How the tide turns

Jay stirred. He felt cold and something else. The sand around his face had got into the side of his mouth and as he licked his lips, he felt the grit on his tongue and in his throat as he swallowed. He pulled up his head and looked around. “Shit,” he said, as he spat out most of it. His head was thumping and as well as grit, he could taste stale Guinness. It took him a good 30 seconds to realize where he was. It was dark and damp. He was under the pier.

“Great, fucking great! What a perfect way to start the New Year.”

He propped himself up against the nearest wooden pillar and searched in his pocket for a cigarette. Nothing! No cigarettes, no phone and no wallet. “This day can’t get any worse”, he thought. 2024 was supposed to be his year. The year he landed the job, the girl, and completed his debut novel, that would give Brendan Behan a run for his money!

He pulled his leather jacket around him and ran his fingers through his dark mop. He tried to remember the last moments of 2023, but they were gone. He knew he had started the night with John and Rob, but obviously, the fuckers had left him! 

“Typical fucking white people”, he said out loud.

Jay heard a rustling behind him and realized he wasn’t alone. “Is that you Rob?” he grunted.

There was no reply, just more rustling and what sounded like someone kicking in a puddle.

Still leaning against the pillar, Jay put all his energy into focusing on finding the source of the sound. There was a figure sitting on a rock under the pier, but a bit closer to the edge of the incoming tide. He focussed so hard his head started to thump louder. He could make out a silhouette. The next sound he heard was a heavy sigh, but it was a girl sigh, not a guy sigh. 

“Maybe it wasn’t such a bad night. Looks like I might have pulled!” he thought.

“Hey!” Jay called out.

The silhouette let out another sigh, deeper than the first. Jay steadied himself against the pillar and stood up. It was high enough for him to stand easily. “Shit, I’ve obviously pissed her off”, he thought. He moved cautiously towards the rock. As he moved closer, he was able to make out the shape of a girl. She had long wavy hair and big brown eyes. Then he stopped. “Am I still pissed?” he asked himself. "What the fuck?” His mind was racing, trying to remember if they’d done anything else last night, but he couldn’t “Where are your legs?” he spluttered.

The girl looked up and stared straight through him. “Haven’t you seen a mermaid before, dick?”. 

“Er no, funny enough I haven’t”. Jay said.

Strange thoughts flashed through his mind. How could she get into the pub with a tail? Had they done anything and if so, how? Does she like the Pogues?

When he pictured his perfect woman, he hadn’t pictured a mermaid. “Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers,” he thought. He hadn’t been with a girl for over a year. “All white women are racist,” he said to himself. He refused to accept his friend Jane’s analysis, that smoking 40 cigarettes and drinking 8 pints a day, and refusing to wear deodorant had anything to do with his luck.  

“Before you ask, no”, she said, still staring straight into his eyes. No smile, no frown, just looking.

“No what?” said Jay

“No we didn’t meet last night and no we didn’t do anything”, she said. 

“Is she reading my fucking mind?” Jay thought.

“Oh, right, OK. So…what’s your name?” he asked.

“Lara,” she said firmly.

“ Like Lara Croft”, he said, immediately wishing he hadn’t. Why did he have to sound like such a dick?

She didn’t bother answering, just rolled her eyes and sighed again.

They were about a meter apart now. He observed the shape of her. She was very curvy, with long wavy brown hair, big brown eyes, and a blue/green tail. Something stirred in Jay as he looked at her. “ What a fucking pervert”, he thought to himself but then brushed the thought aside. As mentioned, there had been a significant drought.

“You smell like shit!”, she said. She blinked and Jay was grateful. Her stares were a bit too intense for a hangover of this proportion.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Big night,” said Jay.

“Are you o.k? You don’t look too happy” he said

“Not really, but I doubt you can do anything about it”, she replied.

Jay doubted that too, but considering this might be an opportunity, he thought he should have a crack anyway.

“Look, you never know, I might be able to help. Tell me what’s wrong and maybe we can sort it out together”, he said.

She looked at him for what seemed like an age.

“Ok, I’m supposed to find a husband before my 21st birthday but guess what..that’s tomorrow. If I don’t come back with a suitable boy by tomorrow night, my dad’s going to kick me out. I lose everything, my home, my family, my friends…I’ll be ostracized from everyone and everything I know”, she said.

Jay was quiet for a moment. He thought about his family and how his mother was expecting him to find a nice Indian girl, very soon. He could completely understand Lara’s predicament because it was one he shared. He was the oldest child and was expected to marry first. His sisters hated him, as they were forced to wait their turn. His mother regularly told him how the whole family was being shunned by the community because of him. A grown-ass man who couldn’t do anything decent with his degree and had nothing to offer any of the nice girls she had up her sleeve.

“She’s expecting a nice Indian girl, not a fucking mermaid”, he thought. He knew she was going to have real trouble accepting anything else. He wondered if she would prefer a mermaid over the white girls in Doc Martens he had snuck into his room on the odd occasion. Yes, he still lived with his mum at 32 years old.

“I’m not married”, he heard himself say out loud.

Lara looked him up and down with a level of obvious disdain.

“I’m desperate, but am I that desperate”, Lara thought to herself. She took a closer look at Jay. Disheveled, very smelly, and with half his face covered in sand, he didn’t make the best impression. There was something about Jay that Lara couldn’t quite put her finger on. She had the feeling that they had known each other before, a comfortableness and a warmth that didn’t make sense. His eyes were big and brown, just like hers. His messy mop of sand-filled, wavy black hair, fell over one eye, and the way he tossed it back off his face was endearing to her. 

“What the hell am I thinking?” she thought to herself.

“You know the score. If you come down with me, you’ll lose your legs. You won’t be able to see your family again…well, only with a tail”, she said.

“Do they have Guinness down there?” Jay asked.

Lara looked at him. “What a fucking idiot”, she thought. But then she saw the corner of his mouth was turned up and his big brown eyes were smiling.

“No, but we do have cool music, poetry, great literature, and the most beautiful landscapes you will ever experience”, Lara replied.

“Fuck it”, let’s do it”, said Jay smiling. “This is New Year’s Day 2024, so let’s have the biggest adventure of our lives!”

“Ok,” she laughed. “You’ll need to brush your teeth first though!”

Jay laughed loudly and Lara couldn’t help but join in.