Water For Drowning Read online

She was early, standing at the bar as we set up. I played it cool, barely even looked at her. She was wearing those shiny black leggings, you know, the ones that look permanently wet or like they’ve just been painted on, and they were low on her hips. Tucked into the top was a hip flask. First one I’ve actually seen on someone’s hip. And she had this tight torn t-shirt riding high thanks to her tits. Something sparkled in her bellybutton and something else arched over it, maybe a dolphin, which was a bit lame but not a lay-breaker. She was stirring her drink with a straw and making a whirlpool of the ice cubes.

  All right, maybe it wasn’t exactly a quick look.

  “Something for the wank bank?” Vince asked, nudging me out of the way as he struggled past with an amp.

  “Fuck yourself, Vince.”

  “Guaranteed satisfaction.” He put the amp down and got in the way of me putting mine next to it, sidestepping left, right, left.

  “Fuck sake, stop being a–”

  He took the amp from me and said, “Just get the beers in,” nodding more towards Genna than the bar, so I let him off being a twat.

  Being on her own made it much easier, no friends to navigate with all their questions and tests and that bullshit girls do. “Hey, Genna, long time.”

  “You don’t know me,” she said. “You just know my name.”

  Which kinda took the wind outta my sails – abandon ship, Mayday, Mayday – and usually I would’ve said something cutting, like everybody knows your name, it’s on the toilet walls or something, but she’d said it with such a sparkle in her eyes that I was hooked and stuck around for another go.

  “Yeah, your ex told me,” I said, pointing vaguely to the rest of the band. It was pretty fucking vague because they were scattered around everywhere.

  “No exes,” Genna said. “No boyfriends, either, before you try tacking that course. Just me and my maelstrom.” She twirled her finger around the side of her head and that should have been my first clue, that and the word maelstrom, but how was I to know she was being honest? How was I supposed to know she was actually fucking mental?

  “You gonna play ‘Coastline’?” she asked.

  That surprised me. We were playing our own stuff this time and our own stuff was pretty fucking good. Better than most of the other crap out there, anyway, though I suppose that’s not saying much. And she already seemed to know the songs.

  “‘Coastline’,” I said. “Sure. Any other requests?”

  She smiled. “Not yet. Ask me again later.”

  I nodded and took the beers back to the band.

  It was a fucking good gig. We opened with ‘Mariner’s Song’ and I scanned the room, checking for anyone better but ending up back at Genna just like I knew I would. A couple of the others looked good for a go but there was something special about Genna. I dunno. Maybe the way she moved to the song – my song, I wrote the fucking thing – her eyes closed, body almost lazy.

  We did ‘Crossfire Girl’ next, which is lighter but faster with a chorus that’s quick to pick up. Sure enough she sang along with the crowd, but she surprised me by joining in with some of the verses too. When we did ‘The Uninvited’, which is pretty much Nirvana without actually being Nirvana, she glanced my way a couple of times. I don’t think she liked that one because she frowned a lot, but maybe it was just the lyrics. She retreated back to the bar during that one. After that I improvised, changing the set without warning into ‘Wild-Water Woman’ and forcing the others to catch up. Tommy was pissed off because he had to change guitars quickly but it was the right thing to do: the crowd loved it. And so did Genna, which was the main thing. She pushed back into the masses, drawn by the thrumming rhythms, and she let them sweep her along, swaying and rocking to the eddies and swells of the song, losing herself in the waves of our music.

  We played better that night than we had in a long time. Each song washed into the next and nobody fucked up. Hench beat his kit like he was a fucking octopus, Vince managed his solos with a kind of casual modesty that was unusual for him but way more effective than any of his usual grandstanding, and Tommy backed up my vocals without hogging the strongest lines. Me, I didn’t so much sing as let the words pour out in whatever way they wanted, and they pretty much poured out perfect. The crowd fucking loved it, but better than that, we fucking loved it, which hadn’t been the case for quite a while. We shared a lot of happy looks, steered the way into fresh riffs and new rhythms with eye contact, and grinned like we were fucking gods.

