“It’s all right. I won’t come any closer. Please don’t be frightened of me.”
He looks young. I don’t think he’s a man, he’s only a year or so older than I am. Do they have crew that age on Polish ships? He could be a passenger, the son of the captain maybe. Then I see something that really scares me. The sand around where his legs must be buried is rusty brown. He’s bleeding. The stain on the sand is wide. He must have bled for hours.
I glance round desperately. I’ll have to leave him and run for help. He could bleed to death if I don’t. But what if he thinks I’m abandoning him? I’ve got to make him understand. “Listen, I’m going,” I point at myself then over the dunes, “for help. Someone to help you, you understand? A doctor.” Maybe the word for doctor is the same in Polish? He watches me intently, then suddenly puts out his hand, as if to hold me back. Or maybe he wants me to feel his pulse or something…
I reach forward, and take his hand. It is cold, but the grip is surprisingly strong. He seems to want me to come closer. I edge forward, until I’m beside him. If he’ll let me uncover his legs then I can see how badly injured he is. But probably he’s embarrassed, if the sea has torn off all his clothes.
That stain on the sand is definitely blood. The thought of seeing the wound makes me feel sick. He is still looking into my face, and this time his lips move.
“Morveren,” he says.
He’s understood! I feel warm all over with relief. “Yes! I’m Morveren.”
He lets go of my hand, and points to his own chest. “Malin,” he says.
“Your name is Malin?”
“Yes, my name is Malin,” he says, in perfect English but with an accent I don’t recognise. I’m so stunned that I drop his hand and rock back on my heels.
“You speak English!”
“Yes, I speak your language. Morveren, you must help me. You must help me to go back to the sea.”
Now I know for sure that he is very ill. Probably having delusions or whatever people get when they’ve had a blow on the head. “Don’t worry, I’m going to get help for you. You’re hurt and you need to go to hospital. Will you… Will you let me try to move the sand away, so I can see what’s happened to you?”
He frowns sharply. His eyes flash. “No! No human beings must come here! You must help me return to the sea.”
“Malin, I think you’ve got a fever, or maybe you hit your head against a rock when the wave caught you. That’s why everything seems strange to you.”
“Why are you so stupid?” he demands furiously.
“Stupid! I’m trying to help you.”
“And I am telling you how you must help me!”
I take a deep breath. Keep cool, I tell myself. You don’t argue with someone who’s been shipwrecked and nearly drowned as well as injured. He’s probably – what is the word – delirious. “I can’t take you to the sea. You’d die. You need to go to hospital.”
“Look at me,” says Malin through his teeth. “Stop talking and look at me.” His hands scrabble at his sides, trying to clear away the sand. But he’s lying in an awkward position and he can’t manage it.
“Shall I help you?”
He nods furiously, and I lean forward and begin very gently moving away the sand. I’m afraid of hurting him, and just as scared of seeing whatever injury has caused all the blood. I work slowly and methodically, clearing the sand, until suddenly my fingers touch his skin. I snatch them back. “Am I hurting you?”
He shakes his head, with his lips pressed tightly together. “Go on,” he says. Cautiously, I move away more and more sand. His skin is very dark. It’s strangely thick, almost as if he were wearing an incredibly light and flexible wetsuit, made out of some material that hasn’t been invented yet. It reminds me of something but I can’t think what. “Keep going,” says Malin, with a strange smile on his face.
“I’m scared of hurting you.”
“I am strong.”
I take no notice of this. He doesn’t look very strong at the moment. I’m afraid he’ll faint, and so I dig away the sand more gently than ever. The curve of his thigh is almost uncovered—
My hand goes to my mouth in horror as I see the deep, long gash that gapes wide, full of dried blood and still oozing. It must have bled for hours. It is clogged with sand. Malin is struggling to raise himself on his elbows in order to see the wound. But he mustn’t. He’ll start it bleeding again if he moves like that—
“Keep still,” I say sharply. “It’ll be all right. It’s going to need stitching.”
“Stitching!” Malin’s eyes widen in horror, as if I’d said, “You need to be rolled in maggots and then we’ll cut your leg off.”
“That’s why we need to get you to hospital,” I tell him. I keep on clearing away the sand, in case there are other injuries. Suddenly, Malin heaves himself up, pushes my hands away and starts to brush off sand himself. As I feared, more blood oozes from the gash, but Malin won’t stop. His hands are quick and they clear the sand much faster than mine. I don’t want to look in case the storm really has torn off all his clothes and this is going to be embarrassing…
My hands won’t move. I stare, transfixed. My brain won’t make sense out of what my eyes are telling it. The shape in front of me wavers. My ears hiss as if they have got sand in them. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. I’m going crazy. I’m the one who’s going to faint. It’s all right, I tell myself, it’s because you hardly got any sleep last night and you haven’t had anything to eat for hours. Just breathe.
After a long moment I open my eyes again. What I see is the same. Dark, strong, leathery skin. No, not leathery. Leather belongs to earth and this skin belongs to the sea. Sealskin. At last I find my voice, and it comes out in a squeak.
“Your— Your legs… What’s happened to them?”
“My legs,” repeats Malin with contempt. “My legs? Where are my legs, Morveren?”
Where are they? All I can see is a strong, curved shape. No thigh or knee or foot. Just a— just a—
A tail.
My brain whirs, still trying to make sense of what I see. It whirs but does not connect. He is a boy. He has no legs. Instead he has a—
A tail.
“Are you wearing a costume?” my voice bleats. Even as I hear the words, my brain knows how stupid they are. And so does Malin.
“Touch my skin,” he orders.
“I don’t want to hurt you.“
“Touch it.”
It is skin. I snatch my hand away as if it’s been burnt.
“Now you understand why you must help me to go back to the sea.”
“You mean… You live in the sea? You’re a mer… mer… person?”
“I am Mer,” says Malin, as if it’s the proudest claim that could be made by anyone.
“You are Mer,” I echo, as if I’ve been set to “repeat” mode. But Malin seems pleased with the answer.
“Now you understand and you will help me,” he says confidently. But the wound gapes wide. He’ll collapse if he goes back into the sea, even if he is… I try the word over in my mind. Mer. He’ll still die. One wave would roll him over on to the shore again, and strand him. Dolphins that are stranded can’t live long, because unless the sea is buoying them up, their own weight crushes their internal organs. Maybe it is the same for the Mer.
As if my thoughts have