Chapter 9
9
It feels good to be outside with Ava. We’ve both got on pink rubber gloves and we’re throwing everything into binbags with reckless abandon, and it is freeing rather than daunting for once. The little bits and pieces I’ve thought people might look at and come to see if there were more inside have got muddled as they’ve been rifled through, but I can’t remember the last time anyone picked something up and did anything more than put it down again hastily.
‘At least you don’t have to worry about anyone stealing it because no one would want it.’ Ava empties a box of old marbles into the rubbish bag I’m holding open. There are also crates of other things people might collect, like tiny glass bottles, and vintage tins and cookware, a few ornaments, some pre-loved toys, and some artificial plants to pretty it up.
I can’t help laughing even though she makes a good point, and it feels great to be making a noticeable difference in a short space of time. The decluttering inside is more of a long-term project, and even though Ren and I designated a lot of stuff for the tip or charity shops the other day, it hasn’t made much of a dent yet, but out here, the street in front of my shop rapidly looks clear and inviting.
When we’re done, I send Ava across to The Wonderland Teapot to get us another drink each, and while I fold up the tables, she goes back to looking for ocean-themed stuff for my stall at the antiques fair.
‘We could photocopy pages from the diary and display them behind the stall,’ she says as soon as I get back inside, hefting a table through the doorway. There are a few things that she’s put ready for me on the counter, and I love how thoroughly she’s checking everything for hidden nooks and crannies now. ‘We could pin them all onto a big board side by side, so it looks like wallpaper, and then you could have the diary in a display case, and all this sea-themed stuff on the stall in front of you, and people could read the pages and ask about them without having to touch the real diary and risk damaging it.’
‘You really do think of everything.’ I chuck the folded tables out the back and when I get back to the main part of the shop, she’s sucking her strawberry milkshake through the straw and looking at me expectantly, like she’s waiting for some other penny to drop. ‘What?’
‘ Weee-eell , you’ll need to know how it ends, won’t you? For the antiques fair, right? So we should read another entry. Only for the antiques fair.’
I can’t help giggling. ‘The antiques fair isn’t until the very end of August. I’ve got over three weeks to find out how it ends.’
‘Oh, come on! Before Dad gets back. He doesn’t care, he thinks it’s a load of nonsense, but you get it and I want to read it with you because you won’t criticise every possibility.’
I admire her enthusiasm as I get the book out, because honestly, I’ve been itching to read more too, and restraining ourselves until Ren gets back suddenly seems too long to wait.
‘Your dad cares more than you think he does though,’ I add, because I think he does, just a little bit.
28 February 1899
Every time I look at him, I feel like I’ve spun in sixty circles and my stomach bounces around inside me. I am giddy with joy. I feel like there are little people tapdancing inside my body and my veins are thrumming with the thousands of taps of tiny little feet. He is the most wonderful person I’ve ever met.
I form his name in my mouth and act like I’m going to say it out loud. I keep trying, but my vocal cords don’t work like a human’s do, but his name is the first word I’ve ever felt like I could speak aloud, if I tried hard enough. Jeremiah. Jeremiah. Jeremiah.
It’s written in three different styles of handwriting, and I glance at Ava in excitement. She’s mouthing the word like it’s written in the diary. This is huge ! We have a name! We have to be able to do something with this. This is a gigantic step towards finding something, anything, that will prove this whole thing is real.
He has taken over my whole life, but it’s more than that. He has taken over my entire soul. Every time I close my eyes, I think of him. When I am awake, I am talking to him via my notebooks. When I am asleep, I dream of him.
The other day, I sat beside the fire and he lay beside me. He rested his head on my lap and I stroked his hair until he fell asleep. It was the nicest thing I’ve ever felt. I continued stroking his hair until he woke and smiled at me, and I felt like I was dreaming too.
He does not seem to mind what I am. He treats me as he would treat any other human. He is kind and warm and he talks to me all the time. He asks me question after question about myself, even though he knows it will take me a long time to write the answers, and he waits so patiently while I do, like he has all the time in the world for me.
Like I am worth waiting for.
He’s the person I wish had always been in my life. How much better would things have been if other people were more like him?
But something niggles at me too.
He grieves for his friend. He tells me about him. A brother, he calls him, a comrade. I have no words to say in response so he fills the silence, and I hope he hears what I say with my eyes. With my notebook, I can ask the question that has been playing on my mind since the moment of the shipwreck.
What were they doing that night? There were not supposed to be any vessels on the water in such a storm.
He reads my question and he nods, but he doesn’t answer. It is the only question so far that he hasn’t answered.
