The Brighton Mermaid Read online

  I want to type: ‘I don’t want to see him’, ‘Leave me alone’, ‘Go away’… anything … anything that will put an end to this. But I can’t, of course. I am where I am, I am who I am, and saying no to him is not an option. The clock is ticking and I can’t escape that.

  Swallowing the emotions, pushing them deep, deep down, I shove my phone back into my pocket and return to taking my purse out of my bag. I turn towards the bar, to the rows and rows of drinks, sitting like shimmery escape pods to the point of oblivion I suddenly desperately need to visit.

  My eyes run over the names, the labels, the bottle shapes, the liquor colours, and nothing appeals. Nothing catches my eye and tells me it will take me to where I need to be right now – away from the reality of my life.

  I turn to the person on my right, hoping for inspiration. He has a fancy and expensive-looking bottle of beer in his hand and a faint sneer that broadcasts how much better he thinks he is than everyone in the place, possibly on the planet. Nope, won’t be taking inspiration from him .

  I turn to my left. The man who stands there, leaning on the bar, is watching me with his head tipped slightly to one side. When I make eye contact he smiles. I grin back.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ I ask him, not looking at the glass he has on the bar in front of him.

  ‘Tequila from God’s own country.’

  ‘You’re Mexican?’ I ask.

  ‘Nope. I just like to say that.’

  ‘Tequila it is then,’ I say. ‘Will you have one with me?’

  He grins a little wider. ‘It’d be rude not to.’

  1993

  Nell

  Saturday, 26 June

  Jude looked spooked when she came back from calling the police.

  She explained over the sound of the waves and her footsteps crunching on the shingle that she’d had to call 999 three times before anyone would believe her. They had told her the third time she was going to get into trouble if she called again. ‘All right then, I’ll keep calling until you come and get me.’

  That’s when they’d believed her. Told her to wait by the phone box but she’d said she wasn’t going to, she was going back to the dead body on the beach. ‘You actually said that?’ I asked her. ‘Those actual words?’

  ‘Yeah, course,’ she replied. ‘Why?’

  I didn’t answer because I couldn’t imagine ever saying something like that, let alone to a police person.

  ‘It’s really creepy up there,’ she said, shivering. ‘There were a couple of men who were really dodgy-looking. I was scared of what they might do.’

  I stared at Jude, thinking, Of course there are dodgy-looking men out there – it’s Friday night in Brighton. What’s actually weirder is that there aren’t more people down here on the beach. That we’re the ones who found her .

  My eyes darted from Jude to the woman and I couldn’t stand to look any more. Anyway, Jude was back – I didn’t have to look any more.

  I turned away. Rotated until my back was to the sea and my vision was filled with the rise of the sea wall, the pebbles that lay in undulating mounds up to the promenade, the shapes the darkness made of the ornate railings. I didn’t know if Jude had looked away like me or if she’d taken her turn standing and watching over the woman who, I had realised, wasn’t actually that much older than us.

  It wasn’t long before a policewoman and a policeman were crunching over the pebbles, their faces like thunder. That’s when it became real. That’s when I realised that someone had died. Someone had died and it was going to turn out like it did on the television. We were going to find out that she had been murdered. That her last minutes were awful; full of terror and pain. I looked into the faces of the police officers, saw how angry they were that we were wasting their time like this, and knew our lives were never going to be the same again.

  Now

  Macy

  Saturday, 24 March

  05:13

  I stand, mobile in hand, and watch the clock on the cooker, waiting for it to click onto the right time. Once it hits the specific digits I am waiting for, I’ll be able to call. She’ll answer and things will flip into their correct places. Saturday will start, the whole day will be a perfect dream and the rest of the week will be wonderful: none of us will oversleep; we won’t need to rush any morning; I won’t have to shout; the children will get gold stars and certificates; I’ll manage to appease even the most difficult clients that are always sent my way; and Shane might even hear about that long-promised promotion.

