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The Water Children
Anne Berry
Four lives. Four defining moments which will bring them together.Owen Abingdon is haunted by nightmares of the Merfolk. He believes they have stolen his little sister who vanished while he was meant to be minding her on the beach, but he was only a child himself. Is it fair for his mother to blame him?Catherine Hoyle's perfect Christmas with her cousin from America was blighted when they went skating on thin ice and Rosalyn nearly died. Somehow, instead of being praised for raising the alarm, Catherine gets blamed.Sean Madigan grew up on a farm in Ireland. Learning to swim in the Shannon was his way of escaping the bitter poverty of his childhood, but it also incurred his father's wrath. He flees to England, but his heart belongs to the Shannon and her pulling power is ever near…Unlike the other three, Naomi Seddon didn't fear the sea. She'd been orphaned and placed in a children's home in Sheffield and cruelly abused. The sea offered her a way out and she revelled in its cruel power.The "water children" meet in London in the searing hot summer of 1976 and Naomi uses her siren's charm to lure Owen, Catherine and Sean into her tangled web of sexual charm and dangerous passion. A holiday in the Tuscan mountains with a flooded reservoir and its legend of the beautiful Teodora who drowned there brings this emotional drama to a powerful climax. Will the power of family, love and redemption finally help the water children conquer their fears and triumph over their childhood traumas?


ANNE BERRY
The Water Children


For Bez, my dear father-in-law, who never swam in the sea but chose to rest upon the changing tides.
1911 – 2010
‘Give your will over to the flow of me. And let me take you with me to my mother, the sea. For there a bed has been made ready.’
The Water Children, Anne Berry
No water-babies, indeed? Why, wise men of old said that everything on earth had its double in the water; and you may see that that is, if not quite true, still quite as true as most other theories which you are likely to hear for many a day. There are land-babies then why not water-babies? Are there not water-rats, water-flies, water-crickets, water-crabs, water-tortoises, water-scorpions, water-tigers and water-hogs, water-cats and water-dogs, sea-lions and sea-bears, sea-horses and sea-elephants, sea-mice and sea-urchins, sea-razors and sea-pens, sea-combs and sea-fans; and of plants, are there not water-grass, and water-crowfoot, water-milfoil, and so on, without end?
The Water Babies, Charles Kingsley
Contents
Cover (#u71162dc4-e9d9-510f-bff8-fb126a59f77f)
Title Page (#u04a1153a-0e72-5017-82e4-9f6771ee5467)
Epigraph (#u32a61a78-21d9-5436-b8c4-3d1e95679c46)

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Legend of Lake Vagli
Acknowledgements

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Anne Berry
Copyright
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 1
1961
It is the recipe for a perfect day. The sun beats down from a cloudless blue sky. The air fizzes with heat and salt. The sea glitters and shifts and curls and breaks along the three-mile stretch of pale, gold, Devonshire sand – Saunton Sands. It somersaults over mossy rocks and tangled tresses of tide wrack. It sends the beach into a nervous, excited jitter. The sea-sawing cry of gulls rises to a crescendo with their swoops and nose-dives, then quiets as the curved beaks snap at darting fish. Apart from a few surfers riding the breakers, and sporadic clusters of people guiltily enjoying their mid-week leisure break, this coastal paradise is deserted. But then it is still early morning.
Like the day itself, the Abingdon family have all the right ingredients to be perfect. It only remains to see what happens when you blend them all together. They are stepping onto the beach now, arms full, trudging determinedly through the un resisting sand. There is the mother, Ruth, tall and willowy in build, and the father, Bill, prematurely balding, a couple of inches shorter than his wife and broad-chested as a weight-lifter. And then come the two children, a tousled, fair-haired, leggy boy of eight, Owen, pulling a sturdy little girl who is almost five after him, Sarah. Sarah is protesting, her plaintive whines muffled by her scrap of a comfort blanket, once pink, now greyed, frayed and faded with constant mouthing.
‘Tell Sarah to walk properly,’ Owen calls after his parents. Neither of them pause. This expedition to find the right spot, the precise one in this unfamiliar desert terrain, is a serious business. ‘She’s dragging her feet!’ He gives his sister’s tiny hand a shake, and pulls his brow down before rounding on her in his frustration. The sun is in his eyes so that he cannot see her face clearly. ‘I can’t carry you and the bag, now can I?’ Sarah, who clearly doesn’t see the logic of her brother’s words, or chooses not to, sits down with a thump on the sand. Sighing with an exaggerated heave then slump of his slight shoulders, the way he has seen his mother do, Owen lets go of her hand.
‘Mum, Sarah’s being really naughty!’ he cries out, but not very loudly, not nearly as loudly as he can, certainly not loudly enough to summon back his mother.
He pauses to see if his sister, fearing a reprimand, will rise to her feet, then make an effort to keep up. His life would be so much easier if only she would co-operate. But Sarah only grinds her little bottom deeper into the sand, and mutinously thrusts a thumb in her mouth. ‘Do you have to be such a big baby?’ Owen sets down his bag and drops to his knees. Hooding his eyes with a bent elbow, he can see that his sister’s, a lighter shade of blue than his own, a radiant blue, and big and round, are wet-lashed, that her bottom lip is quivering. She reaches her needy arms up to him. Instantly he feels the tightness in his chest loosen, the irritation with this sister of his, this annoying millstone, fall away as if it never was. With one hand he strokes her loose curls, so pale they are almost white, so soft they feel like dust.
‘Don’t cry, Sarah, don’t cry. It’s all right. We’ll go more slowly I promise.’ He wants to hug her, to draw the stubborn pillow of her body close to his, but he feels a bit awkward out here in the open. At home cuddling her is fine, nice really, but maybe not in public. his parents never hug outdoors, or indoors either now he thinks of it, definitely not in front of him anyway. Compromising, he moves to tickle her armpit. She gives a squeak of a giggle and rewards him with her special smile, the one warm enough to melt steel. He takes up his bag and they stand together, clasp hands, and move clumsily onwards, as if their legs are tied together in an obstacle race.
But ahead of him his mother has stopped. She is looking back at them and his father is striding towards him, so perhaps aid is on its way after all.
‘Daddy!’ exclaims Sarah in delight, and Owen’s father moves straight past him to scoop his daughter right out of his son’s grasp.
His father, Owen observes, as he watches him twirling Sarah about in his arms, is not dressed for the beach. Owen is wearing a white cotton shirt and tan shorts, his mother, a summer halter-neck dress with a pattern of daisies on a turquoise background. Sarah is wearing a green and yellow skirt and a cotton blouse with frilly short sleeves. They all have their swimming costumes on underneath their clothes. They changed into them at the guesthouse, house before they left. But his father is wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a blazer and trousers, all grey, and his shoes are polished to the gleam of a conker. On his head sits a straw boater. He looks so silly, so absurdly formal that Owen wants to burst out laughing. It is as if he has gone to lots of trouble to dress up for the beach, when most people are dressing down. He shakes his head when Owen asks if he will look after Sarah.
‘Can’t be done,’ he says, setting Sarah down gently and planting a swift kiss on her head. ‘On an important mission, son. Off to fetch some rocks to secure the beach mat. Got my orders and have to jump to it. You know the drill, old chap. Your mother’s setting up camp,’ he adds with a grin, gesturing in the direction of his wife. His Welsh accent is very faint. But Owen wishes even the trace of it would vanish. To him it sounds silly, vaguely comic, as if his father is a buffoon off a television comedy. Now Owen follows the direction of his stiff military hand, and sees that his mother is indeed setting up camp, that she seems to be unpacking so much they might be going to stay here for a week. ‘Still, not much further to go now. Sarah, you be good for your big brother. Chin up, Owen. Forward ho, eh?’
And then he is gone, head down, marching determinedly, his arms moving like pistons. Owen sighs. He and his sister are wearing leather sandals. Following his father’s gleaming shoes digging into the sand, the spray flying up behind him, Owen ponders that he would have taken a fair load on board by now, that each step must be uncomfortable. He grazes the corner of his mouth with his upper teeth, grasps Sarah’s pudgy hand once more, and sets off after his mother. By the time he reaches her he is feeling hot and cross again, and rather wishing they had not come on this outing at all. It is supposed to be a treat, but it is beginning to feel more like torture.
He can see that his mother is itching to unpack, to unroll the beach mat and declare ownership of their plot. The breeze keeps freeing wisps from her pony tail, and he can tell by that slight nervous tick in her cheek that she, too, is irritated. She satisfies herself by unrolling the windbreak, and with her son’s assistance driving the wooden sticks into the sand. Sarah is sitting down on the bright beach towel their Mother has opened out for her, and babbling to herself in a musical baby talk that she alone understands. She fills her chubby fists with sand and drops it all very deliberately in the lap of her skirt, marvelling at how the material dips, at how heavy the slippery yellow stuff is.
Ruth looks at her dimpled daughter, plump as a dumpling, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and the sight of her lifts her heavy heart and fills it with light. She scolds her, but her tone is at odds with her words, and her lips twitch upwards. She takes off Sarah’s blouse and skirt and shakes the sand from them. Then she makes an arch of her hands over her brow, and scans the beach in search of her returning husband. But there is no sign of him. She clucks impatiently and starts to talk under her breath. Perhaps she thinks that Owen cannot hear her when she speaks like this, but he can. Sometimes he thinks that he is especially sensitive to these mutterings, as if he is tuned into their hissing sound waves, much like a wireless set.
‘That’d be right. Just like your father. He can’t pick up any old rocks. Oh no! He has to make a performance of choosing them, selecting them, hefting them over and over in his hands. How heavy are they? How smooth? How suitable for the task? As if anybody cares. As if anyone gives a damn. They’re just rocks for goodness’ sake, rocks to hold down the blessed mat, not the supporting columns of the Acropolis!’
As she speaks she unrolls a small portion of the mat, sets Sarah upon it, lifts and shakes out the towel and tucks it away again. She pulls a white sailor’s hat from a bag, tugs it over her daughter’s breeze-rumpled curls and slips off her sandals. And then she instructs Owen to sit with his sister.
‘I’m going to find your father,’ she says, swatting back the flying wisps of her own hair with a few slaps of her hand. ‘You are to stay here with Sarah till I get back.’ Owen is only half-listening. He is eyeing up the new beach ball they have brought with them. It is the blow-up kind, red and white, and he can just see it peeping out of the largest holdall between the clutter of buckets and spades. ‘Do pay attention, Owen. You’re to look after Sarah while I’m gone.’ Owen gazes skywards. He envies the seagulls, he really does, screeching and flapping about any old how. At least they are free – not always being asked to mind pesky little sisters prone to getting into trouble. Sometimes he wishes that he has a brother in her place, a rough-and-tumble boy who adores him and trails obediently after him, like a puppy, doing everything Owen tells him to – and not a contrary, disobedient girl. Girls are trouble. They are so independent, such a handful. He will never manage to train Sarah.
‘Owen, are you listening to me?’ his mother says now.
‘Yes, I heard,’ he replies sulkily. He rolls his eyes. And when his mother gives him that look of hers, the one where she raises her eyebrows, tightens her mouth, and puts her head on one side, he speaks again. ‘I’ll watch her. I promise.’ They are always worrying about Sarah, he thinks dully. Never about him. Always Sarah, Sarah, Sarah! Oh, he doesn’t mind really, it’s only that sometimes he would like them to be interested in him, perhaps even a bit concerned if he grazes a knee or something. I mean, he isn’t a cry baby like Sarah is, but it would be nice if they told him he was brave. Yes, that would be really nice.
His mother nods curtly, hesitates for a moment, then with another of those looks walks off in the direction that his father went. After a minute they can’t even see her, not with the wind-break in the way.
‘You’re a brave boy, Owen!’ He tries the words out for size and finds they fit very well. ‘You’re a brave boy, Owen!’ he repeats, and the sentence feels as catchy as an advertising slogan. Sarah, by his side, glances up.
‘Bwave boy,’ she says.
She can’t pronounce her ‘Rs’ yet, but he supposes it’s quite cute really, and besides, she’ll probably grow out of it eventually. He clambers onto his knees and walks forward on them. Still on the mat, he can just reach the deflated ball. He stretches out a hand and retrieves it. Now for a bit of magic that will really impress his sister. ‘Watch this, Sarah,’ he says, bringing the clear plastic nozzle to his lips. He blows and blows and slowly at first, then more rapidly, the ball swells, its glossy plastic skin growing taut. Sarah is delighted with the trick and claps her hands. ‘See, see how clever your older brother is.’
‘Owen, it’s so lovely,’ she gasps.
In one of those sudden impetuous moves of hers, Sarah throws her little arms around him. He took off his shirt while his mother was undressing his sister, and now he feels the ligature of her limbs tightening on his bare skin, her face rubbing against his chest. It is one of those mysterious moments when everything seems much larger. He can feel her hair, like water, and the un believable softness of her lips, and even her eyelashes moving. They are like a butterfly’s wings fluttering against him. The wind seems to be getting up a bit now, and although they can’t feel it because of the windbreak, they can see how it is battering the canvas and making the segments billow like sails.
He closes his eyes and concentrates on the squeeze of Sarah, so light he can push her away with one shrug, and yet so strong it brings a blocked-up feeling to his throat. And this feeling, the way he imagines a corked, fizzy drink must feel, wanting to burst out but not being able to, well . . . it’s gigantic. It’s so gigantic, in fact, that there seems to be nothing more to him, just the squeeze of Sarah and the bursting feeling.
The tide is coming in and the waves seem to be getting bigger, not folding on the shore any more but smashing against it. Owen decides he will be a surfer one day, that he will ride the rollers in like a cowboy on a water horse. The dark shapes balancing on their boards look like hitherto unknown sea creatures, sweeping towards the shore. And when at last they tumble off and clutch the dripping surfboards in their arms, it’s as if they are pushing giant sharks before them into the shallows, the upright boards, their fins. He bets it’s fun, more fun than driving a car even.
‘Do you want to watch me kick the ball?’ he asks, glancing down at the white-gold curls and disproportionally large hump of head. ‘Do you want me to show you how good I am at football?’
He feels Sarah nod rather than hears her. ‘Right then,’ he says, pleased to be doing something. Disentangling himself from her, he springs up clutching the ball. ‘Watch this.’
The mat lifts a bit when he gets off it, but he can see that Sarah’s weight is still sufficient to partially anchor it down. He starts kicking the ball, just small taps at first, then running a few yards and kicking it back, as though there are two of him and not one. Sarah claps gratifyingly.
‘Again,’ she cries enraptured. ‘Again, Owen.’
She isn’t telling him he is brave, but . . . well, it is near enough. For a while he knees it. Then a sudden gust of wind grabs it and runs with it towards the sea, so that he has to give chase. Behind him he hears Sarah call.
‘Owen! Owen! Owen, don’t go!’
‘I’m only getting the ball. I won’t be a second,’ he throws back over his shoulder.
‘Don’t leave me, Owen.’
When he catches up with it, he glances back, just to make sure that Sarah has stayed put. But he need not have worried, she is sitting exactly where he left her, prattling to herself, counting on her fingers, and staring around her, wide eyed. They are not beach dwellers. In fact he can only remember going to the seaside a couple of times before. No, this is definitely a holiday outing, and an unusual one at that. Home is Wantage in Oxfordshire. His parents seem much happier hiring a caravan or camping and sitting in a field of green grass, than coming into close proximity with the sea. Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that his father is a gardener, or that his mother doesn’t like the sand. She complains that it gets into everything – clothes, food, even your hair. She’ll start complaining today, he’s sure of it.
Owen hasn’t learnt to swim yet. There has been talk at his school of taking the older classes to a pool, and giving them proper lessons. But nothing has come of it so far. His parents are always promising to teach him, but how can they if they are nowhere near the sea? He keeps pleading with his father to take him to the local swimming pool, so that he can learn there. Actually he has thought about this quite a lot. Having all that time alone with his father, with him showing Owen what to do, even touching him, putting his arms and legs into the right positions. He is looking forward to this more than he can say, because his father doesn’t seem to like to touch him very much. He prefers to slap Owen on the back or shake his hand as if they are not related, as if Owen is an adult too. And even this physical contact makes him go all red and embarrassed. He knows what his father thinks, that embracing him is unmanly, that hugging your son is a soppy way to behave. So in those intimate moments he clears his throat, or starts talking about a new plant or taking cuttings or something. Though he isn’t at all embarrassed about hugging Sarah, Owen notes. Of course his mother does put her arms around him and give him a peck on the cheek, pretty well every night. But it is sort of automatic, as if she isn’t thinking about it. Whereas with Sarah all his mother’s hugs, his father’s too, really, are kind of whooshes, like the sudden flaring up of a flame.
