She Wants To Ask Where He Has Hidden It - Short Story By Tricia Lloyd Waller

 

She Wants To Ask Where He Has Hidden It.

Short Story 

By Tricia Lloyd Waller

Scuttling crustacean like along forlorn Essex coast. Scurrying through slimy seaweed, scratching and scrabbling in sand searching. Shovelling shingle, shifting stones, slipping sidewards sliding on seashells searching.

She has scrubbed obsessively to the point of her fingers beginning to bleed and still they are not clean. Sand, grit and microscopic particles of shell are embedded beneath her nails and refuse to budge.

As he creeps up behind her she can smell the peppermint of his chewing gum breath and every nerve, every sinew in her body goes rigid like a tightened cheese wire as her shoulders scrunch and rise up towards her neck. She holds her breath waiting for the inevitable........There have been so many blows, bruises like maps blossoming across her body in all shades of black, grey, lemon and lavender, even a broken rib or two when she has tripped and fallen and he has used his steel toe capped foot to relieve his frustrations and she understands. She really does understand he is a fisherman after all, he is a part of the sea - just like her. Now reduced to cab driving, delivery and odd-job man because the fishing trade is no longer viable. If it wasn't for his Life Boat duties she's sure he would have 'lost it!' years ago.

For these two are soulmates but worlds apart.

This time however luck is on her side and he just flings yesterday's greasy plate flying past her right ear into the washing up bowl and she stands with teary eyes as slimy soap-suds drip gracefully down her cheek.

'Got an early ride, high tide at 8.00, not sure when I'll be back!' and he slams the front door so hard that the windows rattle like teeth chattering on a freezing mid-winter's night.

She wipes her face on the striped navy and white tea towel and plods upstairs to wake her children.

Bowls, spoons, sugar coated and vitamin enhanced cereal in a dinosaur box, milk in a glass bottle and orange juice in plastic tumblers. She arranges the breakfast things without thinking - a pre programmed automaton.

Inky black coffee burns her tongue but she barely feels it for deep inside her head she is floating on china blue seas beneath pale sapphire silk skies dotted with clouds of the whitest lace and being serenaded by the cries of curlews.

Breakfast done they zip up nylon quilted anoraks, pick up book bags and back packs and gently close the blue painted front door. The small Victorian brick built school is in the next road, the children run to join their friends. She stands to the left of the rusting black painted wrought iron gates fisted hands deep in pockets staring straight ahead.

Whilst other mums huddle together in an attempt to escape from the bitingly cold sea winds she is lost to dreams of ducking and diving and cresting the foamy waves with her three younger sisters surrounded by laughter and love

'stuck-up bitch!' 'Snotty-nosed cow!' ' Thinks she's too good for the likes of us!’

 

The young mum with the oily blue-black waist length hair and ashen skin either does not hear or does not care to hear as she merely glides past the gaggle of young women head held high eyes vacantly staring into the distance and returns to the washing up, unmade beds and vegetables waiting to be scraped and sliced.

She glances up at the kitchen clock; just about time for lunch. So she digs deep into the back of the fridge and pulls out a carefully wrapped cream paper package. She places it on a bone china plate tastefully decorated with pale pink rose buds and slowly unfolds the cream papers to expose a large rainbow trout lying on it's side protruding glassy eye peering up at her. She sighs deeply and with both hands picks it up almost reverently suspends it by its tail directly above her upturned head and wide opened mouth then releases it and with one gulp its gone. She rises from her chair pads to the sink and holding her hair back with her left hand puts her whole face underneath the running tap and guzzles the cold water greedily.

Then she bounds up the corn-flower blue carpeted stairs two at a time changes into her supermarket uniform of grey and pink grabs her handbag and leaves the house.

Fifteen minutes later conjoined with a cushioned swivel chair, compressed between screen and cash-drawer she utters banalities at passing pensioners; meaningless words, mundane mindless job.

She is not bothered though because she can muse upon her life before when she was a part of the vast ocean. When she basked upon sandy beaches under golden sunbeams, bathed in sparkling blue waters and sang sweetly beneath a star tipped button moon. Before she became a prisoner in a world that can never be her home.

She glances at her watch - time to pick up her children. Cordelia pushes the button and the supervisor arrives to take over her till She leaves without a word for she has given up on conversation. There really is nothing she might say to any of them because whatever she says or does she knows they will ridicule her. They will get together in little gangs and gossip about the 'weird woman' who lives with Chris on the Meadow Bank Estate.

Standing apart at the school gate she waits aware of their stares, aware of their whispers and muzzled laughter. Should she care? These are not her kin, will never accept what she is and what she cannot be!

She throws back her head smells, tastes and breathes in the fresh salty sea air and revels in its passage through her sluggish body.