He is hiding something, and I am scared of what it might be.
‘She’s so in love!’ Ava shouts as Ren comes back in the door just as we’re about to turn the page and read the next entry.
‘You read it without me? How could you!’ He raises an eyebrow but there’s teasing in his voice.
‘Mickey told me you read one without me the other day.’
‘Mickey is too honest for her own good,’ he says with a grin in my direction.
‘His name is Jeremiah,’ I say, imparting the important information Ava and I have garnered. ‘And she thinks he’s hiding something.’
‘She named him? At last!’ Ren’s face lights up and he gets his phone out of his pocket and comes over to the counter while his swift fingers type it in to Google.
‘You think it’s as simple as a first name and a shipwreck?’
‘Well…’ He’s quiet as he scans through results, but the look on his face is one of disappointment, and he tries again with different wording. I get my phone out and try a few variations too, but nothing comes up in the results.
Mrs Moreno comes in at that moment, and Ava immediately goes to help her, unaware that she’s about to get a full update on the gout-or-bunion saga and a seventeen-year-old cat’s bladder issues.
Ren leans closer. ‘Has she behaved?’
‘More than. She’s a godsend. An absolute credit to you.’
He meets my eyes with a soft smile, and I can see how proud he is, and we both go back to googling Jeremiah’s name with various ways of putting what we know happened to him, but none of them bring anything up. ‘Maybe it was too long ago to be on modern-day results,’ I suggest when my fingers start cramping with how tightly I’m holding my phone, hoping against hope for a hit in the search results.
‘Or maybe it’s just?—’
I cut him off by smacking at his hand where he’s still holding his phone. ‘Maybe it’s just that we don’t have enough info,’ I finish the sentence for him pointedly.
He looks down at the place I touched him and then meets my eyes again, his dancing with mischief that makes my veins feel like they’re full of tiny tap-dancers too, and I shake my head to clear it. ‘Thanks for taking all that stuff. You didn’t have to.’
‘I brought some empty boxes back so we can start again sometime, maybe next week?—’
He was probably about to suggest next weekend when Ava waves Mrs Moreno off and dances back over to the counter. ‘She’s so lovely. Look, she gave me a sweet!’ She unwraps the humbug and pops it in her mouth and then speaks around it. ‘Mickey let me serve a customer, it was awesome. I want to work here when I’m older! Actually I want to work here now but Dad would never let me.’
‘You’ve got that right,’ Ren mutters. ‘This place is hazardous to health.’
‘It’s all that suspicious incense, right?’ I give him a wink.
A loud and clearly unexpected laugh bursts out of him, and it takes him a few moments to compose himself afterwards. ‘And I see you got to work out front. It’s looking good.’
‘Ava’s been brilliant. Thanks for letting me have her.’
She throws me a wide grin and looks between us like she’s plotting something. ‘Mickey, how come you don’t have a boyfriend?’
‘Don’t answer that.’ Ren puts his phone down and shoots Ava a reproachful look. ‘Please just ignore my overly inquisitive daughter who thinks it’s okay to pry where she has no business prying.’
‘Like you don’t want to know too, Dad. You specifically said, “How can a girl like that be single?”’
‘I don’t! I did not!’ Ren’s cheeks are burning red and I can’t help feeling a little thrill at the thought of them talking about me and of him wondering about my love life. ‘Ava, if you’re not grounded until Christmas, you will be a very lucky girl. You don’t repeat something like that to the person it was said about!’
‘Mickey doesn’t mind. She likes you too. She said it was okay if I told you.’
Even though it is okay, my cheeks are also starting to burn with a hot tingling feeling as this conversation goes on. ‘It’s okay, I have nothing to hide. And I’m pretty sure your father has worked out that I like him by now. I would have thrown him out ages ago if I didn’t.’
‘How can you say that when he’s standing right there and now he knows? Don’t you want the ground to swallow you up and spit you back out as a different person? I like this boy at school and it would be the worst thing in the world if he knew I liked him. He’d laugh at me. All the other girls would laugh at me. I have to pretend I don’t like him and laugh when the others make fun of him. It’s so embarrassing.’
Ah, the minefield of teenage-girl-politics. I remember those days well. ‘When you get to my age, you get past caring. If I like someone in a platonic or a romantic way, they should know. Life is too short to play silly games and keep people guessing.’
‘Can’t argue with that.’ Ren meets my eyes again, his cheeks still tinged a sweet shade of pink. ‘And for the record, I think you’re…’
He’s unable to finish the sentence, and the silence grows until it’s an awkward cloud hanging over our heads with raindrops of awkwardness dripping from it.
