The Water Children

by Anne Berry

  By the time they all went and Stephen showed up revving his bike outside the house, Catherine didn’t feel like a ride any more. Nothing he said could chivvy her into the mood either. Her father was concerned that it was too dark anyway, so her brother slouched off with a shrug of his well-built shoulders.

  ‘Well, that’s that for another year,’ her mother commented tightly when she came to say goodnight to her daughter. ‘Do you like your Sindy doll?’

  ‘Yes, it’s nice. Thank you,’ Catherine replied levelly, eyeing Sindy who was doing the splits at that moment on her pillow. ‘She’s very pretty.’

  ‘Your father said you’d like a bike, but I told him that was silly. The one you’ve got will do very well for another year.’

  Catherine was ashamed of her bike. It had been second-hand when they bought it. Her mother kept mentioning the solid rubber wheels as if they were a selling point, reminding her that they wouldn’t puncture. The trouble was, every jolt and bump went right through her, rattling her bones. Besides, it was painted black and white, the blobs and bubbles convincing her that the job had been done by a clumsy child. And really, she had wanted a bike that was red or blue or possibly purple; a Raleigh would have been nice. Her mother stood, patted her on the head, gave a quick sigh and tripped off. Later, when her parents assumed that she was asleep, she listened to them talking.

  ‘I suppose that went off all right,’ her mother sighed. ‘Though Catherine didn’t seem to appreciate it very much. Really, I don’t know why I bother sometimes.’

  ‘Oh, I think she did enjoy it,’ her father placated good naturedly. ‘She’s like me, she struggles to show her feelings.’

  ‘Well, she’s certainly not like me!’ her mother exclaimed on an indignant rising inflexion. ‘God, I didn’t want to be bothering with all this now. You were careless, Keith. She was an unfortunate accident.’

  ‘An accident we wouldn’t be without, Dinah,’ her father asserted, to which her mother made no response.

  Catherine meditated on this for a while. An accident. Like a bad fall, that was an accident, wasn’t it? Or a car crash, or an electric shock, or slipping with a knife while you are cutting up vegetables and slicing off your finger by mistake. They usually meant lots of blood and pain, and sometimes operations and stitches, accidents. Even the little ones could leave a mark, and the big ones could scar you for life, or cripple you, or even paralyse you. A bad burn, say, or slipping on broken glass, or being crushed under a horse? However you viewed them, they weren’t nice things, they were unwelcome, circumstances you would prefer never to have happened. It hadn’t been a pleasant thought to slide into sleep with, Catherine remembers, so she’d visualized Rosalyn’s face instead, the bluest of eyes, the mouth that had never learnt to wobble, the nose that was neat and straight, a nose that hadn’t been rubbed into anything horrid.

  Her hands are freezing so she turns off the tap now, dries them and returns to her perch on the bed. She ponders what misty pronouncement the Magic 8-Ball would have made on her decision to marry Sean Madigan? What wise oracle would have risen from its murky interior? Better not tell you now or Outlook not so good or even Very doubtful. And if she’d shed a single tear of the squall that her itching eyes had heralded, they would have kept on coming. Once begun, she would never have been able to empty the cupboard of her misery. Well, it is the worst feeling in the world, wanting to cry, to sob her heart out, and not being able to. Her nine-year-old self had concluded this on that wretched birthday, and her twenty-one-year-old self could confirm the childhood hypothesis this winter’s day.

  The door opens, startling her from her reverie. ‘Doctor’s ready for you now, Mrs Madigan,’ Miss Janney says, her desiccated face assembling in a quick smile. And she steps into the room and stands back, holding the door wide open for Catherine to pass through. Catherine pushes off the bed, and lands on legs that have dissolved. She straightens them with the sheer force of her will, knitting together sinew and muscle with resolve. This is a private abortion because she has to keep it a secret. She concedes that it would probably have been safer to go to a hospital, but then there would have been all those questions. Isn’t this something she should discuss with her husband? He really ought to know, to have a say in the decision. If she is married, what’s the problem? Often women are a little dismayed when they discover they are expecting, but generally this negativity soon passes, to be replaced with delight. She plays through the imagined consultations over and over in her head. No, best to avoid hospitals, and get the thing dealt with swiftly and efficiently, before the trap is sprung.