In any case, his father always seems too busy to go to the swimming pool. They have been once or twice but he just seemed restless and bored, and when Owen didn’t take to the water the way a duckling would, he was impatient to go home again. And that impatience, that sense that his father knew he was going to fail, made it come true. It was like being cursed, him looking at the big clock-face on the wall and folding his arms. And the next thing Owen knew was that he was spluttering and choking, and feeling a belt of panic tightening about his belly, so that he really believed he might drown, right then and there, with his father watching. They hadn’t got as far as learning the swimming strokes so there wasn’t very much touching – well, hardly any at all, if Owen is truthful.
It is while he is thinking about this, while he is dribbling the ball and picturing his father holding him up in the water and saying encouraging things like, ‘Well done, terrific, you’re going to make a racing swimmer one day, my boy’, that he notices his mother. She is a long way off up the beach, running towards him shouting something. But he cannot decipher it because the wind is making a whirring sound in his ears, and besides, she is too far away. Still, there is something about the untidy way she is moving that makes him stiffen, and feel a bit empty and sick inside. It is a sort of headlong fall, nearly tripping up in her haste every few steps, and even though she must be out of breath, shouting in sharp bursts, rather like the screeches of the seagulls.
And then a flint arrow lances his beating heart and turns it to ice. He remembers. Sarah. He spins round. The stripy windbreak seems miles away, and as small as a postage stamp. How can it be that he has come so far? What was he dreaming about? But then he knows that, doesn’t he? And he can see the beach mat blowing away beyond it, bumping the sand and flapping, like a wounded bird. Surely, surely, oh please let it be true, Sarah is tucked up safe behind that buffeted stamp of canvas. Of course she is; she is sitting behind the windbreak happy as can be, precisely where he left her. Where he left her. The words clang in his head. Where he left her. ‘Don’t leave me, Owen.’ Even though he is barely a few years older than his sister, he knows in some kind of dreadful, intuitive, grown-up way, that her plea will never leave him. He is as good as branded with it. ‘Don’t leave me, Owen.’ This is the sinister dread that takes hold as he sprints. And because he is lighter and not sinking into the sand, he is much faster than his mother.
He is good at running. He even won the twenty-five yard sprint at his last school’s sports day. He recalls how proud he felt, his chest heaving with it, as he neared that ribbon. Then breaking through it, and turning round breathlessly to look for his father in the crowd of parents. And the disappointment, like a paperweight sinking in his stomach. His father had wandered off to talk to the school caretaker. He could see him by the trees at the edge of the field leaning over a bush tweaking the leaves. He had missed it. He had missed Owen’s victory.
But this is a different kind of race, a horrible race, one that you aren’t sure whether you want to win or not. He can hear his mother’s shrieks now, big ugly sounds, like the ones he hears in his head when the witches and monsters speak in stories. And he can hear the name too, screamed again and again.
‘Sarah! Aargh! Aargh! Sarah! Sarah!’
And then he is rounding the windbreak and screaming her name too. But she isn’t there, only the sailor’s white hat without her in it. There is a small pile of sand, and he thinks he can detect the lines where Sarah has drawn in it with her stubby fingers. And her scrap of pink blanket is peeping out from under it too, that horrid smelly thing that seems to be impregnated with an incredible power, sending his sister into a serene trance each time she rubs it rhythmically over her lips. But though he peers hard at it, she doesn’t appear. He keeps barking her name, as if in all likelihood she will suddenly rise up from under the sand. She will be like the sand creature in a book he has read, Five Children and It. And any moment she will spring up and shimmy the glittering grains off her, giggling at the great game.
Out of the corner of his eye he sees his mother streak past and hurtle down to the sea, and then straight into it with the waves breaking over her, and her behaving as if she cannot feel them. He rushes after her, rushes into the water, as far as he dares to go, knowing he is unable to swim. Then he runs up and down, the way he has seen dogs do sometimes when they are nervous of getting wet. And his mother keeps bobbing up like a seal, gasping out words as though a saw is grinding on her throat.
‘Sarah! Sarah! I can’t . . . can’t find Sarah!’ And Owen thinks stupidly, as salt spume strikes his eyes, making him wince, why is she searching for her there in the wide ocean, why is she trying to fish for Sarah? Then under again and up, a gulp of breath, another dive. A long beat and she explodes from the water, fixing Owen for a second, her brown eyes slitting with the salt bite, or is it something else? ‘You stupid boy! You stupid, stupid boy!’ Then down again, and for the longest time, it seems to Owen, the stupid boy, darting to right and left as if blocking a goal. And up to spit out once more, ‘I told you to watch her. I told you to stay with her. I told you, I told you, I told you, you idiot!’ And her face all ghastly and coming apart like a mirror breaking, and her ribbon undone and the wet hair streaming over her eyes, and stuffed in her mouth.
Then suddenly his father thundering past him, like the charging rhinoceros he saw on his last birthday at London Zoo, only pausing to kick off those shiny shoes. The two of them now, both seals together, one, an arc of grey, one of yellow, white and turquoise, looping about each other. And his father’s straw hat bobbing on the water, bobbing so gaily on the water that Owen wants to tear it to pieces. And finally his father bursting triumphantly from the waves with something in his arms, something that is Sarah. He dashes out of the breaking surf and Owen sees Sarah’s head lolling over his arm, and the sunlight of her curls ironed straight with their load of water. He sees that her body is so white it is almost silver, that her eyes are sealed shut as though she is sleeping soundly. He sees the bright pink and yellow dots of her swimsuit, and that his father’s comb-over is snarled with grit that glints like pinheads. He sees them arrange Sarah as if she is a display of flowers, sees her splayed out on the sand, sees his mother kneeling beside her, gripping the star of her hand. The shadow of his father slides over them. Then he distances himself from the dismal frieze, his blue eyes bulging with horror, so that Owen can see the red veins against the waterlogged whites.
‘Bring her back!’ hisses his mother in a voice more dreadful than the ones he imagines in the fairy stories. It lacerates the air and consumes the gulls’ cacophony whole. And the look she casts at her son is blacker than hate and darker than death.
Again his father steps forward reluctantly, bends his clumsy body, kneels slowly, awkwardly, the way Owen has seen him do in church. He takes hold of Sarah’s brittle arms and gives them a jerk, as if urging her to stop this tomfoolery and get up. Nothing. His great hands span her motionless chest and he pats her in effectually, like a dog. His eyes are swamped with panic, for this little Lazarus will not rise up and be well. All the while his sodden clothes dribble salty tears. And then it strikes Owen with the force of a sledgehammer: his father does not know what to do, he does not know how to bring Sarah back.
The surfer comes racing out of the water, hurling aside his board, barrelling into their grief. He shoves Owen’s father out of the way, wipes the wet tendrils of hair from the blanched face, pulls back Sarah’s head and hooks a finger in her mouth. Then he pinches her tiny nostrils between a graceful thumb and fore-finger, and, as Owen looks on aghast, he kisses his sister. He is trying to kiss Sarah alive again, like the prince in Sleeping Beauty. His father hovers in the background, impotent, his drenched clothes drooping over his slumped frame. The kisses are light puffs of air that seem to oil the rusty hinges of Sarah’s chopstick ribs. Owen gives a strangled whoop of joy as they swing. She is coming back after all. But the moment the surfer stops they stop, and are still again. Then he feels her chest, and finds the spot where the buried treasure is hidden. He starts to delve for it, digging with his fingertips. And still no gleam of life, just the jagged pieces tumbling from his mother’s face, making the portrait of it grow more and more indistinct.
People come and crowd about them. Someone shouts that they have called an ambulance. His mother rocks to-and-fro, and eerie noises emanate from the abyss inside her, making Owen want to block his ears. The surfer keeps trying, he keeps trying to raise Lazarus; right up to the moment the medics arrive with a stretcher he is trying. Then they try too, and afterwards they put Sarah on the stretcher and hurry off to the ambulance, to try some more, they say.
It is then, as they jog up the beach looking like something out of a Charlie Chaplin film, with his father stumbling behind them reaching for his car keys in the soggy envelopes of his pockets, that his mother collapses. She seems to be eating the sand where Sarah has lain, pasting it over her face and cramming it into her mouth. And the noise that comes from her then is an inhuman roar. It commands a sea of tears to cascade from Owen’s eyes. The wind harvests them and sews them like seed diamonds in the sand. People bend over his mother and help her up as if she is an invalid. Propped between a tall man and a short woman, his rag-doll mother is dragged after his father and the ambulance men, and the stretcher with Sarah lying white as a cuttlefish and very still upon it.
The onlookers start to drift off, muttering in low voices to one another. He hears an elderly man say that he thinks they are too late, that the little girl is dead. No one seems to notice Owen. He stoops to extract Sarah’s comfort blanket from the sand, presses it to his nose and breathes through it. And there is the scent of his sister, lemony sweet and warm and sleepy. With her filling him up, he stumbles after them.
***
For Owen the best moment of the day was the very first, the glow of consciousness before he opened his eyes, before the images and sensations assailed him. But the trouble with the glow was that it ended almost before it had begun. And his bedroom was soon so crowded that there was hardly any room in it for him. It was like being on a film set, only not having a named role, just being an extra, a walk on, a bit part, absorbing the atmosphere, being careful not to upstage the real stars.
Sounds. The neat, brisk tap-tapping of footsteps in the hospital corridor, fast approaching. The pop of air rushing out of his mother when they told her. The grinding of his father’s teeth that came again and again, as if he was trying to file them down into stumps. And the shout of silence from the empty back seat as they drove home in the Hillman Husky, the silence imploring them to go back, reminding them that they had forgotten something, that they had left someone behind.
Smells. The stink of the sea, salt and mineral and washed-up dead things slowly rotting. The bitter, mothball odour of his mother’s breath for weeks afterwards, the air seeping stale and stagnant from the bleakness inside her. The fading scent of Sarah in every room of the house reminding him that she was gone, like a receding echo. The rich, heavy, fertile fragrance unleashed, of crumbling earth teeming with worms and maggots, undoing creation, as the open grave reached for his sister.
Sights. Her blithely ignorant clothes busy preparing themselves for her return, swirling around in the belly of the washing machine, waving merrily at him from the washing line, piled patiently in the ironing basket. His mother’s insistence that they be laundered, pressed, hung in her cupboard, folded neatly in her drawer. For what purpose? That they remain in readiness for Sarah’s second coming? And toys looking all lost and forlorn, as if they were clockwork and their keys were missing. Her drawing of the family taped to the kitchen cupboard, a stick daddy and mummy and Owen and Sarah, all standing in front of a square house, with the sun sending its rays in straight, uncomplicated lines to illuminate all their days. A tiny, white coffin with a brass plaque on the lid that caught the light as they lowered it into the ground, and him imagining that it was Sarah’s golden soul, that they were burying the dazzling hummingbird of Sarah’s spirit, consigning it to eternal darkness. It did not seem much bigger than the shoebox he had buried his hamster in at the beginning of the Christmas holidays, the coffin that held the remains of Sarah.
Touch. The grip of his father’s fingers digging into his shoulders at the funeral, the nails feeling like thumbtacks being driven into his flesh, the pain that made him want to be one never-ending scream. The fineness of the hairs he pulled from her brush and tucked in the pages of his bus-spotting journal, the sensation of rolling them gently between his fingers, and recalling the crowded touch of them against his bare chest that last day on the beach, almost a year ago. And the guilt, the great collar of guilt that he was yoked to, from the second he woke, with its load growing steadily heavier and heavier, until by the evening he felt like an old man who hardly had the strength to straighten up.
But today was different. He could tell straight away that he had not wet his bed, and surely this was a good sign. Just to make sure, he propped himself up on an elbow and explored under the covers with his free hand. Dry. He was dry. Perhaps today his mother would not suddenly cave in mid-sentence, imploding, deflating as if she was a punctured balloon, and groaning, that growling groan that he knew carried the cadence of death.
And all told it was not a bad day, that Saturday, not as bad as some that had gone before it. The groan did not crawl out of his mother’s gaping mouth, not in his earshot anyway. His father took the afternoon off and helped Owen to make his model Airfix Spitfire. They sat at the dining-room table with layers of newspaper spread out before them. They did not talk, except to mutter the name of the next piece they would be assembling. The newspaper crackled quietly as they went methodically about their allotted tasks. They did not touch, except once when their fingers met, sliding the tube of glue between them. They focused all their attention on the fighter plane. Owen looked forward to painting it. When it was complete he had already decided to buy another one. He had been saving up his pocket money.
His father came to tuck him in at night now. His mother only put her head round the door and blew him a kiss. She shied away from physical interaction with her son, much as his father did, but for very different reasons, Owen thought. She was scared that she might show her revulsion for the stupid boy who left Sarah alone to drown.
But then all was ruined, for that night the Merfolk came again for him. He woke and saw that his bed had become a raft, rapidly shrinking on a rough sea. He gripped the sheets, his palms damp with sweat, and felt his small craft pitch and toss under him. In his struggle there were times when the deck seemed virtually perpendicular, and he was fighting with all his might not to slide off the wall of it. At first he only glimpsed them, caught a flash of dishwater-grey, a sudden splash, the sound of hollow laughter rising like streams of bursting bubbles. He drew up his knees and pushed his face into the mattress. But even in the blackness their lantern eyes found him. When, panting for breath, he reared up and gulped in air, their webbed hands shot out of the water and grabbed at him. He gazed in horror as their spangled bodies humped and wheeled. It was as if a huge serpent was writhing about his boat bed. He peered into the depths and saw their merlocks waving like rubbery weeds in the murky swill. The water’s surface was eaten up with their scissoring fish mouths, the worm stretch of their glistening lips, the precise bite of their piranha teeth.
‘Tacka-tacka,’ they went, ‘tacka-tacka.’ And they tempted him with their honeyed promises. ‘Owen, come with us. We will teach you to swim. Ride us like sea horses. Gallop with us through an underwater world of neon blues and greens. We will juggle with sea anemones and starfish. We will dig in the silver sand for huge crabs, and trap barnacled lobsters in their lairs. We will net all day for fish and shrimp, and tie knots in the tails of slimy eels. We will surf the bow waves of blowing whales. And we will build coral castles, and play tag in gardens of kite-tailed kelp. Only, only . . . come with us.’
And he stuffed his fingers in his ears and hid under the covers, refusing to listen to any more of their lies. They did not fool him. They forgot, he already knew they had stolen his sister, drawn the shining soul out of her limp body and kept it to light the black depths they skulked in. Would they never go? Would they haunt him forever? He turned on his bedside lamp and prayed, soaked in sweat, for the visions to fade. He did not call his father to witness his shameful cowardice. He did not call his mother, because she was no longer there. But he did look at the photograph in the ebony frame that stood on his bedside table.
His father had taken it last Christmas. It was a picture of him and his mother and the snowman they had made. His mother had her arms wrapped about him and he was holding a carrot to his nose, in a fair imitation of Pinocchio. Beside them was the most magnificent snowman Owen thought he had ever seen. His chest swelled with pride knowing they had built it together, just the two of them, his mother and him. As he stared at it, his memory fast forwarded a few days, and he saw himself looking at the same snowman, tears spilling from his eyes. The sun had come out, the barometer in the porch was reading ‘Fair’, and the snow was melting. Their snowman that they had worked so hard to build, was vanishing. Then his mother was beside him, asking him what was the matter. And when he told her she said an amazing thing to him. Not only did it stop him crying, but it also made him smile. And as he remembered her words, they made him smile again. She told him that locked in the big frozen body was a child, a child made out of water, a child who pined to be free. Only when the snowman melted was the Water Child freed.