‘A hoarding madwoman with a dragon fruit problem?’ I offer to ease the unbearable tension.
He laughs an awkward laugh. ‘That’s the one.’
I laugh too, but it’s a fake titter and I undoubtedly fail at hiding the little sting I feel at his agreement. He’s opened up to me a lot lately, I was thinking – hoping – that he understood me better by now too.
‘Sooooo…?’ Ava prompts me, going back to the earlier question that I wouldn’t have minded her forgetting all about.
‘I was with someone for a long time, nine years, we lived together, he proposed eventually, but it was a “shut up ring”…’ My cheeks are burning as I look between her and Ren, wishing she’d asked me while we were alone so I didn’t have to go into my disaster of a love life in front of him.
‘What’s a shut up ring?’ she asks before I can say anything more.
‘It’s when you’ve been with someone for a very long time, and you expect to get married, but it just… never happens. You get comfortable living together but never take that next step, but you want to, and you don’t realise it, but you drop hints. Probably too many hints. You wonder why he’s not getting down on one knee and why he keeps avoiding the topic whenever it comes up. And then there are outside pressures from family too. His parents already treated me like a daughter-in-law, they talked often about how badly they wanted to see us get married and give them grandchildren, and eventually the pressure gets too much and he proposes, and you’re so happy, you think it’s finally what you’ve always wanted, but then nothing else changes. He isn’t interested in the wedding plans. He blanks you when you try to discuss potential dates, places, guests, or honeymoon destinations, and slowly, slowly you realise that he still doesn’t want to get married, but he gave you a ring to shut you up so you and everyone else would get off his back for a while.’
Ren grimaces and sucks air in through his teeth. ‘So we’re kind of opposites then? You wanted to get married and never did, and I did but shouldn’t have.’ He glances at Ava and quickly adds, ‘Apart from you, obviously. I will never regret marrying your mother because it gave us you.’
‘Oh, I know that, Dad. Your life would be extra-dull without me,’ she says with a cheeky grin and a self-assurance that only children can have and turns back to me. ‘Did you break up with him?’
‘I realised the relationship had stagnated. Realised we were more like flatmates than partners. I realised he’d made me feel insecure and needy and selfish for pushing for commitment when he wasn’t ready, because he couldn’t be honest about how he was feeling. Realised we’d fallen out of love, but believed that getting married would fix everything. Realised it was a conversation we should have had many years before, rather than after the most lacklustre proposal of all time and spending a week’s wages on bridal magazines because he wanted to bury his head in the sand rather than being upfront.’
‘That’s a lot of realisations,’ Ren murmurs.
‘I also realised I felt defective and not relationship-worthy and made the decision to walk away, feeling like I’d wasted so many years and that things could have been so different if he’d had the courage to talk it through when he’d started having doubts.’
‘You prioritised your own happiness and found the strength to start again – that’s not a bad thing.’ Ren’s blue eyes find mine and he gives me a nod of solidarity.
‘Except I didn’t start again. I just sort of… stopped. I went back to live with my dad, and around the same time, he started experiencing symptoms that turned out to be cancer, and I… just haven’t moved since. I still feel defective and not relationship-worthy, so now I hide out here, not looking for another relationship, ever. Instead, I invent stories to make up for the fact that my real-life relationship was the opposite of a fairytale, but I still want to believe that they do happen, just to other people, not to me.’
‘Maybe that’s why they say stories are made up – because they’re making up for something in real life?’ Ava says, showing a maturity surely far beyond her years.
‘I’m sorry.’ Ren looks serious and, actually, quite touched. ‘It takes a lot to realise you deserve more than you have and to say, “I deserve to be happy” and to actually believe it, don’t underestimate that. I haven’t got that far yet.’
His hand slides over mine and he gives my fingers a squeeze, and then pulls his hand back quickly and leans on the counter to pinch the bridge of his nose with a groan. ‘There is something seriously mind-altering in this shop. Are you sure you’re not secretly running an illegal drugs farm from the back room?’
‘Oi!’ I smack at his forearm but when my hand connects with his skin, my fingers stay put just a little bit too long as I rub his arm to make sure I didn’t hurt him.
Ava glances first at him, then at me, and then announces that we should read another entry and turns the page to the one we’d intended to read earlier.
21 March 1899
The best feeling in the world is to feel important to someone. At first, I think he is just being kind to me because we are isolated here, and he cannot manage alone with his broken leg, but as the weeks pass, I start to feel like he genuinely cares for me. I have always been good at knowing what people are thinking when they look at me, and I sense he likes me, genuinely.
