Read Online The Mermaid's Child by Jo Baker - Free Book Online

would crawl with worms. And Uncle George, whooping with delight, would push me back into the brewhouse and lock the door, leaving me there forever to brew up vast vats of mouldy beer, and everyone else would drink themselves stupid in the rain. And locked into that dark swelter, sweat dripping and shoulders aching as I stirred the steaming wort, I would not even be able to watch as the stranger’s figure diminished in the distance, as it grew indistinct through the thickening grey veils of rain.
    I could get nothing done that day, nothing finished. Late into the night, after Uncle George and the stranger had scraped their way up the stairs to bed, I sat at the kitchen table, cleaning glasses. I’d never get the chance to speak to him before he left, I thought. Not now he was confederate with Uncle George. And I had to speak to him. Because beyond the bend in the valley road, over the cusp of the hill, there were places familiar to him, which seemed to him entirely unremarkable, but which would be strange and wonderful to me. As he walked out from underneath our tailored-to-requirements fully-guaranteed parish-shaped rain cloud, he would shake the water from his hat, begin to steam in the heat of the sun. He’d watch his scuffed boots as they swungout along the road, consider, perhaps, the urgency of their need for dubbin. In front of him, first would rise whalebacked slate-grey moors, then the smooth rolling slopes of the fatter land beyond. After that, perhaps, there would come an expanse of tree-pooled silvered grass that seemed to stretch forever, until at last you heard the sound of the waves, tasted salt, and realized that what had seemed to be just the continuing sweep of grassland was in fact wet sky-reflecting sand, and the sea. The sea, where my father had travelled, where my mother might still be found. Thick crashing waves, a bite in the air, and the ever-present dark enticement of the mermaids’ song. My people. At last my people. The schoolroom map behind its dusty glass, observed peripherally and years ago, came again into my mind; the outline of this island country, green waves nibbling round its coastline, pale waters lying in its heart. I could almost see the dust trails rising from the paper, as together he and I paced out the pathways, the roads and the trackways my mother might have taken. As we traced the way away from here.
    I was going with him, I realized. So I should probably let him know.
    It was not a voice that woke me, not a jolt. I opened my eyes on a battlement of dirty glasses, my cheek pressed to the hardness of the kitchen table. From my curled fingers came the sharp stink of vinegar. I straightened up, raised a hand to my aching neck. Moonlight poured in from the deep-set window, silvering the tabletop, conferring on the glasses a temporary beauty. I swallowed dryly. Silence. No sign of what had woken me, no sound from the bar, no creak from overhead. My eyes came to rest on the back door, shut, slightly askew on its hinges. Itcould not, I knew, be closed without the boards scraping on the flagstones, without the door thumping against the frame.
    I was on my feet and out in an instant, the door flung back and left gaping. Outside, the moon was full and high and cast only the most slender of shadows. I hesitated, looking round. The burgage plot was empty. And, beyond, the fields stretched out bare and silver, the hedges stark in the moonlight. No one to be seen. Out the front, then. Of course. Off along the valley road. I ducked into the ginnel, pounded along its darkness, clogs clattering on the cobbles loud enough, it seemed, to wake the dead, and in spite of my haste I found myself recalling for a moment my father’s gentle presence, the hard skin of his hand, the smell of his tobacco. I swallowed again, gulping at the unexpected ache in my throat.
    I came to a halt out on the road, skidding to a stop. The dust settled round my feet. I felt the hooded gaze of the