Owen’s heart was still banging like a drum and his hands were still trembling. So he closed his eyes and began to paint the melting snowman in his head. He screwed up his face with effort. He concentrated until it ached, and at last he saw him, a cymbal crash of silver light as the snowmelt dripped into the puddle. And that is when he was born, a child cut from shivering silver light, a child his mother had breathed life into, the Water Child. When Owen opened his eyes he could see him clearly, a skipping luminescence on his bedroom walls. The Merfolk, who had risen up from the sludge at the bottom of the world, who came from the heavy mud of nightmares, from the nocturnal realm of monsters too hideous to face, melted away in his presence, just as the snowman had done months ago. And although Owen’s lips remained too stiff to bend into a smile, his heart did slow and his hands became steady enough to build a model plane. And so at last he slept.
Owen didn’t want to learn to swim any more. He didn’t want his father to teach him. Swimming pools and lakes became lucid blue ogres waiting to ensnare him. As for the sea, it was a mighty pewter giant that feasted on children who wandered too near to its grimacing waves. The doctor gave a name to Owen’s terror. He told his mother that her son was an aquaphobic. ‘It is probably the result of some childhood trauma, a bad experience with the sea, perhaps? I shouldn’t press him to conquer his fear just now. In time he’s bound to grow out of it. The important thing is that there’s nothing physically wrong with him. In the meantime, I’ll write to his school asking that Owen be excused swimming lessons, for medical reasons.’ Glancing up from his notes, he gave Owen his most reassuring smile. ‘Plenty of opportunity to learn how to swim later, eh lad?’
Chapter 2
1963
A 1940s house in Kingston, South-West London, its frontage pimpled with pebbledash and painted cream. Upstairs. The smallest bedroom of three. 7 a.m. Catherine has been awake for some time. She heard the milk float and the chink of bottles on the doorstep. It is the 17th of September, her ninth birthday, and she has a plan. She stayed up late the previous night working out the details. Now her tummy is alive with thumbnail butterflies. She pictures them fluttering about in there in jerky, bright colours. Light fingers its way doggedly through the gaps in the curtains. In their bedroom across the landing she can hear her parents stirring, her mother’s high croaky voice, her father’s acquiescent teddy bear growls.
Her plan begins with a prayer. Catherine has never been very good at praying, she admits to herself now. When she goes to church with her parents, she pretends. She moves her lips in a kind of mumble and counts things in her head. How many people wearing hats? How many lighted candles? How many empty pews? In any case, she knows her mother isn’t praying properly either, she is far too preoccupied studying what the other women are wearing, making sure that she has outdone them all in, say, her new custard-yellow Orlon sweater dress, cinched in at the waist with a wide black belt, plus her matching kitten heels with the fashionable almond toes.
Deep down Catherine isn’t really sure about God, about whether he truly exists. And if, just say he does, he is really bothered with her birthday. She has her doubts, grave doubts. She thinks about all the awful things that happen in the world, like murders and aeroplane crashes, and famines with thousands of babies swelling up like plums, and terrible storms that wash away whole towns. He doesn’t do anything about them, does he? So why should he intervene on Catherine’s behalf to ensure that her day goes smoothly? If he can’t be bothered to sort out the most ghastly of life-and-death catastrophes, why on earth should he trouble himself with one girl, a shop-bought cake and a few games?
Still, she presumes that it is worth a try anyway, and it certainly won’t hurt. So she takes a deep breath, and trying to be absolutely truthful, puts real words to her prayer. She feels a bit shy (although it is only her and God, and even he might not really be present at all), so she slides down under the sheet and blankets. She clasps her hands together in the fuzzy greyness, then begins to whisper:
‘Dear God, please let today be exactly as I have imagined it. Don’t let the bad thoughts ruin it. Let Mother come into my room in a minute with a real smile on her face, not the one she usually glues there, the one that looks fixed, like a painting. And don’t let her lose her temper with me, or Father either, and shout out in that screech of hers that makes me jump inside. And don’t let him shuffle about looking all lost, making me feel embarrassed in front of my friends. Please make sure that Stephen doesn’t forget about the motorbike ride. And also, could you see to it that I get all the presents I want, and that they let me win one turn of pass the parcel, and that Penny Rainbird is so jealous of me that her face goes all red and blotchy. Amen.’
Not bad for her first real prayer, is her assessment, not bad at all. And God really seems to listen because the day gets off to a very promising start. When Catherine comes down for breakfast, her hair brushed and her mouth tingling with toothpaste, there are two parcels waiting for her on the dining table, both with cards sitting on top of them. And there are other cards too that have arrived in the post, one all the way from America that she bets is from her cousins.
‘Here she is, the birthday girl,’ her father, Keith Hoyle, says, getting up from his seat to give her a kiss on the cheek.
‘Hello, darling. Many happy returns of the day,’ her mother chimes in perfunctorily, stooping to kiss a spot in the air somewhere past her head.
‘Now, where to start, that’s the dilemma,’ he continues kindly, a twinkle in his faded blue eyes.
As he retakes his seat and Catherine sits down opposite him, her mother floats by. She is distracted by her reflection in the oval mirror. It is suspended from the picture rail above the sideboard by a brass chain. She pats her curls, then peers closer at her image, worrying that she may have spotted a couple of grey hairs tucked in among the red. Catherine, oblivious to her mother’s preening, considers grabbing the packages and ripping them open, careless of ruining the paper. But that will be wasteful and probably earn me a scolding, she cautions herself.
It is good manners to open the cards first, and besides she can’t wait to read what Uncle Christopher and Aunt Amy have to say. She has heard whispers that the American Hoyles may be coming to spend Christmas in England. The idea of seeing Rosalyn again is so exciting that she is petrified to dwell on it, in case, like a wriggling fish, it slips away. She has a presentiment that if anyone realizes how much it means to her, even God, they will maliciously sabotage the trip.
She hasn’t seen Rosalyn for, well . . . almost a year. She may have picked up an American accent by now. She wonders how they talk in Boston. And she wonders if they will recognize each other, or if they both will have altered too radically. She suspects that she is much the same. Grape-green eyes, an oval face, fine Titian hair cut short, worn with a side parting and secured with several grips. Will Rosalyn like her as much as she used to, or will a year living in America have changed her mind about her cousin, Catherine? She may find her dull now, or worse, annoying. Oh, but to spend Christmas with Rosalyn, to go to sleep with her on Christmas Eve and wake up with her on Christmas morning. She dares to believe that it is possible in a miraculous kind of way. There has definitely been talk about her family joining them, the English Hoyles joining the American Hoyles in the house they are considering renting in Sussex. To open their stockings together, and pull crackers and read the silly riddles to each other, and to sneak out for long walks, and share the secrets they have collected in the months they have been apart. Actually, Catherine can’t remember any on the spot, but given time she’s bound to come up with some. And if she does have to invent a few, Rosalyn will understand, she is certain of it.
She loves to listen to Rosalyn talk. She has a voice that is clear as glass, a voice which tings the way her mother’s best crystal tumblers do when she flicks them with her long nails. She doesn’t apologize for herself when she speaks. She isn’t at all hesitant, or ready to concede the floor if no one wants to listen. She is accustomed to people paying attention. She has a confident air that clings to her, the way clouds do to mountain peaks. And she tells wonderful stories with beautiful descriptive words, draws them with the words, and then holds up the sketches with a smile that makes Catherine melt like butter on a hot crumpet. But this is too bad, she is already letting herself think about it as if it is as good as arranged. The consequence of this sort of thing will, of course, be that it is cancelled. So she pushes it out of her head with the brute force of her own will. As a penance she will open the other cards first, make herself wait to hear the news from America. Her father clears his throat and she looks up to see his expectant face, at least, is on her.
Grandma Stubbings has sent a crisp ten-shilling note, and a card that is really too young for her, with a picture of Miss Muffet on it and a big hairy spider. And there are a couple of other cards as well, one from the godmother who hasn’t forgotten her. She has opened a savings account for Catherine and keeps telling her on birthdays and at Christmas time, that she has put in another pound. But Catherine thinks, although generous, that this is very wearisome, because she can’t take any money out until she is eighteen, which is a lifetime away. And there is a book token from her godfather who lives in Wales, and a prayer card from the lady who runs the Sunday school. Then at last she opens the one with the American stamp on it. Her Uncle Christopher and her Aunt Amy, and her cousins Rosalyn and Simon, have sent a postal order for one pound and ten shillings. Aunt Amy has written a note on the side of the card that doesn’t have a printed message on it. Catherine reads it and her heart thumps loudly in her chest.
‘Thirty shillings. That’s generous of my brother. Isn’t that kind of Christopher and Amy, Dinah?’
‘Mm . . . very generous, I’m sure. We’ll have to match it for Simon and Rosalyn, though,’ remarks Catherine’s mother, sounding less than pleased. Her brow scrunched, she picks at her hairs rather like a monkey.
‘What do they say, Catherine?’ Her father slips out his pipe to make room for the words, then plugs it back in and puffs contentedly. He will have to extinguish it in a minute, but he may as well enjoy it while this rare reprieve continues.
‘That they haven’t decided about Christmas yet. Uncle Christopher may not be able to take the time off with all the seasonal flights.’ Her father wags his head to either side in that accepting way of his. But Catherine wants to scream, to beg him, no, to beseech him on her bended knees to force his brother to come, to make a long-distance ’phone call right now and insist on it. Even if it means cancelling all the flights, then that’s what he should tell Uncle Christopher to do. Because otherwise she will die, she will simply curl up and die. But she mustn’t say that, mustn’t let on how vital it is, because then it will all be over. There won’t be one grain of hope left in the empty sack of her life. Yet, yet . . . that is the word she must hold onto. They haven’t decided yet.
With grim determination she swallows back her dismay. She will act like Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet. She gathers up her money and postal orders now and makes a fan of them in her hand. She flutters them and pulls her lips into a smile. She is overwhelmed by her sudden wealth, but when her father questions her she has no clue what she will spend it all on. Such unexpected largesse and all those things in the shops to choose from. Her parents have given her one of the new Sindy dolls, with curly blonde hair and bold chalk-blue eyes. She is dressed in navy jeans and a red, white and blue stripy sweater. And she has two extra outfits, a glamorous pink dress for her dream dates, and an emergency ward nurse’s uniform.
‘Like it?’ her father asks. Catherine nods. She would have preferred a bike, but she hooks up the corners of her smile valiantly. Keith Hoyle glances surreptitiously at his wife, then relights his pipe which has gone out, with the mother-of-pearl lighter he always keeps in his pocket. He settles back in his chair as if he is not in any hurry at all. ‘Let’s see her done up in all her glad rags then,’ he requests. So, face radiant, Catherine dresses Sindy up in her party outfit and trots her round the crockery.
‘She’s really swinging now,’ he says, when Sindy finally stops jigging by the sugar bowl. Truly he makes Catherine want to laugh. She lets her mind run on him for a while. It is inconceivable that her father will ever be really swinging. He is thin as a beanpole, with a mournful, equine, lined face that appears sun-tanned. This is a bit of a conundrum because he is never in the sun long enough to catch its rays. His hair is very fine, the colour of a silver birch tree, clipped close around his ears and neck, parted to one side like Catherine’s. He massages brilliantine into it before combing it down, which makes it appear as if there is even less of it. It has a funny whiff about it too, rather like an old tweed coat. Her father doesn’t talk a lot either, but it isn’t noticeable because her mother prattles enough for both of them.
Stephen, Catherine’s older brother, has promised that he will call in later on, after the party. He has a job in a garage not far away. The owner lets him stay in one of the spare rooms above the business, so he returns home infrequently, and only to bring his washing or have a hot meal. Catherine thinks he resembles James Dean with his red BSA Bantam motorbike. He is saving for a Triumph Bonneville, and when he finally has enough money to buy it, he has said he will take her all the way to Brighton on it. But today, as it is her birthday, he has promised her a ride to Bushy Park and back instead. Honestly, she is more excited about this than her party, which she feels sure is bound to be a disaster.
Later, as Catherine trails through to the sitting-room to arrange her cards on the mantelpiece over the tiled fireplace, she considers her Uncle Christopher. He is a pilot, which is just about the most romantic thing in the world, she believes. He is handsome in a chiselled kind of way, while Aunt Amy has the grace of a model about her, with her wavy blonde hair, her clear skin, and her calm, low voice. There isn’t a huge gap between Rosalyn and Simon either, not like her and Stephen. Rosalyn is ten and Simon is twelve. And they talk to each other about shared interests, and watch the same programmes on the television sitting side by side. In a way Catherine is a bit frightened of Stephen. After all, he is pretty nearly an adult, and besides there is a strong scent that hangs about him, under the smell of leather and oil. It makes her feel very shy, especially on the rare occasions when she is on his bike with her arms folded about his waist, and the thrumming, dizzying whizz of the machine between her legs.
As she starts up the stairs with her presents, her mother appears in the kitchen doorway, a cigarette in her mouth, a lighter halfway to her lips. Seeing her daughter, she slips it out and wafts it in her direction. ‘You aren’t wearing that dress for the party?’ she calls after her. ‘I told you that the pale pink velvet is best. It’s hanging in the airing cupboard.’
As Catherine lifts it out, despising the fussy, lace neckline, she imagines what it must be like to be a pilot. Her father works in the city. He is a commuter with a hat, not a bowler hat but a hat anyway, and a briefcase. He trudges off to work in creased suits looking exhausted before he’s even left. And he returns grey and even more exhausted, often long after dark. Sometimes when he blows his nose black stuff comes out, which Catherine thinks is revolting, as if he isn’t just black on the outside but is slowly turning black on the inside too. He makes her think of Tom, the chimney sweep, in the book The Water Babies, as if he needs a good scrub to get the engrained dirt out of his pores. But Uncle Christopher goes to work in a smart uniform, one fit for a general or a commander or a president. They are in the back of her mind all day, her aunt, her uncle, Simon, but mostly Rosalyn, though she is determined to make the best of her party.
***
It was Christmas. They were staying in the house in Sussex with the American Hoyles. And it was every bit as amazing as she had imagined it would be. The house was huge, nearly as tall as a castle, redbrick, rectangular and solid, with lots of windows that gleamed like dozens of golden, unblinking eyes in the winter sunshine. And there was a fire-engine red front door that had a brass knocker in the shape of a face with swept-back, wild hair. When you lifted it and banged it down a couple of times it boomed satisfyingly, like a cannon firing. There were lots of bedrooms upstairs and none of them were pokey like Catherine’s. And there was an attic floor that had been converted into yet more rooms. The kitchen was massive, dominated by a milky blue Aga that crunched up scuttles full of coal every morning, while spewing out gusty exhalations of glistening dust.
The lounge was twice the size of theirs. It had wall-to-wall carpet, not just a lino floor with a rug thrown over it. There was a baronial fireplace, in which a real fire crackled and spat and hissed in the grate. It permeated the room with a homely, spicy fragrance, because of the pine logs they fed it, her uncle said. Even her mother, in a rare moment of enthusiasm engendered by the festive season, remarked that it was all rather jolly. Though she added that their built-in bar fire was definitely much cleaner, and probably a lot more efficient – cheaper too, when you con sidered the outrageous cost of fuel.
It was called ‘Wood End’, the stately house, the name painted on a sign at the bottom of the drive. Catherine’s mother admitted grudgingly that it was a suitable name, because the property actually did back onto woods. Another bonus, woods to explore and have adventures in. When they had first approached it in the grey Ford Anglia, puttering along the meandering tree-lined drive, her mother kept reminding her father that the house was only rented, that anyone could afford a house like that for a few weeks.
The property stood in enormous gardens that ran all the way round the house, with no partition dividing the front from the back. There were sweeping lawns and clusters of shrubs and lots of trees. One of them, an ancient oak, with bark like deeply wrinkled skin, only crustier, had a magical tree-house wedged in its branches, with a ladder hanging down from it. There was a separate garage, with double doors, as large as an entire house all by itself, Catherine estimated. They had brought one of the suitcases they usually took on holiday with them, Catherine cleverly sandwiching jeans and jumpers in among the dresses she so hated wearing. She had been overcome with nerves by the time they arrived, she recalled. Dry-mouthed and feeling rather sick, she had climbed out of the car as the American Hoyles piled onto the porch to meet them. This was the moment fated to sully everything, the moment Rosalyn would materialize looking incredibly grown up and aloof, surveying her cousin Catherine with a head-to-toe sweep of her crystal-blue eyes, and turning away, pained.
