everything else dull, over the months she’d walked along the beach and watched the sea.

Once she saw flotillas of man o’war jellyfish washed from warmer waters.

Sometimes she’d seen seals

‘I tried describing what I saw to Ken, but he didn’t like it. Didn’t like Nature. Not like me. I’ve been expecting to see something else sometime and now here you are. But you’ll be wanting to be back in the water.’

Already a family was making its way down the slipway onto the beach.

‘I’m not like most people – I’m used to fishy things.’ The tail slapped the sand.

Mrs Banks sighed. An idea came to her.

‘ Tell you what. If I cover you with a towel – you can stay here till the tide comes in to take you back.’

She took a clean towel from the laundry bag.

‘Sorry I can’t wait with you. It’s change over day for Mr Lee’s holiday cottages. One lot out first thing, new lot in later on. Cleaning up is my job. Change bedding, hoover round, scrub grill pan, swill sand out from shower – bucket loads of it every time.’

She snorted ‘ I’ll be off now, but I’ll be back, check you got away all right.’

She picked up the laundry bag and lugged it across the beach past the family encamped on the sand next to the slipway. The mother was hammring in the windbreak with a cricket bat. A baby, fist in mouth, wwith a nappy sagging down to the knees, stood clutching the chair leg. The man stripped to the waist was digging a hole furiously with a beach spade while the two kids stood silently side by side watching him. Something about his cracking pace so early in the day meant there would be furious scenes by mid morning. He’d be yelling at them. Good luck to the lot of them.

Looking up from watching his dad dig the boy saw Mrs Banks pass. He nudged his sister.

‘Look at that old cow, dragging that bag, talking to herself.’

His sister giggled

At lunchtime, work finished, Mrs Banks slid open the glass doors to the small first floor balcony. There.. for a short while, holiday cottage Sea Vista was hers to enjoy. She leant back in the chair, the sun warm on her face and closed her eyes.

The mermaid’s gaze was washing over her, rocking her gently from side to side, floating her away.

First when looking into a rock pool all you saw was your own reflection.

But then peering closer beneath the surface was another world where small fish darted. Anemones, crimson tendrils tipped with blue, swirling with the tide, dancing and bowing, invited you in. Puffs of sand, like smoke, eddied around.

Deeper down she sunk.

Shadowy shapes emerged from the gloom, horses pulling Neptune on his chariot of waves, behind came a triumphant procession of sea animals, narwhales, stingrays, giant squid, manatees and dugongs, argonauts and the

nautilus, mermaids, the Sirens and then the churning vortex of Charibdys itself which caught her up, whirling her around – and she started awake, abruptly.

All was quiet in the heat of the afternoon.

She must get back to the beach.

It was high tide. The water was up to the slipway.

The mermaid had gone.

She would be far out to sea by now. But one day, soon, she would be back, and she would grant a wish.

Mrs Banks thought about it. What would she choose?

There would have to be major changes. A fundamental re-arrangement. An end to the things as they were now

Slowly she trudged back, past the Plume of Feathers, into the butchers for half a pound of liver – fried with onions was how Stewart liked it - then up Gerrans Hill.

‘Hello Ken, I saw a mermaid today,’ she puffed as she passed the church at the top of the hill. Ken had been buried in the churchyard for twelve years. There was no reply - not that she expected one – he hadn’t been one for conversation even in life. But she was in the habit of making remarks to him as she passed by every day. She imagined his snort of scepticism.

In the living room the curtains were shut against the sunlight. Stewarts’s fish tank stood on a shelf to the left of the fireplace. It was lit from the back, like a miniature stage, and shone out in the gloom. What a relief - to sit back in the cool in her armchair and gaze at the little fish.

She was roused from her reverie by the front door slamming and Stewart yanking off his work boots in the hall.

They sat opposite each other at the table. Stewart ate steadily. She watched him.

‘You not hungry, Ma?’

‘ Heat takes away my appetite.’

He wiped his plate with a piece of bread.

‘There’s a fruit pie for sweet, if you like.’ she said.

She sliced the pie and ladled custard over it. As she was handing him the bowl she said ‘ I found a mermaid today washed up on the beach.’

Stewart raised an eyebrow. ‘ You taken too much sun?’

‘Had to untangle it from some netting.’

‘Now don’t you start again Ma,’ he said rising from the table with his bowl, crossing over to the TV and switching it on. He stood eating in the middle of the room.

‘You go see Dr Finch again,’ he said. ‘ Get some of them pills.’ Without taking his eyes from the screen he backed to the sofa and sat down.

The swirling noise, the shrieks of the participants on the show, the glassy eyes of the presenters, their gabbling voices made her feel queasy – give her the fish tank to watch any day.

On Saturday Stewart normally would be at home, but this morning there was an emergency call out to a central heating boiler and he’d driven off early.