  05:14

  Shane and the kids, snuggled together on the sofa, laugh at me from behind the icons on the lock-screen as I stare at my mobile. Everything I do, I do for them. Every call I make, I do it with them in mind.

  Today’s call, like all the other calls, is not like it was back then when I made the first call. Then I’d been desperate.

  I had been up all night. All night. Shane had tried at various points during those hours to get me to go to bed. He’d come downstairs more than once, had watched me pace the kitchen, doing the only thing that would stop my mind racing, and he’d asked me again to follow him up to bed. Try to rest; try to sleep , he’d begged. I’d ignored him. And kept ignoring him until he’d given up, snapped at me that he was going to bed so that one of us would be capable of looking after the children in the morning. I could hear his frustration, could see he was holding back from screaming that this sort of stuff was driving a wedge between us, but I couldn’t stop his anger, nor my pacing. I kept going, even when I heard him leave the room.

  Walking the lines of the edges of the black and white tiles of our kitchen floor was the only way to stop my mind hurtling backwards and forwards through time. Moving along each line, straight and perfect, was a way for me to externalise what was going on inside, kept me tethered to the moment. But, that night, even walking the lines couldn’t stave off the quiet terror. It all kept bubbling up inside; struggling, fighting, battling to let itself out. I was constantly dragged back to that night and the moment my life changed, then I was flung forwards, to the hell that would be unleashed if I told.

  All night. All night I was thrown about through time, struggling to deal with what happened and its potential consequences.

  I have to confess , I’d finally decided as light started to climb up over the horizon. I have to tell Nell . I’d kept the secret for twenty-five years, and I couldn’t keep it any longer. Yes, it would destroy her. Yes, it would decimate our family. Yes, it would unleash again the hell we’d all barely lived through last time. But I couldn’t keep it in any longer. Staying silent was literally driving me crazy and I had to tell.

  I’d looked at the cooker clock and it had said 05:14. Too early to call, but far, far too late in terms of confessing. I’d found my mobile, slipped down the side cushion of the kitchen sofa as usual, and started to dial. Then stopped. Then started again. Then stopped. By the time I actually dialled her number, it was 05:17.

  05:15

  Nell had answered after the third ring. ‘Are you all right?’ she’d asked. I could hear in her voice that she hadn’t been to bed yet. She obviously wasn’t working that Saturday so she’d been up all night, on her computer, searching and searching as usual. This was why I had to tell her. It would get her to stop. It would make her realise why what she was doing was dangerous to all of us.

  ‘Yes,’ I’d said, ‘I’m fine.’ And, as I said the words, I realised I was fine. The terror, the thing that had seized and driven me all night, that had caused me to pick up the phone to reveal all, was gone. It was hearing her voice. It was the normality of Nell that had done it. When we’d both spent so much time being anything but normal, hearing the natural, ordinariness of her tone even at that time of the morning was enough to calm me down.

  I felt my worries – a tight little bundle that sat in the middle of my chest, resting heavily on my heart – untangle; become transparent and manageable.

  ‘So what you doing up at this time?’ Nell asked. I�
��d heard her stifle a yawn. ‘One of the kids ill or something?’

  ‘No, no,’ I said. I felt ridiculous, then. I’d been up for hours, walking the lines, trying to hide from what I’d seen a quarter of a century ago, and now these worries seemed small, even ignorable for a while. ‘You need to come over,’ I told her. ‘Clara has a football match and Willow has a gymnastics competition. You need to pick one to go to.’ I sounded bossy, like I was telling my big sister what to do. But you know, now I felt less panicked, I remembered the many things that really irritated me about Nell. I loved her, but I did not love the part of her that sat up till the small hours searching for people on her computer. Computers , because she needs more than one of them to search for people. Nell wasn’t married because she was always searching for people on her computers. She didn’t have kids because she was always searching for people on her computers. Everything about Nell and the way she lived her life was about searching for people on her computers. She would be a different person with a real life, a real family, if she’d just stop searching for people. Yup, when I remembered how Nell had ruined her life because of something that was, at best, a hobby, it made me cross and it made me bossy. I often thought I could shock her into living in the real world by forcing her to take part in family life.

