Boy Underwater

by Adam Baron

  Veronique jumped down. ‘Juni and I used to all the time, though I don’t think she likes me any more.’

  ‘It’s your lucky counter-ripostes.’

  ‘Is that your mum?’ Veronique said.

  She was looking behind me, at Mum’s tablet propped up on its stand on the bed. Before I could stop her she’d walked over and picked it up, staring hard at Mum’s face. She looked serious, thoughtful, as if trying to work something out. Then she put it down and said, ‘I’ve got something to show you.’

  With that, Veronique skipped back to the window and out on to the ladder again. Not giving me a chance to ask questions she crawled back along it to her own room and then waved me to come over too. I swallowed, and stared back at the spare-room door, thinking about Auntie Mill. But I did it, my knees on the bars.

  ‘Don’t look down.’

  What a stupid thing to say! I hadn’t even thought of doing that but now I did and I swallowed at how far it was. I froze, unable to move, until Veronique said, ‘Just imagine you’re doing a space walk.’

  That helped and eventually I made it to the other side of the ladder, and then I was standing in Veronique’s room. It was neat. No clothes out or curled-up pants on the floor. All the books were on the shelves. There were three done Rubik’s Cubes and a stopwatch on a table by her bed. All this was pretty much as I might have pictured it, though her duvet surprised me. It had rabbits on and there was this big yellow elephant on her pillow.

  ‘That’s Cyrano,’ she said. ‘I got him from France. Where did you get Not Mr Fluffy?’

  I had no idea and it made me wonder: where did the real Mr Fluffy come from?

  ‘Is that what you wanted to show me?’

  ‘No! This way,’ Veronique said.

  With that, she skipped out on to the landing and I followed. She led me down the stairs, and halfway down there was a window that I stopped at because through it I could see into Auntie Mill’s house. I was relieved to see that she wasn’t up in the spare room looking for me but right there on the sofa. I was more relieved to see that she was fast asleep, more lemonade on the table next to her.

  ‘She’ll be like that for hours,’ Veronique said. ‘Sometimes she’s even there in the morning too.’

  Veronique went on again and I followed, surprised by her house. The outside was about the same as Auntie Mill’s but, inside, Auntie Mill’s was one big room with bare white walls and shiny surfaces. It had spotlights in the ceilings and a staircase with no banisters. In contrast, Veronique’s was old, with scruffy floorboards, paintings higgledy-piggledy and books piled up. At the bottom of the stairs her sword was hanging up with the coats and I wanted to have a go with it, but before I could ask she led me into the living room.

  ‘Hi, chérie,’ the woman said.

  The woman – who had short brown hair – was sitting at a piano writing something on a pad in front of her. Veronique told her that I was Cymbeline and that I was staying next door. This information did not seem to faze her at all. She smiled and said she was Veronique’s mum, and that Veronique had told her a lot about me.

  I winced but Veronique laughed. ‘Relax. She doesn’t mean about the swimming pool, do you, Mum?’

  ‘No. Veronique tells me you’re an amazing artist.’

  She said that? ‘Well, I …’

  ‘Though I did tell her about the swimming pool, didn’t I, Mum?’

  I stared. ‘You did?’

  ‘But so what? It was only your penis, wasn’t it?’

  I blinked at her. ‘My …?’

  ‘Penis. That I saw. That we all saw. I mean, I know you’ve got one. Boys do. I’ve seen them before in books and in real life. And it wasn’t a very different penis to the other ones. So you shouldn’t be –’

  ‘Veronique,’ her mum said, ‘perhaps you could take Cymbeline through to the kitchen.’

  Veronique sighed but did as she was told. ‘It’s just bodies,’ she muttered, leading me through. ‘You’re lucky she’s got any clothes on. She often hasn’t. We go to this beach in France on holiday where hardly anyone wears any clothes. There are penises everywhere. And vaginas of course. Hi, Dad.’

  The back door had opened and a very thin man with straight black hair like Veronique’s walked in. He said hi and – like Veronique’s mum – didn’t seem at all surprised to see a strange boy wearing astronaut pyjamas in their house. He just said I looked like the kind of fellow who liked pancakes. Something I said was TRUE. He poured batter into a pan, cooked the pancakes and then … SET FIRE TO THEM! This was almost as epic as they tasted. They were so good I forgot about what Veronique wanted to show me until she asked her dad a question.

  ‘Can we go and see Nanai?’

  ‘Wait until Cymbeline has finished his pancakes.’

  ‘That’s his fifth one, though.’

  ‘Which means he has good taste. But have you had enough, Cymbeline?’

  ‘Yeff fthank woo,’ I said.

  I finished my mouthful and Veronique carried our plates over. Wondering who, or what, Nanai was, I followed her out of the back door and down their garden, which had a trampoline but no goalposts. Veronique led me down to a little cottage with a glass door.

