The Surface Breaks(32)
“Don’t disrespect me. Don’t you dare.”
“Or what? What are you going to do? Throw me out? That would leave you pretty much alone, wouldn’t it, Mother?”
“Okay,” George says, one hand on Oliver’s shoulder, smiling awkwardly at Oliver’s mother who ignores him, her eyes unfocused. “Eleanor, Oli – let’s all calm down. The poor girl is exhausted.” He crouches before me. “Can you not speak? Is that it?”
Limp with relief, I nod. Thin sheets of something they called paper are brought before me, a utensil (a pencil) pressed into my hand. I have seen such items in the remains of wrecked ships but I had never understood their use before now.
“What is your name?” Oliver asks me. “Write your name down so we know what to call you.” I stare at him, and then the “pencil”, in uncertainty. “She cannot write either,” someone murmurs. “The poor child, she must be illiterate.”
The others are dismissed (I’m sorry, Oli’s mother – Eleanor – says to her departing friends. Please tell the Guptas… tell them I sent my sympathies. Oliver’s body tensing at the word Guptas, and I try to remember where I had heard that name before.) until it was only me and Oliver and Eleanor left behind. A doctor is called, an older man with a grey beard who directs all of his attention to Eleanor. He proclaims that I am suffering from “shock” and “possibly amnesia”.
“Did you hit your head?” the doctor man asks me, holding a metal circle to my chest, and I wince at the cold. “Was there an accident? Did your boat sink?”
“Boats, boats,” Eleanor says under her breath. “This family has never had any luck with boats.”
“I never thought I would hear a Carlisle complain about a ship,” the doctor jokes, his smile sliding off his mouth at Eleanor and Oliver’s shocked faces. “Oh,” he says. “I’m so sorry, that was utterly unforgiveable. I forgot myself. Please accept my apology.”
“And she is mute?” Eleanor asks him, brushing his excuses aside.
“I’m not sure,” he replies, before asking me to stick my tongue out. I do not move. I don’t want to do this in front of Oliver. I don’t want him to think I am unsatisfactory in any way.
“Are you deaf as well?” the doctor asks. “Show me your tongue.”
And I open my mouth, averting my eyes so I won’t have to witness his disgust.
There are horrified gasps and, “Bloody hell!” and, “What kind of barbarian would do this?” and, “We must take care of her, mustn’t we, Mother?”
“Mother,” Oliver repeats when the woman doesn’t reply. Her lips are in a thin line, compressing white. “We must take care of her. It is our moral duty.”
“Moral duty?” Eleanor says. “Oh, Oliver – you’re still recovering after the accident. It’s probably best if we get her the best help and allow the professionals to take care of it.”
“I have seen what happens to people when you get the ‘best help’ for them,” he says. “I haven’t forgotten. I will never forget.”
“Oliver, we—”
“We what? We don’t have the space? We don’t have enough servants? What other excuses are you going to come up with, Mother?” He turns to me and I try to hide my shock that he would speak to a parent in such a way, even if she is only a woman. “You have nothing to be afraid of. You’re safe now.”
Eleanor calls a servant then, a young girl by the name of Daisy, who is ordered to take care of me. “Watch her closely,” she mutters to the girl.
A male servant is ordered to transfer me to a bedroom as I am still too frail to walk, and as he carries me out of the room, I can feel Eleanor’s eyes following me. The room I have been brought to is beautiful, and I am told that it is my own for as long as is required. A bed draped in gold silk, an antique dresser with ornate moulding, a large box (a wardrobe, Daisy says) filled with material (dresses, Daisy says) so plush that I shiver at their feel.
“They are all black, because we are in mourning,” Daisy tells me as she shows me into an adjacent alcove made of cream tiles that are cool to touch. I want to touch everything, make sense of this world through my fingertips, but I am conscious that I cannot behave strangely in front of this girl.
“Do you need to use the toilet?” she asks, pointing at a clay seat in the corner, helping me to sit upon it. Liquid runs between my legs, a warm release from that strange tightness in my abdomen that I was unable to explain until now, and I gaze at it in shock. What is this?
“Come on,” Daisy says as she fills the container in the centre full of water. It comes surging down from silver knobs she called taps, and she helps me to climb into this bath. The relief as I lie down is dizzying, and I duck my head underneath. For a moment I can pretend that I am lying in my room in the palace, staring at the hazy night sky above the surface. For a moment, I can pretend that nothing has changed. Then I have to come up for air, panting, my human lungs burning with need.
When I am alone, I find a hand mirror on the bedside table and I hold it to my face, opening my mouth to see Ceto’s handiwork for myself. I see a brutal wound, not even a half-stump left behind, just a raw, jagged lesion. I put the mirror away, my hand shaking as the enormity of what I have done begins to fully register. Remember, Gaia. Remember why you are here. I stretch my feet out before me, pulling up the nightgown for a better view. I touch one thigh, then the other, running my hands up along the insides until I reach the centre, the place where Daisy told me was for the “toilet”, and I feel an unaccountable pleasure. Here is something the Sea Witch failed to mention when she said human men preferred legs that were easy to spread.