The Drowning

  “What is it?”

  It feels like the whole world has gone quiet. Like everyone and everything is waiting for what I’m going to say next.

  “It was my fault.”

  She shakes her head, tries to move forward, kiss me again, but I hold her back. Now there’s tension between us, her pushing, me resisting.

  “Carl, we’ve been through this. You did what you did to save me. Blaming yourself like this, it doesn’t help.”

  “No, not that.”

  “What, then?”

  I can feel her arms relaxing in my hands. She’s ready to listen.

  “It was my fault you were at the lake in the first place.”

  “ ’Course it wasn’t. He wanted to see me, threatened me to make me go.”

  I wish it were that simple. I wish I didn’t have to say this.

  “No. It was my fault. I said something to him that started this whole thing off. I’m to blame for all of this, because I was a coward, because he was taunting me about fancying you. I told him I didn’t care about you at all, that I wouldn’t even care if he killed you.”

  “What?”

  She’s frozen now, like someone’s pressed PAUSE and she’s stopped, dead. I can’t look at her anymore.

  “One time when you got back together I heard you talking with him and you were laughing about me, you were telling him you didn’t fancy me, would never fancy me. I was so … so crushed, Neisha, so jealous. It was a stupid thing to say. He thought I was daring him to do it. I was upset and in the heat of the moment … I said such a stupid, stupid thing.”

  I thought it was quiet before, but this is something else.

  I squint at her through half-shut eyes. This is bad, really bad. Her face is sagging with shock, jaw slack. But it’s her eyes that get me. They’re pooling with tears.

  “I don’t understand. I thought you liked me. You just said you loved me,” she says.

  “I did. I do. I love you, Neisha, I always have.”

  “So how could you … ?”

  “I wanted Rob to stop hitting me, and I was angry because you didn’t want me. It was only for a moment, and then I’d said it and I thought Rob would forget it. But he didn’t.”

  I can’t talk anymore. I just stand and wait for her to start on me. But she doesn’t. She shrugs me off and turns away, starts walking out of the playground. Her hands are rammed in her pockets, her shoulders are up and her face is down.

  I watch for a second or two, then go after her.

  “Neisha!” I call out.

  She doesn’t turn around.

  I vault over the fence and land in front of her. She tries to walk past, turning her head away. I step into her path. She dodges the other way and I grab her arm.

  “Don’t!” she spits out. “Don’t touch me.”

  I keep hold of her, and under her clothes her arm muscles are taut.

  “I just wanted you to know the truth.”

  “And now I do.”

  Our eyes meet for a moment and it feels like my eyeballs are vaporizing in the heat of her hatred.

  Everything’s changed.

  I’ve lost her.

  “That was the old me, though,” I say quickly. “I’m not like that anymore. I’m —”

  “Shut up, Carl. Just shut the fuck up.”

  “But —”

  “I don’t want to hear it. Any of it.”

  She shakes my hand off her arm and breaks away.

  “Neisha —”

  She turns to face me.

  “I thought you were different, Carl, but you were the same as him. You are the same. I hate you. I fucking hate you, Carl.”

  And then she’s away. And I’m standing next to the kids’ playground, watching her run out of my life. How can this be happening when I still have the taste of her in my mouth?

  The sun’s gone in. Everything that was silver before is dull gray and green and brown. I shiver and look up and there’s a massive cloud blotting out half the sky, moving rapidly from left to right.

  I’m in the lake with a half-and-half sky above me, thrashing through the water. I can’t see them anymore. Neisha and Rob. The first flash of lightning scares the crap out of me, but it reveals them in its strobe light. Two heads above the water.

  My legs are like jelly. I’ve got to get out of this. I’ve got to get home. Neisha’s disappeared from view and I turn and start running for home. The first raindrop hits the top of my ear, and his voice bursts into my head, clear and close. And then the sky opens and it’s as if someone is pouring water from a bucket onto the rec and the street and the flats. People outside the shops scream as they’re soaked in an instant. The cold, the shock of it, takes my breath away.

