“Those people? Are you serious?” Flora screws her face up at Oliver. “Those people owned the land long before you came, and those people have been treated abominally ever since. Do you expect them to wait politely while they’re being shot down in the streets? I’m shocked they’re not tearing the islands apart in fury; god knows they would have the right to.”
I draw a breath in anticipation of how Oliver will respond to being challenged in such a public fashion, and by a woman at that. But he is quiet, his forehead creasing in concentration as Flora talks. “Yes,” he says when she pauses. “I suppose you’re right, Flora,” and then: “That’s a very good point, Flora, I never really thought about it that way.”
The conversation moves from politics to music to literature to sports, Flora displaying an in-depth knowledge of each subject, as if she has spent years studying in preparation for this conversation. It’s almost mystifying, her expertise. “You’re so clever, Flora,” Oliver says, eyes shining, and I want to scream. What is it men actually want from us? “How do you know all of this?” he asks. She cracks jokes that I do not understand, but which make Oliver throw his head back in laughter. People drift towards us, the group becoming larger and larger, but Flora remains the centre of attention. No one can take their eyes off her. She’s so funny, I hear people whispering. And smart. They stand in a circle around her, enthralled. And yet her eyes remain on me, as if this entire performance is for my benefit.
Who is this woman?
The evening plummets into night, the moon rowing across the ocean’s skin. Voices spiking, people throwing words at each other but no one waiting for the replies. They are not having a conversation, these humans; they are merely delivering speeches, competing to see who can speak the loudest. The boat returns to the marina so a few guests can leave. Women with shoes in hands, make-up smeared down their faces as they stagger back towards the estate; some boys leaning over the side of the boat, vomiting. Two women wait to disembark, both petite and pretty, and they keep stealing kisses from one another. I can’t help but stare at them, open-mouthed.
“What are you looking at?” one of them asks me.
Nothing. I turn away hurriedly, and I think of Nia. Is this all that she has wanted? The freedom to hold another girl’s hand? Why had my father deemed such a simple act to be so terrible?
“Come on, Captain, just another hour.”
“No,” says the man whose socks I am still wearing, ignoring their protestations. “Time to go.”
And go they do, one by one, until at last, it is only Flora, Oliver, and me remaining.
“Goodnight, Captain,” Oliver says as that man goes downstairs, the crew following him. The captain tips his hat at Oliver as he passes. “Good evening, sir,” he says. “Or good morning, I should say. The sun is nearly up.”
The sun is nearly up, I repeat to myself, feeling oddly resigned. The sun is nearly up and it brings my death with it. I will never see my sixteenth birthday.
Why must you always be so passive, Muirgen? Cosima’s voice whispers in my head. If Cosima was here, she would march over there; run her fingers through Oliver’s hair and plant kisses on his mouth. Cosima would not be in the shadows, waiting for night to claim her for its own. But I am tired, so very tired. I don’t want to have to fight any more. My sisters might want me to rage against the sky tilting with light, beckoning a new day forward with fingers of streaking pink, but I don’t have the energy. I feel weaker as the air gets brighter, wrapping itself around me, bending me transparent. I already feel as if I am dissolving.
Oliver leans closer to Flora. A question is asked. She nods. And a decision made. Her hand reaches out to his, leading him downstairs to where the bedrooms are. Just before she disappears around the corner, she turns. Come, she mouths at me, crooking her finger to beckon me forward. There is a glint in her eyes, something between mischief and malevolence, and I am shaken out of my lethargy, I stand up to follow – but I fall to the floor instantly, my feet buckling beneath me. And they are gone.
“What do we have here?” A harsh voice, slurring at the edges. “Gracie. All alone. That’s not like you. Where has your master disappeared to? Doesn’t he know that it isn’t safe to leave his pets unattended?”
Rupert smells of anger and alcohol, his mouth streaked with the remnants of another woman’s lipstick. If it was George, I would smile, hand him a handkerchief to clean his face. But I do not dare do so with Rupert. I have seen with my own father how dangerous certain men can become when they think you are laughing at them. They always want to punish you for it. “Grace? Are you listening to me?” he says, and I shrink away, pressing my body into the couch.
“What?” he says. “I’m not who you were hoping for? That happens a lot with me, I’m afraid. Everyone wants the dashing heir to the Carlisle fortune. My deepest apologies for disappointing you.” He bends low, as if curtseying to me. “Or were you looking for George? No luck there either, George took Cordelia home. So chivalrous, is our friend George.” He breaks off into a high-pitched voice and says, “I won’t allow you to take advantage of another girl, Rupert, it’s not right.” Rupert laughs. “He did leave me in rather a bind. No other woman at this party was in as, ah, acquiescent a mood.” He leans against the bow, watching me. (Tell us the nymph-tale of the Big Bad Shark, Grandmother, that’s my favourite, and the mermaid with the red ribbons in her hair. The shark and his sharp teeth. “All the better to eat you with, my maid.”)
“You look sad – sad that Oli’s got a new playmate? She looks disconcertingly like Viola, I have to say. The perfect fucking couple,” he seethes. “That’s why I wasn’t on the boat that day, little Gracie. I couldn’t stand the idea of spending yet another afternoon with them, watching him slobbering all over her. Everyone pretending that they were so well suited when she was too good for Oli, she was always too good for him. She could have taken over the world if she had wanted to. She graduated first in her class, did you know that?”
I did not. Mermaids were not permitted to attend school in the kingdom. A waste of time, my father said. For what need would wives and mothers have of education? We would have our husbands to do our thinking for us.
“And Oli, he just…” Rupert’s jaw tightens. “If he wasn’t a Carlisle then Viola would never have even looked at him. Money and power, that’s the only things you whores seem to care about.” He stares at me as if only just remembering that I’m still there. He crouches down. “Is that why you liked him too?” My heart feels as if it is pumping too much blood into my body; it is ferocious. “So odd,” he says, grabbing my arms and dragging me to standing. “The way we found you on that beach, nearly a year to the day after Oliver washed up there. That’s what happened to his father too. Isn’t that a coincidence? Alexander’s boat was wrecked, and when they found him, he was raving about a girl who saved him. A girl who came from the sea, Oli’s old man said. He named this boat after her, the story goes. The Muireann.” He pushes my hair back and my throat clenches at his touch. I don’t want him anywhere near me. “Utterly mad, of course, and there was a lot of talk. You know how people like to gossip. Eleanor put him in that mental hospital to try and stop it and Oliver never forgave her, Jesus, he wouldn’t stop banging on and on about it, it got boring pretty quickly. What did he expect Eleanor to do? His father was a raving lunatic and she had to make sure Alexander wouldn’t do any damage to himself.” He snorts. “Or to the Carlisle name. She’s canny, is that Eleanor. But there was no keeping Alexander Carlisle locked up.”