But that wasn’t what had happened at all. Catherine drooped there, looking frumpy in a patterned corduroy skirt and butterfly collared blouse, and making so many wishes that her head throbbed with them. To be taller, slimmer, to have black or blonde hair, to be dressed fashionably, to instantly shed her chipmunk cheeks, to have a different voice, different parents, to have arrived in a different car, oh, just to be somebody else and not Catherine Hoyle, that would do it, not Catherine the calamity, who didn’t have a single interesting trait in her solid personality.
But a second later and Rosalyn was there, standing before her smiling that self-assured, relaxed smile with the mouth that had never known a quiver. The parents were embracing, voices rising up like startled birds on the crisp morning air. Simon, head tilted, fingers spearing his thick, blond fringe, was hanging back a little, not shyly, just making it clear that he wasn’t up for any of this sloppy stuff. And Rosalyn, who Catherine noted in one stolen peep, had grown taller and even, astounding as it was, prettier, had stepped forward and was wrapping her arms around her and giving her cousin a hug of pure pleasure.
‘Catherine! Oh, it’s brilliant to see you. I’ve got so much to tell you. We’re going to have the best Christmas ever.’
It was a decree. Rosalyn would accept nothing short of perfect. And Catherine felt like Atlas shedding the weighty globe from his bowed shoulders after an eternity of burden. It wasn’t her responsibility if it went badly, not something for her to feel guilty about and to relive agonizingly in the months to come. And she needn’t feel anxious anyway because Rosalyn was going to take care of it. It was going to be the best ever. And you couldn’t jinx her, the way Catherine knew she could be jinxed. If you tried to put a hex on Rosalyn, unfazed, she would gather up the sticky skeins of doom, pat them into a neat ball, and hurl them straight back at you with that dauntless grin, and the sure aim of a girl who was top of the class in PE.
The next moment and she had been delivered into the arms of her aunt, whose embrace was just as genuine, just as sincere, and whose perfume wasn’t sickly sweet like her mother’s but had a subtle soapy aroma. Then her Uncle Christopher bent his tall frame for her to peck him on the cheek, and his skin smelt wonderful too, fresh and clean, not tainted with tobacco, as if bathed in the expanse of glacial blueness above them. Before Catherine knew where she was, Rosalyn had taken her by the hand and was running with her into the house.
‘I want to show you where we’re sleeping,’ she cried excitedly. ‘At the very top, in the attic. We’ve got it all to ourselves.’ Behind her Catherine heard her mother beckon.
‘Catherine. Don’t just dash off, dear. Your father and I need a hand with the bags. Catherine!’ Catherine hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, and her forehead slipped into its familiar groove.
‘Oh never mind about that,’ Rosalyn told her carelessly. ‘They can manage fine. Daddy’s there to help them, and Mummy, and even Simon.’ She was on the third step, her daring blue eyes locked on Catherine’s, still clasping her hand.
‘But—’
She gave the hand a tug. ‘Race you to the top.’ And then she was off, bounding up the stairs two at a time. And Catherine was charging after her, breathless with laughter. She felt as if she was escaping, as if, as they scurried upwards towards the sky, freedom was rushing down to greet her.
‘What do you think?’ Rosalyn demanded, hands on hips, inside the attic bedroom. She was wearing tight jeans and a loose, long-sleeved T-shirt in navy blue, which emphasized her boyish slimness.
Catherine couldn’t gasp as she stepped after her. It wouldn’t have been enough, a paltry gasp in exchange for the sight that met her eyes. It simply would not do. There was a huge bed with an old-fashioned, carved, wooden headboard, and a deep mattress that looked perfect for bouncing on. Above was a large skylight with the morning brightness flooding through it. The floor was cosy with colourful blankets, the walls banked up with cushions and pillows.
‘This is our den. Strictly private. I told Simon. Mummy let me take practically all the spare bedding and cushions for it. And at night we’ll be able to lie in bed and look at the stars. We can tell each other stories about the people who live on the different planets, describe them to one another, make up names for them. It’ll be terrific.’ There was a long pause while Catherine just stared, floor to bed, bed to skylight, skylight to floor, floor to bed. She thought she might cry. But Rosalyn wasn’t having any of that rubbish. ‘Well, put me out of my agony. It took ages to get it just right. Do you like it?’ she asked, giving Catherine a nudge with a swing of her bent arm. Catherine turned to her.
‘I love it. It’s better than perfect,’ she breathed solemnly, and then they were off giggling again.
‘I think we should try out the bed,’ Rosalyn suggested, her shoes already off. ‘Check out the springs. See who can remember the most. I’ve got heaps of new American ones.’
It was a favourite game. They clambered onto the mattress, straightened up, holding onto each other like two fragile old ladies who’d had one tipple too many, and started to leap as high as they could, bumping frequently.
‘A free glass. Yours for the price of Duz,’ yelled Rosalyn, her hair flying across her face.
‘Caramel Wafers by Gray Dunn, a crunchy treat for everyone,’ retorted Catherine through her chuckles.
‘Get that lovely, lively, Lyril feeling,’ crooned Rosalyn into a make-believe microphone.
‘Spirella, they’ll like the way you look,’ Catherine thundered back.
The words of the jingles kept pace with their jumps.
‘You’re never alone with a Strand.’ Again her cousin mimed, only this time elegantly smoking.
‘Diana – the big picture paper for girls!’ sang back Catherine.
‘Cadum for Madam. Cadum for Madam.’ Now Rosalyn set about lathering up her face with an imaginary bar of soap.
‘Rinso white, Rinso bright,’ Catherine broke off to rub her hands. ‘Happy little washday song!’
‘Wake up your liver with Calomel,’ panted Rosalyn.
Rosalyn won in the end, but Catherine didn’t mind. She’d kept going for ages and had acquitted herself fairly well, she thought.
‘You’re getting really good,’ complimented Rosalyn, not in a patronizing way either, and Catherine blushed at the compliment.
Eventually they fell over in a tangled heap, their heads still spinning, laughing hysterically until Catherine’s tummy felt sore. And just when they were calming down, Rosalyn got them both going again, because she squealed that she was going to wet herself if they didn’t stop. Then, as though attached at the hip, they rolled onto their backs and stretched out like stars. Rosalyn’s arm lay across Catherine’s chest. Catherine’s leg lay over Rosalyn’s thighs. They shared a sublime sigh. Catherine took stock of her cousin with a sideways glance. She was the same but different. Taller, yes, and she seemed to be growing into her athletic build: long legs, broad shoulders, her mother’s classic facial bone structure. She had cut her black hair. It was a blue-black shade she had inherited from her father. As the light fell on it, the dark tresses shimmered with traces of purple, green and gold. It suited her, gave an impish, gamine quality to her face. And the blue eyes, well, they had grown more dazzling, more full of merriment, more mischievous.
Later on in the afternoon Stephen arrived on his motorbike. He roared up the drive looking more like James Dean than ever, and they rushed out to meet him. For ages, still sitting on his bike and rocking it to either side, then rolling it forward half a foot and back again, he held court. Simon was terribly impressed. He hunkered down, peered interestedly at the mechanics of the thing, and kept asking questions. Rosalyn and Catherine struck a haughty pose, their weight on one hip each, regarding Stephen coolly, until he offered to give them rides up and down the drive. Then in a second they lost all their contrived composure, and hopped about as though an electric current was pulsing through their veins.
As Rosalyn had ordered, all continued without a hitch. A walk in the woods, filling bags with snippets of prickly, dark-green holly studded with blood-red berries, collecting knobbly fir cones and spruce boughs that smelt of pine sap, to deck the house. Rosalyn storytelling in their tree-house retreat, which enchantingly had its own dear ceiling light. Tea of toad-in-the-hole, crispy batter pudding and sausages that were cooked just right. Television – a double episode of Supercar. A bubble bath, where they fashioned wigs and moustaches of sparkling soapsuds. And then, Catherine, not minding about her tartan ladybird pyjamas with the elasticized wristbands, because Rosalyn didn’t even seem to see them as they lay in bed in the enchanted darkness, star gazing.
Rosalyn told Catherine all about America, her school and her friends, and how terrible the assassination of John Kennedy had been last month, in Dallas, Texas, and that everyone was dreadfully sad about it. And Catherine managed a short extempore speech about her own school, in which she made up a friend called Karen, who had her own horse which she rode on weekends.
Even Christmas Day, notorious for scenes in Catherine’s experience, with her mother feeling so put upon, went well. Everyone lent a hand cheerfully, the seasonal songs tra-la-la-ing from the radio. The snow fell on Boxing Day and quilted the scenery in virgin white, so that it looked like a sparkling picture on a Christmas card. Catherine wasn’t sure whose idea it was to go for a walk, perhaps even find out if the pond that was too large for a pond and too small for a lake, had frozen over. They left their mothers nattering in the kitchen, peeling vegetables and preparing lunch, their fathers, in the lounge having a serious discussion about something called the Profumo affair, and debating whether or not a Labour government would get in next year, and Simon transfixed by Stephen tinkering with his motorbike in the garage.
For a while it felt like they just walked aimlessly. It had turned a good deal colder and they were both bundled up in coats, gloves and scarves, Rosalyn wearing a red beret that looked so dramatic against her shiny black hair. They found their way to the end of the drive, then to the end of the lane, pausing to throw snowballs at one another. They discussed making a snowman that very afternoon, getting the boys to help. Then Rosalyn mentioned the pond again and they set off more purposefully this time, pushing their way through the copse that bordered the lane, sending the canopy of snow scattering in little flurries. For a short distance the growth was fairly dense. Dry, frosty twigs snapped with sharp reports as they shouldered their way through. A robin looked on inquisitively when Catherine tripped into a hollow hidden by the lambent carpet. But she wasn’t hurt and she was quick to assure Rosalyn of it, and to dismiss her suggestions that they turn back. The sky had a yellowish tint to it that possibly meant more snow. The low sun had not yet broken through the layers of clouds. The uneven ground they trudged over with its mounds and dips, looked like a lunar landscape with, here and there, a skeletal tree throwing up its bony branches in desolation.
It was very quiet. The snow seemed to soundproof the setting, so that they had that shut-off feeling Catherine had known when Stephen had taken her to a recording studio. They were a long way from the lane now, a long way from the house in its relatively deserted location, a long way from the main road, from cars, from people. Catherine was dimly aware of a shift in both of their demeanours. The casual wandering had become a determined trek, the destination they sought was the pond. It was unthinkable to them now that they should retrace their steps and abandon the mission. Like mountaineers seeking the summit of a challenging peak, or arctic explorers following a planned route in rigorous conditions, turning back was not an option. Their conversation had grown sporadic, then hiccupped into a quiet that neither wanted to break.
They were still, more or less, walking companionably side by side, one slipping down a small slope and then speedily clambering upright again, the other circumventing a split tree-trunk and bending to brush snow off her boots, then the two of them falling into step again. Neither felt cold because of the exercise. They watched each other’s breaths misting the chilled air. The pond was screened by a thicket of saplings and bracken, so that when they finally fought their way through and came upon the winter oasis, they were both awed by the scene.
The hoop of vegetation stood out in dark relief against the pallid sky. The banks, blanketed in white, canted down to an iced mirror of frozen water, edged with hoary reeds. They could just glimpse dusky shapes looming up from the opaque depths.
‘It’s beautiful,’ said Rosalyn, taking in the zinc-grey gleam.
‘You were right, it’s iced over,’ said Catherine, wonder-struck.
‘Our own private skating rink,’ said Rosalyn covetously. Their eyes met, blue and green, and both alight with devilry. ‘Can you skate?’ Rosalyn wanted to know. She crouched down and started to make her descent, knees bent, gloved hands searching the snow for a hold of woody stems or sunken rocks.
‘Of course,’ said Catherine, following her. This was untrue, but then how complicated could it be? You slid your feet on the ice, skidded, skated. This would be much easier than trying to balance on real skates, the ones she had seen on television with flashing silver blades, the ones that cut the ice with a hiss, sending a fine spray flying up. She followed Rosalyn. When they arrived at the place where the ice began they both stopped and faced each other. Catherine thought Rosalyn had never looked lovelier. Her skin was very smooth and white, except on the rounds of her cheeks, which were flushed rosy red with the cold. Her mouth was leaning towards a smile. The irises of her vivid blue eyes were ringed in a velvety indigo. Her abundant glossy curls were such a contrast to the scarlet beret pulled down over them, each accentuating the vibrant colour of the other. Yes, she was truly lovely, Catherine thought. Then the sequential thought, that she should like to remember her just like this, a snapshot that she could carry in her head forever. She shivered involuntarily.
‘Cold?’ Rosalyn asked.
‘No . . . no,’ she answered a trifle hesitantly, because now they had stopped walking she did feel cold tentacles worming their way through her layers of clothing.
‘Oh, come on. Last one on the ice is a rotten pig,’ teased Rosalyn.
And then she was pushing off from the bank, rising to her feet until she was standing tall on the frozen platform. She slid forwards once again, flapped her boots against the ice to check that it was solid. Satisfied, she slid a few more steps. Now Catherine was on her feet too. Copying her cousin, she traced her silvery snail trails on the ice with her boots. Rosalyn was gaining in confidence, her feet arcing out as if she was on a real rink. She was putting all her weight on one foot as well, the other foot flicking up behind her. Catherine was nowhere near as adept as her cousin was. Rosalyn had actually skated on several rinks in America, she called over her shoulder. There was nothing to it. Of course, it would be much better if they had proper skates, but then they had their own rink, so they really couldn’t complain. Catherine slid forward gingerly, but either the soles of her boots were not the slippery kind or she was plain hopeless; she suspected the latter.
Rosalyn was heading for the centre of the large pond, her progress as fluid as a boat bug. Catherine, who had only narrowly avoided falling over by flexing her knees just in time, and propping herself up, hands flat on the ice, arms braced, had just succeeded in standing up again. She was concentrating hard, but glimpsing up, saw how far Rosalyn had gone, that she was nearing the middle of the pond. She herself was still only a couple of yards from the bank. The red beret swooped before her eyes.
‘So I’ve had a go with my hands behind my back. Now I’m going to imagine I’ve got a big, fur muff, bring my hands to the front and burrow inside it. I’m like one of those Victorian girls skating in a fur-trimmed coat.’
‘Perhaps you’d better come back now, Rosalyn. You don’t know if the ice is the same thickness everywhere,’ Catherine cautioned, not liking to dash her exuberance, but feeling impelled to.
Rosalyn spun round to face her, one leg out, like a professional skater. She had a look of mild surprise on her face. ‘You’ve hardly come any distance at all, Catherine. What’s the matter? Do you want me to come and help you? We could skate in tandem if you like?’
‘I’d like you to come back, that’s what I’d like,’ Catherine said a little tremulously.
‘Oh Catherine, don’t be such a scaredy-cat. It’s perfectly safe,’ Rosalyn assured her with that breezy smile of hers.
‘Please, please,’ Catherine said, now unable to keep the pleading note from her voice. She reached a hand towards her cousin, trying to keep her balance despite stretching as far as she could.
‘You want me to help you?’ Rosalyn asked, head to one side, not able to comprehend this sudden plummet from bliss to fear.
‘Yes, yes, that’s right, to help me,’ Catherine shot back.
Rosalyn took three sliding steps. The sound when the ice cracked wasn’t very loud at all. It seemed to sink as if in weariness, giving a series of muffled pops. Rosalyn’s leading leg just disappeared into its craggy mouth in one smooth movement. As her trunk hit the ice, fissures appeared, the way they sometimes do on a glass just before it shatters. She scrabbled with the other leg, trying to regain her footing, but now the tension of the ice was weakened. She felt the previously solid surface dip under her, like a pie crust that has lost its support. Another chunk crumbled away from her so that a few inches of her hips sagged beneath the water.
‘Oh!’ she said, more in bewilderment than consternation.
‘Don’t move. Just keep very still. I’ll get you out.’ Catherine took two tentative steps towards her, with terror starting to claw at her reason, then felt her own feet break through the deceptively stable surface. She kept on steadily sinking, the ice pop-popping and creaking about her. Her hips were half submerged when she contacted something immovable. Tree roots? The sloping bank itself ? Perhaps the pool was relatively shallow.
‘Oh!’ Rosalyn said again. Freezing water was pooling around her bent leg as the ice dipped into a cracked water cradle.
