The Mermaid's Child by Jo Baker Page A

rain, I told myself. He had made it rain.
    We both stood there a moment longer, me pressing myself breathlessly back against the wall, and him standing, not moving, just staring at someone’s shut-tight door. Its paint was peeling, blue.
    Slowly, he stepped up towards the door. He lifted a fist, then hesitated, his hand suspended a moment in front of the boards. Then he knocked and immediately stepped back. I couldn’t see his face: his quarter-profile was dark against the brightness beyond. He waited just a moment, not really long enough for anyone to answer, then stepped forward and knocked again. Impatient, I realized, wanting to get it over with. Whatever it was.
    I heard bolts being drawn back, watched as the door was scraped open on darkness. Inside, a figure; substantial, paler than the shadows. Joe moved forward, lifting his right hand, extending it to be shaken. The figure didn’t move. A moment’s awkwardness. Joe’s hand fell back to his side.
    â€œAll I’m asking,” I heard him say, “is that you give me one more chance. Just one. That’s all I’m asking.”
    â€œIt doesn’t work like that.” The voice was dark; it brought with it a sense of bulk, of heavy strength. “You played thegame, and you lost, so now you hand over the goods. That’s the way it works.”
    â€œI’ll pay you double what you’d get on the open market.”
    A low-pitched growl, indecipherable.
    â€œI can get the money. No problem. That’s what I’m telling you. It’s no problem.”
    â€œYou made the stake. You honour it.”
    â€œI’m offering you a better deal.”
    â€œI’m not interested.”
    â€œI can understand that,” Joe’s voice sparked with animation. “I understand what you’re saying. You’re right to be suspicious, you’ve every reason to be. Because what I’m offering you is pretty much unbelievable. What I’m offering you is the best deal you’ll ever—”
    For some reason, my mouth had gone dry. He was still speaking, but all the energy seemed to be slipping away from him as he spoke. His voice began to take on a failed, husky quality.
    â€œI mean,” he said, “when it comes down to it, what’s the kid worth, really, anyway?”
    The press of cold stone against my palms and shoulderblades.
    â€œYou saw last night’s takings,” he added. “A pittance, it was. Just pennies. And to be honest with you, that was one of the better nights—”
    There was acid rising in my throat.
    â€œI’m a fool to myself, but that’s why I’m saying—the only way you stand to make any money out of this—”
    The other man’s voice was low: “There’s always a market for young flesh,” he said.
    I found myself sliding back along the wall, slipping into the darkness of a narrow ginnel. I still remember the smell ofthe place: decay and emptiness. I stretched out a hand to the wall. The stone was sweating. I leaned over, and, quietly as possible, vomited.
    For a while I was conscious of little more than that: the heave of my guts, the choking feeling in my throat, the sick in my mouth. When the sickness passed and I was able to wipe my lips, and spit, and then peer out of the ginnel’s shadows, he had gone and the street was deserted. I came back out and leaned against a wall, breathing.
    What was it he’d said, that first night on the valley road, when he’d agreed to take me with him?
It’s not what you think it is, you know. It’s never what it seems to be
. Everything, everything that had ever happened since I met him seemed to have become loose and shifting. Memories slipped and tumbled like coins, like dice. I wanted to go after him, to confront him, to make him explain, to make him tell me what it was that I had so far failed to understand, but my legs felt weak beneath me, and I didn’t