  I’m coming for you, Cee. You can’t stop me.

  I try to wipe the water out of my eyes and keep running. Around me, people are scattering in panic. Rob stands in the middle of the rec, not pursuing me, just standing, his pale figure the only still thing in a world alive with water.

  Kill her or I’ll kill you.

  “Get away from me! Leave me alone!”

  The concrete steps up to the flats are awash, turned into a waterfall. I fight my way up and stagger along the walkway, blast through the front door, and slam it shut behind me.

  You can’t shut me out.

  He’s still here. Close.

  I climb up the stairs and go into my room. Our room. The curtains are closed. The smell in the air sticks to my skin. It invades my lungs and makes them tighten, closing down, trying to shut out the spores. I can’t see anything in the gloom. I flick on the light and I wish I hadn’t. The wall by my mattress is black now. Black and stinking and oozing. Beads of liquid sit wetly on the surface. In the corner above Rob’s bed, the place where the stain started, water is trickling down the wall. It’s coming in. It’s coming for me.

  I can’t stay here. I can’t.

  I’ll just change my clothes and get out. I strip down, then bend forward and start rummaging through the heaps. Everything is clammy to the touch. I burrow into another pile, flinging clothes behind me and out the door as I sort through them. I can’t find anything.

  Everything’s musty, damp, nasty. I don’t want it next to my skin.

  “Carl, what’s the problem?”

  I look over my shoulder. Mum’s in the doorway. She catches the last thing I threw, a football shirt.

  “There’s nothing to wear. Everything’s wet,” I say.

  She looks at the shirt in her hand.

  “Everything stinks. I can’t get away from it. I just want to get dry, Mum. I can’t get dry …”

  She’s looking at me now, almost like she’s frightened of me, and then her gaze shifts to the wall beyond.

  “Jesus Christ,” she says. “That wall’s running with damp. How long has it been like this?”

  “What?”

  I’m trying to block out Rob’s voice, focus on Mum, figure out what she’s saying.

  “How long has — ? Oh never mind, just get some clothes on, can’t you?”

  Listen to Mum. Get some clothes on. Get dressed. But everything’s damp.

  She fucking hates you now, Cee …

  “I can’t, Mum. I can’t wear these. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t …”

  I push past her onto the landing. I’m stark naked, but I don’t care. Debbie’s halfway up the stairs. She gives a little shriek when she sees me and retreats back into the living room.

  “Oh my Gawd, Kerry. He’s gone mad again! Shall I call the police?”

  “No, don’t call anyone!” Mum shouts back. Then to me, “Cover yourself up, Carl, for God’s sake.” She thrusts the football shirt at me.

  “No, it’s no good, Mum. I can’t wear it!” I throw it down the stairs.

  She turns to me.

  “This has got silly now. Calm down.” But Mum’s anything but calm. Her face is red and the veins on her neck are bulging. “Calm down!” she bellows, but I’m spinning around in the hallway now,
not knowing where to go, what to do, just whirling around, trying to make it all go away.

  “Wait there. Just wait!” she screams. She’s gone, but only for a minute. She comes back and catches my arm. I keep turning and my arm twists behind my back until I’m brought to a halt. I unwind so that I’m facing her.

  “Here,” she says. “Put this on.”

  She’s holding a bathrobe. Her bathrobe. Baby pink and a bit ratty. She helps me thread my arms through the holes and wraps it around me, doing the cord up with a knot.

  I stretch the top of it up and hold it to my face. It’s soft and smells of cigarette smoke and deodorant and perfume. I breathe in and out a few times and my own breath mixes with the bathrobe smells and it feels like my face is in a tent or a mask or something, a close little world that’s different from outside.

  My breathing slows down. I realize I can’t hear Rob anymore. It’s quiet. The whole house is quiet.

  “Is that better?” Mum says.

  I can’t speak. Not yet.

  “Sit down a minute,” she says, and I obey. She crouches next to me.

