Гарднер Дозуа - Mermaids!

Mavis needed no urging. "Now, that's wot I calls a dinky-doo gent," she said, gratified. "I 'aven't 'ad a good, 'ot cup o' coffee since that narsty little yellerfeller scragged old Joe Kelly, wot used ter fish for trepang in the Torres Straight." As she said this, she heaved herself over the ledge and propelled herself down the sand toward Wilson, fire, and coffee.

He threw on more wood, and he could see her clearly as she came.

There was no longer any doubt that she was of the sea. None. Her method of locomotion, necessitated by the muscular, horizontal-fluked tail which took the place of her legs, was a sort of humping crawl similar to that of a seal. In the flaring firelight, details became clear. Unlike the portrayals of fanciful artists, Mavis did not have a sheath of iridescent scales on her tail; it was covered with thick, tough hide, like that of a dolphin, and was marked in many places by scars.

Her hair, one might say, was blonde, as a mass of unraveled but not unsnarled hempen rope, trailed in weedy seas for countless years, might be said to be blonde. Her teeth might be compared to pearls only if one were speaking of baroque pearls—long, irregular, and yellow. Her eyes, it is true, were blue—but not the blue of the Bay of Naples unless the Bay of Naples is sometimes faded and bloodshot. Her breasts were like a couple of half-emptied flour bags which had been misused by dirty hands. And she was, without any possibility of doubt, a mermaid.

Or, at any rate, a mer-lydy.

She stopped near the fire, flipped her tail expertly beneath her, and relaxed into a semi-reclining position. Wilson's innate courtesy brought him partially out of his daze. He picked up the pack of cigarettes from his sleeping bag and offered her one. As she took it, he noticed that the thick, warty fingers had a small web of leathery skin between them, which didn't quite reach the lower joint.

Jack fired up his lighter and proffered the flame. Mavis looked at the cigarette. "Coo-ee! A blinkin' Sobranie! You are a toff, you are." She puffed it alight and smiled at him—the smile which one sees on the face of a more-than-middle-aged, unsuccessful, but ever-optimistic prostitute. It was not exactly a leer, but it was well on its way to becoming one.

Wilson snapped out the light and busied himself with the coffee pot. "Cream?" he asked bleakly.

"'F'you please," Mavis said daintily—an effect somewhat marred by an enormous burp that seemed to have all three hundred pounds of her behind it. She looked embarrassed. "Eel," she explained. "It will repeat, you know. Cam't stop it. Many's the time I says to me self, 'Now, Mavis, no eel!' But, then, wot's life if you've always got to be a-dieting, eh? 'A bit of wotcher fancy does yer good' is my motto. Erp . "

Jack winced. "Sugar?" he asked, in a low, stricken voice.

"Four spoonsful. I do like my bit of sweet, and it's seldom I gets it nowadyes, people bein' the wye they are. Why, the sea itself eyen't syfe no more—all them perishin' skin-divers! Bleedin' lot of liberty-tykers is wot they are!" Resentfully, she fingered a newish scar on her tail. "I used to love the Pacific afore all them ruddy bombs..."

Wilson handed her the coffee. Close up, the fish odor was even stronger. She took it with a resounding " Ngkyew! " and, little finger stuck out, she slurped appreciatively. "Ah, that's good! See, it's all right as long as you styes in the bleedin' water, but if you comes out of an evening, that breeze gives you summat of a chill, it does. And 'oo wants to be took sick 'ere, miles from bloody woof-woof?" Another slurp. "Ahhhhhh."

Wilson's paralyzed mind was reacting almost automatically. "Glad you liked it. I don't suppose you get much coffee."

She gave a great, gusty, fish-laden sigh. "No, myte, I don't, and that's a fact. It eyen't like it used ter be. 'Ere I am, still in me prime, and there's 'ardly nuffink to look forward to." Few females need much encouragement to talk; Mavis needed none. Her remarks were mostly of a plaintive nature, ranging from fresh-water swimming ("I styes clear o' rivers nowadyes. Cock. Orl this pollution mucking up the plyce—some of the things yer sees floatin abaht, why, it fair brings the blush to me cheeks!") to the fun she used to have riding along in the bow wave of a sailing vessel ("Carn't tyke chances like that no more; if some idjit don't tyke a shot at you wiv a bleedin" rifle, you still runs a risk of gettin' yer arse snagged in the screw!") When she finally reached the Summing Up, she had disposed of four cups of coffee and half of the Sobranies.

"No, Cocky, I tell you," she said reflectively, drawing in a mouthful of smoke with a wet, smacking sound, "mag all you wants to, but this mermyde gyme 'as ' ad it. Why, tyke Boro-Boro an' all them other bleedin' 'eathen islands: Used ter come out in wackin' big canoes, the buggers did, first full moon arfter the flippin' solstices, all chantin' an' racketin' an' wyvin' torches to welcome me. " Gryte Sea Muvver 'Oo Fills Our Nets Wiv Fish' and all that palaver, y'know—fling cocoanuts, yams, 'ot taros, and 'ole roasted pigs into the old briny—then back to the beach for fun and gymes and all them lewd nytive rytch- uals. But now? " She was torn between sarcasm and a sigh.

"Not no more, myte. Flippin' missioners 'as turned their silly 'eads; got 'em singin' 'ymns orl night long, cor stone the crows! Fit ter splitcher bloody ear-'oles, the cows! No, I tell you the stryte dinkum oil, Cocky, this mermyde graft 'as bleedin' well 'ad it, an' I'm 'arf ready to pack it in."

Wilson felt much the same way. But how to go about it? While he was considering the problem, Mavis suddenly said: "But 'ere, Cock! I been maggin' sumfin' orful, and you 'aven't 'ad yer tucker yet!"

"I'm not very hungry," he said weakly.

But he might as well not have spoken. "You just sit right there, Cock, and I'll pop inter the wet and snaffle a couple o' nice ones, an' we'll 'ave a bit o' scoff." She propelled herself to the water's edge and slid in with scarcely a ripple.

As she vanished, the cloud that had seemed to blanket Jack's mind vanished, too. The shock of seeing (and hearing and smelling!) his dream shattered had numbed his brain.

Now the numbness had gone, to be replaced by pain.

He tried to bring back the dream, if only for a little while, but he found the task impossible. When he tried to conjure up the beatific vision, all that came was the warty, piebald face of Mavis. Perhaps no sane man could mistake a dugong for a beautiful woman, but it would be relatively easy to mistake Mavis for a dugong. He had been building his whole life around the quixotic pursuit of a dream, and now, God help him, he had found the reality. He hated himself for having had the dream, and he hated poor Mavis for having destroyed it.

Simply sitting there in the sand, staring blindly into the fire, now mostly embers and ashes, he hardly even noticed when Mavis returned, carrying two fish of unknown name but of reassuringly familiar construction. He paid only peripheral attention as she expertly cleaned and scaled them with a piece of shell. Not a word of her chatter penetrated as she stuffed the fish with one kind of seaweed and wrapped them in another, then plunged the dripping packages into the hot ashes of the fire, amid a hissing cloud of steam, and raked glowing embers over the pile.

He was still squatting stupidly as she humped herself over into the shadows and dug about in the sand. Uttering small cries of triumph, she disinterred two round objects and, making her way back to the fire, presented him with one.

"'Ave a bit of wallop," she said invitingly.

"Eh?" He stared at the thing. "What's this?"

Mavis chuckled richly. "Why, cor bless your 'ead, you been practically sittin' smack on top o' one o' me private caches o' workin' cocoanuts! I keeps a supply ready on all these narsty little bits of islands. Wot else would bring me ashore? 'Ere— "