Page 27 - The Mermaid Call

“Bad photo?” I suggested. I peered in closely at the old brown and cream print, though I already knew what they looked like: ordinary. Mimi always snorted that the bronze sculpture was the ‘Disney version’. Because “the tourists – they want beauty”. And what the tourists want, the tourists get. Violet had smallpox scars pitted across her cheeks. She was short and stocky and had a scowl fiercer than a cornered bear. Lydia had short hair, not long like on the sculpture. Mimi said they only cut their hair in those days if they had lice or they’d sold it for money, which meant they’d been pretty poor too when they were young.
Alice was tilting her head and tapping her fingers against her arm, like we were in an art gallery. “They should look more like mermaids.”
I self-consciously pulled at the tight curls at my neck, a discreet glance at my Hobbit- wide feet. As Alice started to read aloud from one of the panels.
“On their return, both Lydia and Violet served in the First World War: Violet, a nurse; Lydia, an ambulance driver. After the trenches took the lives of most of the Lake Splendour miners from the stone quarries, the Mermaid Girls single-handedly saved the village. Lydia and Violet led a movement of tradeswomen to build the tourist trade, from hotels and tearooms to boat trips and mermaid arts and crafts that you see today.”
She had a voice like a newsreader. I wished I could speak like that. If I spoke like that I might dare to put my hand up in class more.
“Look, there’s a picture of them opening up our shop in 1922!” I chipped in encouragingly, gesturing Alice to the next panel – another sepia print of Lydia and Violet cutting the ribbon in front of Enchanted Tails. Their hair was bobbed now and Lydia wore trousers.
A gasp and, “Lydia’s only got one arm! Violet has another scar on her face, like a pirate!” Alice exclaimed, in a tone like she’d been tricked.
“Er, well, they had just been to war. And it didn’t stop them making a success of the village. Ours was the first shop for the tourists and it’s passed down the women in our family for a century.” My chest was robin-puffing out. I tried not to think about the rain keeping tourists away or that I’d heard Mimi on the shop phone as I left, pleading, “I can’t give you any more