  She trots after the nurse feeling scared, hoping it will soon be over, wanting to miss the bit in between. Afterwards she will recall only the sketchiest of details. Bright lamps concentrated on a medical trolley. This mattress covered in a paper cloth that reminds her of the disposable tablecloths her mother used for her messy birthday party teas. A tray of what, in a speedy glance, looks like cutlery. Black curtains falling in grimly funereal folds at the windows, blocking every arrow of light. A looped tube attached to a tank. Stirrups in the air so that you can ride upside down. And the doctor, whose white tunic is spattered in blood, whose hair is tucked away in a skullcap, who wears plastic gloves. His mask, hooked over one ear, is hanging down so that she can see his mouth.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Madigan. Sorry to keep you waiting. Just hop up here and we’ll soon have you feeling nice and relaxed.’

  And, perhaps because of the nurse’s earlier simile, comparing an abortion to a dental extraction, what strikes her suddenly is the most absurd thing. His two front teeth, nothing else about his appearance but his two big furred front teeth, rat’s teeth. Worrisomely, they are off centre, so that the line of symmetry she mentally draws from his capped brow, down the large bony ridge of his nose, and on to divide his mouth, suddenly comes adrift in the yellowing enamel. It is as though his face has a kink in it.

  ‘Mrs Madigan, are you all right? You look a little unwell? I can assure you that there is no need to be alarmed.’

  What can she say to this? I am alarmed because you are out of kilter, Doctor. Crooked. Better not. So she doesn’t say anything. She just briskly retraces her steps and grabs her clothes, making a dash for the front door. She finishes dressing in the stairwell of the building, with the parting words of Miss Janney ringing in her ears.

  ‘You can’t have a refund. I told you, no refunds. If you change your mind, that’s your affair. But we don’t give refunds.’

  And then? Why then comes the slamming of the door, the jarring impact seeming to pass straight through her, making her eyes snap shut. And when she reopens them she winces as another fracture makes its jagged way across the ice floor.

  Chapter 7

  1976

  Summer. Britain is in the grip of a heat wave. Drought conditions prevail. Anxious farmers squint at fields of atrophying crops. The rays of a milky sun, magnified through the starch-blue glass of the sky, scorch down mercilessly on both town and country alike. Cars have transformed into motorized ovens. People loll like panting tongues from open-mouthed windows. They crowd the air-conditioned cinemas where The Omen and The Man Who Fell to Earth are screening. Forests appear to spontaneously combust, the dry tinder of the trees bursting into flames. Humps of torched, blackened heath patch the hillsides. Low rivers thirstily suck back meandering streams. There is a rush on the diamond sparkle of water, a sudden lust for its many facets. Feverish residents huddle round standpipes, determinedly filling their bottles and pails. In the cities, dust, dirt, exhaust fumes, sweat and decay, all merge in the shimmering heat. Reservoirs gape with sinking watermarks. Placid temperaments are in meltdown, distilling into a collective swill of suppressed rage. Surges of uncontrollable anger test the seams of society until they burst.

  A basement market in the centre of London. The fluorescent ceiling lights emit a flickering subterranean radiance. Here, if possible, it is even hotter than above ground. The music blares out from loudspeakers, the bass
rhythm sounding the gonging heartbeat of this warren of trade. The merchandise, souvenir plates and cups, costume jewellery, watches, clothes, bags, belts and buckles, glitter like the treasure trove in an Aladdin’s cave. And the market people, sweat-slicked, grubby and old before their time, fan themselves with sticky hands, and swear disgruntled oaths. High noon, and they subside into lassitude, for once both depleted and defeated. The sales patter fogs in their fuddled brains, and sticks in their dry throats. They splash bottles of mineral water over their heads to keep cool. The victims, the tourists, their garish clothing tight against bulges of damp flesh, have grown rebellious in the close heat. They pick over the displays, point and scowl at the shoddy workmanship, gripe to each other at the exorbitant prices. Dry lips are licked. Soufflé hairdos collapse, makeup melts and colours blur. Beads of perspiration freckle brows, noses and upper lips. Plump thighs wedged in short skirts rub together until skin reddens and burns with prickly heat. Wilting banknotes stay snug in warm wallets, refusing to be peeled apart. London is holding its breath. If release does not come soon, if the rains do not fall, how long before markets, roads, traffic, buildings, people, Uncle Tom Cobley and all, will expire with heatstroke?

