Page 26

No, it was a seal.

He turned away from the sea and then stopped dead.

To his right, he saw her: silhouetted in a cleft in the rocks above a rock pool. Her dark curls tumbled down her back and her iridescent scales glimmered in the fleeting bursts of sunshine. She was beautiful and he was drawn to her, like all the mythical sailors of old, like the lad from Zennor village to the church …

He was lured by her voice, and the mantra she kept repeating over and over.

‘Bloody, bloody shit. This stupid bloody tail. Why did I think this was a good idea? Stupid stupid Zen. This bloody tail! These rocks!’

‘Hey!’ Matt jogged over to the edge of the pool. ‘Zennor!’

She stopped trying to pull off the tail and stared at him as if he were the mythical creature washed up in the cove.

‘Matt?’

‘Yeah. It’s me. Can I help?’

Hands braced on the rocks, she glared at him. ‘What are you doing here?’

Matt waded into the edge of the pool until he was calf deep and a few metres from her. She was wedged firm between a cleft in the rocks with the fin of her shimmering tail dangling in the pool. She appeared to be wearing a bikini top made of two scallop shells. Her hair, adorned with a silver crown, was sodden and tangled with weed. Her expression was anything but serene and alluring.

‘Roo called me. Her son broke his arm and she and Jake have had to rush off to Treliske.’

‘Freddie? Oh, the poor thing. Roo must be beside herself—’ Zennor frowned deeply with a most un-mermaid-like expression. ‘But why did she call you?’

‘Apparently, I was the first person to pick up the phone. I know I’m not your idea of a knight in shining armour, but can I help?’

‘I don’t need any knights in shining armour,’ Zennor shot back. ‘Least of all you.’

‘OK.’ Matt held up his hands, annoyance finally spilling over. ‘I get that but Roo thought you’d need a hand getting off the beach with the – um – tail. In fact, she was really worried about leaving you stranded, but if you really don’t want my help, I’ll leave you to it.’

Simmering with annoyance, he began to wade out.

‘Matt! Wait.’

Matt turned around.

‘Don’t go,’ Zennor said. ‘I do need some help and I’m – relieved – someone could come.’

Matt stayed where he was. ‘Even if it’s me?’

‘I’m grateful you could help,’ she ground out, ‘but I’m not going to grovel.’

‘I don’t want you to grovel,’ Matt said, a sudden sadness washing over him. ‘I just don’t want to do anything you don’t want me to.’

‘It’s too late for that …’ Zennor murmured, and then sighed. ‘If you’d help me, I’d appreciate it. I’m wet, I’m cold, and I can’t feel my legs any longer. The truth is – I think I’m stuck.’

‘You do know the tide’s turned …’

‘I know that. I guess I’d have had to get off here somehow, but I don’t want to damage the tail on the rocks. It’s on loan. Would you mind helping me take it off and then I can swim out myself?’ She looked at him pleadingly and Matt’s heart melted. ‘Please?’

‘Of course I will, but I haven’t brought my swim gear, so I hope you don’t mind but I’m going to strip to my boxers. Is that OK?’

Zennor opened her mouth and then closed it again. ‘I suppose it will have to be but I won’t look.’

‘Whatever,’ Matt mumbled. He wasn’t entirely convinced by Zennor’s insistence that she could have climbed down the rocks if she was prepared to damage the tail. He wondered how much she was wedged in there and if she was hiding that she was in a pretty precarious situation. Or was that just him being overdramatic?

Zennor had her eyes tightly closed and her face scrunched up in disgust.