Through the early morning mist they walk to the harbour, very first thing, even before breakfast. Lanky Lester and Julie, the bearded lady, lead the way. They are the strongest, so they are carrying the dead mermaid in her blanket. The others follow silently behind. All of them except for Olga and Olga, the elderly Siamese twins, as it was too far for them to walk. Lampie brings up the rear, pulling Fish in her squeaking cart.
Mermaids do not go into the ground. They have to become sea foam, to return to where they came from.
There is no one at the harbour yet and they do not stay for long.
At the last jetty, they stand in silence for a while.
Then the dwarf says, “Farewell, Sparkling Diamond.”
They drop the body into the water. It makes a quiet splash. Two quiet splashes.
When Lampie looks back at Fish, the cart is empty.
*
He is swimming after the body. He can see it dissolving in a flurry of bubbles, as if it is disintegrating. The dull skin, the green hair like seaweed, the black tail – they all dissolve in a fizzing cloud, like the headache powder that Joseph sometimes used to give him. Then something swims out of the cloud, as thin and twisting as a sea snake, but sweeter, more beautiful, with soft hair and a smile. She swims towards him, winds around him, brushes the hair out of his face, puts her mouth up to his ear and doesn’t speak a word. But he understands her anyway.
Go and look for them, boy. Go and let them find you.
Then she turns greener and more transparent, and shimmers away.
He just hears a quiet Thank you, before her voice disappears too. Thank you so, so much.
Fish turns around and around, but there is only water now, green and murky. The light falls through it in slanting rays and, in the distance, he can see the dark shadows of ships’ hulls floating above.
She was his family, the dwarf had said. Some kind of aunt?
Fine. So he had had an aunt for about half an hour. And then she was gone. Of course. No one ever stays with him, not ever. No one is coming to rescue him either. See? He could just as easily drown in this filthy…
Water.
He has been in the water for some time now but he still has not drowned. He is breathing as normal.
Or something in him is breathing, something knows how, somehow or other.
He touches his neck, but does not find any gills. When he breathes out, a stream of bubbles comes from his mouth and his nose.
But how?…
And also…
He can’t swim!
He looks down at his legs, at that deformed, clumsy clump of legs down there. He sees it swishing gently back and forth without any conscious effort on his part. That pointed white foot has unfurled into a fin, which is slowly, effortlessly moving in the water.
He is not doing anything at all. It is happening all by itself.
He closes his eyes.
He pinches himself.
He feels the pinch.
He looks again – and he still has a tail.
Then swim, he says. And his muscles obey.
Which they never did up there, up above, where he endlessly cajoled them, cursed them, prodded them: Stand up! Carry my weight! Be strong!
No, here they simply work.
Swish! And he shoots through the water. Turn! The other way. He swims and swims. Through the forest of slippery green jetty posts, left, right, left, he winds his way between them, smoothly, without touching a single one.
He is so fast!
He is so strong!
He is so happy!
He had never imagined that…
No, he had imagined it, just for a moment, in that dirty aquarium; he had felt how calm his mind became under the water. Through all the panic, he had noticed, just briefly, that… And then everything had gone crazy.
He shoots through the water, his tail one big muscle, and with a leap he is up above, his arms open wide, as if he is flying. In a flash, he sees Lampie and the other very short, very tall, very fat silhouettes on the jetty.
“Look!” he yells, getting a mouthful of water as he dives back beneath the surface. He turns and jumps again. “Look at me!” The silhouettes are moving, he does not know if they have seen him, it is still quite dim and misty. He shouts and fills the air with splashing water.
“Look! Lampiieee! Look what I can do! Look at my tail! Lampiieee!”