He says I saved his life that night and that I have saved it again every day since. He calls me his guardian angel. I have never been called an angel before – a demon, a monster, a devil, but never anything good. People have always feared my kind, but when he looks at me, he has a look in his eyes that is the opposite of fear. It is warmth, and hope, and awe. He touches me sometimes, just a hand on my hand, or a leg against my scales. Sometimes, when I lean over him to dress his wounds, he winds his fingers in my long hair and caresses it, like it is the source of all life, and I am something to be admired, not feared.
When I brought his food the other night, he kissed my hand. His beard scratched against my skin and I nearly fell over. It was the single most delicious thing I have ever felt. It made me cry and he laughed and made me sit beside him so he could put his arms around me.
Senses are dulled underwater, but since I have been out here with him, inside our shelter, every colour, every touch, and every smell feels brighter and clearer than it has before. I feel like I could sing, if I wanted to. I feel like I could spin around in circles like the most elegant dancer. If he could stand, he would lift me up and twirl us around, and I’d feel like I could fly.
When we get back to the shore in Arfordir-M?r-Forwyn, he will be taken from me. I am sure of it.
I don’t know what I shall do without him. What if I am wrong about the depth of his feelings? What if he only shows me kindness because we are in this situation? Alone, and he is injured and has only me to rely on. Back on land, there will be other women. Normal women. He will have his soft accent and his seafaring stories of dramatic mermaid rescues to tell, and he will be surrounded by beautiful women who look like I wish I could, with their pretty voices and enticing laughter, and I will be alone again.
Now I know what it is like to not be alone, I am terrified of ever facing my loneliness again.
We get to the end of the entry before I realise what we’ve just read and look excitedly at Ava and Ren. ‘Arfordir-M?r-Forwyn! I’ve heard of this place! It’s a little seaside village in west Wales. The name translates as “Mermaid Coast”. It must be their nearest port! This is the most solid lead we’ve had so far – his name and a place.’
I pick my phone up again and google both things together, but nothing comes up, and I think about what we learnt about historical small boat sinkings – that our best hope would be newspaper articles from local authority archives. ‘So if Arfordir-M?r-Forwyn is where they’re going back to… it’s also where the wreckage would have been reported, right? Where any reports of shipwrecked sailors would’ve made the local headlines…’
‘That’s odd wording though, isn’t it?’ Ren taps a finger on the writing in diary and I feel like he’s deliberately ignoring my point. ‘Taken from. Not “we will be parted”, or anything along the lines of “he will leave, I will lose him, I will have to go”. He will be taken . Is there something we’re missing here?’
‘Never mind that. This is it! Confirmation of where they are – somewhere we can go to check any official records and local newspaper stories from the time. This is what we’ve been waiting for! Let’s go there!’
Ava gasps in delight. ‘Oh my God! Can we?’
‘We’re not going there,’ Ren snaps. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous.’
‘I thought you wanted to prove this?’ I say, confused by his reaction. From the moment we found out that local archives would be our best bet, I thought that if we found an exact locality, it was a given that we’d go on a road trip to see if we could find out something about our mysterious diary keeper and her sailor.
‘Not by travelling 200 miles on a whim!’
I pick up my phone and google it. ‘It’s only about 120 miles actually, and it’s not “on a whim”, it’s because we’ve already looked at official records and come up with nothing, so now our only chance is going to the local authority and seeing if they have any info about what happened…’
‘Nothing ever happened, Mickey! This isn’t real!’
‘You don’t know that. None of us know that. Which is exactly why we should go there.’
‘This is nonsensical twaddle that could go on forever. First they’re in Arfordir-M?r-Forwyn, but if we go there and it’s a waste of time, what next? You reckon he’s Irish, shall we go to Ireland too? If she’s a mermaid, do we take a road trip in a submarine and try to find her? This is a series of endless wild goose chases and none of us are going anywhere.’
‘Excuse me!’ I scoff and fold my arms. ‘I’m not one of your schoolkids. You can’t tell me whether I can go or not. I’m going. I can take a weekend off and drive down there. It’s not impossibly far.’ I look between them and then sigh as the realisation sinks in that I’m going to be doing it alone. ‘Don’t make me do it without you two.’
‘I didn’t mean…’ he sighs and shakes his head, but Ava interrupts before he can continue the sentence.
‘I want to go! Mickey’s right, we need to find out whether this is real or not, and we’ve already looked here and found nothing.’
He frowns at her. ‘Absolutely not. My answer is final.’
‘She could come with me…’
Ava nods excitedly and takes a step around the counter so she’s standing next to me.
