I floated in the pool throughout the planning session, in fact, dipping my head occasionally, smoothing back my wet hair. Periodically I’d hold a mouthful of mojito in my cheek pouches, just see how long I could keep it there. After a while Gina joined me, and we hung side by side, our arms adrift in the chlorinated water, our fingers pruney. A soldier would pass by, now and then, stopping to refill our cups. We felt strangely content. (“Here we are,” said Gina, “in a swimming pool in the tropics, and at regular intervals young, muscular men in uniforms supply us with intoxicants.”)
She’d already shelved her vow to drink no cocktails, in fear of Thompson, and I didn’t remind her of it.
It was so satisfying, such a relief to watch Nancy sitting, talking, every bit as alive as a person can reasonably be. A reassurance of comforting proportions—almost enough to dispel the fear I’d been nursing earlier of loathing, of all the loathing crowds, the mermaid haters descending.
And I could consign them to the screen, almost, for a brief time: I could believe they only lived in that small, glowing rectangle. When I was a child and got scared by a TV show or movie, my mother used to say to me, “It’s not real, darling. It’s just pretend.” I’d loved it when she said that. I willingly believed everything bad was made up only for entertainment—nothing terrifying was real, nothing real was terrifying. Only in stories did the witches cackle, their mouths gaping open to show yellow, razor-sharp teeth; only on Hollywood sets were there wars, cruelty, the tragic deaths of unspeakably beautiful and innocent creatures. In life there were none of these.
I said that to myself when I thought of the screen, full of the angry words of people who had never seen the mermaids but nonetheless hated them.
How small it was, that screen. Irrelevant, maybe. A triviality.
Anyway, Nancy was determined to go out again first thing in the morning. We’d line up some boats, we’d motor out to where the armada had dropped anchor, and we’d boldly confront it. Nancy said she didn’t even know if it was legal to drop those commercial fishing nets where they were dropping them, near the reefs—in fact, she strenuously doubted it. She’d like to hire a local attorney, she said, but that would have to wait—at least till businesses opened on Tortola, maybe even the U.S. islands, St. Croix, there had to be some lawyers familiar with the local situation.
In the meantime, we’d go out onto the ocean and board the armada, take on its leaders. Why, we’d defy them openly.
I swear, that parrotfish expert seemed to have no fear. She’d been far less affected by her death than we had.
In her experience, she’d been kidnapped; she’d been locked in a storeroom for a few days, treated with casual rudeness and brought paper plates of cold French fries to eat. There hadn’t been a microwave, plus the ketchup was watery. And they’d unlawfully injected narcotics. But still, she hadn’t particularly feared an escalation of the violence (Janeane could barely believe this, thought Nancy was the bravest woman ever to walk the earth). She’d fallen asleep fully clothed after the party in Chip’s and my cabana; next thing she knew she woke up on a cot in a storeroom that smelled of disinfectant and onions.
So that’s what Nancy had endured, but meanwhile, we’d endured her death—possibly even her murder!
Later she’d come back to life, but still. Attitude-wise, we’d taken a hit. Nancy had a can-do sensibility, while the rest of us were hesitant—with the exception of Thompson. He was still waiting impatiently for a chance to lob his grenade.
Anyway, Nancy got Miyoko on board—this scene too, she said, we needed to broadcast live; could Miyoko arrange for it?—and then she asked Raleigh for the loan of his beret-clad troops.
At first he hemmed and hawed, mulling it over since it wasn’t exactly low-profile, but eventually, once he had enough mojitos/beers in him, he seemed to give his consent. You got the feeling the soldiers hadn’t seen too much action, there in the British Virgin Islands. You got the feeling what they really wanted was just for something to happen.
Plus Miyoko had just agreed to go out to dinner with Sam, once the mermaid emergency was past. I think Raleigh wanted to show his solidarity.
IT WASN’T EVEN light out when Ellis came barging into our room. He and Gina’d been sleeping in the adjacent one, through the unlocked door, and now he stumbled across the threshold in a torn, oversize Sex Pistols T-shirt and Monty Python boxers, mumbling and pushing his bangs out of his eyes. He typically sports a tousled, Hugh-Granty look. “The deputy governor’s here,” he said, having reverted to his approximately Oxbridge accent and away from the fake cockney of indignation. “Also a minister. I rang them yesterday.”
I was groggy, but awake enough to register shock: apparently Ellis had accomplished something. In general he carries off the dentistry, the accent, and the women; there the triple whammy ends. Things Ellis doesn’t do and rarely remembers to delegate: Stock his refrigerator. Clean his condo. Pay bills. Fix what’s broken.
Chip and I pulled on some clothes and joined Gina and Ellis in their room, where they stood at the door talking.
“Let them in!” said Chip. “Please. We’re decent.”
So two people entered, dressed
