Under the bench
It was two young women, laughing and chatting. Yugen saw the pairs of feet, one in blue thongs, the other in dark green, coming his way. The women sat down on the very bench under which he lay. The cushion sighed as their bodies squeezed it f lat, a small break in the surface through which air escaped. The feet were so close to the monk that they were almost touching him. He tightened himself even further under the bench, skeining in his energy.
A bag was placed on the f loor, a large cloth one, blue with white birds, and two large rings of bamboo for handles. It bulged with soft and malleable things.
‘Do you want to try them on?’
‘Sure, why not?’
Yugen heard the rustling of tissue paper. A shoe box was placed on the ground. ‘You want me to put them on your feet, like the prince in Cinderella?’
‘I don’t think he did that job himself. He would have had servants.’
Although the monk had made himself unremarkable, drawn himself in so that he had no more presence than a sheet of paper, he was intensely aware of the women, as if springing from every pore of his skin was a feeler sensing them out. His eyes hovered around their feet. He recognised the bruise above the ankle of the one in blue thongs. The sea woman. Her bruise seemed to have faded out here in the dry air, less bright than it had appeared underwater. He narrowed his focus so that he could see only the mark of the bruise and the immediate surrounding of unblemished skin. It became a cloud, a rock, a lake, a patch of moss.
The feet stepped out of the blue thongs. A hand came down holding a shoe—black patent-leather strap across the front, a pearly white button in the middle of it. The heel was a shiny black spike, like the one he’d touched at the Blue House. The right foot arched as the hands slipped the shoe on and crisscrossed laces around the ankle, finishing in a bow. The same movements were repeated with the left foot.
‘Hmm, quite comfortable—while I’m sitting down.’
‘But great to walk in, too. There’s padding under the ball of the foot. It’s this little transparent thing called a jellyfish. Have a go.’
She stood up. ‘So far so good.’
‘Walk over to the railing, Chicken.’
‘You make it sound like I’m a paraplegic.’ Chicken began, one tentative foot after the other, and made it all the way to the railing. ‘Keri, I’m walking, it’s a miracle. Hey, fish, look.’
Yugen imagined the fish thronging, the way they did at the feed basket. He heard Keri clapping her hands, saw her feet slapping the green thongs up and down, keeping rhythm.
Chicken made her way back to the bench, exaggerating her movements, threatening to fall. When she undid the laces the monk could see the marks they left in her f lesh. He wanted to touch it, soothe the marks away.
‘Chicken, these aren’t just any shoes.’
‘I know, they cured me.’ Chicken laughed but her friend remained silent.
Yugen felt the weight of the pause.
‘Can you keep a secret?’
Chicken’s feet slid back into their own blue thongs. ‘Of course.’
‘These are my shoes for going to the city.’
‘Well, there aren’t a lot of places round here you could wear them.’
‘No, I mean going and maybe not coming back. I’ve been accepted into beauty school.’
Everything about Chicken’s feet stopped still. ‘That’s great, really good. When?’
‘It doesn’t start till autumn. So I’ll be able to finish the summer with Oceanworld.’
‘You haven’t told them yet?’
‘No, I said it was a secret.’
‘Am I the only one who knows?’
‘You and my mum.’
‘What does she think?’
‘That it’s for the best. Things aren’t like they used to be when she was young. The diving season is so short now.’ Keri laughed. ‘I can’t see myself swimming round in this ring forever, can you?’
Chicken didn’t answer. A deeper space opened, as if the earlier conversation about shoes had only been the idle skipping of stones across the surface. Whereas the silences before seemed comfortable, now it was thick with unnamed things.
Chicken rubbed her ankle. Yugen withdrew even further, in case it was the breeze from his breath that she felt as a soft moist disturbance. He should meditate, try to detach himself from what was being said, but he was riveted. It was as if the sea women had become naked before him.
‘Hey, you can come and visit me. We can go and see your sister.’
Chicken raised her heel off the ground. Her water-washed toes were poised delicately. They were long toes with short clipped nails. There was a line on the sole of her foot, a scar. The monk saw her calf muscle clench.