  ‘That’s Nanai,’ she said, sliding the door open.

  Nanai was curled up asleep in a big chair and I saw straightaway that she was a person. But not just any person. She was not just the oldest person I had ever seen in my life, but the oldest person I’d ever imagined. Her baggy skin folded down on to her like the person inside had been taken out. Her long white hair was so light it seemed to float around her head and her closed eyes looked like they hadn’t opened in years, like a girl who goes to sleep in a fairy tale but actually gets older. There were tiny drops of water on her eyelashes, like jewels.

  ‘Is that your …?’

  ‘Granny,’ Veronique said. ‘Nanai, to me. She’s my dad’s mum. Guess how old she is.’

  ‘Four thousand.’

  ‘Not quite. A hundred. How old’s your granny?’

  ‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Or my granddad. They live in Portugal now in somewhere my mum calls a retirement home for zombies, with golf. My other grandparents are dead. You’re lucky to have Nanai.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Thanks for showing her to me.’

  ‘It’s not her I wanted to show you. It’s these.’

  Veronique walked past Nanai into the cottage and I followed, wondering if Nanai would wake up and say hello. She didn’t and I stopped next to Veronique at a wall with lots of photographs. Veronique stared at them and I did too, seeing her in some, though she wasn’t in the one she pointed to. That one showed a woman in a wide straw hat, holding hands with two little girls. Veronique put her finger on one.

  ‘That’s Nanai,’ she said.

  I turned to Nanai – still asleep – and then back to the picture. Nanai looked about six, a little bit older than the other girl. I glanced back at her in the chair again and, weirdly, I did think I could recognise her.

  ‘That’s her mum with her,’ Veronique said, pointing at the woman in the hat. ‘And that’s her twin sister, Thu. They were boat people.’

  ‘You mean they could float?’

  ‘No! They were like the refugees are today, from Libya, only she was Chinese, living in Vietnam. The Chinese were being murdered so they tried to flee across the ocean, in boats.’

  ‘And did they?’

  ‘Yes. Well, Nanai did. I don’t know what happened to Thu and her mum. Anyway, that’s Nanai when she was six and this is my dad when he was six.’

  Veronique moved to the right and pointed at another picture. It showed a serious-looking woman who I could easily tell was Nanai. Next to her was a boy, and seeing him made me nervous. The woman was in a dress, but he was in swimming trunks.

  ‘Dad tells me that Nanai was obsessed with swimming.’

  I swallowed. ‘With …?’

  ‘Swimming, Cymbeline. For some reason Nanai taught my dad to swim as soon as
he was born. Then, when I was born, he taught me. He used to drop me in the swimming pool when I was a baby and let me come up on my own. Mum couldn’t watch apparently but it’s why I can swim well now. He taught me because his mum was obsessed with it. And he became obsessed with it too. Even now they make me do it.’

  ‘You don’t like swimming?’

  ‘I do, but sometimes it’s too much, what with everything else. I get no choice, though. Like you.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘But the other way round.’

  ‘The other …?’

  ‘You’ve never been taught, have you?’

  I stared at Veronique. ‘I …’

  ‘You can’t swim at all.’

  ‘Whaaaaaat?’ I laughed. ‘Course I can. I just panicked because Billy pushed me in. I’m, like, epic at –’

  ‘You cannot swim at all. Not one bit. I knew it when I pulled you out of the pool and I kept asking myself how could he never have gone swimming? Everyone goes swimming. I couldn’t understand it until your mum went mad.’

  ‘She did not go mad.’

  ‘She did, though Lance shouldn’t have said that. That was horrible. But she did. She’s never taken you swimming, has she?’

  There were tears at the back of my eyes. ‘No.’

  ‘And there’s a reason for it. I could see that by the way she screamed at Miss Phillips. And it’s really important to your mum. So what is it? Cymbeline, tell me – why has your mum never taken you swimming?’

  I stared at Veronique as the question pounded in my head. Why? All those stupid excuses. Sand, crocodiles, the Loch Ness monster. It was like a sheet had fallen away from in front of me. They weren’t true. I could see that now. They were just things you say to a two-year-old. I’d believed them and then just, somehow, carried on believing them.

  Or had I?

  I shook my head because no, I hadn’t, not really. I knew there was a real reason. But Mum got so upset about swimming that I’d always pretended it was nothing. But it wasn’t nothing; it was something big, and real, and most of all something I couldn’t turn away from. Not now. Not after what had happened. My going in the swimming pool meant that Mum was in hospital, and I had to find out the truth: for her.

  I had to find it out for Mum.

  But how?

  Veronique kissed Nanai’s forehead and then we walked back up to her house.

