The blue-green waters of the lagoon beckoned her back.
Don’t go yet. Stay, just for a little while. Enjoy. Think of nothing but the water.
Clare slipped back into the pool and, for the last time, let the waters take away the heavy load that threatened to weigh her down and crush her.
So this was R, then. Raine? Raine de la Mer? A shrivelled old woman in a chair. That rhymes, Joan snickered to herself. She hadn’t a clue what was going on here but
something was. How did she know her name for a start? Big-gob Gladys, no doubt.
‘Hello,’ said Joan. ‘How very nice to meet you at last, Mrs Acaster, or can I call you Raine?’
Raine did not reply. She sat with her short, stubby hands clasped in her lap, her long, fine white hair loose and blowing around her, her old crocheted blanket covering her legs. She studied
Joan with her clouded blue eye and her emerald-green one. She was not afraid of this woman. But this woman should be afraid of her.
‘Raine? Raine de la Mer?’ asked Joan. ‘That is who you are, isn’t it?’
‘That is my name.’
‘Surely not a
reine de la mer
?’ Joan put on an exaggerated French accent. ‘A
sirène
. A queen of the sea.’
Raine studied her, this dark-haired woman whose features were twisted into a cruel but fascinated smile. She had always wondered how the final act would begin. She found herself slightly amused
that this woman thought she had the upper hand. Raine knew how this scene was going to play out. Joan Hawk did not.
‘What do you want?’ Raine asked.
Joan scrutinized the old lady with blatant interest. Her skin was like leather, her lips full and pale – and those eyes. Joan’s hands, holding her camera, were trembling with the
anticipation of what one single photo of this woman could mean to her life.
‘I want to know what you are,’ she answered eventually. ‘I want to know why, because of you, Ren Dullem seems to be such a screwed-up place? Why are no girls born here? Why
does everyone freak out if I ask questions about anything connected with you? Why do you live up here like a queen bee? It’s because of you that the village has closed in on itself,
isn’t it? Why would it do that? Why was your husband buried outside the churchyard? Is it because he married a
thing
?’
Raine was composed and calm. Her old hands lay in her lap, one over the other. ‘And then what will you do when you know all the answers to the questions you have asked?’
‘I’ll go. I just want to know.’ Joan smiled.
‘No. You’d turn Ren Dullem into a circus. You’d make a mockery of all those people who closed ranks around me. You’d kill the village more than I ever did.’
‘I need to see.’
Quick as a flash, Joan reached down and yanked off Raine’s blanket – then she stepped back in astonishment.
‘What the fucking hell are you?’
‘You know what I am. You worked it out and now you want to parade me in front of everyone, don’t you? For money, of course for money. That’s what has always driven you,
isn’t it, Joanna? And this would be the big one for you, wouldn’t it?’
‘Of course for money,’ Joan agreed. There was no point in denying it. She lifted her camera, pointed it at Raine and said, ‘Smile.’
Click
.
Joan was heady with euphoria. Ren Dullem hid itself away to protect this? Jesus Christ, she was going to be rich and famous beyond her wildest dreams.
Click
. TV appearances, books,
maybe even a film. They could devote a whole section in Ripley’s Believe It or Not to Raine de la Mer.
Click
. There would be merchandise.
Click
. Worldwide tours.
Click
.
Joan was almost drunk with joy now. Her hands were becoming sweaty. The stupid old woman was just sitting there, looking deformed, letting Joan snap away with abandon, as if all the fight in her
had gone.
As Joan wiped her right hand on her trousers the camera left her slippery hand. She bent down to catch it and missed. Before her fingers could gain hold of it she felt the ground rumble as Raine
wheeled towards her. It was too late to step aside. Raine carried Joan forward with her, until there was no more ground for the chair to wheel upon.
I am going home.
This can’t be happening, Joan thought, struggling uselessly against the grip of the old lady’s vice-like hands. Down they plunged through the air, as if someone had slowed down time.
Joan’s scream was lost under the salty waters of the sea.
Clare could see Raine sitting in her chair. She waved, but Raine was looking straight out to sea. She opened her mouth to shout, then the visitor she had seen in the wood
appeared at Raine’s back so she didn’t. They looked too close to the edge for comfort.
