Priddylooked up.His imagination was still good.He could conjure Merou’soutline, though he wasn’t sure why he’d pictured him perched on theloo.The lid was down, and Merou made anywhere he sat look like athrone, but still...“All right.It’s not a tragic tale, though.Just horrible and stupid.”
Hedidn’t have to say it aloud.All he had to do was lean forward,bury his face in his hands and watch his twelve-year-old self, backhome early on a school afternoon.Everything was just as it hadbeen.There were his mum’s plants, wilting on the windowsill.Therewas the mountain of washing up in the sink.There was Mrs Govettfrom next door, laid out on the kitchen table with her legs in theair, Vigo planted between them, pasty arse pumping away.
NanceGovett was a decent sort, despite sporadic outbreaks of adulteryand betrayal.After a shrieking descent from the table, hoisting upher knickers and rearranging her skirt, it was she who’d tried toget between Vigo and Priddy.Yelled at the old man to back off,that it wasn’t the lad’s fault.But Vigo had lost it.Maybe hisdozy kid had irritated him beyond all endurance.First he threw apan, which Priddy ducked.Then a bottle, which caught the cringingboy in the face and struck a nosebleed from him like a spring froma rock.Something in the sight of it sparked in Vigo a hideousexcitement, the terrified, nauseated rush of a hunter faced withprey which bled but wouldn’t die.He grabbed a knife.
The playback began to break up.Splotches appeared on thereel.Nance Govett stood gasping with her hands to her mouth, thenswore mightily, grabbed a pan of her own and bashed Vigo on thehead with it.Nance hauled Priddy into her arms and rocked him,then staggered upstairs with him and dumped him on his bed.Doorsslammed and opened again.A glass appeared at Priddy’s lips, filledwith cloudy liquid—the bitterest thing he’d ever tasted, butbecause Nance was sobbing when she asked him to drink, because shesaidpleaseandkissed him like a child of her own, he did as he was told.Nextthere was ice, and a needle, and he recalled that Nance was a nurseat Trelowarren hospital, but none of it hurt as much as it should,or meant as much as it should, and the film reel decayed intosoundtrack, frantic voices from downstairs.I don’t care about your bloody head, Vigo!I’ve stitched himup, and you tell your Karen he fell off one of the ponies the kidsare always messing with down Pritchard’s field.Tell the lad that’swhat happened in the morning.I’ve given him enough of my valium tostop a bullock, and he’s such a little soft, he’ll believeanything.A pause, then the sound ofbelongings being brusquely gathered together.And I tell you what, Vigo—don’t you breathe a word.My man’llsnap you over his knee like a twig if he finds out, and me too.It’s over anyway, you bloody brute.Christ, you nearly killedhim...You don’t deserve a nice kid like Jem.If you raise a handto him again, I will tell, even if Gary does end my life for it.Doyou understand?
Priddythought that Vigo must have understood.The walls between thehouses were thin, and the casual violence that had gone on in thePriddy household had stopped from that point on.No morewallopings, no more backhanded cuffs that had made him see blackholes fringed with doomed stars.From that point on, Vigo had justignored him.
He got up unsteadily.Merou was gone.Just tell me anywaywas all verywell, but then what?You were empty and alone, and the thing you’dburied so carefully was out, roaming bestially around your home,destroying all comforts.Priddy washed his face.He dried off,making certain his fringe was covering the tail end of the scar.Hanging onto the banister, aching as if Vigo’s assault had happenedyesterday, he made his way back upstairs.
Kit hademailed him.Suddenly hungry to hear from someone utterly lackingin mystery, Priddy sat down at his computer.The message openedwith the usual news about rotten student accommodation anddifficult assignments, Kit’s conscientious efforts to make it soundlike he wasn’t having the time of his life.Priddy grinned, readingbetween the lines of the godawful field trip to Lundy where Kit hadbeen seasick and nearly fallen overboard with the top-end,military-grade observation equipment they’d been sent out to test.Happy as a pig in shit, and maybe one day he’d be able to tellPriddy so without all this fuss...
Then, suddenly:Mate, there’ssomething I want you to know.I’ve met someone.Priddy sat back from the screen, tilting his chair.He’dforgiven all, not that there had been anything to forgive,begrudged Kit nothing.Their own fling been a short-lived mistakeand Priddy didn’t have a dog in the race, a foot in the door or aleg to stand on if his friend had moved on.You know I wasn’t sure if I was gay or not?I think I knownow.At least, I’m not sure I could be this much in love withanother bloke if I was straight.
In love.Priddy whispered the wordsaloud, trying them on for size.Kit—solid, unimaginative,impervious to the teenage goings-on of his generation—had foundsomeone who could reach inside and make a difference.Would it havemade a difference to Priddy if the someone had been agirl?
Yes.Yes, even though he and Kit had never had a spark.“Sorry, mate,”he murmured to the screen.“Being a right dog-in-the-manger here,aren’t I?Who is he, then?”
I don’t want you to freak out.I know it’s not exactlyethical but he’s being very discreet, and he says it’s the firsttime this has ever happened to him—falling for a student, I mean.He’s as bowled over by it all as I am.His name’s Geoff, and he’smy personal tutor as well as the head of department.I swear toyou, Prid, it probably sounds sleazy as hell, but if you met him,you’d know it’s not.He’s in his fifties, but you’d never think itto look at him.He’s gorgeous.
Kit wasnineteen.Sharply Priddy reminded himself that until two days ago,he personally had been lusting after a guy who’d been a friend ofJacques Cousteau.
But thathad just been one of Merou’s exuberant fantasies, or outright liesif you chose to look at it that way.This Geoff guy sounded all tooreal.Priddy wasn’t about to freak out about it, though.Thesethings sometimes defied all the odds.One girl from Redruthsixth-form college had hooked up with the head teacher in a blazeof scandal—married him, borne him three kids, and the five of themlived happily in Mawnan Smith, the model of devotion andrespectability...
