'Clint Eastwood is a Mermaid' by Audrey Niven

We’re fanny-deep in a loch on a Tuesday morning in June. Margaret has managed to get herself into the water and out as far as her feet don’t touch with a cigarette still on the go. How is that even possible? Floating there in a flowery cap from 1973, fag clenched in Prairie Red lips. 

‘Only gets worse the longer you stand there’ Gerda says, pulling me with her. 

‘C’mon,’ Peggy behind me, urging me in. My knees are screaming, hips, belly, tits bobbing in their lycra sling, cold needling every wrench and kick. What are we doing? Margaret takes the last draw of her cigarette and lobs the but across the water. 

‘Litterin,’ says Peggy. 

‘She’ll no listen,’ says Gerda. ‘Law unto herself’  

Margaret swims meandering laps out and back. 

‘Dook your shoulders under, hen. It’s the only way.’  The water rings my neck, a freezing noose. I gasp and push my arms out, fighting back, inching into the liquid dawn. Everything is sharp. Clear. I sink and rise again spluttering, ice-hearted. 

‘Cures what ails you,’ Margaret says hoisting herself up the beach, water dripping from her arse. She skins off her swimsuit and shakes herself like a dog, bare body rolling this way and that in the rising sun. ‘Fuck I feel good,’ she yells, as she throws a poncho over her head. 

When I come out, they towel and dress me. Pull up my pants, button my shirt as I stand helpless, crying. Margaret drives us home, cigarette dancing in the corner of her mouth as she talks. 

'When we get there, we’ll see you inside. Say hello to that man of yours.’ The others nod. Shame burns, but the freeze round my throat begins to melt.

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Audrey Niven is a Scottish writer and Creative Coach based in London. Her work is published in multiple anthologies including Bath Flash Fiction Award and NFFD with nominations for Best of the Net and The Pushcart Prize. She is the founder and EIC of The Propelling Pencil.