The wind was building today. The waters were spiky and unfriendly. Clare turned back to the cave entrance and took one last look behind her to see Raine and her visitor gone.
The afternoon was a glum one. Packing didn’t take long, but it was a weighted symbol of the end of their holiday. A holiday which hadn’t turned out at all as
expected, but was better for that.
‘Let’s go to Jenny’s and have something to eat. And if Daisy Unwin is in there, sod her. I’m not leaving my cheesecake for anyone,’ said Lara, zipping up her case
with a flourish.
‘I’m in,’ replied May. ‘Jesus, I feel pathetic. I didn’t think you got holiday blues once you grew up.’
‘We don’t take enough holidays to know,’ said Clare, unhooking her bag from the kitchen chair. ‘Come on.’
Down the hill Lara tried not to look at La Mer to see if the truck was there, but failed. It was. He was in. In another time and place maybe she and the hairy Hathersage brother might have just
got it together, she thought, remembering his kiss. It made her head go light and both legs weaken.
Que sera
sera.
Clare didn’t even look aside at Spice Wood. In her head it had already been demoted from its status as possible location for passion to a place merely full of trees.
Jenny buzzed around them like a portly bee when they entered.
‘I’m so glad to see you again,’ she said, heaping apologies their way. ‘I’m so sorry about yesterday. Whatever you have today is on the house.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ May replied. ‘You’ll never run a business that way.’
‘What is it with Daisy Unwin that makes everyone so damned scared of her?’ Lara wanted to know.
‘I think it’s a hangover from schooldays,’ Jenny explained. ‘There weren’t many girls there and they tried to keep in with her so that she wouldn’t bully
them. She used to poke fun at me because I was fat. She won’t soon. I’ve been dieting. Three stone off so far.’
‘Well done, Jenny,’ cheered Lara. Jenny was such a lovely person with a real bonny, smiley face. Daisy really was a horrible cow. She was hardly Twiggy herself.
‘Well, I don’t need to see a menu,’ said May. ‘I want exactly the same as I had yesterday.’
‘What’s going on out there?’ Clare pointed her finger at the window. People were running around, knocking on each other’s doors, a stream of them racing past the
café and up the hill.
Jenny was on her way to the door when the ice-cream man-boy crashed through it.
‘It’s Raine,’ he said. ‘She’s missing.’
Infected by the panic, Clare rose to her feet, all thoughts of food forgotten. The others followed her up the hill and through the wood to High Top, where a mass of villagers
had gathered.
There was a large lady standing on the cliff edge, her hair escaping her tight bun in the strengthening wind.
‘Her chair has gone,’ she was saying through her tears.
Clare came forward. ‘I saw her earlier.’ People turned to her. ‘I was swimming. She was up here. She had a visitor and then, maybe a minute later, they weren’t there any
more. I presumed they’d gone back into the house because it was breezy.’
The lady with the bun strode forward and her hand fell on Clare’s arm. ‘What did he look like? This visitor?’
‘It was a she. I saw her earlier as she was going through the wood. She was slim and wearing dark-blue trousers and a red top, I think. She had long brown hair. Very slim.’
Clare felt the woman squeeze her arm more and more tightly as she spoke. Her body became rigid with tension.
‘Joan Hawk,’ said the woman, releasing Clare and dropping her head into her hands. ‘What has she done with Raine?’
‘They’ve gone for the boats,’ came a shout from behind.
One of the crowd had picked up the camera and now he beckoned at the sad lady with the bun to come over.
‘Dear God,’ she said, viewing the collection of photos which the camera held. ‘She unpicked the tapestry . . . Oh, my . . . Gravestones, ledger entries, my goodness,
that’s the will . . . She even took the blanket from Raine. There’s no doubt, no doubt at all what she was up to.’ She was shaking her head, crying. ‘I knew she was evil.
Pure evil.’
‘We need to destroy those pictures,’ said Mr Hubbard at her shoulder. ‘They must never fall into the wrong hands.’
Someone showed him how to take out the memory card and Mr Hubbard crushed it under his foot. Then they threw it, and the camera, into the sea.
‘I need to take Albert,’ said the lady with the bun, picking up Raine’s blanket from the ground and inhaling the dear scent it carried. ‘Someone find me something to
carry him in, please.’ Then she turned to the quietly sobbing Clare and took her hand. ‘Raine thought very highly of you,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
May, Lara and Clare joined a slow procession back to the village. A sadness had descended on the place like a pall of grief. The harbour was full of small boats, all out
looking for Raine. She could only be in the sea. They went back to Jenny’s café.