  She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and her lighter. Her hands are shaking as she lights up and inhales. “That’s it,” she says. “We’re fine now, aren’t we? Do you want a drag?”

  I shake my head. She tips her head back as she exhales.

  “You got yourself in a bit of a state, didn’t you?” she says. “But I can see why. I didn’t know your room was that bad. That’s not right, that isn’t. I’ll ring the housing people. We’ll get it sorted. And I’ll take your clothes down to the launderette, get them cleaned up, shall I? You can’t live like this. No one can live like this.”

  She takes another drag.

  “I’ve let things get a bit out of hand, Carl. I’m sorry.”

  “No, Mum. You don’t understand. It’s not this place. I think I’m going mad.”

  She slumps down to the floor. I’ve still got my hand on her arm and now she puts both of her hands on mine so we’re holding each other … at arm’s length.

  “ ’Course you’re not. You just had a bad day, that’s all.”

  “I want to go somewhere, Mum. Get some help.”

  “Take me back to the hospital room,” I want to say, “the place they took me after the lake — warm and clean and bright.”

  “I’m here, Carl. I’m right here for you. I’ll help you.”

  “But I hear him, Mum. He talks to me. I see him, too.”

  “You and me both, Carl. I see him everywhere.”

  “No, you don’t understand …”

  She sighs. “I see him in the bath, when he was a tot. Could never get him to go in, and then when he did, couldn’t get him to come out. Bloody terror. I see him in the kitchen eating stuff straight out of the can. I see him on the sofa, next to me, watching those films, pretending he’s not scared. He’s still here, Carl, isn’t he? He always will be.”

  My heart sinks. It’s not the same.

  “You remember him, that’s all,” I say.

  “Yeah,” she says, “like you do. It’s normal. It’s okay. You’re okay. Come here.”

  She pulls me toward her and puts her arms around me. I let myself be drawn in, not hugging her back, but not resisting.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she says. “It’s going to be all right.”

  I close my eyes and I see his face, his eyes wide open, and the zipper passing up and over, sealing him in. I try to sit up, but Mum’s holding tight.

  “I’ve gotta go, Mum. I can’t stay here.”

  I can’t break away from her, and now I can feel her body shaking.

  “Don’t leave me,” she says. “Please, Carl, don’t leave me. We’ll be all right. I promise we will.”

  She’s crying, sobbing into my neck.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Below us, Debs opens the door and starts talking to someone. Odd words and phrases drift up the stairs.

  “Hit her … stark naked … completely wild … brother at the lake … safety …” Debs must have called the police after all.

  Mum’s rocking us both now, side to side.

  “You’re all I’ve got left. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, Carl.”

  “Miss Adams?”

  Someone’s calling up. Mum stops rocking.

  “Miss Adams?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Just a minute!” she shouts down.

  She gives me one last squeeze, then lets go. She wipes her face on her sleeve and takes a couple more breaths.

  “You don’t want to leave really, do you?”

  Yes, yes, a million times yes.

  “I dunno. I can’t sleep in there, Mum. I just can’t do it.”

  “How about the sofa?”

  I shrug.

  “Just hang on until the funeral. We’ll get through this together. We will, Carl. I promise. Okay?”

  She makes her way downstairs. I bring my knees up inside my pink skirt and rest my head on them, listening as she tries to do an impression of someone normal. Asking the cops to come in, saying, “Isn’t the rain shocking?” and “Can I get you some tea?”

  The front door closes again and the voices get quieter, more muffled, as they all move into the living room. Suddenly exhausted, I tune out, letting their conversation become noise, not words, a background murmur that’s strangely soothing.

  After ten minutes or so, Mum comes upstairs. She kneels next to me.

  “They want to talk to you, check that you’re okay. You should get dressed.”

  “I’m all right like this.”

  The bathrobe’s like a comforting blanket. I’m dry and warm now. I don’t mind if I never take it off.

  “I don’t think so.” She glances at the jumble sale of clothing trailing along the landing and then goes into her room. She reappears with some jeans and a T-shirt.

