Botanica - 6- the Lovers
Slowly I made my way home ... up the Black Lagoon road and back to the cabin, looking like that man on the desert Island. Not the Long John Silver one with the parrot ... the other one ... Ben Gunn.
I was worried that my Nan would ask about the umbrella but she was watching the Wire and she doesn’t like being interrupted as she says she can’t follow it if I speak. So I am saying absolutely nothing but made us both hot drinks and then went to my room.
I should have been tired ... I WAS tired ... But I couldn’t sleep. I sat at the window and looked out at the stars, awash in their dark and endless ocean and and sitting there drinking cocoa, slowly I felt something pulling at the strings of a memory from the chunk of time that had gone missing. It was the night sky and thinking of the three-way love affair scene that had taken place on the bus before the attack on the driver and the necessary diversion to the Orbit County Hospital.
Yes - the water was dark as I swam through the porthole from the flooded cabin of the HMS Stefanie into the sea and I could see no trace of the person I had seen at the window who had seemed to be speaking to me so I made my way as quickly as I could to the surface to gulp in some of the night air. It was a moonless night and the sky was glittered with stars like the ones I was seeing from my Nan’s trailer.
The ship was a faint silhouette of dark against dark, her full sails hoisted against the sooty clouds. I was glad there was no sign of it sinking from all the water that had gone in through the port hole but that door was made of solid oak and the hinges and lock were of iron so they were probably holding fast. The ship did seem to be sailing away.away from me though.
Leaving me stranded in the ocean, under the distant stars. Entirely alone.
I felt something touch my foot- not what I needed at all - and then it grasped my ankle ... a squid? - an octopus attack?
I panicked and kicked out like a crazed mule creating a turmoil in the luminescent water and breathing a lot of it into my lungs and then heard a voice ‘Oh for goodness sake , you ARe nervous ... I was only trying to get your attention ’
I looked sideways and saw white teeth in a dark face, smiling at me
‘ Put this on ’, she handed me a diving helmet , ‘ it’s okay, it’s attached to a line with oxygen ... so you can dive without drowning ’, and we swam downwards to where a diving bell hung in a clearing among the forest of gently swaying kelp. It was so encrusted with shellfish and sea anemones that it blended in with the surrounding rocks and if I had been on my own, I would have easily have taken it for a floating rock. We went down under the edge and then up into the air inside of the bell.
She gestured to me with helmet-taking-off signs so I lifted the heavy thing off my head and found that the air in the bell, although not at all fresh, was certainly breathable.
She herself didn’t seem to be much bothered either way - it must be a mermaid thing, I thought, and very useful to be able to breathe both in air and in water
‘ Handy isn’t it ? ’ she said proudly ‘The Bell. Of course, more for you than for us ... but we like them too. We collect them. Especially vintage ones like this one and this is one of our favourites. It has all its original features and furniture from when we first found it, it even has a mahogany writing desk and a fountain pen with ink and some notebooks ... But please ... do sit down! ’. She patted the seat next to her and took a deep breath. ‘I want to talk to you’
‘Does the pen actually work?’ I asked, before she got started, as I had a feeling that I wouldn’t get a chance later.
‘Oh yes, yes, ... Me and my sisters ... My sisters and *I*, I should say ... we often use it to write poems to put into bottles but that is not what I want to talk about now’
‘Okay ,’ I said ‘What DO you want to talk about? ’
‘ Right ’ she said ‘I need to learn yoga ’
‘Yoga...? ... You want to learn yoga ?’
‘Yes ’
‘Sorry ... But ... Why ?’
‘For Love, ’ she said with a sigh
‘ What? ’
‘Love. I’m in love with a yoga teacher who I want to impress ’
I looked at her - she had midnight black skin, hair the colour of pearls and a blue tail that shone like sapphires
‘You don’t think being an actual mermaid would impress him enough then? ’
‘Them’
‘Them?’
‘They are non-binary and “They” is their chosen pronoun, and no, not down here ... We’re as common as haddock ’
‘He’s down here ...? ’
‘Yes, he is our guest. In a grotto. He doesn’t talk or anything, just does yoga all day. ’
‘He might be sad ’
‘Why might he be sad?’
‘He might be pining for the light ’
‘He might be ... But we cannot let him go ’
‘Why not ? ’
‘We love him ’
‘All of you? ’
‘Most of us . That is why I want to learn yoga - it will make me different ’
‘Have you tried singing to him ?’
‘Yes but he doesn’t like our singing. It is not his Thing. He has a picture of Justin Bieber tattooed on his thigh.’
‘I wonder ... do you think he might be gay?’
‘They are not a “ He” ... They are Unique ... And we love them the way that they are’
‘If you love them, you will set them free! ’
‘You think? ... I would NEVER get my sisters to agree to that. If I set him free then they will expel me and I would have to follow them up into the land ’
‘And lose your tail? ’
‘yes , but I will get legs instead . And then he will be totally in love with me ’
‘I wouldn’t count on it. What about the tattoo of Justin Bieber? ’
‘We all do stupid things when we are young ’
‘Not That stupid. How would you get legs anyway? I don’t think that is really possible ’
‘Oh yes it is ! I know a sea witch who can do it for me. It has been done before. ’
‘And did that end well? ’
‘Ummm - can’t remember ’
‘Why are you telling me all this? ’
‘Because you are Human ... You will understand ’
‘That you are in love with a yoga teacher from Idaho? That you want to double-cross your sisters? That you cant remember that it ended badly, That you want to lose the freedom of the deep sea ... For .... you don’t know what ... Which bit do you think I would understand ...?’
‘Hopeless Love. .... How do you know he - they, rather - are from Idaho?’
‘Just a guess. It would be a very drastic and life changing decision. You do not have to do this you know ’
‘ You did not have to volunteer to go to the island to fight the Great Peril ’
‘ You know about that? ’
‘ Word gets around ’
‘No I suppose I didn’t ... I could have stayed in the Land of Staples ... No I really couldn’t do that. I suppose I could have tried to find my way home ... But I just didn’t think of it in the moment, it all happened very quickly ’
‘ You could have changed your mind at the harbour ’
‘ I suppose so ’
‘ but you didn’t - and now here you are !’
‘I am under the sea in a diving bell, talking to a mermaid who wants to cut her legs off because she is in love with a yoga teacher. No, I really wasn’t expecting that ’
‘ So - in the interests of narrative, some decisions do have to be made ... Do you see? ’
‘ No’
‘ Nevermind. I’ve decided. I want to lose my tail and be a human. You can wait here while I go to the sea witch. There is food in the cupboard, I’m afraid it’s all tinned but there is a tin-opener and there is some very fancy cutlery that we found in the wreck of a Spanish galleon ... Don’t throw away any bottles or jars, we use them for poems and messages. There’s books ... Oh - I’ve activated some luminous sponges ... They do work but they take a while to get going Use the desk if you get bored ... See you when I get back’
And before I could try and talk any sense into her, she was off with a flick of her tail !
I sat down at the desk and looked out through the viewing window at some lobsters and a hermit crab changing from one shell into another one
Slowly there seemed to be more light in the bell itself from the mermaid’s luminous sponges and I sat down at the writing desk and started writing letters to go into bottles
Mostly they said
‘ HELP !!!’