‘I’m so sorry about your friend, Clare,’ said Lara, giving her a squeeze. ‘I’m not quite sure what’s just gone on, though. Who’s Joan Hawk?’
‘I honestly don’t know.’
‘I hope they find her,’ said May. ‘Poor old lady.’
Clare wiped her eyes. Then she leapt up from her seat.
‘Oh my God, I think I might know where she is. Get the boats to come around the cove to the lagoon.’ And she ran up the hill as
fast as her legs would take her.
She was there. Clare saw her curled up, as if sleeping, at the bottom of the lagoon. Through Clare’s blurred vision, Raine’s hair looked golden, shifting gently in
the water as if nudged by a gentle breeze. The years had been stripped from her, her skin was plaster-white, her hands long and smooth. Fully clothed except for her shoes, Clare dived into the
blue-green pool, swam to the bottom and wrapped her arms around her lovely friend, until she needed to surface and breathe.
The boats sounded their approach. Clare brought Raine reverently towards the lip of the lagoon. First on the scene were two small boats, one steered by Gene Hathersage, the other by Frank.
‘I can’t lift her,’ said Clare.
Frank instinctively held Gene’s boat still whilst he leaned over to take her from Clare’s arms. Above the water the image was gone and Raine was a lifeless old lady, deformed,
gnarled and so very, very precious to them all.
‘I’ve found her chair,’ shouted someone from a nearby boat. ‘No sign of any other person, though.’
‘The coastguard is on his way,’ was called in reply.
Frank helped Gene lift Raine into the boat. He handed over a blanket and Gene placed it respectfully around her, holding her tenderly.
‘Hang onto the rope, I’ll row you in,’ said Frank.
‘If you want to stay on in the cottage, just do,’ Gene said to Clare. ‘Long as you want.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you, Gene.’
The rest of the day passed in a blur. Clare and May and Lara went over things a million times as they sat in Jenny’s cafe at the nice table overlooking the sea. Clare
told them all that she knew about her lovely friend Raine and they let her talk.
‘I know what I saw.’ Clare was adamant. ‘I wouldn’t have believed it but I saw her with my own eyes in her lagoon.’
It was harder for Lara and May to accept what Clare was telling them: that the old lady called Raine was a mermaid. The villagers of Ren Dullem obviously wanted to believe it, whether it was
true or not. Then again, people liked to believe in mysterious things and beings. They wanted the Loch Ness Monster to be real, along with spirits and UFOs. They wanted to trust that magic existed.
But people were also gullible – didn’t Anna Anderson fool hundreds of important people that she was Anastasia Romanov?
‘I’m staying for a couple more days,’ Clare announced. ‘I’ll get a train back.’
‘We’ll stay with you,’ Lara insisted. ‘We wouldn’t leave you. How could we – after what we’ve all been through today?’
‘Gene said we could stay in Well Cottage,’ said Clare, still very tearful. ‘You won’t say anything to anyone, will you? The village has come to trust us.’
‘As if you need to ask!’ exclaimed May. ‘And even if I did want to say anything, who’d believe me?’ She didn’t add that she didn’t understand any of it.
How could she? It was ludicrous. It would make more sense that Raine was a self-deluded old lady who had built up a myth around herself for no other reason that she wanted to be a creature of the
deep. After all, only Milton Bird was alive to witness and remember first-hand what had really happened in 1928 – and he was two nuts short of a fruitcake.
Jenny brought over some fresh coffees for them. She was very red-eyed.
‘She was a lovely old thing. I suppose if she had to leave us, then going back to the sea was the way to do it.’ Jenny coughed and looked at Clare. ‘We thought you might be the
same as her, you know, with your eyes.’
Clare smiled. ‘I wish.’ Something flashed in her brain, a thought brushing past. But it quickly hurried off when she tried to catch it. Something Raine had told her. But it was
gone.
Jenny made them something to eat. Clare picked at hers; it was delicious but she wasn’t hungry. Not even the cheesecake could tempt her.
‘How can we go back to normal life?’ asked Lara, as they eventually left.