Katy Naylor MERV & MARV

The steam rises, with a hiss. Its smell, warm and damp, with the humid undercurrent of green-blue river smell, speaks of something comforting, something warmly familiar.

Their figures are impressive, even hunched down to fit on the narrow wooden benches in this small room. Their long hair, which they had coiled tight to meet the municipal pool’s regulations, runs loose now, in shining rivulets down their backs. The towels around their waists, down to where their knees would be, are a ratty grayish white, frayed at the edges.

Look down beyond the towels and through the steam, if you let your curiosity overcome the awkwardness you feel at looking too long (more people than you’d think round here have something to hide, and they won’t thank you for the attention) you’d catch a tell-tale silver-blue glimmer.

KZZZZZNK. The machinery at the canning plant next door bleeds through to the steam room. The noise makes the walls shake.

“I don’t know Marv,” says one. He screws up his aquamarine eyes in concentration. “I’m not sure I do remember her.”

“You sure you don’t, Merv?” asks the other. “She’s the only thing I CAN remember from back then. Why, she....” He starts, and looks at his companion sheepishly. “Of course, I know it’s different for you, what with...”

“Yeah. It was different.” Merv reaches out to Marv, places a webbed hand lightly on Marv’s arm. “But it’s ok. I wasn’t alone.” Ma might not have stuck around after she’d laid the eggs, but Merv had always had company. “Hundreds of us.” He smiles to himself. He’d never been short of a brother or sister to talk to, even if he’d wanted to be alone. “And there was Dad, of course, sometimes”. Merv remembers those visits all too well. The shadow of the fishing boat above. The solemn face, obscured by the diver’s mask, the tentative hand. Half curiosity, half concern. Maybe the ghost of questioning love, beneath the fear.

“If mine had stayed, it might have been different,” says Marv. His father had swum away for good, after his mother had given birth. “The sight of the blood was too much for him. Not what he came from.” Marv has seen pictures of his father, his sleek fins and smooth, strong body. He knows his gills are from that side of the family.

“I wish I’d had that, Marv. What you had. A mother who could hold you in her arms. To be held, so warm.”

KKZZZZZNK went the machinery next door. The lights flickered.

“It was good.” Marv smiles at the memory. “She knew how to make me feel safe. It wasn’t easy though. The other kids...” Marv can see their faces, twisted into jeers, now. However hard she tried to help him hide it - however sturdy the wheelchair, however many layers of blankets, hair grown out seaweed long - it was only a matter of time before word got out. Only a matter of time before their things were back in boxes, tied to the rattling flatbed of the pickup, on their way to somewhere new.

“It’s lucky we found here, Merv.”

At first Marv had remained wary. This place may have been different from the other small towns Marv and his mother had tried to settle in, but it was still a small town after all. Until one night, under a blood streaked moon, it happened. As the wicker hare crackled and melted, the banners advertising the annual May Festival fluttering in the updraft, he’d looked at the orangered flame-lit faces around him and realized he was home.

“I can see that Marv, I really can.” Merv looks down at what might have been his feet, had the tides been a little kinder to his father’s ship those long years ago, the wind less vicious. “But it’s not easy. This place.”

KZZZZZNK goes the machinery next door. Another batch of tuna canned and ready to load onto the delivery trucks. Merv shrinks down on the bench, hands over his ears.

Marv frowns. He’d tried to get Merv out the house. It was easier to stay home. The water in the bathtub was warm, and they were safe. Merv had his painting of course, but Marv still sensed that there was something wrong. A sense of distance, as if a part of him were trapped under glass.

With hindsight, a trip to the aquarium may not have been the best way to get back out into the wider world. Not after the ghost turtle had let them loose, Sid the Fortune Telling Squid and Mad Martha and the rest, to exact their revenge. They had been lucky to escape with their lives. And this trip wasn’t turning out any better.

“I know Merv. It’s not perfect. But it’s what we’ve got. We aren’t the only ones who need a place like this. Look at Murray. The guy may be a parcel of eels in a skin suit, but he makes the best of it. Do you think we’d have it any easier at sea? The clownfish would laugh us out of the water. And the sharks.” Marv shudders. The great shadowy shapes moving through dark tides haunted his dreams.

“It doesn’t stop me wanting it, Marv. I could see them again. Maybe I could find her...” Merv too wakes restless from dreams: his hundred brothers and sisters playing in the current, so tiny a guppy could swallow them whole. The seaweed forest they could get lost in for hours, rippled light down from the surface of the water. His mother’s eyes, round and shining in the dark.

“You found me, didn’t you?” Marv blinks his clear gray eyes a little more rapidly. Time had passed, Marv had grown, his wariness had ebbed, and this town had begun to feel like somewhere he could stay. But that retreating tide didn’t last. Soon it was replaced by something else, a new need that grew, a trickle at first, but gathering little by little, into a rising flood, until its current ran in a surge through his body. He didn’t know what it was. All he knew was that he needed to be near water, and he needed to sing.

They were far from the sea. Its whisper well out of the range of even Marv’s hearing. But there was still the river. Marv saw visions of the river, night after restless night, until the weight of his longing was too much to bear. So one night he slipped out of bed, listening for the deep, even breathing in the next room that showed his mother was asleep, and wheeled himself quietly out of the house.

“You found me, more like.” Merv smiles. So many lonely nights. So much time swimming in memories. The ocean he’d lost, and everyone he’d ever loved with it. Merv had begun to think he’d never find anyone who could bring him back to the soothing water.

“You were beautiful.” Marv remembers the faint blue-green glow that had risen from Merv like a halo that night, as he lay on the jagged rocks in the center of the river, the moonlight flashing silver off his scales. His voice, deep and clear, over the water. Marv knew then what it was that he wanted, as he slipped from his chair and struck out through the chill towards the rocks.

“And so were they.” Merv remembers the small knots of men gathering along the banks of the river, as the song rose into the night in harmony. They stood perfectly still, or swayed ever so slightly to the song. Sometimes one of themwith more courage than the others perhaps, or more deeply under the spell - would wade out into the water, and get close. No watery doom would meet him, only the kiss of silver as legs and mouths and muscled tails entwined. How good it felt to share each one of them with someone Merv could love.

“Maybe we could go there. Tonight.” Marv shifts along the bench, so that his tail presses against Merv’s.

A slow smile begins to spread across Merv’s face, as gentle as a ripple of a soothing tide. “You know Marv, maybe we could.”

Leave the steam room now. Leave the pool behind you, and the canning plant next door. Leave the stink of chlorine and the tang of hot metal and smoke. And walk. Down through main street, past the general store and the portal to somewhere you’d rather not see. Past the tumbledown outer suburbs, and down to the river.

Protestantism encourages a deep, interpersonal relationship with God outside of church- take God to the mall, introduce him to friends, laugh and eat and tell him all the things you are too ashamed to tell anyone else in the car outside outside his house He already knows, of course, but is a good sport and will play along

Lately my prayers have become more and more formal I feel lousy asking my friend for things

Grant me good health (too small) Grand my family good health, grant the whole world good health and food and shelter (too big?)

It’s always selfish or grandiose

Sometimes I fear the part of myself angling towards defeat Perhaps I will dig my hand in and pull out nothing

It’s happened before but what if this time is different?

Will I grow bitter- let a second skin crawl across my once holy palmslet such callousness pervade me?

Optimism, my girl, optimism