The Night of the Half Moon

“I blame his grandfather” said Sally Henson, and it sounded more peevish than she had meant it to, but she would have been lying if she’d said she was sorry it did.

“And I take it I don’t need to ask which grandfather you mean?” her husband Alec asked, rhetorically.

It seemed as if they were going to quarrel, and neither of them wanted it, but neither of them intended going out of their way to avoid it. Sally, who always believed in being fair, said, “Your father is a good man, Alec, and he’s always been kind to me. I like his stories, too. And when Bruce was a little boy, well, that was fine.”

“So you’re saying a grown man should have no imagination?” asked Alec.

“I’m not saying that for one minute and you know it. An imagination is a wonderful thing. But this is getting beyond imagination.”

“Would you prefer it if he were always online or on his phone?”

“No, of course not! And I won’t deny I was mightily relieved when he wasn’t clamouring for a new phone for his birthday like some of his friends would, when we’re only just getting the business back on its feet again. But there’s such a thing as a happy medium. And I’m beginning to think he doesn’t know the difference between fantasy and reality.”

“I hope you’re not calling our son a fantasist!”

“No, at least not …. not like that, but you must admit that for a lad of his age – he’ll be starting university next year – some of the things he still believes are a bit worrisome. A bit, well, not normal!”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! You’re making it sound as if he still believes in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.”

“But is this really any better? You know where he is right now? Out on the beach with Victor. And before you say there’s nothing wrong with that, I have no problems at all with him being in the fresh air and …. and doing a bit of beachcombing. He’s found a couple of interesting bits and pieces that have been quite conversation pieces in the guest house. But you know those are basically just alibis. Victor will be telling him those tales about the wave-maidens, and how he saw one when he was a lad, and how though he worshipped the ground Emily walked on, there was a part of him that still longed for the wave-maiden. For the girl from the waters of the North Sea, who will appear on the beach one morning and take him in her arms and be more perfect than any girl who was land-born. Sometimes I think it’s a lie that it skipped a generation, Alec, and that you’re hankering after your own wave-maiden, and I’m just as second best as Emily was!”

“That’s rubbish!” he protested. “And my mother was never second best. With all due respect, I think I knew my mother better than you did, as she passed away when we’d only been married three years. And I knew how happy my parents were and how devastated Dad was when she passed away.”

“I know that,” she said, her tone softening. But she also knew, and would never forget, that she had heard Victor say something that his son had not, and she had never told him. “You’ve gone to the wave-maidens now, love. You can finally be one of them.” The mythology seemed to be decidedly woolly, thought Sally, if sea-borne maidens shared the waves of the North Sea with rejuvenated grandmas. Perhaps it was best not to think of such matters. But how could she help it when Bruce was out on the beach with his grandfather, and Victor was telling him more of his tales, and Vic was not developing even the slightest tendency to cynicism. Though, perhaps forewarned by his grandpa, he tried to tone things down a bit in front of her, and she knew it.

But what was she to do? He was a good lad. He was polite and worked hard at school, and more than pulled his weight at the Wisteria guest house on the South Promenade in the little Lincolnshire resort town where they lived, though unlike some “guest house parents” they never over-worked him and treated him like unpaid labour. He had always been far less trouble (Sally felt vaguely guilty at her use of the word trouble though she doubted Zoe herself would have objected) than his older sister Zoe. There had been a couple of very difficult years when Zoe thought being asked to make a bed occasionally was an infringement of her human rights, and when the landlord at the Sandcastle Inn had more than once had to have a quiet word with them about her attempts at under-age drinking. Not being naïve (and having a good memory of her own teens) Sally was pretty sure that the fact Zoe was barred from drinking at the Sandcastle didn’t mean she didn’t drink. She had not achieved the grades they hoped for in her A-levels, and had refused their offer of help with tuition for re-takes. But in the end, things hadn’t turned out too badly at all. She had accepted a place at a university not of her choice, one that was neither venerable nor fashionable, but now she was doing well, and even keeping in touch with her family quite voluntarily. She was genuinely fond of Bruce, whom she still called her “little brother” though he had long since towered over her, but was not averse to calling him her loopy brother. The worst of it was, Sally couldn’t disagree with her, and had begun to wonder if having a child who was rebellious was preferable to having a child who was loopy.

“I – can have a word if you like,” said Alec. “With Dad.”

Sally shook her head. “You know you’ve tried that once already, and it did no good, he just said that Bruce was a fine boy – which he is, of course. The last thing I want to do is drive a wedge between them. I like it that they’re so close. I just wish …..”

The row hadn’t really materialised, and both were relieved, but knew that the problem was still there.

The odd thing was that Victor Henson wasn’t the kind of man who immediately struck you as remotely airy-fairy. He was tall and broad shouldered, strong even as old age sprinkled pepper and salt on his hair, but with a kind of no-nonsense intense gentleness about him. He liked practical things – fiddling with car engines (though fiddling was unfair, as he seemed to be able to bring cars back to life even more efficiently than the people on one of his favourite TV shows, Bangers and Cash) and tending his vegetable patch, and was one of the stalwarts of the Pub Quiz Team from the Sandcastle. There seemed to be no capital city or winner of the Premier League or an Oscar that he didn’t know. Though he was, perhaps, not so interested in cars, although he had recently passed his driving test, Bruce took after him – more than he did either of his parents, and they knew it.

“I blame her grandmother,” said Marinetta. “Filling her head up with ideas and telling her tales about that Danish ancestor and how she didn’t want her to follow in her footsteps …..”