The children appear and taking hold of their hands and bags. She almost frogmarches them through the tiny seaside town of fish and chip, pizza and souvenir shops and one tiny supermarket. She leads her daughter and son onto the shingle and pebbled beach and letting go of their bags and hands she tosses her long thick hair with abandonment and gazes longingly up at the iron grey sky and shiny pewter sea. Arms outstretched she begins to dance in ever decreasing circles singing a strange subhuman lament. She smiles for the very first time that day and gulps down as much icy sea air as her lungs will hold. The children join in until they all collapse laughing in a heap on the beach. This is the only time when she feels truly free, truly happy - right here with her children by the sea - if only?

All too soon the skies begin to darken and oh how she longs to bide here to sing and dance in this gift of spiritual silvery moonlight but the children need to be fed and she knows what will happen if she's late serving his evening meal!

On the way back to the tiny claustrophobic house she goes into the little supermarket and picks up some stewing steak for the casserole that she has already prepared and a pack of two 'fresh' - she doubts that though - mackerel. She also buys some sweets, bars of chocolate and crisps for her children and four cans of local ale.

Once home she turns the TV on and pushes the casserole into the oven - just in time as she hears his key in the front door and her heart misses a beat but thankfully he just pushes past her reaches for a cold beer and joins the children in front of the TV.

'Dinner's ready' she calls as she places four plates on the red cotton gingham table cloth. He clears his plate in minutes, the children eat about half and then ask for chocolate while she just pushes her meat and vegetables listlessly around the plate. As soon as she has finished the washing up and everything is tidy Cordelia once again devours the fish languishing at the back of the noisy old fridge opens the back door and goes to stand in the pitch black tiny back garden.

She gazes up at the navy blue velvet sky peppered with diamond stars and she is sure that she can hear the barks, moans, and mournful haunting wails of her folk and oh how she yearns to join them. Her heart is breaking for the want of them but she cannot not like this not until she is complete.

'Del your kids need putting to bed......NOW!' and the kitchen door slams shut.

Once the children are tucked up in their beds with their nightlights on and cuddly teddies close by Cordelia sorts out the washing and gets the breakfast things ready. It's all delaying tactics in the hope that he will be sound asleep and snoring like the bull he is by the time she eases herself gently into bed but sadly for her he is still awake. He rolls onto his right side props himself up on one elbow and leans over her 'You stink of fish!' he hisses then he sits bolt upright, whacks her hard across the face with the back of his left hand and lies back down turning away to face the wall.

Cordelia does not move a muscle, she lies perfectly still but her heart is shattering further into tiny slivers of sorrow for what might have been. She wants to ask where he has hidden it, to beg and plead that he give it back because it is of no use to him. She has looked everywhere torn the house apart and yet there is no sign; so where is it?

They are both woken in the early hours when it is still dark outside and bone blenchingly cold by the flashing and ringing (Fisherman's Friends sea shanty 'South Australia') of his phone.

'Its a Shout!'

She gazes up at him beneath half closed lids. This man-mountain who only comes alive when he is called upon to volunteer with the local lifeboat. This human being whom she loves with every atom of her being but can no longer live with. She watches as he pulls on the yellow sou'wester and matching wellies with reinforced toe caps. She knows this is the last time that she will ever see him.

He turns and leaves the room without a bye your leave let alone farewell kiss and she knows that he knows she is awake.

Once he has gone - this time fortunately he does not slam the front door - she sits up and reaches for a cardigan from the pink painted chair by the side of the bed. It really does not matter what she wears.

She creeps softly into her children's bedroom. They look like little cherubs from one of those huge gilt framed paintings you see in the big London Galleries with their peachy cheeks and rose bud mouths. How can she say goodbye? She bites down hard on her clenched fist to stop her sobs. She loves them both her little pups more than her own life but she cannot stay. She backs away out of their room and out of their lives for ever.

She leaves nothing.

Just memories.

She tiptoes down the stairs and carefully opens the front door for the very last time closing it gently behind her and she heads for the beach.

 

The sea is out.

So she stands as still as a stone statue and listens. She hears them calling for her their lost daughter from their watery world far far away. Her deep brown liquid eyes fill with tears as she bids farewell to the place that has been her home for over seven years.

But she has to find it.

She cannot leave without it.

 

It is all that stops her from departing this world that never welcomed her full of people that love to whisper and point behind her back make fun of her for being different, being other and the man who showed his love by beating and insulting her. Yet she still loves the very bones of this proud fisherman - always will. So once again she begins her search only this time she has to find it.

This time there is no going back.

Dipping, diving, digging dirty like a dog. Whirling dervish like, desperate, despairing, seeking, searching. Shadowy shape shifter silently sobbing searching - and then.

She spies it. Submerged in silt, suffocating under sewage.

Skilfully she slides it free and she and her silky silver seal skin are as one. She slithers into her pelt whilst gazing up at the bruised rhubarb and liquid gold dawn and then swims joyfully away to her kinfolk and liberty and loss for she will always be a loser as she cannot live in either world without loss and she can never live in both.

Tricia Lloyd Waller has recently had work accepted by The World of Myth and Wildfire Words. She was last year's winner of The Pen to Print poetry competition.