The Mermaid of Black Conch

by Monique Roffey

Genres: Fairy Tales, Folk Tales, Legends & Mythology; General Fiction; Historical Fiction; Romance

Synopsis

Escape to the ocean with the entrancing, unforgettable winner of the Costa Book of the Year.
Features original music created for the audiobook.
'Mesmerising' MAGGIE O'FARRELL
'A unique talent' BERNARDINE EVARISTO
'Wonderful' BRIDGET COLLINS
'Brilliant' CLARE CHAMBERS
Near the island of Black Conch, a fisherman sings to himself while waiting for a catch. But David attracts a sea-dweller that he never expected - Aycayia, an innocent young woman cursed by jealous wives to live as a mermaid.
When American tourists capture Aycayia, David rescues her and vows to win her trust. Slowly, painfully, she transforms into a woman again. Yet as their love grows, they discover that the world around them is changing - and they cannot escape the curse for ever . . .
'A bittersweet love story.' BBC News
'A fiercely modern mermaid story' The Times
'Wondrous . . . A striking achievement' Sunday Times
'Not your standard mermaid' MARGARET ATWOOD

Release date: July 12, 2022

Publisher: Vintage

Print pages: 240

Sample

3

Back on Land 

David Baptiste’s journal, April 2015

Well, when I saw her hanging upside down, like reverse cruci-fied, my heart stop and my blood run cold cold cold. So, they ketch her. My worse fear. I kept up with their boat for an hour or so, but left before they hook her good. They were heading far out. I turn back; I already had a bad feeling in my gut that my boat engine might lure her to them. So I turn back, but too late. My damn fault they pull her out of the sea, bring she back half-dead. I figure she was dead when I saw her hanging so, upside down, mouth and hands tie up, just like a crab ready for the market. I feel shame, man, to see her like that, and I figured quick quick how to cut her down. I was fraid something bad go happen otherwise. Men could get on bad in these parts with too much alcohol, with a thing like this. Miss Rain wouldn’t like it at all. I knew that. She was very particular about women and how they get treated.

fetch a wheelbarrow from my neighbour’s yard and put it in the back of my pickup truck and drive down quiet and slow.

Ce-Ce’s parlour pack up with fellers liming and drinking and I drove past, recognising half of them. Was lucky that rain coming down. It kept them inside. I drove to the end of the jetty and see her there, hanging next to the big marlin. I think about all the times I saw her in the sea by the rocks off Murder Bay, watching me. All the times we stare each other down. All them times I wonder how God made her and why. The amount of times I say, “Come, dou dou, come, nuh.” I hurried fast down the jetty with the wheelbarrow and my cutlass.

Rain coming down even harder then. Her body look cold and dull under the jetty light. Her eyes were closed. But I see her chest rise and fall. I put the barrow under her and with two hard blows to the rope she fell down, half into the barrow. She slump heavy heavy, like a big snake. I knew I had only a few minutes to carry she away. I covered her with a tarp and wheel her to my truck. It was a struggle— taking all my strength to shoulder her fast into the tray.

When I reach home, I bring the hose inside the house and I empty the bathtub of what it have: old boat engine, boat parts, all kind of thing get pelt in there. At the time I would shower with a bucket out back. Same house I still live in now. I build it myself thirty years back, on land Miss Rain say I could buy from her over time. I build the place from wood and concrete that I beg and borrow— that kind of thing, bits and pieces left over from houses my cousins build. Back then, it already have two floors, and a place to cook on a small two-gas burner stove. It have one table, two chairs, one big bed upstairs. No electricity. I used hurricane lamps at night. The tub wasn’t even plumbed in. I found it in another person’s yard. I figure I could use it one day, and I was right. Of course, Rosamund came and blew most of the house away that year. Little by little, I build it back.

I full the tub to the brim. I emptied one whole box of Saxa salt into it. Only then I start to panic. When I freed the mer-maid from the jetty she was still alive. I only had one thing on my mind: to keep her alive overnight. Only God knew what them Yankee men would do with her, sell her to a museum, or worse, Sea World. I wanted to put her back in the sea. I knew I couldn’t get her into my boat that same night. I would need help. She was too heavy for me to carry alone from home and then to my boat. First things first. Cut her down. Then I planned to take her in my boat the next night, take her far far out and put her back; I would ask Nicer to help me. Carry she back to the sea, set her free again. I never figure she might stay. All of that was to come. When I first bring she back I ketch my ass just to get her from the tray of the truck into the tub. She was waking up too, in the rain, and I was frighten she might start to beat up.

I carry she like an old roll-up piece of carpet, over one shoul-der, and put her in the tub. Then she startled and realise what going on. Her mouth was still gagged and her hands tied up, too, behind her back, but her eyes flew open wide and she start to make loud squawking noises. I put my hand to her mouth and say, “Hush, dou dou. Hush, nuh. Is me, is me, you safe. Safe. Hush.”

But she frighten real bad. It took me the rest of the night and half the next day to settle her down in that tub and I didn’t untie her hands or mouth till well into the next afternoon, and only when I figured she knew who I was, the rasta man with the guitar who tempted her up from the waves, the one who sang the hymns to the universe.

Eventually, I untied her mouth and she didn’t squawk.

“Remember me?” I say.

But she made no sign she knew me at all. She just drink the water from the tub and lay down low as if she hiding sheself, even though her tail poke out.

She watched me the whole day. Like we’d never met. I was unsure of myself, but I knew I’d have to get her back in the sea. The next day, I untied her hands and still she just lay there flat, flat in the tub, watching me, and I wonder what the hell she was thinking about. Already, I see she tail drying up and she was looking smaller. I poured some rum on a deep wound from the gaff hook near the top of her tail, hoping it would heal up.