‘Look, don’t worry. I can feel the bottom. I’ll get out and . . . and . . . and I’ll help you,’ Catherine finished lamely. Rosalyn was really not that far from her, five yards, no more. Perhaps if she managed to climb out she might be able to reach her with a stick, pull her to safety. Under the water Catherine tried to lift her feet, to take an experimental step towards the bank. But already she was icy cold, her boots were full of water, her feet were numbing fast. Beneath her trousers she could feel the blood pumping painfully through her legs. Again she attempted to lift them, to take an underwater stride. Her movements were performed in slow motion, her body unresponsive, her breathing constricted by the shock of the sudden severe chill. Her legs pedalled clumsily under her, making no progress at all.
‘I’m freezing,’ said Rosalyn, with a truthfulness rarely applied to the hyperbole. There still seemed to be a hint of faint amusement in her voice, as if their predicament was a practical joke. Her other leg had disappeared now, but the cot of fractured ice was still acting as a submerged raft, partially bearing it up. Ignoring Catherine’s advice, she panicked and struggled to heft herself out, but as her hands pressed down on the ice surrounding her she felt it shift.
‘No, I told you to keep still!’ Catherine ordered. She’d never used such a schoolmarmish tone to Rosalyn before. She would have preferred not to, but again she had an idea it was necessary if she was to hold her attention. ‘I will get you out, but you must listen to me.’ A moment passed that might have been five seconds or might have been two minutes, while Catherine tried and failed to crest the ice herself.
‘I’m very cold now,’ said Rosalyn. She was in up to her waist and with her red beret looked strangely comical, like a cartoon figure. ‘I can’t feel my legs any more. Catherine, I can’t feel my legs.’ She was supporting her torso from the waist up with gentle pressure from her spread, sodden, gloved fingers. It was just dawning on her how difficult it would be to maintain her precarious position, that too much pressure and the ice would shatter and give way, too little and she would sink slowly but surely beneath it. Teetering on that point of balance was like finding the biting point on a clutch, and attempting to hold it there forever with a foot fast losing feeling. It needed superhuman strength, the kind of strength the cold stripped you of in minutes.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Catherine again.
The lightest snow powder, like a dusting of talc, was starting to fall. The sky had deepened so that they were no longer peering up through a yellow-tinted lens, but a green one, oppressive and malignant. The closed feeling that had been intimate before, lending a clandestine atmosphere to the outing, had begun to transmute. Catherine felt as if they were being sealed up in an alabaster tomb. She saw a blackbird hopping on the bank, head cocked, gleaming eyes swivelling curiously at the two creatures floundering in the frozen pond.
The revelation when it came was not the kind accompanied by a fanfare of trumpets, or a fall of biblically blinding light through which the sonorous pronouncement of a god boomed. It came quietly, a small voice in Catherine’s ear, a tickle of prophetic truth. Rosalyn is going to die now. And so are you. You are both going to slip noiselessly under the ice, flail about for a moment, then die. It was as simple as that, she thought. One moment she was walking with her cousin in the snow and having a laugh, and it was the best Christmas ever, just as Rosalyn had ordered, and the next they were sliding under icy water readying themselves to drown.
In church they talked about the still small voice of calm. It was just like that, what she heard. Catherine found herself wondering if it sounded inside everyone’s head the moment before the darkness came, before the light died. She could accept her own death. It was not that she wanted to die. Oh, no; life, however problematic, was still preferable to death, Catherine realized. But that Rosalyn, her cousin, who was a beacon of life force, who drew you into her circumference and let you bask in the glow of her, who had never, not once, made Catherine feel she should be grateful that she was bothering with her – that she was about to die was unthinkable. It might have been the extreme cold – her teeth were chattering uncontrollably now – or fear unhinging her imagination, but that was the moment she saw the hooded man hunched on the far bank. She was going to call out to him, but when he looked up there was a blank where his face should be. In the same instant she saw Rosalyn’s body being winched, stiff as a plank, from the gelid water. Her dripping hair clung to her face, her mouth was wide in a scream of terror, her blue eyes were those of a dead fish, glassy and lifeless, the whites bulging and bloodshot. The beret, heavy with water, sagged under her head. She thought about burying Rosalyn, the physical act of lowering her in a coffin into the hard winter earth. She wondered if her parents would want her grave to be in England or America.
‘Catherine, I really am very cold now and sleepy too. Terribly sleepy. I want to close my eyes and just drift off. Only . . . only a minute but I . . . I must shut my eyes,’ came the querulous voice from the ice maiden who was slowly being claimed by the pond. Then, dreadfully, as if she had been reading Catherine’s thoughts, ‘Am I going to die now?’
Catherine closed her eyes. There was a skewering pain in her head. No, she thought. She opened them. ‘No,’ she said. Her voice rattled out of her. ‘Now pay attention, Rosalyn.’ The school-marmish timbre was back, if a little ragged. ‘I am going to call for help.’ The red beret bobbed a nod. Then Catherine started to shout. She didn’t shout anything particularly original. ‘Help! Over here! Help us, please! We’re stuck in the ice! Help!’ But the extraordinary thing was how enormous her voice had become, as if it was magnified many times over, a great manly bellow that came from the base of her. At the outset Catherine was hopeful. Each time she paused to draw in another breath, she half expected to hear someone shout back, ‘It’s all right. We’re coming.’ But all that answered was a cathedral of silence. She had fooled Rosalyn, made her believe just for a moment that she could fix this, that she could outface death. With each cry, though, the light faded in her cousin’s blue eyes, to be replaced with a terrible resignation.
‘You might as well stop,’ Rosalyn whispered the next time she gulped in air. ‘There’s no one out there. We’re all alone.’
Catherine tried to rekindle her fight, but found herself suppressing dry, involuntary sobs. And she, too, was tired, so tired that defeat seemed almost welcome. So that when, a minute later, a small round face reared up from the side of the pond, her immediate thought was that it wasn’t real. Her mind was playing tricks. Her eyesight could not be trusted. Then the head tipped to a quizzical angle. And a voice came from it.
‘What are you doing in there?’ it said.
Now she knew the ginger-haired boy was real, and that there was not a moment to waste. Although at the sound, Rosalyn had glanced up, she was sinking fast. ‘We’re stuck, stuck in the ice. We fell through. You need to run for help. Quickly! Go quickly! There’s no time to waste!’ The boy hesitated. ‘Hurry! Hurry!’ Catherine screamed. And then he was off, streaking away like a snow hare. The instant he had gone a plague of doubts descended on her. What if he forgot or was distracted? What if he didn’t understand how serious it was? What if he wasn’t real after all, that she had dreamt the strange encounter in this bleached wonderland? Rosalyn’s head lolled on her shoulders, so that all that was visible of her was the red beret, like a red full stop punctuating the ice. Please, Catherine prayed in her head, please. Without her having to say anything, she could feel Rosalyn’s will sapping away. She had to keep her going until help came, she had to do that much.
‘I can’t feel my hands either. I think they’re slipping,’ sighed Rosalyn drowsily.
‘No they’re not!’ snapped Catherine. ‘Nonsense! Stop thinking about it! They’re going to come and get us out, any second they’ll be here.’
‘I’m not sure I can—’
‘Oh yes you can!’ Catherine interrupted her. She took a shaky breath. The cold no longer hurt. It was a bad sign. ‘I’ve got a story to tell you. It’s very important that you listen to it, to all of it. You’re always telling me stories, so it’s only fair that you should listen to mine now.’
‘All . . . all right,’ Rosalyn said uncertainly, her own teeth clacking together. ‘But I’m so tired.’
The story Catherine told made no sense at all. She had no talent for making things up the way Rosalyn could. The rambling plot and motley band of characters were fuelled by sheer panic. Suddenly she could feel Rosalyn letting go, as if she was inside her body, as if they were connected. And that was when she screamed at her, when she stoked up a fire of rage.
‘If you don’t listen to the end I’ll never forgive you, Rosalyn Hoyle! Not ever! I made it up, out of my head. Out of my head! Do you understand what I’m saying? You might find that easy but I don’t, so there. And you may not think it’s very good at the moment, but I promise you it’s got the most fantastic end. And I’ll hate you if you don’t listen to it. I’ll hate you! I will! I really will! Not just now but forever! You have no idea how much I’ll hate you!’ She was shrieking the way her mother did at her father sometimes after they went to bed, shrieking so loudly that her throat hurt.
‘Okay, I’ll try,’ Rosalyn quavered. ‘I’ll try my hardest.’
When Catherine saw Stephen’s face appear as he thrashed through the thicket, her father and Uncle Christopher on his heels, she could have fainted for sheer elation. At the sight of her own father, Rosalyn rallied a bit. Instantly Uncle Christopher took control. He’d brought a rope. Of course he had. He was a pilot. He was prepared for every eventuality. Hurriedly he fashioned a lasso with it, talking all the while in that soothing tone of command, the one Catherine expected he used when they en countered a bit of turbulence in his aeroplane. Nothing at all to worry about, ladies and gentlemen. Just stay in your seats and fasten your safety belts. We’ll be through this in no time.
‘Well, what on earth have you two girls been up to? Surely it’s a bit cold for a dip, Rosalyn, even for you?’ Rosalyn managed a suggestion of a smile from her paralysed blue lips. ‘I know you’re a school champion but this can’t be much fun. Now, I’m just going to toss this rope over to you. What I want you to do is use one hand to slip it over your head and shoulders, then ease it down to your waist, and at the last minute pull your other hand through.’ It took two goes and progress was painfully slow. Rosalyn’s hands and arms had locked in the bitter chill. But her father’s encouragement never wavered, his pace upbeat, almost jovial. The instant he saw that the rope was safely under both arms he sprang into action, though. Legs apart, knees bent, he put his back into it and began to heave.
Meanwhile, a short way from him, Stephen, his own legs gripped by his father in possibly the most intimate contact they had ever had in their lives, snaked over the ice, grasped Catherine’s arms and pulled. He didn’t say much but his eyes looked more animated than Catherine had ever seen them before. It was tricky man oeuvring her stiff body onto unbroken ice but he succeeded in jerks, levering her out in a side-to-side movement. Once she was lying on her stomach, no longer impeded by the lip of ice, it was comparatively easy to drag her to the safety of the bank. With Stephen, her gawky brother, folding his lanky limbs round her, Catherine raised her head to see Rosalyn being drawn steadily over the iced pond. She resembled a seal in her drenched clothes, a seal being slowly but surely reeled in by her father, the red beret still perched waggishly on her head.
After that Catherine seemed scarcely aware of her coat being pulled off, of her body being hoisted up into Stephen’s arms, of the march back to where the car was parked in the lane. Rosalyn was also being carried by her father. Catherine caught a flash of his face, the expression no longer seemingly blithe, but one of entrenched concern. Her own father appeared occasionally at the edges of her field of vision, his arms full of their wet clothes. He looked absurdly like a photograph of a Sherpa she had seen when they were studying the Himalayas in geography at school. Also, he had the air, Catherine thought, of a non-relative, a man who didn’t quite belong to their party, who had just tagged along, a hanger on, somehow unconnected to the tragic events.
The cousins were propped side by side on the back seat of the car, and staring down, Catherine found herself worrying in case the water that seemed to be leaking from them stained the upholstery. They were back at ‘Wood End’ within minutes, which seemed odd to both girls. Only moments earlier they had been on the brink of death. Now they were being set down in a steamy kitchen where saucepans bubbled on the stove, and where a discussion was blaring from the radio about Kenya and somebody they called the Burning Spear. And in this increasingly surreal world, Catherine’s mother swung round and berated her for being so daft, before they were whisked away by Rosalyn’s mother to have a bath.
Catherine was on the verge of protesting that she wasn’t dirty, but it was clear from the set of her face that Aunt Amy would brook no argument. Modesty too seemed to have been abandoned in this curious dimension. Her aunt and her uncle were both in the crowded bathroom, and oblivious of proprieties, were jointly unbuttoning, unzipping and tugging off the girls’ dripping clothes. Catherine stared at Rosalyn, who stared back. Their bodies looked very white, deathly white, their flesh was tinged with blue here and there. Still more outlandish, the water, which Aunt Amy insisted was tepid, scalded Catherine the way she imagined having a kettle of boiling water poured over her nakedness might.
‘Oh, oh, oh. It stings. It really stings!’ she whimpered, trying to get out but being prevented by her uncle.
‘It will, after the freezing temperatures you’ve endured. But it shouldn’t last too long,’ he insisted.
If Rosalyn was suffering, she was more stoical than Catherine was, allowing herself to be manhandled, to have her limbs rubbed vigorously by her father’s big hands. Aunt Amy ministered to Catherine in much the same manner, cooing soothingly all the time. Then the bath that had nothing to do with soap was over, and they were being briskly towel dried, put into pyjamas still comfortingly warm from the airing cupboard, and bundled into blankets with hot-water bottles cunningly concealed in their folds. Once again they were borne aloft to the sitting-room and given mugs of warm, sweet cocoa, while Catherine’s father banked up the fire. This was when the discomfort that she had thought was over, returned with a vengeance. Her entire body seemed to be tingling painfully now, as if it was gradually coming back to life, as if she was defrosting like something her mother took out of the freezer.
Intuitively she knew everything had changed. The atmosphere in ‘Wood End’ had grown unaccountably funereal, though neither of them had died. The radio was turned down, everyone talked in low voices as if they were in a doctor’s waiting room, and Aunt Amy hardly spoke at all, which was completely out of character for her sociable nature. Catherine noticed that her eyes darted warily all about her, alert, on guard, as though possible threats lurked everywhere. Permission for walks were denied the pair of them, and even a suggested game in the garden and a quarter of an hour in the tree house had to be strictly supervised. But as Rosalyn didn’t seem very keen on any activity at all, preferring to curl up on the settee or in their den, it didn’t much matter that their antics were being rigidly curtailed.
When Catherine awoke the next day and the day after that, there was no hump that was Rosalyn on the other side of the bed, no black curls spread on the pillow. Seeing her emerge from her parents’ bedroom on both occasions when she ventured downstairs, Catherine concluded that she had stolen into their bed some time during the night. Whether inside or out, Simon now shadowed Rosalyn protectively all day long, so that the privacy previously afforded them that Catherine had so relished, was entirely lost. She felt uncomfortable speaking to Rosalyn within his hearing, so their conversations lapsed into an uneasy silence.
Then Stephen took off on his motorbike, claiming he had to get back to work, that cars needed to be repaired and ready for their owners by the first week of January. Coupled with this unscheduled departure, Catherine’s mother was more than usually irritable with her. And her voice began to ascend into that piercing register of hers that normally she reserved for behind their closed front door. Suddenly they were going too, packing the suitcase and bags and loading up the car. They had planned to stay for New Year’s Eve, to see the New Year in, her mother had enigmatically said, as if the New Year was a person you let into the house in the middle of the night. But now it seemed her father had been summoned back to London.
‘I’m so sorry, Amy, but he’s required urgently. That was what that telephone call he had to make was all about. He was checking up on some problem he thought had been solved. But apparently things have worsened. And now there’s another crisis. Very hush-hush, so I can’t really say much more. Such a disappointment! So, darling, I’m afraid you mustn’t try to stop us.’
Aunt Amy didn’t. In fact she hurried away to cut sandwiches for their journey, and then assisted them with an alacrity Catherine read as eagerness, in ferrying their baggage out to the car. So there it was. They were going home. Although Aunt Amy had promised that Rosalyn was coming out to say goodbye, she did not appear, could not even be glimpsed in the hall through the front door which stood open like a shocked mouth.
‘It can’t be helped,’ said her mother laconically, only just succeeding in keeping her tone level, and holding the car door open for Catherine to climb in.
But it could be helped, so Catherine dashed back into the house and galloped up the stairs to their attic room, where she found Rosalyn lying on the den floor sucking her thumb. She pulled it out the moment Catherine tore breathlessly into the room, and sat up as her cousin kneeled down.
‘I was just coming to say goodbye. I’m sorry, I must have—’
But Catherine interrupted her. ‘You’ll always remember me as the cousin you almost drowned with. That’s how you’ll think of me now. The feeling will be all black and bad.’ She hadn’t realized but she was crying, her cheeks were wet and her pitch was warlike. From downstairs she heard her mother’s impatient call.
‘Catherine, do come! We’re all waiting for you.’