  Genna loved every second of it. She never went back to the bar (though I saw her take a few nips from that hip flask), didn’t leave to piss or smoke, just let every song turn her around, move her up, move her down, hold her in its tide. When we played ‘Coastline’ she practically came, and she danced in a way that made me want to as well. She started the encore when the set was done and we ended up doing three more, playing ‘Sally’ (which I nearly changed to Genna but thank-fuckfully didn’t), ‘Snow Chamber’, and then ‘Rye-Catcher’ to bring the whole thing to a frenetic finish. I wrote that one off my face and still don’t quite know what it means, but with Vince leading us in and then trailing out like a dying heartbeat, it doesn’t really matter what the words mean anyway.

  After the gig we were so high on the performance that we left our kit and had a few drinks. I was taking a pint from Vince, reaching out over the crowded bar, when Genna came over. She leaned in close so I could hear and yelled, “Great set!” I felt her breasts against my arm and chest and thought, yeah, you too, putting my hand on her waist to keep her close. Her skin was damp with sweat but smooth and cool.

  “What do you want?” I asked her. I meant to drink, but the hurt on her face told me she’d heard different so I quickly added, “Beer? Wine? The hard stuff? Get something fancy, Vince is paying for once.” She looked pleased or relieved or whatever and took my pint so I signalled for another which Vince promptly handed over before leaving us to it. He’s the least twatish in the band, really, but then maybe I was just still flying high from the performance.

  “We played ‘Coastline’,” I said.

  “I noticed. Thanks.”

  “Any other requests now?”

  She smiled, drank some beer, and said, “It’s your turn; I owe you for the song.”

  She was testing me, seeing how quick I’d go for something sleazy. Usually I’d have done exactly that, and usually sleazy works, thank you very much, but I was liking the game; there was no need to reel her in just yet.

  “How about your phone number?”

  “You’ve already got it.”

  My text could have been from anyone but somehow she knew.

  “We could grab something to eat?”

  She checked the time on her phone and downed the rest of her drink. It was impressive. “If we’re quick, I know just the place.”

  She watched me, waiting. I drank down the rest of my pint and put the glass down in the rough direction of the bar, not caring if I reached. “Just let me tell the guys.” I wanted to make sure someone took care of my stuff if I wasn’t back before kick out.

  Genna took my hand and pulled me through the crowd behind her. I grabbed Tommy’s shoulder as I passed and said I’d be back in a bit.

  “Whatever, man. I’ve sorted a lock-in so just come back here afterwards.” He glanced at Genna then said to me, “Good luck, mate.”

  We pushed our way through a tide of people heading in the opposite direction and emerged outside into a cloud of cigarette smoke. Genna pulled a face and waved it away and I made a mental note not to spark up in front of her.

  “Where to?”

  She still had my hand, pulling me across the road and forcing cars to stop to let us by. Taxis, mostly, entirely used to the nightlife that strolled across their path.

  “The beach,” she said.

  The beach was a fucking result. I wasn’t thrilled by the idea of grit-dick or a sandy arse crack but I figured she’d be worth it.

  “There’s this place,” Genna said. “Be
st fish and chips ever.”

  “Brilliant.”

  If she heard the sarcasm she pretended not to, and to be honest I was starving so it wasn’t such a bad idea anyway. I could always get her onto the beach afterwards.

  The next street took us down to the sea front. Genna took a deep breath through her nose and held it for a moment before letting it out of her mouth. “You’ve gotta love that smell,” she said.

  “Yeah, good sea breeze,” I said, thinking if she wanted something romantic she was shit out of luck. I’m capable, I write songs for fuck’s sake, but right then, looking at her closed eyes and taking in the tang of salty night air, I didn’t feel like bullshitting her. There was a simplicity to what she said, what she did, how she did it, that wouldn’t let me come up with any of the usual crap. Not here, where the surf was sweeping wet curves up the sand and stones.