  On the other end of the phone line, Nell had taken a deep breath, had stayed silent for a second and then said: ‘Sure. Fine. When do I need to be there?’ She’d showed up on time, she took Clara to her football match, during which Clara had scored the winning goal. Then Nell had made a huge fuss of Willow on winning a medal for the first time in any of her gymnastics competitions, and then she’d stuck around to help Aubrey with his ever-expanding model replica of Brighton Pier.

  It’d been an amazing day, and that had turned into an incredible week: no lateness; Shane was promoted then given the nod for another huge promotion; I came up with a concept that a difficult new client loved; and the children came home with five different gold stars and reward certificates.

  05:16

  I bring up Nell’s number, ready to hit ‘call’ when the time comes.

  After that first week I had cast my mind back, tried to find what had been different about that week which could have caused our good fortune, and I realised it was the phone call with Nell. It was the only thing that had been different, out of the ordinary.

  The next Saturday I did it again, I called her at exactly 05:17. Spoke to her. Asked her to come and be a proper part of our family life after work. And the week went brilliantly again. Even better than before. When it happened again for the third week, I realised that it was the phone calls. Something about connecting with my sister at that time of the morning on a Saturday, about bringing her over to our house, made all the difference.

  I’ve been calling her every Saturday at 05:17 for nearly nine months. And those nine months have been as darn close to perfect as we can get. In all that time, she has answered every single call. Guilt, of course. Every time Nell picks up the phone to me at that time of the morning, she does so out of the guilt she should right-fully feel.

  05:17

  I press ‘call’ and start my weekend.

  Nell

  Saturday, 24 March

  Ring, ring, ring .

  It’s 5:17 on Saturday morning. I know that because my phone is ringing.

  Ring, ring, ring .

  It’s 5:17 on a Saturday morning and my phone won’t stop ringing until I answer it. I have a few more seconds before I need to pick it up so I don’t open my eyes, or reach for the offending item, I just let the sound jangle through me, tap-dancing on every single nerve in my head.

  I never want to answer the phone when it rings at this time every Saturday, but I always do. It’s a compulsion; a force outside of my will that makes me raise my hand, pick up the phone and then give myself over to the words, thoughts and needs of the person at the other end.

  ‘Are you going to get that?’ the voice beside me asks.

  Even though his voice has startled me, I stay perfectly still and keep my eyes closed. Usually when the phone rings at this time on a Saturday I’m alone. I’m home and I’m alone. The fact that I’m not alone also means I am not at home. That means I need to fake sleep until I remember as much of last night as possible.

  ‘Hey! Nell!’ the man beside me says loudly. He knows my name, which is a good sign. A great sign. It means we must have talked at some point before we came back to his place. ‘Are you going to answer your phone?’

  ‘No,’ I croak. ‘I am not going to get that.’ My voice is battered, my throat furrowed by dry spikes. I was either smoking or I was talking loudly and singing even louder. I groan at the thought of it, hoping it was the smoking rather than the singing.

  ‘All right, can you please get that,’ the man says. ‘It’s too early and too Saturday for that noise.’ Despite the irritation in his voice, he sounds nice. Like a nice man I had a nice conversation with before we came back to his place.

  I open my eyes and roll towards the sound of my phone. Beside my bleating mobile is a small glass of water, and a hotel telephone, notepad and pen. OK, not his place – a hotel.

  As I reach for my phone, the rows and rows of bangles on my arm clink together as they pool at my wrist. You’re too loud for this part of my hangover , I tell them silently. Too, too loud .

  I jab at the ‘cancel’ button to the racket, then press and hold down the power button until my phone is off. Because it will start ringing again as the caller desperately tries to connect again during the sixty seconds of 5:17 a.m.