And those kinds of endings were rare as rocking-horse shit.Priddy got his phone out.Email wasn’t fast or personal enough tosay what he wanted to say, which wasoh,mate, be careful.Be careful, Kit, please.The next line of Kit’s message caught his eye.And please don’t tell me to be careful, Prid, because it’stoo late.
Chapter Seven
Priddy sat for a while, staring at the blank line of horizonthat was all he could see from here, one layer of grey piled onanother.It looked as though the sleet was settling to freezingfog.He was glad he’d made all the maintenance checks on the light,which would be badly needed once the sun went down.Hisdo-unto-others reflex fired, and he wrote the kind of email replyhe’d have hoped to receive himself in Kit’s circumstances: dailylife and Rosewarne gossip to show no freaking out was going on,then an interested, mildly teasing couple of lines aboutGeoff.I hope I’ll get to meet himsometime.And look after yourself, mate, even if it is too late tobe careful.
Kit must’ve been online.His reply pinged into Priddy’s inboxbarely a minute later.I knew you’d becool about it.You’ll get to meet him sooner than you think.I wastelling him about all the crazy mermaid legends we have aroundRosewarne and Hagerawl, and he says stories like that are oftenmistaken sightings of a really rare kind of porpoise.He wants tocome and take a look, so I’ve invited him to come and stay at thelighthouse.
Priddy imagined himself back home at Rosewarne, sharing abedroom—if he could even get that—with the Portuguese chef.Adrowning panic rose up in him.Do you needme to move out?
No, of course not.We’ll stay in the keeper’s cottage.We’llbe busy, so we won’t get in your hair at all.
Priddy said goodbye and signed off.He was suddenly exhausted.He’d had no desire over the past few days to sit slumped in frontof the TV, but now the idea was tempting.Were there any films inthe stack beside the DVD player he hadn’t seen a dozen timesalready?He ran his finger along the spines.Well, there wasThe She Creature.He’davoided that one so far because the title and cover were hokey evenby his standards.The blurb on the cover mentioned mermaids, and heenvisaged big-bosomed ladies sitting on rocks with their fish-tailscurled around them, singing and combing their hair.
Well, maybe it was time he got genned up.The idea of mermaidshad been powerfully with him of late, although he’d tried not topick up on Merou’s unsubtle hints,theMerandyouprimatesand things that happenedtopside.Fingers withwebbing between them, then nothing but a trace of fish-scaledust...Priddy had wanted to hang on, just for his ownsatisfaction, to some last illusion of sanity.Now along came Kitand Geoff the professor, pursuing rare porpoises behind a veil ofmyth.Maybe that was what Merou had been—a rare fucking porpoise.He prodded the elderly DVD player until its drawer creaked out, andset the disc to play.
The TV signal kicked in first.The news was just ending, withthe type of tag piece the local station used to cheer viewers upafter an announcement of unemployment figures or a new contender inthe arms race.Local fisherman attacked bymermaid!the strapline declared, in thespecial perky font they used for such segments, to show the moodhad changed from grim to absurd.Priddy reached for the volumecontrol.“He were huge,” a terribly familiar voice announced.“Leapt out of the water, he did, right up the side of myboat!”
VigoPriddy didn’t have a boat.Priddy rubbed his eyes: sank onto theedge of a chair.There was the old sod’s face, taking up the wholeof the screen as the cameraman zoomed in.He was pale as the codhe’d probably stolen a client’s boat to catch, and bleedingprofusely from the nose.“Never seen anything like it,” he went on,the pleasures of media attention getting the better of his shock.“Ten feet long the bastard were, at least.”
The camera swung to the anchor guy, who looked bored out ofhis life.Priddy could imagine his thoughts.Three years to get my media degree, and I end up on Rosewarneharbour, interviewing the local drunk...“And what did you say he did to you, Mr Priddy?”
“Punched me right in the snout!”
The anchor guy collapsed.Laughter hit the soundtrack frombehind the camera too, and somebody offscreen saidcut, cut, cut.Vigosnarled and backed off, giving everyone the finger, and a smoothvoice from the studio apologised to anyone who may have beenoffended by the language or gestures in that story.
The DVD finished loading up, and the player overrode the TV.Priddy sat staring at the cheap title card forThe She Creature, remote still poisedin his hand.After a moment when he thought he might choke and dieon the mix of emotions boiling in his chest, a weird bark escapedhim.He dropped the remote.The upsurge was too hot, too big: hejumped to his feet to escape it.A strangled wail followed on, anda hooting inhalation.He flapped one hand like a teenage girlunable to contain herself at a 1-D concert, then fell face-down onhis bunk, howling with laughter.
Someonewas knocking at the door.The sound came from a hundred and twentyfeet below, distorted by the spirals and the lighthouse’s greathollow cone.God knew how long it had been going on for.Priddy hadbeen helpless, yawping and weeping into his pillow.He’d had toclench his bladder muscles not to pee the bed.Bloody old Vigo,terror of Rosewarne Cove, going live on TV to say he’d been punchedon the nose by a mermaid!
But he’d never said anything about a maid at all.Leapt out of the water, he did.Vigo had saidhe.
“Merou,” Priddy gasped.He fell out of the bunk, rolled to hishands and knees and leapt up.He hit the staircase at a run,grabbing the handrail at the last second to slingshot himselfaround the first curve.He’d never been so tempted to try aspiralling slide down the banister, but he wanted to get to theground floor alive.“Merou,” he shouted on the sixth coil of thestairs, halfway down and hopefully in earshot.“Merou, hang on!Gimme a minute.Coming!”