  “I love the sea,” she said finally, opening her eyes to look at me. They were a gorgeous bright shining blue and I realised she gothed her eyes up dark the same way a painter used a frame to show off his work. Okay, I must’ve been a bit pissed to be thinking that way but she seemed a little drunk too, to be honest, though thinking back on it now I’m not so sure it was the alcohol. I think it was the soft hush of the sea as it came in, and then quietly receded. I think it was the salt you could taste if you breathed with your mouth open.

  It was completely the wrong time to go in for a kiss, though Genna seemed to be waiting for something, so I said, “I love the sea too.” I realised as I said it that it was actually true. I’d just never said it before.

  “That’s cool,” she said. Then, “Do you believe in mermaids?”

  GENNA TOLD ME quite a few stories about mermaids. Did you know the original Little Mermaid dies? Maybe everybody knows that, but I didn’t. One minute she’s living in her nice coral palace in a city of seaweed or something, you know, amber for windows and mussel shells on the roofs, whatever, and then there’s a big fuck-off storm and a shipwreck and she falls in love with some prince and it all gets fucked up.

  In this other story Genna told me, a man marries a mermaid or a selkie or undine or something (they’re all pretty much the same) but then banishes her and marries someone normal. The first one, the mermaid, she comes back to kill him – she has to, for some reason, and it’s the only time she’s allowed back on land – but I can’t remember how that one ends.

  Anyway, she didn’t tell me those stories then. She just talked about this thing in Brighton.

  “You ever been?” she asked. We were walking slowly, eating our fish and chips.

  “A few gigs.”

  “There’s an awesome Sea Life Centre there,” Genna said. “It used to have a mermaid. Back when it was Brighton Aquarium.”

  “Okay.”

  She’d reminded me of something. Something from a mostly forgotten conversation with Kate and Tommy, maybe. The bowl of salt water, swimming around in my mind and nearly close enough to remember. Or maybe it was a premonition I was feeling, like the reverse of déjà vu or something. Some sense of foreboding.

  “Probably not a real mermaid,” Genna said.

  “Probably.”

  “We’re talking, like, late eighteen hundreds or something and they’d fake all sorts of things back then. You know, stitch half a monkey corpse to a giant salmon and call it a mermaid. I remember this one, the Brighton one, because I’ve got one of the leaflets at home. Mr Harry Phillips’ Mermaid, and then a pencil drawing beneath, ‘Half Beautiful Woman, Half Fish’.” She looked at me, popped a chip in her mouth, and said, “She wasn’t all that beautiful.”

  “And people believed it?”

  She shrugged. “People will believe anything if it makes them happy. Even if they know it isn’t real.”

  Later she told me all the different types. Mermaids are the classics. Half beautiful woman and half fish (and thank fuck it’s that way around) reduced now to sailor tattoos or used on the covers of relaxation CDs. Then you’ve got your selkies and sirens and all sorts of other mythological creatures, each with their songs and dancing and other temptations, beautiful evil bitches and doomed lovers and sometimes both at the same time. Selkies are basically seals and, according to some, they’re actually drowned people given new form. They’re allowed to come back once a year, shedding their selkie seal skin to become human again, only they have to keep the skin safe because whoever holds the skin holds power over them. You can also call them ashore by crying into the sea or something. Sirens, they were originally these bird-like creatures luring ships onto rocks according to some old Greek story, but somewhere along the line they’ve become mixed in with mermaids. Genna told me it’s probably because of something called a nix, a kind of mermaid that lives in rivers and lakes that would lure men to them by playing beautiful music or singing, though I’m pretty sure having their tits out helped. Then they’d drag the men into the water and drown them. There’s a male version too who played the fiddle and did the same thing to women.

  There are lots of mermaid stories, and lots of different versions of the same stories, but they’re always about love. That’s what Genna told me.

  She was pretty fucked up, but she was right about that.

  “SO WHERE IS she now?” Kate asked when I got back to the pub.

  “Who?”

  The guys laughed. Kate gave me her wicked smile. “Come on,” she said, “where did you dump the body?”

  I gave her the middle finger.

  “Lovely,” she said. “But I’m not smelling it.”

  I wasn’t completely honest with them about what happened. I said something about getting my dick wet because it was kind of true and I took my high fives and back slaps. I didn’t tell them it was because we’d gone swimming.

