She cursed at them. When had they gone Greek chorus? All she wanted was a soak and a back rub. Maybe more. Was she horny? Hadn’t she just had a baby? Damn Malik’s pheromones. She leant over, made to grab the husband’s ass.
“Carpe gluteus maximus,” she said. He didn’t notice. She thought about Malik. What if she had spent her whole life on this island? She found it hard to imagine and realized she had no regrets for not doing it. She wasn’t looking forward to the children digging through the mess of her present memories.
She could never know what might have been. She could still choose what would be. The husband was saying something and his tone was warmer, deeper. He was slow to warm up. His culture was all in his thin, slow-moving lips. Waiting for him to open his mouth was a venture into undertime every time. Malik, the other Rothesay boys, her Army and Navy friends had all been more open, more free. But they had always stayed behind and she had always gone on. She had survived the Stupidity and the Shortages, met the husband, his family, the house.
The Granny had always been careful in her dealings with Malik. She had always left everything exactly equal. He had been her unacknowledged failsafe and she knew he knew it. But she could never allow him to have any power over her house or family.
If the Granny left her mother here, Malik would not only own her: he’d also have a hold on the family. She couldn’t do that. She had married into this house and family with no strings attached. She couldn’t tie them to the Somalis, to the Free Island.
But here she was, eighty-three years old and still dealing with her mother. It wasn’t what she wanted. She wanted to talk about baby names with the husband. She wanted to compare bone loss with her friends. She hadn’t kept up with the obits—who knew who might be dead? Instead it was her mother, always her mother. Dead, but not taking it. Imagining reintegrating two-hundred-plus iterations gave the Granny a headache. Maybe it would keep her mother busy for a while.
The children were trying to pick up the baby and she knew they’d drop her. She told the house to take the kids away. The baby said, “Wait! I was enjoying that.”
“Early lesson, kid,” the Granny said. “Nothing lasts.”
When she woke again, she wanted to get up. The Granny felt happier than she had been in a long time. Damn her hormones. Perhaps there was nothing for it but to okay her mother’s return. After feeding the baby, the house opened a new door to the kitchen so that the Granny and the husband could sidestep the children.
The house provided the Granny’s porridge in a rough bowl with a wooden spoon and she walked slowly as she ate: feeling unfamiliar pains; enjoying her buttery-peppery meal. She selectively muted her nose to cut out the smell of the husband’s sugary, milky porridge.
The baby was quieter now that the wives had taken possession of the blankets and the crib, surrounding her and talking to her. She wanted a name now in a way she hadn’t before being born. She liked the control she had of her body out here. The Granny wasn’t going to force the baby to grow up as fast as she had had to. Neonatal augments were much improved since the Granny’s childhood. There were still a few unpleasant ones that were best done straight away. The baby became less happy.
The husband visited but the Granny knew the baby still wouldn’t speak to him. He left quickly. The Granny tried to remember if he had always been so swift to take umbrage. “What about my grandmother?” the baby asked. None of the wives said anything.
Malik was calling the Granny and she told the house not to let him through.
The Dead Mother was calling but the Granny was in bed, not answering. She had her worn and comfy woolen blankets tucked up around her and the baby. The baby was gurning away and the Granny was experimenting with a soft jolting rocking that calmed both of them. Iterations of her Dead Mother were calling, trying to re-up to the frozen body. Which was still in the basement, not yet transported to Malik’s.
The house wanted to tell her something but the Granny knew she’d asked the house not to tell her whatever it was. The house could signal all it wanted. She wasn’t listening.
“Sarah?” The Dead Mother whispered through the house.
The Granny heard a heavy arrhythmic hammering on the front door and had a presentiment that her life as a new mother was about to become even more complicated.
The house showed her what was waiting outside the front door. It was woman-shaped and the Granny got an impression of wetness, of solidity and fluidity Dopplering back and forth into one another. The Granny was entranced but unhappy as she watched one of the wives flow into and then open the door.
It walked in. It was a she and she was a selkie.
She was at least as tall as the Granny and here, in the middle of nowhere, she was dressed to kill. The Passive Wave Imager scans showed the selkie’s land-musculature meant she could follow through on her red dress’s promises. The wives were leading the selkie into the house, shaking umbrellas, toggling switches, riffling papers, leading her into the front room which the house was quickly redoing in hard, waterproofed, sea-colored chairs.
The house wanted to update the Granny’s blood to counter conjectured infections from the selkie. The Granny shooed away the needles and sprays. She asked the wives to look after the baby and pulled a midnight blue suit and a pair of black flats from the closet. The chimera wasn’t the only one who could dress up.
The Granny should have been suspicious a month ago when her mother helped the selkie. Her mother wasn’t known for her selflessness.
As she dressed, the Granny watched the selkie. She was fascinated by the selkie’s large, strong-looking teeth. There was more space between them than in a human woman’s mouth.
The selkie ignored the chairs in the front room. She stood at the window looking out at the sea. She appeared used to waiting.
The Granny put on a bracelet, picked up the baby, and sent a message to the husband telling him to meet her in the front room.
She didn’t wait for his reply. As soon as she entered the front room the selkie spoke.
“I want my body.”
It was the wrong rhythms, but it was the Dead Mother’s voice. The Granny sat, too startled to introduce herself to something that obviously already knew her, too mesmerized to attempt politeness. She’d seen film of selkies in the water. In her heads-up display she overlaid images of a selkie’s water body onto the one standing in front of her. She wanted to see how the change worked but there were no images publicly available. She felt as if cold lights were sparking in her throat. She was allergic to the thing. The house reminded her of the blood update and she okayed it. A needle popped out of her chair into the underside of her arm. “Ach!” she said. With the baby around she was trying not to swear.
“Burial means nothing,” the selkie said.
The Granny told herself this wasn’t her mother. Her mother had just dropped an iteration of herself into the selkie with a compulsion to come after the Granny if her mother didn’t send a regular update. The Granny thought about how the selkie had gotten to Bute. The land in between. The water.
There was a peremptory knock and the husband came in. He looked flustered.
“I am wanting my body,” the selkie said to the Granny, showing her well-developed canines.
“Pleased to…” the husband said, and put out his hand. The selkie looked at his hand, turned back to the Granny.
“Well,” he said. He sat on the arm of the Granny’s wingbacked chair and she slipped her arm around his waist.
She leant in and smelt the hot soup of sweat on him. She loved him: it reminded her that she didn’t love very many people. What this baby was doing to her. She’d be asking the house for pink walls and doilies under the tea cups next.