  Only ten minutes earlier, Owen returned from the toilets, face wet, hair dripping, hands washed and mercifully clean for a space. Already his broiled flesh is crying out for another dunking, though. He is working the Irishman’s stall, Sean’s pitch, Sean Madigan. He has been here for only three weeks, although it feels like three years. He has come to London to reinvent himself. He plans to model his personality on Rhett Butler, a man who does not give a damn, not about the present, not about the future, and most crucially, not about the past. Looking young for his age, his age being twenty-three, is undoubtedly a disadvantage in this process. Fair hair, diffident blue eyes, virtually a stubble-free chin, is not an asset when you are aiming for hard-man status – but he determines to get there, to achieve the emotional lobotomy he craves. In his favour, he is tall, broad-shouldered, with the effortlessly well-toned build that some are lucky enough to inherit. Observing himself in the mirrored counter of the stall, Owen accepts that he looks more like a Romeo than a Tybalt.

  Naomi Seddon, Sean’s girlfriend, as distinct from Sean’s wife, and his stall manager, has gone to buy them iced teas. She has promised extra mint and sugar, because it cools, she says. Owen is suffering with a bad headache. It feels as if his brain is alternately expanding and contracting inside his skull. He closes his eyes and backtracks. How is it that a lad from a council house in Wantage comes to be in the bustle of a London market enduring some of the highest temperatures since records began? Mentally he counts off the years.

  Exams, university, dropping out, loafing about the house, sitting in Sarah’s room for hour after hour waiting for something to happen. Then the ad in the paper that grabbed his attention. Actors wanted for the Punchinello Children’s Theatre Company, a small innovative theatrical company, bringing theatre in education to schools. And subsequently the high-voltage enthusiasm that came from nowhere as he rehearsed his audition piece, Jimmy Porter, from John Osborne’s play Look Back in Anger. The thrill of getting the job, of acquiring the much-coveted Equity card. The sudden recognition that here was a craft he was good at – a craft, unbeknownst to him, he had been practising for most of his life – the art of pretence. And the idea, gradually taking hold, that acting could transport him away from the sepulchre of their home, where Sarah’s ghost took up so much room that there was none left for him to occupy.

  The slip of paper with the scribbled telephone number of Sean Madigan that a fellow actor had given him, on learning his plans to relocate to London. It came with the prospect of casual work, cash in hand, for those annoying periods all seasoned actors have to deal with when they were ‘resting’ – a euphemism thespians use for the long idle stretches when no employment can be found. Dialling the number from a callbox in Twickenham, where he had stayed with an old school friend temporarily. The conversation resulting in an on the spot offer of employment in a London market. He would be covering the busy tourist season. Time off for auditions as and when required? No problem. His new employer believed flexibility was a two-way street.

  So there it is, a series of random events that transported him from Wantage to London, and ultimately delivered him here on what feels like the hottest day so far this summer. Sean’s Covent Garden flat, as of yesterday, Thursday, June 10th, officially became his home. Owen had been looking for a more central place to stay, a base from which he could attend auditions and interviews with agents, as well as somewhere within easy access of work. It made sense, especially considering the expense of train and tube fares. Within minutes of mentioning his dilemma to Sean, the solution had been hatched. He would flat share with Naomi, pay a nominal rent, and in return keep her company when Sean was away. This would be no hardship, he was sure.

  He likes Naomi. Her most distinctive feature is her unique eyes. Her right eye is a pale powdery blue, the left is a rich brown. Her short blonde hair, dyed he thinks, is all awry as if permanently windblown. Her delicate nose and wide sensual mouth are set in a heart-shaped face. Of medium height and slim, he guesses that she is considerably older than him. It is hard to tell by exactly how much under that heavy make-up she wears, but he estimates that she is well into her thirties. Her undoubted experience, her confident dallying, her overt sexuality, all fascinate him. She makes him feel alive and manly. He’s had a few girlfriends, but none of the relationships were particularly successful. He finds young women difficult to talk to. They don’t seem content with his sporadic, trivial conversation. They all, without exception, arrive at the same conclusion, that he needs ‘bringing out of himself’. And when they come up against his Houdini-proof doors, they quickly lose interest. But so far, Naomi has not grilled him. She is, he is certain, far less interested in him, than he is in her. The prospect of having her all to himself some nights, of having those bewitching eyes focus entirely on him, is appealing to his young male ego.

