Our Wives Under The Sea by Julia Armfield

Publisher – Picador

Published – Out Now

Price – £9.99 paperback £5.99 Kindle eBook

Miri thinks she has got her wife back, when Leah finally returns after a deep sea mission that ended in catastrophe. But It soon becomes clear that Leah may have come back wrong. Whatever happened in that vessel, whatever it was they were supposed to be studying before they were stranded on the ocean floor, Leah has carried part of it with her, onto dry land and into their home.

Memories of what they had before – the jokes they shared, the films they watched, all the small things that made Leah hers – only remind Miri of what she stands to lose. Living in the same space but suddenly separate, Miri comes to realize that the life that they had might be gone.

Death, we fear often because it signifies the end of us. But the other scarier aspect of it is that it means we will lose the ones we love. Our time with our nearest and dearest is finite. We all may have the Hollywood idea of that last meaningful conversation that gives us both a sense of finality but death and grief often don’t allow that conversation to give us that closure. In Julia Armfield’s haunting Our Wives Under The Sea we have an enigmatic tale exploring someone who knows the person they loved may be lost for good and trying to hold on desperately to what they had,

Miri feared the worse when her wife Leah went to sea for an underwater science mission and vanished for nearly six months. Very few details of what was happening were shared but then the good news that Leah was back. But she is very different to the person Miri recalls. Quite lost, starting to bleed constantly, more comfortable at home than outside and often focused on staring or being immersed in water. Miri is desperate for the woman she loves to come back but something has changed Leah perhaps forever.

This a powerful strange tale of loss with Miri telling us about what has happened since Leah was found and in contrast, we find Leah’s notes of what actually happened on the expedition itself. Miri’s tale for me is the standout as here we have someone effectively starting to grieve the person, they love even though they still see them every day. Leah is not dead but increasingly absent. Not responding to chat and gradually disengaging from the world. In the process also making Miri start to hide too - she doesn’t tell her friends, doctors or authorities and her world becomes their flat silent bar constant baths being filled by Leah and the monotonous noise of next door’s television nearly 24 hours a day. It’s a metaphor for losing someone either by sudden death or long-term illness where your loved one is no longer who you recognise. Armfield has Miri comparing her intimate and personal moments of laughter, love lust and even petty rows with now Miri and Leah simply being in the same location.

We feel Miri’s aching loss and gradual acceptance that things will never return to normal. Miri contrasts this experience with the death of her mother not always someone Mirri got on with but who at least they had some form of goodbye one that here Leah will never give her. It’s a very powerful sequence exploring someone on a journey that there is no one to help with. The strangeness as Leah changes form, personality and becomes something no longer recognisably human adds tot hat feeling of loss and isolation more than if this was simply a ‘normal’ death or illness. Miri not being able to process this adds to the way grief is something that feels out of our experience especially when it is the one person you love more than anything. There is a slight niggle that so many strange things are happening that you would think Miri would try to get help; but it manages to be ambivalent as to whether Miri’s confusion gets in the way of what seems a sensible thing to do

The portion of the tale that for me works less well is Leah’s narration. Armfield opts for a cosmic horror style explanation of a vessel that goes deep and then appears somewhere unexpected and stuck possibly forever. It’s interesting but lacks the emotional power of Miri’s scenes and while its nice to have an explanation for what happens to Leah it has got too many missing answers and lacks emotional depth as we never really feel for the trio of characters lost at sea. Overall, I’m not sure the story needed this part of the tale and perhaps staying on Miri’s side and keeping explanations even vaguer would have made the tale work even better. Its is lovely to hear Leaha as she was but it for me doesn’t have quite the same impact as when miri describes the life and relationship we used to have.

Our Wives Under The Sea is lyrical, human and poignant and despite a few reservations I’m very glad I’ve been able to read it. It is exploring a subject we tend to shy away from and bravely considers our reaction to loss and love. There are no easy answers and conclusions to this story and like the subject matter that fits the human experience. we may let go but we are forever changed by the experience and what awaits us afterwards next in our lives is for us to discover alone. Definitely recommended!