  Not that I swam – Genna did, but not me. Supposed to leave it an hour anyway, aren’t you, after eating? I said that to Genna when she suggested it but she only laughed. “Come on...”

  “Now?”

  People were still walking the esplanade and cars were passing – taxis mostly, and boy racers with their stereos whacked up to destroy whatever music they were playing. It wasn’t club kick out time yet so it wasn’t that busy, but busy enough.

  “Yeah, now. Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want some fucker to nick my clothes.”

  “We can go in by the pier.”

  She meant the South Parade Pier. Her eyes were bright with the idea. It did mean we could hide our clothes and have a little privacy.

  She could tell I’d agreed so she dashed off across the beach, shrieking in that way girls do to let you know you’re supposed to chase them, which I did. I didn’t want to miss her stripping off in the shadows.

  As soon as we were underneath the pier, Genna pulled her top up and off and yanked her leggings down. I couldn’t see her tits yet, she had her back to me, but bending down to unfasten her shoes gave me a great fucking view and then she was turning around in only her underwear.

  “Hey, you too,” she said. She hugged herself, arms across her chest, but I think more from the cold than any modesty. It wasn’t enough to hide her tits anyway and they were just as great as I thought they’d be, even in a bra.

  “Nice tattoos.”

  “Yeah, you were looking at those.”

  “I was.”

  I wasn’t, but I did. She had lines around her thighs like garters that were actually rings of seaweed, if you can believe that. Seaweed even if you don’t. And I finally noticed that the something diving over her bellybutton was not a lame-ass dolphin but a mermaid.

  “You’re still staring.”

  “You’re still fucking gorgeous.”

  She laughed, which was a good sign. I stepped on the heels of my shoes to drag them off and Genna went running into the sea.

  “Fuck.”

  I hurried out of my shirt and jeans and chased her.

  It was fucking freezing. This country is not made for skinny-dipping, and leaving underwear on didn’t help in t
he slightest. I swore at the cold as I splashed into the surf and tried to catch some air to breathe with. Genna, though, was leaping over the tiny waves as they came in as if on summer holiday and as soon as it was deep enough she dived under. I fucking well didn’t. I just waded in, sucking in breaths as the water rose up over my thighs and higher. If Genna hadn’t resurfaced right beside me I probably would’ve gone back. She grabbed me and pulled me close, laughing as I gasped at the water washing up over my waist, but I put my arms around her chilled body and we kissed in the dark ocean.

  I could taste the sea on her lips and smell it on her skin. My hands were all over her, cupping her ass and holding her waist and stroking her back. Her skin was smooth, not goose-pimply at all, and she was completely serene whereas me, I was shivering like a spaz. I didn’t care, though. When her hand dipped below the water and into the front of my shorts I said, “Remember it’s cold,” and she laughed.

  “It’s not the size of the wave,” she said, “but the motion of the ocean.”

  “Yeah. It’s not how deep you fish the water but how you wiggle your worm.”

  She laughed again. She had a great laugh. “Nice.”

  We kissed some more, her hand still in my shorts.

  “You know when you’re swimming in the sea,” she said, “and the water goes suddenly cold?” We were still kissing between sentences. “When it goes really cold all of a sudden?” I made a noise for yes and she whispered into my ear. “That’s water that’s had death in it.”

  I moved away to look at her. Her hair was slicked back wet and the makeup had run from her eyes in dark streaks but she only looked more gorgeous. I didn’t know how I was meant to respond but she saved me the trouble, coming close again to kiss my neck.

  “One fish eats another fish,” she murmured, “or the water fills someone’s lungs and drowns them.” She moaned as I touched her and said, “Cold water is water that’s taken lives.”

  What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

  I went with, “Well this water’s fucking freezing.”

  “Because it’s the middle of the night,” she said, “don’t worry.” She slipped her other hand into my shorts. Her bra was wet and see through and her nipples were hard and so was I because of how she looked and because of how she used her hands and because of how she looked and, God, she was good with her hands, all of which far outweighed any crazy shit she said about cold water.