  To hear Sean talk, the flat is of the penthouse variety, a prime residence in a prime location. And Owen was duly impressed, he has to admit, until he saw it. Situated on the third floor of a ramshackle building, it is not much bigger than a large cupboard. A cramped hall, two tiny bedrooms, a bathroom with leaky bath taps, a small lounge-cum-diner, and a galley kitchen. He tries to marry this up with Sean’s initial description, but fails. It seems that his employer is also fond of pretence. And yet he cannot help but warm to this man. Apart from anything else he is affable, exudes easy Irish charm, and has his countrymen’s gift of fluency. He is of average height and thin, but not fit, if Owen is any judge. And he reckons that he too is in his thirties. Although his smoker’s cough is still in its infancy, there is a pallor about his face, an edginess in his jaundiced eyes, that suggests a lifestyle toll. Initially he thought that Sean was fair haired, like himself. But in the sunlight he has detected more than a hint of a gingery red in his shade.

  One significant detail is that he has a patch of rough, inflamed, flaking skin on his neck, about the size of a thumbprint. If his collar is buttoned up, you may miss it. But the sun is loosening everything, collars included, exposing previously hidden flaws. Owen has noted his habit of scratching at it, and has seen that the resulting relief is merely temporary, that the irritation when it returns has only been exacerbated.

  Actors must be observant, memorizing people’s idiosyncrasies to use at a later date when character building. He has read this. The market is an ideal source for a novice actor like him. Already it is making him into something of a sleuth. He is collecting intelligence, collating facts. As the mercury rises in thermometers in the capital, and the fetor of unwashed bodies crowds claustrophobically around him, he concentrates on putting together the puzzle. He selects one detail, picks it up like a jigsaw piece, examines the colour, the texture, the shape, gauges where it might fit in. Gradually he is starting to discern the picture. He keeps thinking that n
ow, like Rolf Harris, he can tell what it is. But then he scrutinizes it from another angle, and it breaks on him that he is no nearer the truth.

  Nevertheless, he thinks he has got an approximation of the arrangement now. Sean has set up his mistress, Naomi, in his rented flat. He stays over three nights, sometimes four, whenever he can get away, in fact. Get away from what? From a wife, Catherine, and from a new baby, he learns, a girl, who was born only days before Owen started work. He knows their names. He has overheard them. Catherine and Bria. He would almost prefer to be in ignorance. In his imagination they are becoming flesh and blood, a mother and baby surviving an unhappy situation, something he can relate to. They are giving his life the very quality he is fleeing from, the ring of reality.

  At the close of his first week, Naomi and Sean asked him back for supper. He was flattered at the invitation. A fuss was being made of him, a welcome dinner. But when it came to it, the evening was hijacked by another, another complication, another adjustment in his perception. As far as he could tell, Enrico had not been formally invited. He was an audacious gatecrasher, slouching about drinking beer and leering at Naomi. He is the Italian who owns the first stall you come to when you descend the market stairs. Sean’s sobriquet for him, ‘a trashy dago’, did not bode particularly well for a harmonious evening, Owen decided. He soon grasped that far from being the honoured guest, he was as invisible here as he is at home.

  They ate pasta, drank some wine that sent his head into a spin and caused his stomach to somersault, and smoked some dope that sliced into his throat like a scalpel and turned his limbs to steam. The lounge they sat in was so hot that it felt as if the foundations of the city, baked in the kiln of the day, were making a sauna of the night. Through the fuddled miasma that subsumed him, he watched. He watched as Sean drank, tossing back a succession of brandies like fruit juice, while his waxy skin freckled with clammy sweat, and his bloodshot eyes ogled Naomi, and fixed Enrico with lethal intent.