‘Do you honestly think I’m going to let my thirteen-year-old daughter go alone on a weekend trip with a stranger?’ He’s got an eyebrow raised and his mouth is set in a hard and uncompromising line.
I wince at the sharp tone in his voice and try to ignore the jolt of disappointment that he still considers me a stranger. I thought we’d been getting closer. I felt like we’d opened up to each other and started to let each other in to our lives. Have I really got that so wrong? ‘I’m not a complete str?—’
‘Nooooo!’ Ava wails. ‘Why do you have to ruin everything? This is so unfair. You’re the worst dad in the world!’
Even I flinch at that. He’s more sensitive than he lets on, and I know that would’ve stung. I risk a glance at his face and can see the hurt look he’s unable to hide.
‘Ava…’ He tries to talk to her but she turns away, and then he fixes his frown on me instead. ‘Well, thank you so much for making me feel completely inadequate. You might be able to pop off to Wales if you feel like it, drive over a hundred miles at the drop of a hat, but I can’t. Some of us have adult responsibilities that aren’t governed by fictional sea creatures.’
I can feel a surprising amount of anger building towards him at this unexpected reaction. ‘ I have adult responsibilities. I’m the sole owner of my own business, Ren! I can’t take time off without closing the shop, but things have to be balanced, and I think finding out something about this diary is worthwhile. In the long run, with the antiques fair, it’s likely to bring in more customers over all than the few I’ll lose by closing up for a couple of days.’
‘Well, I can’t be spontaneous and pop off here, there, or anywhere at a moment’s notice. I need things carefully planned and?—’
‘—Executed with military precision,’ Ava mutters. ‘While having no fun whatsoever. Whhhhy can’t you let us enjoy something for once?’
He glances at her without answering and then back at me with a withering look on his face. ‘You don’t need to find evidence of a fictional creature to make this shop work – you need to change it.’
‘I am changing it.’ I re-fold my arms, feeling knocked off-kilter by his sudden unexpected animosity.
‘No, you’re not. You’ve thrown out a few things, not even a car full, but this whole place needs an overhaul, and you’re going to end up losing it if you don’t get your head out of the sand and into the real world.’
I blink in surprise. ‘Wow, that was harsh, Ren.’
‘I am harsh. I’m not a big softie who secretly loves dragon fruit tables. I’m a responsible father with real-life responsibilities and a real world to live in. And you… you’re focusing on the diary to avoid the reality of how alone you are. You’ve replaced truth with stories and people with things.’
‘Because things don’t hurt me!’ I snap in retaliation. ‘Objects don’t die and leave me on my own. Objects don’t promise a life together and then change their minds. So yeah, okay, recently it’s been nicer to make up stories than to face reality, because guess what, reality is rubbish. As you know all too well. You’re not exactly well-adjusted, are you? You’ve shut yourself down and pushed everyone away, and now you take your frustration out on people who have done nothing to deserve it. You pretend to be cold and unfeeling, but you’re a ball of barbed wire twisted around a “please don’t hurt me” sign, desperately wanting some love and excitement in your quiet life.’
His sharp blue eyes narrow as he looks at me. ‘You don’t know anything about me. About us. You don’t know us. You’re a stranger in a shop who we met two and a half weeks ago, and what I am is leaving. Now .’ He turns around and stalks away. ‘Ava, come on!’
‘No, I—’ She tries to protest but he’s already stormed out the door.
‘I’m so sorry about him,’ she says to me with tears in her eyes. ‘He’s totally out of line. You’re awesome. I’m going to yell at him on your behalf.’
‘Thanks,’ I murmur to the empty shop after she’s left and I watch through the window as she rushes after him as he marches down the street. I feel like I’ve been verbally slapped round the face. That came out of nowhere , and it’s made me feel uncomfortably bristly, because I don’t think I did anything to deserve it, and yet, I understand Ren’s got many layers of baggage, and something about my suggestion has rubbed him up the wrong way, even though it was unintentional.
I should probably be angry, but it makes me want to cry. I didn’t expect that many home truths, or that his outburst would be so accurate. I have been hiding out in the shop since my dad died. I have spent too much time making up sentimental stories about objects because doing that has made the world a little bit nicer to live in since my dad died. I’ve felt less alone because I’m surrounded by things I’ve attached romantic stories too, and it’s made me feel better about the fact that real life is the opposite of a romantic story. A coping mechanism, maybe, just like I think his blunt honesty and prickliness is a coping mechanism too, and mainly I’m sad and dejected because I really, really like that man, and I’d thought we understood each other better than that.