“I don’t know if that’s a wholly appropriate or wholly inappropriate phrase,” said Merion. One look from his wife told him that this was not a time to either lighten the mood (or try to) or to indulge his fascination with words. She didn’t want to dent his confidence or his eloquence , because in her opinion too many Wavemen were both too taciturn and too fond of just saying “Yes, dear”, but though she could be quite rebellious herself in some ways – stories were still told about how she had worn a crown of samphire instead of one of seaweed at her marriage feast, and how, when a little girl (and perhaps still now, unseen) she constantly disobeyed her parents’ orders about swimming round wrecks and bringing human artefacts back home. There was a limit to what you could do with plastic bottles and beach towels. But she now at least wore the superficial robes of conformity, and was deeply concerned about their daughter, Delphinia. She had aspirations of Delphinia marrying out. Oh, she knew that it would mean that any future meetings they had must be clandestine or just in their thoughts, but Delphinia, so she had thought, was the kind of girl who would be thrilled by the thought of marrying out, and though some traditionalists frowned on it, it was generally considered as a form of kudos. She had even tried to tempt her to adapt her name to Daphne as it sounded more human, but Delphinia was having none of it.

Marinetta had been at pains to assure her that if she did marry out (and she had been thrilled that that tall, handsome lad with the kind smile and the sharp but dreamy eyes had definitely seen her, no matter how much some people tried to persuade her otherwise) then it wouldn’t be at all the way it had in the days of the Danish maiden all those years ago. Some even said it was just a made-up story and not real at all. Marinetta didn’t go that far. She was pretty sure that she had existed. But she had given in too easily and her parents hadn’t known to handle it at all. “ You would not be robbed of your power of speech, and you would not feel as if sharp knives were stabbing your feet every time you walked,” she assured her, “I have heard it from others,” neither of them needed to elucidate what she meant by “heard”. “For sure, at first it would be uncomfortable, and you may be awkward, and I can see how that would bother a maiden as graceful as you are, but you would get used to it in time, and think nothing of it, and even forget the days when swimming was your normal way of getting around.”

She realised those words were a mistake the moment they were out. “Mama, I have no wish to forget how to swim or to be deprived of swimming,” she said. “How could you think I would welcome such a thing?”

“There would be no need to if you didn’t want to,” Marinetta hastily replied, “Remember that the tall young man with the kind smile lives by the sea and loves it, loves it dearly and deeply as few humans do.”

“That may be so,” Delphinia conceded. “And I bear him no ill will at all, but I have no wish to marry out.”

“Is there – already someone who has caught your eye?” Marinetta asked.

Delphinia laughed her liquid laugh and tossed the golden and turquoise tendrils of her hair. “Oh, no indeed, Mama! To be sure, I have friends who are waveboys, but they are only like brothers to me.” Marinetta had never told her daughter that she had lost a boy child, she thought perhaps one day she would, but suspected that her daughter already had some notion of it. Her daughter had only confirmed what she suspected anyway. She supposed she was relieved, but couldn’t help thinking that she might almost prefer her daughter – who was a good and virtuous maiden after all – were flirting just a little rather than listening to her grandmother’s dangerous talk.

“I have tried to tempt her to look more favourably on marrying out by pointing out that she could further her learning,” Marinetta went on, to her husband. “But she says that that’s not the answer and that we should aspire to greater learning in our own kingdom, rather than pick up others’ crumbs.”

“I suppose she does have a point, dear,” said Merion, and recalling her recent thought that she wished her were more assertive, she was reminded of the phrase “Beware of What You Wish For”.

Grandmother Gerda was both hugely respected and regarded with some trepidation. Mothers wanted their daughters to be in her favour, but not to necessarily associate with her too much.

Delphinia had no time for such contradictory strictures. And there seemed to be an entirely natural transition from the childhood tales she told her, to what she said as she progressed towards womanhood. Gerda had her own views on the matter of marrying out, and they were not positive. “I am not going to condemn any maiden who does,” she said. “That is not my place, and I wish her and her human well. But isn’t it time we finally took pride in our own heritage and didn’t feel we have to adopt the ways of the Landlivers and try to become unnoticed among them?” Delphinia wasn’t sure if anyone but her grandmother used the term “Landlivers”, but she was certainly the one who used it most. It wasn’t any kind of an insult. She held no prejudices against the Landlivers, but refused to accept that there was something superior about trudging and trailing rather than swishing and swimming and swirling. “Mama says that we would not suffer now as the Danish maiden did,” she said.

“In one way she is not wrong,” Grandmother Gerda said, thoughtfully. “I will never lie to you nor try to frighten you when there is no cause for it. But think on this, child. There are pains that come from the heart and the soul, and not from the body, and you can have the power of speech, but never be able to say what you really wish and are really thinking.”

“It is the night of the half moon tonight,” said Marinetta. “The time when the land and the sea are most likely to meet.”

“It is the night of the half moon tonight,” said Sally. “And you know full well that Bruce has told him those tales about it being the time when the land and the sea are most likely to meet.” She said no more. She knew that she couldn’t ask, let alone try to compel Victor to stay in the house. He wasn’t a child any more, and it was November, and night fell and the moon rose early.

And on the night of the half moon, when the wind blowing from the North Sea and from the lands beyond it cleared the clouds, a young man walked on the beach, alone this time, not with his grandfather. He looked out to the waves, to the silver-tinted waves, and saw one of them transform, and take on tones of gold and turquoise. And eyes met, and thoughts fused, and souls spoke, and time stood still.