Гарднер Дозуа - Mermaids!

Her eyes opened. "Do you believe in the merrow now?"

I stroked the curve of her spine. "I believe. But you know, I haven't yet heard your name."

"My name, is it? God save us from what you'll be wanting next." She gave me a small sharp nip on the side. "My given name you'd not get your tongue around. But my family name you already know."

"I do?"

"Of course you do. The same as your boat. I'm of the clan McLir. That's what got me into trouble. When I saw the name I was curious. I got too close and that great machine of yours pulled the cap right off my head."

She stroked my face with her hand. There was a webbed membrane stretched between the knuckles of her fingers. I turned on my side and pulled her closer. It was the only difference I noticed, and of no significance at the time.

I woke to the slap of the hull against the piling. I sat up, alone in the bunk, then pulled my clothes on and went above. The deck was dry under a low, cloudy sky. Not a sign on the boat, no magic bit of seaweed, no wet fairy prints on the deck. The unnamed McLir was gone.

Perhaps it had been a dream, the slipping cogs of a crippled psyche. I went below and searched the cabin. The cap was gone. I came back up and sat staring over the wind-chopped water. At last, cold and depressed, I cast off and headed downstream.

There was a mist in the air when I sighted the Lanesboro bridge. I could barely see the faded letters of the warning signs. I felt a sense of lassitude, a bone-weariness. I wanted off this island and back to the States. I slammed the throttle forward. On to Glassan. In the morning I'd leave the boat at Athlone. By tomorrow evening I'd be winging out of Shannon airport and on my way home.

Distant rain squalls stitched the surface of the lake. Visibility dropped. I turned on the running lights. Whitecaps were rising and spray began to break over the bow. Loose gear crashed in the galley. Despite the cold I was sweating.

I couldn't see the shore. My chances of getting to Glassan were nil. I'd have to go back to Lanesboro. I gave it left full rudder and shoved the throttle to the stop.

The boat swung around. The engine shuddered and died. I tried to restart it as the quartering waves began to slam the boat. No luck. I dropped to my knees and tore off the hatch cover. I fumbled in the wheel-locker and found a flashlight. I braced myself and peered down. The plastic dome of the filter was jammed with weeds.

I tucked the flashlight under my right arm and tried to loosen the wing nut. It was jammed. The boat pitched and a rush of water spilled over the side. Looking up, I could see that I was beam to the waves. I needed a tool to get the wing nut off the filter pot. Another wave hit, jolting me against the wheel.

I knew I was in real trouble. If I could keep the bow into the wind, I might be able to work on the engine. The only chance was to get the anchor out. If I could find bottom, it would pull the bow into the wind.

I staggered forward. Braced against the pitch, I let go the anchor. A wave hit the bow and I lurched back. A wet blue nylon tentacle seized my legs. Above me a vision of dark boiling clouds as I was pulled from the deck. Down into the cold roiling water of Lough Ree.

Into the black water, the pull of heavy steel cutting the line into my legs. Lungs fired, I jerked at the line, the dream shrouds of a streamered 'chute. I felt the snap of bone. My oxygen-starved brain saw a burst of yellow light... the night fantasy of a pearl-skinned woman with rose-red mouth, screaming a soundless scream, now not screaming. Behind her, white faces, other bodies swift in the night water. Cold hands on my face.

My eyes opened to a moon-scoured sky. The pain hit me. Up the leg, lancing the brain. I screamed. A white muscular body appeared above me, pushing me down

"He's alive... awake...." Men's voices. I shoved against a slippery wet surface. The voices faded in and out. "The Barren Swan ... the Barren Swan...." There was a sharp prick to my shoulder. Down again into a warm sea... floating ... yellow lights and peace. A last vision of the moonlit hair of the woman McLir.

Yellow light again. Pressing against my eyelids, warming the skin. The sun was full on my naked body stretched out in the cockpit. At first I dared not move, remembering the pain. There was only the coarse feel of the deck beneath me.

I willed my legs to move. They moved. I rolled to push myself up, then stopped. I was pushing with my right arm. I felt for the jagged scars which ran from shoulder to elbow. There were none. I jumped to my feet. I stroked my arm. I clapped my hands ... both of them. I shouted, arms waving. My voice sounded over the deserted lake. No answer. Before me was a small V-shaped island. The boat rocked in the gentle breeze, the bow line tied to a wisp of a rowan tree. I sat down on a locker, flexing my fingers ... not five but all ten. And I cried.

I live now at Cnoc Grianan . A great advantage, for the enlightened Irish have no income tax for artists.

Uncle Frank thinks the recovery of my arm is a miracle of modern medicine. I wouldn't try to disillusion him. When I bought the boat from Jim, I asked him about the name.

"You are an uneducated sort, aren't you? Manannan McLir ... that's the old sea god. The King of the 'Country Under The Waves.'"

"What do you know about the 'Barren Swan'?"

"Barren Swan? Barren Swan? Sounds like the name of a pub." He thought for a moment. "God save us from such ignorance," he laughed. "You must mean 'Bar an Suán.' That's the 'pin of slumber' in the old mythology...."

A few months ago I met Ed Devlin in Dublin. We had lunch together and I asked him about bean O'Meara.

"That's a strange story. It was right after you met her. Poor old dear passed away. God rest her soul."

"What's strange about that? She might have been a hundred."

Ed paused. "I'll tell you... but you mustn't breathe it to another soul. There's only me and Father Fitz and the bishop who know. We all thought she was as poor as a tinker. But she left a great chest of gold coins to the parish. There was only one condition... that she be buried in Lough Ree."

"What's wrong with that?"

He downed his drink. "Use your head man. The authorities would not be keen about dropping bodies in the lake, would they? What would the tourists think?"

"You dropped her in the lake?"

"Me and Father Fitz. We didn't just shove her over the side you know. Poor misfortunate thing. When we put her in the coffin was the first time I'd ever seen her without her gloves."

"What do you mean?"

"The poor woman had a deformity. Webbed like a duck between her fingers...."

I keep the Manannan McLir at Carrick-on-Shannon. Whenever I can I take her out. I've a favorite spot above Lanesboro. I tie up to some old pilings and fish. I haven't had much luck, but I keep trying. At least I haven't yet caught what I'm looking for.

In "Driftglass," which appears elsewhere in this anthology, we saw the formidable arsenal of ultramodern high-technology being brought to bear on the problem of adapting human beings for a life in the sea. But, as the quiet but sobering story that follows suggests, perhaps if you just wanted it intensely enough, it could be accomplished more simply than that....

Leslie Charteris is probably best known as the creator of "the Saint, " whose suave and dashing exploits have been depicted in a long series of mystery-adventure novels, television shows, comic strips, and movies; there was even a Saint mystery magazine. Charteris's most recent book is a collection, The Fantastic Saint.

I USED TO SEE THE OLD MAN EVERY DAY AROUND BlLL Thompson's place, down at Marathon, in the Florida Keys. He was almost a part of the scenery, like the mangrove islands offshore or the pelicans that wheeled lazily back and forth and sat out on the sandbar at low tide. He didn't keep much busier than they did, either. Sometimes he'd cart off a load of trash, or trundle a barrow-load of ice out to one of the boats. But mostly he'd just be standing or sitting around on the pier or beside the pool, staring into the water.