by Jodie Daber
If you think it’s propellers I can’t love you any more, she said, licking the salt off her lips. Fuck off, he said and toed the corpse with his welly. The cut was inches deep, a spiralling rend from head to tail. This must make nearly thirty, she said, and that’s just the ones over here. He was hungry and it was a fair walk to the pub. It’s propellers, he said, let’s go.
Their flesh stinks of piss, you know, and they can live for centuries. It’s possible they could have come this far. They call them Sleeper Sharks. Her hand in his felt cold and stiff, a little scrimshaw paw. In that moment he was as tired as he had ever been.
He had the steak and ale pie and she had the Giant Yorkshire with roast beef and onion gravy. Later they drank whisky although they didn’t really like it. The argument came up again and he accused her of being contrary and purposefully twee. They’d made up by the time they got home but she still remembered in the morning.
She came up with the mermaid theory just to wind him up. They have teeth in their skin like sharks, you know. They seduce the seals, drag them down to blissful death, their squid beaks biting through the blubber in a tearing kiss. Seals are cut on the bias, you know, like my green dress.
When she got home the next evening he’d printed out a fat report. These are real scientists and they’ve solved the mystery, he said. It is propellers. They’ve discounted your Greenland shark, although for some reason they don’t mention mermaid rape. She walked out of the house and came back an hour later with fish and chips for one.
It came to a head when they were out. You’re so fucking boring, she said, as their friends stared at their plates. You always think the right answer is the best one. He said nothing because he knew it would annoy her. What about all those feet in Newfoundland or wherever? Was that a fucking propeller? He burst out laughing and off she stropped.
He found her in the bath with a bottle of wine. He’d bought pork scratchings as a peace offering. She wouldn’t talk to him but she hadn’t locked the door. I think I know what’s doing it, he said, as she lathered her legs. It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the seal-killer, eeling through the seas in the middle of the night. Do you use your penknife or do you do it barehanded? She looked up at him and held out the soap.
Later he stroked the goosebumps on her arms and thought if they were any rougher they’d hurt his hand. He rolled onto his stomach and fell straight away to sleep. He dreamt of propellers.
In the morning there were more of them, barrel-like bodies washed up on the shore.