  “Whose — ?”

  “Don’t ask,” she says. “I couldn’t find any underpants.”

  I take the clothes from her. I stand up and turn my back as I step into the jeans and pull them up. They’re a couple of sizes too big and I can’t help shuddering as I think about mum’s weird record when it comes to boyfriends. I slip the bathrobe off and dive into the T-shirt. I look down at the illustration on the front, turning my head sideways to make out the writing: “Surfers do it standing up.”

  I look back at Mum.

  She makes a face. “Sorry,” she says, and I know she’s not just apologizing for this shitty shirt. In spite of everything, I find myself smiling, feel a laugh tickling at the back of my throat.

  “Jesus, Mum,” I say.

  “I know.”

  I bend forward and turn the bottom of the legs up, folding each hem twice until they skim the top of my feet.

  “You okay now? You ready?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Okay.”

  * * *

  Later, when they’ve all gone and Debbie’s taken herself off “for a soak” in the bath, Mum makes a bed for me on the sofa. She’s slept there often enough, or rather fallen unconscious and stayed there, but this is different. She takes the back cushions off and fetches a pillow and my sleeping bag. When I see it, I get a choking feeling. Even across the room I can smell the mustiness. The zipper catches the light and I hear the noise of the other zipper, the one that sealed him in, and the panic rises up in me, along with the contents of my stomach.

  “I can’t, Mum,” I say. “Not the sleeping bag.”

  She purses her lips, but she doesn’t say anything. She takes it upstairs and comes back again with a sheet and a couple of blankets.

  “Better?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I should get you a duvet,” Mum says. “They had them in the supermarket a couple of weeks ago. Only a fiver. But it was a fiver I didn’t have. Well, I would’ve needed a tenner, because there were two of you …” She lapses into silence. Then, “God, Carl, how are we going to do this?”

  I d
eliberately choose to misunderstand her; I don’t want to talk about big stuff, not now.

  “Just spread the sheet out on the sofa and I’ll have the blankets on top.”

  She looks confused for a moment.

  “Yeah … right. Okay.”

  She shakes out the sheet and starts tucking it in.

  “We’re going to see him tomorrow,” she says.

  “What?”

  “Me and Debbie. We’re going to view his … Visit the … We’re going to say good-bye to him at the Chapel of Rest.”

  I pretend to be doing something to the pillow.

  “You should come. It’s the right thing to do, Carl. We’ve always done it in my family. It helps.”

  The hairs are standing up on the back of my neck at the thought of seeing him again, seeing his body how I last saw it.

  She’s laid the blankets on top of the sheet, tucked them in at the back and the sides. I put the pillow at one end and it looks like a proper bed.

  “Will you be all right here?”

  “Yeah, I think so.” To be honest, it looks a lot nicer than where I usually sleep.

  “I’ll go up, then,” she says. “I’m done in. I bet Debs will crash, too, after her bath. She won’t bother you.”

  “Does she have to stay here?” I ask, feeling guilty as I say it.

  “It’s only a couple of days. I know she’s a pain, but she’s trying to help. She’ll go after the funeral.”

  “Then it’ll just be you and me here.”

  “Here … or somewhere.”

  “What?”

  “I rang the housing people. They said they know about the mold. It’s not just us. The rain’s been so bad lately. They don’t seem to know what to do. It’s the whole block. The roof needs fixing, all sorts of stuff. They might even move us.”

  The rain’s pelting down, battering against the window, with no let-up.

  “Would you mind if we went somewhere else?” Mum asks.

  “I dunno. No, I don’t think so.”

  “Don’t want to stay for the memories?”

  Memories. God, too many memories.

  She doesn’t wait for an answer, but starts heading for the stairs.

  “Mum,” I call after her. She pauses. “I’m a bit cold. Can I have your bathrobe, just for tonight?”

  She starts to say something and then she stops herself. “Yes,” she says, with the trace of a smile. “I’ll bring it down.”