‘Oh no, no, no!’ appeased Rosalyn. She took Catherine by the shoulders and held her gaze for a long moment. Dinah Hoyle’s imperious voice rose to them again.
‘Catherine, do I have to come up there and get you?’
‘I have to go,’ said Catherine miserably, dashing away her tears.
‘Because of you . . .’ But Rosalyn could not go on. A deep intake of breath, and then most awful of all, the mouth that never had, wobbled. An unsure, childish wobble that brought more tears to Catherine’s eyes.
‘Catherine!’ came her mother’s furious shout.
Her cousin didn’t say anything else. She looked as if the effort of speaking that much had utterly depleted her. Then she hugged Catherine hard and their cheeks touched. Rosalyn’s felt very smooth and cold, like marble, against Catherine’s hot, damp one. She drew back, stood, took one last long look at Rosalyn, into her frightened, uncertain blue eyes, and left.
Chapter 3
The summer solstice. Stonehenge. 1965. The sun rising. The shared intake of breath. And the shadows lengthening on the scrubby grass. She’d been coming here for this since she was seventeen. It was what you did when you were a traveller. You followed the light. Now she was twenty-five. That meant she’d been roaming for eight years, falling in and out of company. Forever on the move. Naomi Seddon the nomad. She wondered what would happen if she stood still, if she gave the blackness inside her time to come bubbling to the surface. I am like one of those Russian dolls, she thought. If you pull me apart at the waist you will find another doll within, a black doll, Mara. She stared at the mysterious stone giants huddled in the middle of nowhere, like a gaggle of gods. Glancing about her, she could see that some of the onlookers were praying, and some were singing, and some were chanting. So she fell upon the words the priest had spoken to her when she arrived at the home, renaming her. They were all that remained of him under her skin.
‘And she said unto them, “Call me not Naomi. Call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.”’
She reached out a hand to the towers of rock. The feel of their solid flesh was chill and rough and lumpy under the pads of her fingers. She scratched them with her bitten nails and listened to the reassuring ‘scrit, scrit’ of their reply. And then suddenly she was aware of the tall man at her side, the unruly brown, shoulder-length hair tethered messily in a loose ponytail, the moustache that drooped down at the edges of his mouth in a way she thought delightfully old fashioned, like some romantic poet. The hint of sensual, full lips partially concealed under it. The dark-blue eyes perpetually amused by some private joke, the irises sparkling as they reflected the rising sun. All set in the slightly hawkish, predatory face. He slung an arm casually about her shoulders as if he’d known her forever, as if they’d journeyed there together, as if they were an old married couple. Then he pulled her round to face him, bent, moulded his large frame to hers, and kissed her as if they were not an old married couple, as if they had only just met, as if the powerful animal attraction between them made words superfluous.
Later, when she wandered back to his van, after they drew the faded olive-and-yellow curtains, slipped out of their dew-damp clothes and fucked so sweetly that she wanted to weep, he took a huge breath and made a present to her of his speech. He dropped onto his back and rolled her over until she was on top, lifted her up into the saddle of him, his fingers almost meeting as he circled her narrow waist with his broad hands. And while his penis, still stiff and glistening, teased her open sex, he spoke.
‘You have nice eyes. Different colours. I like that.’ She could feel him begin to jut, feel him butting into her an inch or so, no more, then withdrawing, and again, until she felt her own thighs clenching, the greedy muscles contracting in welcome. ‘I’m Walt,’ he breathed, his moustache quivering. She gazed down at the geology of his body. Well built, a labourer’s physique, the muscles – arms, abdomen (she glanced back over her shoulders), thighs – were hard, the contours clearly visible through the nut-brown hue of his flesh. There were springy curls of hair on his chest, legs, and around his groin and scrota, mingling with her own black bush. He was American, his voice a bass, luxurious and creamy, a voice that hugged you, that opened you up, that plundered you with an affable smile earning your groan of acquiescence.
‘I’m Naomi.’ He lifted her up, and as he did so eased himself in a few inches further, making her fit him. In response she emitted a sound that was more than a mew and less than a growl. He took another bellows-ful of breath, and through her half-shut eyes she saw the barrel of his chest heave. In unconscious mimicry she drew in the tincture of nicotine, oil, sweat, and the hint of fungal spores wafting from the rolled-back blankets.
‘Naomi,’ he said, all that breath of his spent recklessly on the three costly syllables. He pushed his way deep inside her, and deeper still. ‘I can feel the end of you, Naomi,’ he said, and she smiled because she doubted the truth of this, as she absorbed the tartness of his feral scent.
Now, four years on, he was still thrusting into her, satisfied that he had plumbed her depths, that he had found his way to the source of her rivers, that he had possessed her entirely. And why should she spoil the delusion? It was a good life that she had with him, travelling from city to city, through green fields, along open roads in his VW camper van, with the psychedelic flowers winding over the tricoloured bands of its paintwork. Red, white and blue, for the Stars and Stripes. She liked the large skies, the dialogue of the windswept trees. She liked the smell of rain, the feel of it on her skin, in her mouth, sliding down her throat. Its taste altered subtly, so that sometimes it was salty, oily, smoky, sometimes it smacked of industrial machinery, had that tang of metal about it, the bouquet of belching, tall, grey chimneys. She liked to step out of her clothes and let it sluice over her body, finding out her hidden places, a far better detective than Walt would ever be, she acknowledged privately to herself.
But she loved the sea, the slap of the icy, bleak, British sea – the only antidote she knew for the blackness. They sought out the sea weekly. Walt said that the salt was an antiseptic, that it did for a shower, that it was better any day than trying to wash your feet in the basin of a public convenience, then wipe your armpits and your groin on a scrap of dripping paper towel that was coming to pieces in your hand. He believed it even served as a mouthwash, that as you gargled it cleaned teeth and gums, both. But it was the dirty core of her that she wanted purified. Only the stinging assault of the North Sea, the Irish Sea, the English Channel, and the big brother of them all, the Atlantic Ocean, could cleanse her. The sea had knowledge of her that Walt lacked. It understood that chained within her there lurked a gothic monster.
While Walt wallowed like a hippo, or lay on his back and blew a fountain of brine up from his sodden moustache, while his penis shrivelled with the frozen caress to the nub of a rosebud, she opened herself up to an altogether more satisfying kind of intercourse. She would swim out a few yards, her stroke an un expectedly athletic crawl for such a slight woman, her arms scything through the water in mathematically executed arcs. Then, very deliberately, she would open her thighs as wide as she could, letting the sea rush into her, and in its carnal exploration confirm what it already suspected, that that was not the end of her, just the beginning.
She could recite the names of the many places they met, like a woman naming the hotel rooms where she and her lover carried on their stormy, illicit affair. Durdle Door, Chesil Beach, Skegness, Saltburn-by-the-Sea, Fishguard, Tenby, Falmouth, Camber Sands, Eastbourne . . . On and on, they tripped off her tongue. No matter how far they wandered, eventually on this great island they encountered the sea. She didn’t tell Walt how she felt. She kept her sea fever to herself. After an encounter, her skin felt chafed with salty friction, her body battered with cold, her eyes streamed and her vision was misted. But the filth had been strained out of her and she was shriven, a sanctified vessel. Their last swim in Studland Bay had left her with the flu, her temperature rising steeply, until she felt so dizzy she could not stand up. He said it was just a cold, insisted that once she got to the festival she’d soon recover. But she’d been adamant.
He’d removed the back seats of the van long ago. They slept wrapped up in blankets on a bit of blue-and-beige carpet he’d lifted off a skip. Now she huddled so deep into this, that all that was visible of her was her long black hair streaming out like a troll’s – witch’s hair, he liked to call it in jest. He tugged a strand, and for answer she gave a yowl that seemed to slash her raw throat like a knife. He lifted his hands in surrender and backed off, sulking with a joint in the corner of the field where they’d parked. Here, he attracted the interest of a herd of Friesian cows, their expansive nostrils huffing in the unusual aroma, their ears twanging off the flies, their soulful eyes rolling.
And so they missed the 1969 festival. She wasn’t sorry. The music was more his thing. He’d introduced her to it. Though it was true she enjoyed the way that, similarly to the purge of the sea, sometimes it drowned out her voice, Mara’s voice. But beyond this bonus, it was just background noise to her. You smoked, you floated, you made love or fucked as the mood took you, and it jangled away, shredding the air. She appreciated it with a kind of detachment. Not like him. He entered into it as a monk might renounce the world and vanish into a monastery. He submerged himself in it, was liberated, regenerated, reincarnated he would have claimed, in the waterfall of its undulating notes and chords, in the sweet, sour, salt, bitter psalms, in the penetrative shudder of it.
After hearing about Woodstock he was doubly determined that they make the 1970 festival. And just to ensure she did not jeopardize the trip, he kept the van steered well away from the coastline and the inclement sea. Once it was confirmed that Leonard Cohen would be performing, nothing would have prevented him from going. He set about it with the fervour a disciple might have dredged up to see the risen Jesus.
Naomi tried to share in his excitement, but her blood was dulled. Did he think she was an idiot? Mara was an all-seeing, unforgiving deity. ‘Walt is tiring of you,’ came Mara’s voice now, her buried twin, her black inner doll. ‘He is taking his pleasure elsewhere. You can smell the sex on him.’ She scraped and worried and clawed at Naomi’s scabs, until the wounds bled afresh. ‘He’s planning to leave you, did you guess? He’s thinking about going home, going back to America, to San Francisco. Alone. He’s going to offload you. He’s made up his mind to jettison you like rubbish.’
The camper van had been playing up, so Walt insisted that they travel on foot to the Isle of Wight. They left it on a gypsy site nearby, taking with them rucksacks and a small blue tent they had picked up second hand. In truth, their fun bus was in a decline, like an elderly relative in poor health whose every day brings some fresh woe. The carburettor was blocked, a gasket had blown, the starter motor needed replacing, the exhaust was falling off, and the rust was so extensive that you could glimpse the road in a few places.
‘All we need is for it to pack up and ruin things,’ Walt said, screwing up his worried eyes, and drawing down his eyebrows at the prospect of such an unthinkable outcome. To end up tinkering with the van while a god was descending from his cloud onto the Isle of Wight, or more likely from a helicopter, well, it didn’t even bear thinking about. After a heated dispute they left on the Saturday, finally managing to board the 3:45 p.m. ferry from Portsmouth, arriving at the Festival site at Afton Down two hours later.
‘Well, we’ve missed Joni Mitchell,’ Walt said, peeved. ‘I told you we should have come on Thursday or Friday at the latest.’ Naomi, who hadn’t really felt like coming at all, chose to ignore him. They set up camp on Desolation Row, overlooking the stage.
‘I feel like a pioneer,’ Walt said, grinning. ‘A pioneer building a log cabin on the great prairies. Only it’s a tent.’ He looked to Naomi to share the joke but she remained po-faced. ‘We can enjoy the show from here for free. If we feel like it tomorrow we can get tickets, go into the arena and get up close and personal, eh?’
Naomi nodded. She gazed about her. The people just kept flocking in, as if a dam had burst, a dam of people cascading into the fields and onto the slopes until they were chock full with tents. They looked just like wooden building blocks spilled over the yellowing grass, blue and orange and green and red and white. The stage was a pale hump in the distance. The surrounding marquees provided hopelessly inadequate facilities for the hundreds of thousands of tired, hungry faithful, struggling with groundsheets and guy-ropes. The air was filled with the strains of music, with the collective murmur of the masses of jostling bodies, wreathed in beads and flowers and hats and scarves. And it was dense with the fragrance of incense and hash.
‘The atmosphere is wild, just wild,’ Walt told her, miming playing electric guitar. ‘You can trip on this alone. Who needs drugs?’ But despite his protestations it seemed he did. He produced some purple hearts, gave one to Naomi and took one himself. Discreetly she pocketed hers. They wandered about the canvas city letting the music possess them. Walt began chatting to some Americans, two men, Kelwin and Alan, and a young woman, Judy, she said her name was. They joined a queue, bought cups of soup, and sat cross-legged, companionably sipping it together. All but Naomi. She had lost her appetite.
She examined Judy with her contrasting eyes. In her blue scope she observed that she was pretty, a few inches taller than herself. She itemized her clothing. Leather stitched boots, purple tights, an A-line dress with a V-neck and fitted sleeves. The material was a colourful pattern of dotted ovals, which looked vaguely like a frog spawn. Her brown scope took particular stock of her hair. Though mostly a golden yellow, it had lots of other shades in it, streaks of brown and strawberry blonde and red. It mantled her shoulders, hung down her back. The scarf tied round her head made her resemble an Indian, an Indian squaw. She wore a thick silver band on the middle finger of her left hand, and occasionally glanced down at a watch on her wrist.
Now Naomi felt Walt’s eyes veering between them. ‘He’s comparing you,’ Mara said. She looked down at her own boyish flares, her tight T-shirt. ‘He’s thinking that you have no tits, that Judy is shapely, feminine. He’s thinking that she is young, unspoiled, and that you are old, used.’
They stayed together, all five of them, although their tents were pitched some distance apart. They strolled into the woods, climbed a huge tree and hung off its branches as if they were Christmas baubles. They made a campfire with a few sticks and sat around it talking. They smoked some hash, and the shorter of the men, Kelwin, with buck teeth and frizzy hair, offered round a bottle of red wine and some small white pills that he vouchsafed were good stuff, the finest. Naomi pretended to take one but she tucked it in her cleavage. When the bottle came round she mimed having a swig but hardly wet her lips. They were all too far gone to notice. Mara cautioned her that she needed to keep a clear head.
As the night drew in around them Naomi studied Walt, the way an artist might study a model. She saw him put his arm around Judy and murmur into her hair. Her different coloured eyes followed the stroke of his hands on her legs in their purple tights. Chin lifted, she saw him trace the lines of the ribbed cotton. When he found the zips on her boots and started rhythmically pulling them up and down, her eyes were riveted. She registered the tenderness with which he touched Judy’s face. The brush of their lips scalded her own. She could feel the black tide of Mara rising up, as Walt pushed Judy back on the grass, and laid his head on her full breasts.
‘I can hear your heart,’ he said. ‘Boom, boom, boom.’ Far away the music played, and his head bounced as Judy giggled. ‘You have the crisp unworn fragrance of brand-new clothes,’ he said. Naomi scrutinized them through the pathetic little fire. Walt cupped one of Judy’s breasts. ‘Your nipples will be pastel pink, like sugared almonds. Kissing them will be like sucking on small, hard, sugared almonds,’ he rhapsodized. Kelwin and Alan laughed raucously at this and exchanged lewd looks. Alan ran a hand down Naomi’s spine, tried to make a nest for it on the swell of her buttocks. She sat like an ice sculpture and hexed him with her wild eyes. And he rose, rubbing his thighs awkwardly, as if they were soiled, and went to collect more firewood.
‘I need to make love to you, Judy,’ Walt said reasonably. Judy clasped her hands behind her head and sighed contentedly. Then they were holding onto each other as if they were cast adrift in an ocean and each was the other’s lifebuoy. They stood. Again they kissed, long and lingeringly. When they headed off towards Judy’s tent, Naomi tracked them. She waited, and when they re-emerged she joined them as they made their way down Desolation Row. They found a loose panel in the fencing and clambered through into the arena. They managed to fight their way right up to the stage, and The Doors played, and The Who, and Sly and The Family Stone. Walt caressed her wiggling serpentine body. He toyed with her and petted her. Feet apart from them, Naomi gave off intense hatred like static. When they went back to Judy’s tent she hastened after them, tripping over sprawled bodies, being sworn at, being kicked. She stayed outside until she had counted the stars, then snuck in. She squatted like a gargoyle in a corner and kept vigil while they slept. The music vibrated her ears, and Mara was a marble rolling in her head, muddling her thoughts. She was wide eyed when Judy sat up, stretched, yawned. Walt woke more slowly. He saw Judy beside him, her fair hair sleep-tumbled. A second later he started at the spectre of Naomi crouching at her feet. The tent was jade green, the morning light filtering through it creating the impression that they were all under the sea.
‘Hello, Naomi,’ Judy greeted her, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary in waking up to see a woman squatting like a gargoyle ogling you. ‘I want to take Holy Communion. It’s Sunday. There’s a service by the marquee. Roman Catholic and Church of England. I saw a notice.’ Judy whistled through her even white teeth into the watery greenness. She was naked and so was Walt. Blinking at her, he nodded. Naomi backed out of the tent on her hands and knees like a dog, leaving them to worm their way from their sleeping bag and into their clothes. They emerged from the tent, hands clasped, to find her still attending them. She did not look vengeful, or angry, or jealous, just blank, a blank page.