  I clatter the phone back onto the bedside table. I should turn it off more often, but I don’t. I can’t. I fear what I might trigger if I do.

  ‘There. Better?’ I say to the man on the other side of the bed without actually looking at him.

  ‘Yeah. Much. Thank. You.’ He says this as though he is forcing each word out through his teeth.

  OK, so maybe he isn’t that nice after all.

  Macy

  Saturday, 24 March

  She didn’t answer.

  She cut off the call and didn’t answer. And now she’s turned off her phone.

  I’ve called back three times now, trying to get her to speak to me before the cooker clock flicks from 05:17 to 05:18, and each time it goes straight to voicemail. I can’t believe she’s turned off her phone. How dare she!

  HOW DARE SHE!

  She knows why she needs to answer, it’s an unspoken agreement between us – I call, she answers. She doesn’t even have to talk for long. If she picks up, listens to what I need her to do, everything will be OK. How dare she do this!

  I lob my mobile across the kitchen. It lands, quite by chance, on the cream leather sofa by the door and bounces unceremoniously on its cushions before coming to rest.

  In the past, if she doesn’t answer first time, she always picks up the second time I call. If I need to ring again, it’s always still 05:17. She never turns off her phone. Never .

  I watch the cooker clock flip from 05:17 to 05:18. And that’s it. My chance gone. If I hadn’t already done so, I would throw my phone across the room in the hopes of hearing a satisfying smash as it hits something solid. ‘What have you done to us, Nell? ’ I ask, with my right thumb knuckle wedged in my mouth. ‘What have you brought down on us? ’

  Nell

  Saturday, 24 March

  I throw my arm over my eyes as I ease myself back onto the bed. I’m reaching for the blurry, ethereal strands of last night that float around my mind like clouds in a still sky. I need to fuse those strands together to make one coherent timeline because certain things aren’t really making sense now. Like the fact I’m fully dressed. I’m in bed with a man and I’m fully dressed, right down to my odd socks and multiple bangles.

  Last night … Last night was my leaving do.

  Last night … We went to Read My Lips, the hottest new bar in Brighton.

  Last night … Mr W made a passive-aggressive speech. I we
nt to the bar. I got the ‘He needs to see you’ text.

  Last night … I talked to a man and bought him tequila.

  Last night … I think I came home with the man I drank tequila with.

  This morning … I’ve woken up next to the man I think I drank tequila with – fully clothed.

  ‘Was that your husband, boyfriend or girlfriend calling to find out why you didn’t come home?’ The man – whose name I’m desperately trying to remember – asks now the room is silent.

  ‘None of the above,’ I reply.

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  ‘It was my sister,’ I say to him. ‘She calls me at five seventeen every Saturday morning for a chat.’

  What is his name? His voice is sounding familiar, so I think it is him from the bar, but his name is drawing a complete blank.

  ‘Why?’ he asks, clearly not believing me.

  ‘All sisters call at that time on a Saturday morning,’ I reply.

  ‘Mine doesn’t.’

  ‘Well, aren’t you the lucky one?’

  ‘And aren’t you just the most darling ray of sunshine?’ he says.

  ‘There’s no sunshine when I hurt this badly.’

  ‘Poor you,’ he coos. ‘Imagine how you’re going to feel when the effects of room service booze kick in.’

  Oh God . Last night … I threw myself on this bed, picked up the telephone and in an ultra-posh voice ordered a bottle of tequila and ‘your very finest champagne ’.

  ‘I’ll pay for it,’ I say with a groan.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he replies.

  Even though I can’t remember his name, I’m forced to look at him then, to underline what I am saying by making eye contact. I can’t speak for a moment because he’s gorgeous. He’s propped up on two white pillows facing me, and he’s divine. The set of his features, the slice of his cheekbones, the gentle slope of his brow, the curve of his chin, the bow of his lips, the smooth, hairless lines of his head, the eyebrow-free openness of his face, the eyelash-less emphasis of his gaze, work together to make him simply beautiful.