‘She’s always off travelling—in the Kalahari, the Amazon, the Great Barrier Reef.’
‘What a dream life! Aren’t you tempted?’
For a moment both of Chicken’s calf muscles clenched then relaxed. ‘And who would be left to feed the fish? I’m staying put. Somebody has to show the tourists what we do, especially now that you’re going.’ She nudged her friend playfully.
The two women laughed. They had returned to the surface, skipping stones.
‘Hey, do you want some of this?’ Chicken opened the blue and white bag and pulled out a snack bar. In so doing she dislodged a small cloth item, perhaps the bonnet she wore underwater. The monk saw a purple star drawn on the white cloth.
‘Yum,’ said Keri, crunching into the bar. ‘Do you need a lift to Boat Harbour? My cousin is picking me up.’
‘Thanks, but I’m meeting Mum.’
Yugen watched their feet walking over to the ring of fish. Keri and Chicken swung their legs over the railing. ‘Good night, girls and boys,’ they said. ‘Sweet dreams.’ The sea women kissed the glass several times, soft little lip prints, like kisses on a child’s head. ‘And look, here’s Mr Groper. A special slobbery kiss for you, big boy.’ They placed moist pouting lips on the glass, and sighed as if in the embrace of a lover.
A final wave, then they were gone.
The monk needed air. He was about to come out from under the bench when he heard yet more footsteps, a lighter then heavier tread, the weight on one side, like a bird with an injured leg. A vacuum cleaner came into view, followed by feet in comfortable slippers, and stockings that ended at the knee.
The vacuum cleaner started its drone. The woman pushing it mechanically backwards and forwards was quite small and thin. Her whole body hung loosely from her shoulders. She passed in and out of the line of Yugen’s vision, going around the room in ever-decreasing circles, towards the centre.
The mouth of the vacuum cleaner came towards him, a hammerhead shark prowling for food. It made contact two or three times, bumped up against him as if trying to provoke a fight, but Yugen did not respond. He thought of coming out from under the bench, of leaving, but it had gone on too long now and the cleaning woman would get a fright.
Eventually the droning stopped. Other sounds became audible—a creak, a soft nestling, then the scratchy shuff ling of the cleaner going back down the stairs.
The steady whirr of a fan, the general hum of electricity, the stream of air bubbling into the water, these settled into the silence. Everyone had gone.
Yugen rolled out from under the bench onto the freshly vacuumed f loor. His body lay inert, stretched out like a starfish, his busy mind siphoning off all the energy. No longer did it let thoughts arise and pass on, it wanted to hold onto them, even though those thoughts were as slippery as fish. They would not stay still. He had listened in on women’s private conversation, been the silent partner to their intimacy, sensed obscure yearnings, hopes and disappointments that they had not even shared with each other.
He saw the dull gleam of the chrome railing, the concavity of glass enclosing the fish, his companions for the night.
He stood up, felt his body adjust itself to the vertical plane after being horizontal for so long, his parts coming together in a different arrangement. He went over to the kisses. He could see the impression of lips on the glass, the small pursed traces and the soft open ones. The monk closed his eyes, placed his lips on the kisses, fixing his mouth to the traces of the sea women, to the particles of their DNA.
The coldness of the glass yielded under his living warmth and became the same temperature, reached equilibrium. It was as if the glass was melting into water. He saw women swimming naked, the movement of their breasts, their frilly bivalves.
‘Ah.’ A sigh from his own body. Yugen opened his eyes. Mouths were clamouring for his, a conf luence of fish. He suddenly felt embarrassed, pulled away, and resumed his position under the bench.
Normally the monk’s sleep was light, a feather over the eyelids, but tonight he was sinking into oceanic depths, to come to rest on the seabed. He imagined the whole space filled with water, the domed ceiling the night sky. The words of the sea women f loated down like fish meal and settled on him. He breathed easily on the f loor of this watery yin world, tiny breaths, warm rhythmic moisture around the edges of his nostrils, the soft imperceptible opening and closing of gills.