‘Hello again,’ Judy said, relaxed. And she leaned forward and kissed Naomi lightly on the cheek. Walt followed suit.
‘Naomi, have you been with us all night?’ Walt wanted to know. She nodded.
‘Are you all right?’ breathed Judy. She had her scarf in her hand and had begun folding it, running a thumb and forefinger along the fabric edge as if creasing paper to make a fan. She tied it around her head. Then, ‘Do you want to take Communion? Come with us.’ And she clasped Naomi’s hand in hers and felt the rough nails scrabble against her palms.
When they got close enough, the priests – there were two of them speaking into a microphone in resonant sing-song tones – ushered them forwards. Judy looked very earnest as she took the silver chalice. She focused on her reflection in it before she took a swallow. Walt mimicked her example. He glanced round to locate Naomi and saw that she was frozen. Her arms were slung about her chest, hands plunged into her armpits. She was staring at one of the priests, her expression haunted. He was robed in satin, the dark material patterned with huge swirling flowers, wide white cuffs on his bell sleeves. He was elderly. A side parting navigated its way through untidy grey straggles of hair. Horn-rimmed glasses perched on a large nose, which was latticed with broken red veins. His head was down, one hand lifted stiffly in blessing over the plate of wafers.
The other priest, taller, less ostentatious in black, was pouring the wine into a second chalice. Suddenly Naomi spun on her heels, shoving her way through the communicants and fled. For a space she walked aimlessly. For a space she merged with a group who were all leaping like grasshoppers to bat about an enormous orange balloon, on the scale of a hot-air balloon but lacking the buoyancy.
‘Man, this is great,’ said one guy, his shoulder-length brown hair lashing about as he jumped. ‘Don’t you just want to do this forever?’
She realized, startled, that he was addressing her. She was standing on tiptoes and lowered herself carefully. She made no reply. She was tiring of the pointless game. ‘I’ve won,’ she said.
‘Oh, far out! You’re a riot.’ She fixed him with her individual glare and he stopped springing about like Zebedee from The Magic Roundabout. ‘Wow, your eyes are amazing. Like two separate women in one. Want to go somewhere?’ he propositioned bluntly. She gave her hesitant mechanical blink and stalked off.
She joined a queue, shuffling forward patient as a cow, and was rewarded with a slice of melon, a hamburger, a pint of milk. She ate hungrily, drank thirstily, licked the cream off her top lip. Re-energized, she stepped into a wall of foam and leapt about, making believe she was inside a cloud. It was mildly amusing. It made her feel sexy, the foam on her skin and people looming out of the whiteness. She’d like to have fucked Walt with all that foam splitting and flaking around them. It would have been like screwing in a giant snow-globe.
‘But then he’s probably busy fucking sweet little Judy right now,’ she mumbled under her breath.
She wasn’t in the mood to trampoline on clouds after that, so she spent a period staring at a plantation of rubbish. It seemed to be burgeoning right before her, dividing, doubling, a cancer spreading. It stank, its rank odour permeating the air. She wondered if anyone else saw the astonishing beauty in this living monument to decay and death. Then it was the evening. She materialized out of the throng and sat beside Walt and Judy on the grass. They heard Donovan, Ralph McTell and the Moodies. She decided that she would never forget the Moodies, the music from that incredible Mellotron seeming to wrap around them. It came from everywhere and nowhere, reverberating off the slopes, bouncing off the canvas gables on Desolation Row. The huge darkness was pegged with stars, the air was a mêlée of scents, of grass and hash and dew and people, and yes, even here, garbage. She was a drop in an ocean of people, pulled by the currents of music.
‘Judy, we were always meant to be together,’ Walt declared. ‘Come back to San Francisco with me?’ And when she did not reply, only smiled, he asked her to give him her address, her phone number.
‘You’re a treasure,’ she said as if he was an adorable puppy she didn’t want to keep. Then, ‘Goodbye.’ She kissed him on the cheek and Naomi as well, and shimmered off, losing herself in the heaving mass. Walt’s face cracked as if it was a nut split open in a nutcracker. He was hardly aware of Naomi, of the bottle she handed him.
‘Jimi Hendrix,’ she said.
‘Foxy Lady,’ he replied, gulping the drink she had handed him. He grimaced. ‘What . . . what is it? It tastes like air freshener.’ But such was his thirst that he drained the bottle anyway.
After a time she said, ‘You’re tired.’
As if she was a hypnotist and he was her subject, he nodded obediently. Instantly he was exhausted, worn ragged. He needed to sleep. Jimi Hendrix seemed far away, a blur of pink and orange, a flash of silver around his neck. He wanted to hear the end but he hadn’t the will to keep awake. Then Naomi was helping him back to the tent. ‘I want to see . . . see . . . Je . . . Jethro, Jethro Tull. I want . . . want to see Joan Baez. Naomi? Naomi?’ He waved his arm and stumbled. Distantly he knew he was losing co- ordination, control. ‘Was there something . . . something in that drink?’
‘Don’t be silly.’
‘Na . . . omi?’ he slurred.
‘Yes?’ she said, a clear bell sounding through the fudge of his speech.
‘Don’t let me miss Leonard. Don’t let me . . .’ He broke off, remembering he had to breathe. ‘Don’t let me miss Leonard Cohen. I must . . . must hear Leonard.’ Someone was turning the volume down on his voice. The effort of making himself understood was too great. ‘Mm . . . mm . . . Na—’
‘I hear you,’ Mara, the black doll inside her, said. ‘Don’t worry, Walt, I’m going to take care of you.’ Now she was helping him into their tent and he was falling on his sleeping bag. ‘I’m going to make you comfortable.’
‘You’re . . . you’re . . . you’re . . .’ She stroked his brow, drew her hand down his face, closing his eyelids as you might a dead man’s. His mouth fell open and his body went slack. She made a tight roll of her sleeping bag, and then held it over his mouth and nose. Using all her strength, she pushed down for long minutes, until her knuckles were white as lard and her hands ached. She only removed it when she was absolutely sure that he was dead. She pressed her fingers into his neck and felt for the pulse in his carotid artery. None. Walt’s blood was stagnating. Already his cells were breaking down, decaying, until all that he would be fit for was to be buried in the rubbish plantation. She sat back on her heels and surveyed her handiwork for a couple more minutes. She was grinding her teeth, the pestle-and-mortar grating punctuated by small satisfied grunts. She listened to her own eulogy for a bit and reminisced about her life with Walt, good and bad. Then gradually the tent impinged on her mix of thoughts. She didn’t like it, and he had been going to leave her alone in it while he lay with Judy.
She wished that they had brought the camper van. She felt safer in the van, shored up in the van. She could lock the doors and no one could get in. No one could pull her from her bunk in a sleep so deep that it felt like a trance, no one could grip her small hand in theirs, crush it between their strong adult fingers like a closing vice, and drag her through a forest of bunk beds where The Blind Ones slumbered. The Blind Ones chose to be sightless. Images played before their eyes, then vanished, never to be recalled. They were present, ever present, their eyes glowing but they witnessed nothing. Did you see? Did you see what happened? Mara wanted to scream at them, at their blank pudding faces. But she knew they would only turn their empty eyes on her and shake their heads. No, they did not see Father Peter creep past like a malignant ghoul in the thick darkness, Father Peter who in the daylight made them press their hands together and pray for forgiveness of their sins. In the sunshine with the sea breeze salty in their nostrils, he told them that they were miserable sinners, and that there was no health in them. Then in the black of night he came and drew Mara from the warmth of her bed. He took her to his small room, and told her as he lifted off her sleeping shift, that he needed to examine her, to seek out the marks of sin, to test her for evil. If she cried out the big hand was slapped over her mouth until she thought, just as Walt had, that she would suffocate. And when it was over the voice rasped that if she ever told anyone, she would go to hell, drown not once but for eternity, in a pit of molten flames.
And when she returned to her bunk, her skin bruised and crawling, the wet, musty smell of him on her, in her, she curled up in the dark forest and listened to the sounds of the others, The Blind Ones. The coughs and sighs and sniffles, the creaks of the wooden bunks as their occupants stirred, the rattle of windows, the thin whistle of the wind. She hugged her knees and imagined what it was like to be in hell forever, roasting in its fires. She imagined all of her, her organs, her flesh, licked with flames, consumed, until all that was left of her was the black crisp of her wicked heart.
On the third night after her ordeal she crept from her bunk, barefoot, holding the rough cotton of her shift between her legs to sop up the blood. She slipped through the doors like a shadow, and stumbled in the twilight. She trod grass and gravel, twigs and grit. She felt her way to the steep path that led down to the beach. She heard both her names spoken in the ‘shush, shush’ of the sea. Naomi. Mara. Naomi. Mara stepped onto a plain of cool grey sand, the pads of her feet sinking into it.
‘And she said unto them, “Call me not Naomi. Call me Mara; for the Almighty hath dealt very bitterly with me.”’
As she neared the sea it greeted her with a cheer. Raising her head, she saw something that made the charred lump of her heart leap – its long blue smile faintly lit by the push of dawn. And then she was running, peeling the bloodied shift off, over her head, and running heeled with exultation into the icy water.
Chapter 4
Sixteen-year-old Owen has been set an essay for English homework, the topic ‘Childhood Memories’. It begins rather well as he lists remembered sensations. Sucking milk so cold from gill-sized bottles through paper straws that the ice splinters pricked his tongue and raked his throat. Sitting in a wicker chair that creaked and pinched his thighs when he shifted position. Eating jam sandwiches that stuck to the roof of his mouth. Squashing a tomato in his hand and feeling the juice of it ooze from between his closed fingers, and the seeds plant themselves in his sticky palm. Smelling the manure that had just been dug into the earth at his father’s allotment, as he stepped into the Cimmerian gloom of his rhubarb shed. He records his first sight of the blush-red rhubarb stalks poking up lewdly from the tangle of dowdy brown roots.
When he has finished the assignment he creeps into Sarah’s bedroom and sits on the side of her bed, feeling as if he has stepped into a time warp. Nothing has been changed in here. The space, Sarah’s space, is petrified in time. A clock stopped with Sarah’s last breath. His mother never opens the bedroom window. She wants the air that her daughter inhaled, that inflated her small spongy lungs, sending oxygen whizzing around her four-year-old body before she exhaled it, to remain trapped in the jar of this room. It is the reason that she slips speedily in and out, slamming the door with haste. Once inside the airtight hallowed place, she rations her own breathing, moves to new positions where she hopes that the air has not yet been recycled, and very slowly lets the snail of it slide into her. Look, this air, this air here, in the corner, inside the cupboard, at the back of the bottom drawer, this has not been tampered with. This is virgin. This is Sarah’s. She scrabbles about on her knees, and her head and shoulders disappear inside an empty drawer, so that she looks as if she is sticking her head in an oven, as if she is attempting to gas herself.
Both Bill and Owen have seen her do this, and both have guessed her motive as she rolls about on the floor, buries her head under the rag rug, or stands on tiptoes on a chair, her respiration at a turtle’s pace. Someone who was not there on the beach that day, someone who did not hear the words, ‘Don’t leave me, Owen,’ someone who didn’t see Sarah dredged up from the ocean bed, vampire white, eyes cemented shut, that someone would not have known. They would have surveyed Ruth Abingdon contorting her body into cramped gaps, or stretching giraffe-like to lick the ceiling, and they would have said, ‘That woman is mad; she should be taken to a locked ward.’ But Bill and his son Owen were there, and her behaviour does not seem so bizarre to them.
Owen glances about him, his gaze settling on the small, mahogany, free-standing bookcase. There are several titles of Noddy, a collection of fairytales with lovely illustrations that Sarah liked to trace with a chubby finger, while her father or her mother or her big brother read to her. His eyes rove the room and take inventory. The white enamel paintwork on the cupboards has yellowed with age. The curtains, a pink floral pattern, have been bleached long ago by the sun. The rag rug that his mother made for her daughter has faded too. Sarah’s cuddly toys are piled up on the pillow, a small teddy, sunflower-yellow with a black button-nose and a balding head, a floppy rabbit, its long ears lined with peach felt, and a golliwog whose stuffing can be peeked through a splitting seam on his foot. The worn scrap of her comfort blanket is kept folded in a lacquer jewellery box on the bedside table. There are more toys in a box at the end of her bed.
The contents of the wardrobe he knows by heart. He is confident that he can faithfully reproduce every dress and skirt, every cardigan and jumper and coat, every blouse and vest and pair of pants, her dressing gown and folded pyjamas. The socks have a drawer all to themselves. They nestle there like rows of white mice, some with lacy cuffs, or bows, or motifs of lambs and baby chicks. The shoes are polished. That is something his father deals with under the heading of ‘Caring for Sarah’s Kit’. Everything must be ordered for a surprise inspection one morning, one fine morning when they will chance to open her door a crack and see the spill of Sarah’s light-golden curls on the pillow. You can smell the polish when you fling wide the cupboard doors, and see the shoes standing to attention like soldiers on parade. They shine as his father’s did that day on the beach, the day she died. And there are tiny wool slippers, and a small pair of wellington boots, bottle green. Sarah’s smell is still here too, though like the curtains and the rag rug, its hallmark lemony heat grows fainter by the week.
His mother comes in every day, religiously, as if attending a daily service. Owen has seen her coiled like a rope on the bed, her knees drawn up, her face pressed to the pillow, to the toys, sobbing dryly. She would prefer Owen not to enter Sarah’s bedroom. She has not expressly banished him, but he has grasped this from the cross engraved on her brow, the downward pull of her mouth, the jump of the nervous tick in her cheek when he approaches the door. So he tries to resist the urge to spend time with Sarah, or at least to put it off until the need has become so strong that he cannot help but succumb to it – as he does now.
Sarah’s last words to him are caged in his head. ‘Don’t leave me, Owen.’ They clang like a heavy chain. ‘Don’t leave me, Owen.’ They make his scalp feel tight and his brain throb. Sometimes it is only the prick of a needle trying to winkle out a splinter, a nagging pain that, although it makes him irritable, is just about tolerable. But sometimes it is an ice pick hacking away in his skull, over and over and over, until the agony of it is unendurable. ‘Don’t leave me, Owen! Don’t leave me, Owen! Don’t leave me, Owen!’ When it is like this he is prepared to do anything to make it stop. He visualizes the ice pick driving into the sentence and cleaving the words apart. Owen. Don’t. Me. Leave. Don’t. Leave. Owen. Me. Leave. Owen. Don’t. Me.
He drives the heels of his hands into his eye-sockets. But it is no good because after a second they begin to reassemble. The word worm wiggles and wiggles the shape of the sentence back again, and then Sarah calls out even more loudly, enunciates ever more clearly, ‘Don’t leave me, Owen! Don’t leave me, Owen! Don’t leave me, Owen!’ And it sounds as if Sarah is right here next to him. There is the stranglehold of her arms belting his waist, and the fairy-dust hair brushing his chest, and the feathery lashes tickling his flesh.
His attention is distracted by the apple-green candlewick bedspread. It is looking threadbare now, as if the moths have gorged themselves on it. Actually it is not the moths but his mother who is responsible for the damage. Her busy fingers have pulled the cotton cords from it so many times that it has de veloped chronic mange. He shuts his eyes again and this time he is besieged by an image of himself. A gangly limbed boy, his mussed sandy hair like a tangle of gold wires in the candle flames. He is swaying slightly on the balls of his feet, feeling suddenly dizzy, the burnt smell in his throat. He draws in his breath with wonder, hypnotized by the glistening crimson arms of the rhubarb stalks, the ruched crowns of buttery yellow and natal green, edging towards the light. The flames flicker as if stirred by his exhaled breath. Their grey felt shadows graze the rough shed walls, tall then short, short then tall again. He can see them etched on his eyelids, jostling one another in their struggle to escape the suffocating wooden womb. He inhales and takes the musty smoke-laced odour deep down into his lungs. He looks automatically to his left, a twin looking for his other half. But Sarah is not there. Wire-wool tears scour his eyes. He blinks them away, and then he sees the Water Child blazing in her place.