Mrs Banks set off along the road. ‘Morning Ken,’ she said as she passed, ‘got to find that towel I left.’

She went through the village, past the holidaymakers scrambling out of their cars in the square. White and yellow beachballs like luminous globes were piled high in the wire container outside the store. Plastic shoes swung from a rail beneath the awning. A man turned the squeaking rack studying the postcards. Already the sun was hot.

The tide was out. She moved across the beach, from one rock to the next.

Eventually she saw one corner of a towel in the sand. It came up heavy, sodden with wet sand and she shook it out, flapping it away from her. Just in case the mermaid should return sooner than expected she sat down on a rock and waited.

The air down here was fresh. A breeze blew fitfully, lightly.

She thought about what she would wish for when the mermaid returned.

What did she most want?

Mounds of washing seemed to get in the way of all possibilities. Sheets, pillowcases, towels, teatowels billowed out on a never ending washing line, blowing and snapping in the wind.

The bed making.

The spongecakes to bake.

The big meal she cooked for Stewart every Saturday evening before he went out.

This same work waiting for her, stretching ahead of her, without variation, week after week.

She sat so still contemplating this that a gull flew onto a nearby rock.

‘I’m just resting for a while to see if the mermaid turns up today,’ she told it – ‘ this time I want to hear about her life, the fishes and coral and things far out to sea.’

The gull eyed her coldly and flapped away.

The sun rose higher in the sky

Eventually Mrs Banks said ‘This isn’t going to get the baby a new bonnet I suppose,’ and she stood up stiffly to go home.

Eight of the sixteen sheets flapped on the line. Mrs Banks made a cup of tea and went into the living room. Her legs ached. She went over to the fish tank. The six mountain minnows, little strips of silver, darted across the tank. She wanted to catch one – feel its small perfection between her finger and thumb. The lipard danios preferred the top right hand corner of the tank. They hung there in formation, transparent fins fluttering, and then with a flick they were off. She wondered what they made of her face, looming out of the dark, blurred and white and powdery. Enough to send them flitting for shelter. Enough to give them fin rot. Too bad. She opened and closed her mouth, fish like, back at them, then took a pinch of fish flakes and scattered them on the surface of the water.

‘There you go, boys,’ she said. It was Stewart’s task to change the water. It hadn’t been done for a while. Perhaps he would this evening if she asked before he switched on the tele.

Early each morning Mrs Banks fumbled into her clothing, slewing them on any old how, anxious to be down on the beach.

‘Where you off to in such a hurry these days,’ Stewart grumbled. ‘You can’t go out dressed like that – ’

‘There’s major changes in store,’ she replied, ‘you wait and see.’

Every day the seagulls screamed above her. She searched amongst the debris washed up on the tide line, tangle of plastic bottles, rusting oil drums, nylon netting, lengths of rope, but there was never a sign or message from the mermaid.

Summer was ending. Autumn gales began to blow.

One morning, five small fish were floating belly up in the fish tank. Their small bright glamour had gone, their eyes glazed and dull. Stewart scooped them out and threw them in the pedal bin. The clanking noise of the closing bin banged, echoing, in her mind. She felt something within her shuttering down.

‘ I reminded you about changing their water,’ she yelled.

Stewart shrugged ‘ I forgot. Don’t take on so. Keep your hat on. Take your pills.’

She left, with the full laundry bag, slamming the door behind her. As she rounded the corner past the church the cold wind met her full in the face. ‘It’s no good,’ she muttered to Ken’s grave. All right for him, humped up against the chill, clutching the heavy green turf over him like the duvet he used to pull off her in his sleep.

The beach was empty. Waves came hurrying in one after the other.

Still carrying the laundry bag she clambered unsteadily, stiffly, over the rocks. She slipped, splashing into rock pools.

Soon her shoes were wet.

She came to the water’s edge.

She thought about the careless mess people left behind them, sand in the showers, the greasy grill pans.

The water lapped at her feet spilling into her shoes. It was achingly cold.

She remembered the way the mermaid’s mouth had opened and shut, a bit like the gills of a fish. She thought of the small dead silver fish in the tank, their self-contained and silent grace destroyed.

The hem of her skirt frilled out as the cold seeped up her. Aching cold. Soon the cold crept up above her waist… then her chest. She stood watching the water rolling in towards her. She said out loud to no one in particular before the final wave came crashing down.

‘Just imagine there really is a mermaid frolicing through the waves far out to sea.’

There was no response, just as there never was any response - just the pull and roar of the waves as they came in, went out. She clutched at the laundry bag holding it tight to her like a pillow upon which she would soon be laying her head.

The wind took her words and blew them away, scattering them, where they were caught up by the seagulls who mewed and called, circling over the small town. The people hurrying below took no notice, except for one old fisherman who looked up with a weather eye, sniffed the air, and reckoned a storm was due to blow.