The mermaid on the train

Last edited 21 October 2006

She'd tried living away from the seaside, but it was impossible. It was one thing to have given up her life below the waves, to have bid farewell to her sisters, leaving them to their wailing in the brine. But to be beyond even the sight of the waves? The sound of the cracking rocks as the water rolled over them again and again? No, that she couldn't stand. Not even for him.

And now that he was gone, and she was stuck with legs and feet that seemed to do nothing but ache and grow blisters, she was glad at least about that. As she wandered along the wind-blasted sea front, or dangled her arms over the barriers at the very end of the pier, peering at the murky water below - too cold and dark now to nurture her warm-blooded existence - she consoled herself with the proximity of the vast depths. She never saw her family though - she stared for hours but the water kept its secrets close.



Every day she sat on the train, one of the multitude, commuting to the city. "You can't just rely on me, you know?" he'd said. "You're a modern woman. You need to be independent and earn your own money. Buy your own shoes and handbags. It's what women in the 21st century do."

So she'd got herself a job - a pretty good one. She had money to spend, though she hardly knew what to do with it.

"Get your hair done, treat yourself," he'd said. "Buy a nice dress. I'd love to see you in some of this kind of underwear." And he'd held up a magazine with a picture of a lady who wasn't half as pretty as she was wearing frilly knickers and a push-up bra.

Still, she loved him. She'd loved him the moment she'd seen him. Dark hair, dark eyes and, she'd thought, lonesome. He'd been sitting on the beach, throwing stones at an empty plastic beer pot. She hadn't meant to do anything silly, but before she knew it, she'd slithered up the beach to sit beside him and he was resting his head on her cold, wet breasts. She stroked his head and he burried his face further into her flesh, his hot skin scorching her. He shook for a while, feverish, and then he'd gently slid into sleep, laying in her arms. His face was so beautiful she'd wanted to cry.

After that they would meet each evening at the far end of the beach, sheltering behind a worn down groyne. She learned his name and he learned hers. They kissed. He licked the salt from her skin and she shivered for the first time in her life. She felt a new sensation course through her. Not the thrill of cutting through the waves, or singing with her sisters. A secret pleasure which could only be found when he held her in his arms and looked at her with his dark eyes.

"If you were fully human, you'd have legs and a secret place between them that I could lick some more," he'd said. "And then there would be other things that I could do to you. You'd like it."

"Yes," she'd said.

She tried hard not to think of those days now that she had only train journeys and life on the land to occupy her. She read, lost herself in music, stared at the horizon as the sun came up invisibly beyond the clouds on grey, winter-damned days where it was hard to tell if the night had really ended at all. Sweet moments they had been, folded in his arms on the cold, damp pebbles of the beach.

It had been surprisingly easy to make the physical transformation from mermaid to human. Her mother had wept and her sisters had clung to her, wrapping fingers into her hair, begging her not to leave. An older mermaid, not one of her own blood, had warned her of the dangers of living forever among those who were destined to grow old and perish. "You will have to live forever, knowing that all your love will die while you will remain. Your pain will not have an end," she whispered through the water. But all she could think of was the promise of a life with her man - together, warm on the land, a place for him to show her how much he loved her. So she'd climbed once more up on to the beach and they'd laid there together under the moon. She'd slept, he'd slept. And in the morning light she'd opened her eyes to find herself a woman. No tail, no scales - but legs and flesh. He'd wrapped her in a blanket and carried her home to his bed.

Later, as the sun slid back down the sky towards the sea, a day of discovery behind them, he'd brought her a fried egg sandwich in bed. She'd devoured it with joy. So many new things to discover in this new, dry, warm life.

It took her some time to get used to her feet. And to the loss of her tail, her effortless grace gliding through the water. Air seemed to her a strange place to live a life. But as he had instructed, she joined-in with the daily routine, working nine to five, travelling to the city and back again. She got her hair cut, bought high heels and stockings, went out on couple-dates with his friends, danced to the bands he liked.

At night they lay, limbs entwined, happy. His need to lose himself in her flesh, her desire to be his solace, to comfort him, drove them together again and again at the end of each day.

"Show me everything - all the wonders of the world," she said, as she sat watching the Discovery channel.

"First tell me about the secrets of the sea," he said, staring out of the window towards the beach.

"I find it hard to remember," she said. And it was true. It was all fading into a dream - the days spent with her sisters, singing to the unwary sailors, combing their ever-tangled hair with combs fashioned from shell and pearl.

She'd wanted to see mountains and forests, hear the howl of wolves, to stare at the stars overhead in the dark night of the desert. But now that he was gone, and she had nothing but time, she found she only had the strength to live in the mundane ways.

She still saw him, of course. Even now. Sometimes. She would go for months at a time, living in a trance, running her life along the tracks that he had helped her place. The weekly rhythm . . . home, work, home, work. The weekends were spent washing her clothes, tidying her flat, watching TV, staring into the deep, blank ocean. He was gone and she had nothing to do but live, endlessly.

And then she'd see him - walking just ahead of her on the platform, climbing the stairs up out of the station. The perfect dark hair at the nape of his neck, the soft down she could still feel under her fingertips. It had to be him. The dark jumper, the bag slung over his body - a schoolboy with his satchel. He'd come back. She could catch him - he was just in reach. She'd turn a corner and he'd be gone. Over and over it happened. Each time she was winded by the disappointment.

One day she'd come home from work and he'd looked up at her. "You look like a stranger," he said. "I liked you better when your hair was wild and natural and your skin was cold and waxy."

She'd wept silently in the bath.

The last time she'd seen him, his beautiful face had been turned away, staring at the sun as it kissed the sea longingly on the horizon. They'd been sat once again on the beach. She was painting her toe nails bright red. He ran down to the edge of the ocean, splashing through the spray, untouched by the cold grip of the water. There was a flash of silver tail, she caught sight of long seaweed hair and heard a snatch of her old siren's song. And then silence. He was gone. He hadn't even kissed her goodbye. She'd sat there until long after dark, listening to the waves come chasing up the pebbles then retreating defeated back again. She could sit there forever. He was never coming back.

She liked to flick through women's magazines on the train sometimes when music just got on her nerves and books were too much like hard work. Her favourites were the "real life" stories. Women who triumphed over adversity, unfaithfulness, death, being fat or worse. She wondered what they'd make of her story . . . I gave up a perfect life beneath the waves for my mortal lover on the land - and he paid me back by running off with my sister! It made her smile a little as the train thundered into a tunnel, under the hillside, towards the sea. She sat quietly and looked forward to the next time he'd visit her in the turned away heads of the station's busy crowds.
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