Owen is visited by another memory that he omitted from his essay, the memory of a man who gave a brandy glow to his mother’s brown eyes. His name was Ken Bascombe. He was their next-door neighbour’s brother. He came to stay with his sister, Eileen Pope, one summer. He had sold his house in Surbiton and was emigrating to America.
‘Just a few things to do, one or two bits and pieces to sew up and then I’m off,’ he tells Bill, his deep, well-modulated voice bouncing over the garden fence.
Bill has been digging. He always seems to be digging, as if one day he thinks he might unearth something precious. He has soil particles clogging his scant hair, and brown flecks on the lenses of his National Health glasses. And he has a smear of mud on one cheek and a patch on the other, like tribal war paint. He is a primitive native emerging from the jungle, ill-equipped with his garden weaponry for this meeting with tall, suave, sophisticated, civilized man. Owen is wearing a secondary school uniform, grey flannel trousers, a white shirt. He is sitting on the kitchen doorstep in the sunshine pretending to read, but really he is observing, he is observing his father and Ken Bascombe.
‘Oh yes,’ says Ken, adjusting his tie and smoothing back his own abundant, crisp, blond hair. ‘So many more opportunities to make money over there, set up new businesses, get things moving. No limits to what you can achieve in that brave new world.’ Bill leans on his spade and nods. He rubs the inside of a wrist over one cheek, another brushstroke of earth paint.
‘Sounds . . . sounds, well . . . super,’ he manages eventually. He is stripped to the waist. His skin looks as unhealthy as the raw chicken’s spread-eagled inelegantly on the chopping board in the kitchen, waiting patiently to be drawn and quartered. In contrast his nipples seem very pink. They look out of place, as if someone has stuck them on him, as if you could just pinch them off like milk bottle tops. He rolls his shoulders, uncomfortable in his plucked-poultry skin.
‘I tell you, Bill, all those things you dreamt of having, over there in the Big Apple, you can really attain them. They encourage you. Not like here, eh? Slap you down just for trying over here.’ As he talks he describes a big circle with his arms. Owen notices that his hands are shapely, graceful, long fingered, expressive as a musician’s, with very clean, neatly filed nails. He has never scratched about in the dirt, you can tell. He appears to prod the ceiling of the sky, as if he can dip into heaven whenever it pleases him. He gives a chuckle and his magnetic eyes sparkle. Bill’s answering chuckle is a mirthless, agitated cough that is gobbled back hurriedly.
Owen’s eyes flick over the page of the book he is reading, Gone with the Wind, then back to the man. Ken Bascombe is wearing a suit. The fence cuts him in half but the portion he can see is very smart. A cream linen suit, a pressed, laundered shirt, a shiny, blue tie that matches the striking, frosty blue of his eyes. He is tall and handsome, and in his jacket he looks cooler than his father does with nothing on. Now he slides a hand in an inside pocket, produces a packet of cigarettes, and a gold lighter that catches the sun with a scintillating flash. He offers one to Bill who shakes his head. When he starts smoking, Owen squints at him and conjures Rhett Butler.
His mother comes out into the garden to take the washing down from the line. She crosses to the fence holding her empty basket in her arms, and chats easily to Ken Bascombe for a while. Her tone is such a low lisp that he cannot hear what she is saying. His father hangs back, looking oafish. After a few minutes his mother puts down the basket and rests her weight on one leg, the other leg bent back at the knee. She leans over the fence and smiles archly. She accepts the offer of a cigarette, although she knows her husband does not like her smoking. And Ken Bascombe, who will soon be travelling on a ship across the Atlantic Ocean to America, places her cigarette between his lips, holds his own to its tip, inhales deeply, and when it is lit hands it to her. Owen, thinking about how high the price of freedom was for the plantation slaves, notes that unusually his mother’s hair is brushed and loose. She has abandoned her apron too, something unheard of when performing her household tasks, until today, that is. Her cotton-print dress flutters in the gentle breeze, so that her son becomes aware for the first time that his mother has a body, a slender waist, shapely hips, full round breasts. For the rest of the day his mother sings.
She is still singing weeks later. Now she takes rides in Ken Bascombe’s Humber Super Snipe. The car has a top speed of nearly 80 m.p.h., she tells her son. It is a rich maroon colour, as if red wine has been sloshed all over the exterior, and it has real leather upholstery. Owen has sniffed the pungent animal scent of it. But he has declined the frequent invitations from Mr Bascombe, asking if he might like to take a spin in it. His mother’s spins have become so frequent that Owen imagines her as one of those twirling ballerinas. Round and round and round she goes. And he wonders if she will ever stop.
She arrives home later and later in the evenings still spinning, with her hair secured under her Liberty paisley scarf, newly bought sunglasses concealing her eyes, her cheeks flushed red as ripe strawberries. There is a funny smell that seems to cling to her too, a briny, fishy scent that reminds Owen unnervingly of the Merfolk. And her skin is pimpled all over as though she is cold. She sits in a dream on the staircase, slipping off her sunglasses to reveal dewy eyes, and easing the knot of her scarf with quaking fingers.
Then one night his father is in the kitchen scraping the vegetables for the tea that has now become a late supper. He has been listening for the door, ears pricked for his wife. Owen watches him carefully shave a potato, so that the peeling hangs unbroken, like a single muddy ringlet springing from a creamy white scalp. Then, while the pans are bubbling on the stove, Owen sees him fold the washing soporifically, smoothing out the wrinkles in the different fabrics. He stabs the potatoes with a fork, and deciding that the flesh is still resistant to the tines, busies himself guiding the carpet sweeper, push and pull, forward and back, as if he is practising a dance step. Owen, trailing him like a wan ghost from room to room, notes his brow slackening with the repetitive motion. His eyes have filmed over too as they trace the monotonous licking of the carpet pile, the ritual cleaning thorough as a mother cat washing her kitten.
The next day Owen comes home from school to find his father sitting at the kitchen table. He has fat, brown tears streaming down his face. He must have been rubbing it and the tears have mingled with earth, he realizes. His father is crying tears of clay, his nose dripping brown mucus, his quick, flighty breaths finding the grains of soil in his flaring nostrils and catapulting them out.
‘Hello, Father,’ Owen says.
He blinks his bloodshot eyes at his son in astonishment, as if having to remind himself that he did not drown as well that day on the beach. He seizes an onion from the sorry mound of vegetables by the chopping board, and brings it speedily to his eyes.
‘Peeling onions,’ he mumbles thickly. ‘You mustn’t mind me. I’m just a novice. I’m afraid your mother’s the expert.’ He takes a sudden desperate breath and then bites down, the way Owen has seen wounded soldiers do in war movies to stop from crying out in agony.
Owen’s doubting eyes flick to the papery, copper skin of the uncut onion. He wants to ask where his mother is, although he knows. A series of fleeting images chase through his head. His mother sitting in the front seat of the Humber Super Snipe, windows down, the wind in her hair, eyes shining, screeching in exhilaration as the powerful car swings round a hairpin bend in the road. Then the same car parked near the Ridgeway, and his mother and Ken Bascombe walking up a sloping path, hand in hand. Lastly, his mother looking eerily beautiful, lying flat on her back following the drama of the swirling clouds. Her hair, threaded with wild daisies, speedwell and maiden pinks, is spread like an embroidered pillow on the green, green grass. Now she lifts herself up and folds her body over the man’s stretched out by her side. Light as dandelion seeds blown on a breath of wind, she bends to kiss his fair hair, the fine skin around the vivid eyes, the unlined forehead, then lets her lips brush his. The kiss deepens and his arms close about her, the two blurring into one another. Owen wants to ask where his mother is but he does not.
Instead he says to his father, ‘Do you want any help?’
And his father shakes his head, the wisps of greying hair flying about making him look like a mad professor bending over his marvellous new invention, the onion. With an effort he straightens his shoulders and summons up a gritty smile, a tracery of fine, brown lines cracking his lips.
‘I’ll call you when . . . when tea’s ready,’ he assures his son in wavering tones. Then, as the boy creeps from the room, he adds robustly, ‘We’re having . . .’ but he never finishes the sentence. As Owen mounts the stairs he hears him sob, and feels his own heart jerk in answer.
There is no tea that night. Owen sits upstairs in Sarah’s room on the balding, apple-green coverlet, as the darkness digests the small house. He resists its advance, leaving on the bedside lamp. He will not give way to tiredness and close his eyes. And, as if he is plagued with vertigo crouching on the ledge of a skyscraper, he will not look down either. He does not have to peek to know they are there, reptiles writhing about his bed. Their shadows glide like blue-grey fish among the sweeping ferns of her flocked wallpaper. Sometime in the night, or perhaps it is the morning, he hears the Humber Super Snipe return, hears it revving outside the window. But still he does not move, just follows the Merfolk as they weave and slide along the aquarium walls of Sarah’s bedroom. Later, the click of the front door sounds very loud in the orphaned house, and the drone of the milk float that follows it, almost deafening.
When he ventures out of Sarah’s room he finds his mother sitting on the stairs, a suitcase propped on her lap. He has to clamber over her and it is a tricky operation in the greyness. On a lower step he swivels round and, feet apart, legs braced, faces her. For a longest time their eyes lock. He wonders if, like him, she is thinking of the day they made the snowman together.
‘Where are you going, Mother?’ he asks in a small voice. He hears a noise and glancing over his shoulder sees his father, face crinkled like a used teabag, cheeks still stained with brown streaks, standing, hands in pockets in the lounge doorway. ‘Are you leaving, Mother?’
But his mother does not answer. And then a moment, a moment when a diver is on the edge of a high board, when he sways forwards, feels for the point of balance, and holds himself there. Owen listens to the sound of his own breathing, light puffs, and his father’s dragon breaths dragging painfully in and out. His mother inhales and expels air silently under her butter-yellow belted summer coat. The horn of the Humber Super Snipe shrills, and Owen and his father swing round to stare accusingly in its direction. After a pause it screeches again. The note seems more urgent now, more impatient.
When Owen looks back, his mother has risen and is clasping the suitcase. And the way she stares at the front door, is as if everything else in the cramped hall, the telephone table, the telephone, the coat stand, the man and the boy, are without any substance at all. One last time the car horn blares, and this, a long sustained beep that makes all their ears ring as if they have been roundly boxed. Owen steps aside so that she can pass by un impeded. She treads down the stairs, crosses to the front door and rests her hand on the handle. He is still riveted to the spot where she sat and so he does not see her glance back, not at his father but at him. Slowly she turns and starts to heft the case back up the flight of stairs. Outside, the engine that has been idling, leaps into life with a bellicose roar. Then it is the purr of a contented cat. And finally it is no more than a mouse scampering away, the horn a distant squeak.
He blinks and a merman has slithered out of his nightmares. He is sitting on the same step that his mother sat on minutes earlier, his scaly tail flapping against the striped runner, briny puddles soaking into it. He shakes his head, and his brass-wire hair floats up like the mane of a jellyfish, to sting the white ceiling. The salty, dead-fish stink of him fills the air, making Owen want to gag. He turns and runs into the lounge, slamming the door behind him and very nearly tumbling over his father. Bill is on all fours harvesting the vegetables that are scattered all over the carpet, orange-coned carrots, copper-balled onions, sausage strings of Lincoln-green courgettes, cucumbers lying like sea slugs on the woollen pile, and dozens of cherry tomatoes. He is still dressed in yesterday’s mud-stained gardening clothes, and Owen is still wearing his school uniform. He moves with purpose over the vegetable patch rug, uprooting the vegetables one after another, and placing them with care on the seat of the settee.
‘I won’t be long,’ he mumbles, taking in his son with a swift upward glance. ‘Just clear up this mess. Wouldn’t want your mother finding it like this when she gets up, now would we?’ He chortles with impish pluck. He raises his bushy eyebrows at Owen, hinting at the dire consequences that might be in store for them both if he does not complete his mission. ‘I see you’re all ready for school. Good chap. Just the ticket. Won’t be a moment and then I’ll go and start up the car.’
Owen nods and presses his spine with all his might into the lounge door, arms spread, palms flat, knowing what lurks behind it. He thinks of the Humber Super Snipe eating up the roads, heading for the coast and the waiting ship. And then he thinks of their Hillman Husky in its washed-out shade of grey, an old, mud-caked elephant. He recalls the grains of earth freed from the upholstery creases by his weight, the gritty sensation of them sticking to his bare thighs, the stacks of plant pots that fight for space at his feet. He folds his arms, and feels his diaphragm jig to the uneven metre of his phantom tears. And then the Water Child is there, drowning his demons in a flood of light.
Owen receives an ‘A’ for his essay on childhood memories. The Abingdon family he writes about is just like the Woodentops. The father works in an office, the mother is happy all the live-long day in the kitchen, and the son plays in the garden in the reliable sunshine. His English teacher, Miss Laye, asks him to read his essay aloud to the class. She tells the other students how accomplished it is, how vivid and descriptive. ‘Owen has set a very high standard with this excellent piece,’ she says, giving her student an approving smile. He wonders what mark he would have got if he told the truth. What would she have said to the waiting class then?
Chapter 5
Sean Madigan is standing on Richmond Bridge staring down at the Thames. It is a glorious evening in early summer. Tyre tracks of pale cloud etch a ghostly path across the hyacinth-blue sky. The only hint of approaching night is the denser, more richly pigmented line of the distant horizon. The river is still busy, a thoroughfare of pleasure boats and smaller rowing boats. From where he stands he can see people strolling along the towpath or enjoying a drink outdoors in one of the riverside pubs, a mother pushing a double buggy, a man walking a dog, a family of ducks bobbing on the merry-go-round of the water.
In just under an hour he will be meeting Catherine. It is their third date and he is going to take her out to dinner at a pretty Italian restaurant on Richmond Hill. He has picked it mainly because of the views, the panoramic views over the river, though he has reconnoitred and glanced briefly at the menu. He knows she will like it. She isn’t hard to please, not one of those women who are forever summing you up, what you wear, if you’re mean or generous with your pennies, whether or not you take them somewhere besides the pub. Catherine appears content to be carried along with the current. As far as he can tell, and he admits that it is still early days, her nature is easy-going, self-contained, appreciative. She seems to enjoy listening to him talk, to his craic, to his jokes. And when he outlines his plans for setting up a business selling shampoo, her eyes follow his with interest. He recognizes that she is impressed. She sees he is a man with aspirations, that before long he will be making his mark. She has foresight, this English woman; she approves of his goals. She has the perception to look beyond an Irish navvy moving from one construction site to the next, to glimpse the man he will become. He is saving, puts by money each week, has worked out to the last detail what he will need to get his business up and running. He has sketched out his blueprint and she has encouraged him in his endeavours.
He met her at L’Auberge where she was waitressing. He liked the look of her straight away. Shoulder-length red hair tied back neatly with a velvet ribbon, and constrained green eyes that fluttered away from you and had to be coaxed back constantly. There was an immediate rapport between them. He didn’t imagine it, because she smiled and accepted the note he passed her with his ’phone number scrawled on it. And then she rang him no more than a week later. On their first night out he took her to the pictures to see The Poseidon Adventure. He put his arm around her protectively in the darkness. But that was all. For some reason he didn’t want to take advantage of this young woman, who dressed so demurely and who gave him licence to be whatever he wanted to be.
For their second date he suggested ice-skating and was surprised to see a flash of real anxiety light her otherwise placid eyes. So instead he took her shopping to Kensington Market, and out for lunch at a Beefeater. Catherine seemed delighted with that outing too, letting him choose an embroidered Indian smock for her, and a necklace of amber beads that stood out against her pale skin.
Her voice is very English, very posh. He hasn’t met her family yet but he expects that they are quite highbrow. If he is correct in his assumption, it means that he is already moving in the right circles. Who can say where their relationship may lead? He has only kissed her once so far, on the lips but chastely, her mouth firm and unyielding under his. He doesn’t mind. In fact he sort of approves in a masochistic way. She is a good girl, a virgin, he is sure of it. Ironically, she is just the sort his mother might select for him, except of course that she is English. He can wait. It will be all the more special when it comes. He will teach her the joy of lovemaking. But he will take it very gently, very slowly. After all, she is beginning to matter to him, so it is vital that he do things properly. When you stumble on a woman of Catherine’s class, you don’t want to go scaring her off.

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