  ‘Thank your dad for the pancakes,’ I said, stepping back out of her bedroom on to the ladder. ‘And your mum for having her clothes on.’

  I crawled over and climbed on the bed as Veronique pulled the ladder back. Veronique’s words about swimming were still ringing in my brain and I felt weird, sort of naked. The reason … The real reason. How could I find out what it was?

  The answer came when I picked up Not Mr Fluffy and stared into his shiny eyes.

  I’d gone back to get him, hadn’t I?

  I’d gone back home, for him, my pyjamas and Mum’s tablet.

  So why couldn’t I go back again?

  For the answer.

  Three minutes later I was dressed. Taking short sharp breaths, I tiptoed down the stairs, half wanting Auntie Mill to be awake so that I could back out of this. When I saw that she was still asleep I pushed on, though outside the back door I had to pause behind a hedge. Clay wasn’t in his room like I’d thought but climbing up into the treehouse. Ha! If he thought there were any sweets in that Tupperware box he was going to be disappointed. When he was inside I took a deep breath, scuttling round to the front of the house, stopping only when Veronique stuck her head out of her window.

  ‘Where are you going?’ she hissed.

  ‘Home,’ I replied.

  Veronique asked why, but I ignored her, knowing that she could easily talk me out of it. I also knew that instead of doing that she might ask to come too, and, much as I wanted her to, something told me that I had to do this on my own, though when I got out on to the road I nearly changed my mind.

  It was soooo scary.

  I’d never been out on my own in the daylight, let alone at night. It all looked different. It wasn’t just dark, which of course I’d seen. The trees looked bigger, looming over me and shaking their leaves like people laughing, and not in a good way. The people walking past looked different too, like they were made out of harder stuff than normal. And there were NO KIDS. Not one, like in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the castle, when they’ve all been stolen or hidden. I swallowed, keeping my eye out for the Child Catcher as I forced myself to push on into Blackheath Village, where there were even more people, who all seemed to be on their phones, giving me the weird thought that they were talking about me and that any second a police car would zoom up and I’d be grabbed.

  I shivered and told myself not to be stupid, but actually an adult might wonder what a nine-year-old was doing out on his own at night. Not wanting anyone to ask me, I looked around, catching sight of an old couple walking their dog. I hurried up and walked behind them, hoping that people would assume I was with them, which they seemed to do. I followed the couple past the train station, then up past the Costa, towards the heath.

  I was calmer now, though I knew I had to be quiet or they’d turn round and see me. I followed them up towards the Hare and Billet pub, hoping they’d go up along the heath road towards my house, but they didn’t – up near school they turned away and I hesitated, seeing more people coming towards me. Taking another deep breath I left the path and headed across the middle of the dark heath, where there would be no one to question me. It was creepy and the heath seemed twice as big as usual, but I got to the other side eventually. I was relieved, though I also knew what I’d have to tackle then.

  A ROAD.

  I’d crossed two roads already – but that was right behind the dog walkers. And this one was different: I was alone. I had never crossed a road alone before. I looked around for more dog walkers but there weren’t any and so I bit my lip and crossed my fingers. Then, like Billy at the swimming pool, I edged up to the kerb until my toes were sticking out. I stuck my neck out and looked LEFT.

  Nothing coming.

  This was a relief and so I did the same thing again – but looking RIGHT. There was nothing coming that way either and, happier now, I got ready to cross, but before doing so I stopped. I’d looked LEFT and there was nothing coming, but what if something had started to come along from the LEFT when I was looking RIGHT? As fast as I could I looked LEFT again and there was nothing coming, but now I had the same problem but from the other direction: what if something had started to come from the RIGHT after I’d stopped looking RIGHT and was looking LEFT? In fact, how could I ever be sure that nothing was coming from one way when I was looking the other way? I looked LEFT again, trying to do it so fast that I could sort of look RIGHT at the same time but it didn’t work. Drat. There was nothing for it, though, and so eventually I crossed, amazed to find myself on the other side with my legs and arms still attached.

  Three minutes later I was outside my house. (I’d walked down Morden Hill and crossed another road, though this one had a pelican crossing so it was okay.) Then, staring at my door, I stopped, suddenly realising what I was doing. I was going into my house – at night, on my own – to find something out about my mum. Something she hadn’t wanted me to know because, if she had, she would have told me, wouldn’t she? I clenched my fists and had the same odd feeling that I’d had when looking at her photograph: that this was just a house, that it was separate from me and strange. I nearly turned round but I couldn’t, so without thinking I forced my hand into my bag and pulled out the key. Then I unlocked the door and pushed it open.

  The house was dark. As quickly as I could I found the light switch, which is when the strange feeling vanished. Because I was looking at my home. At our home. I thought about Auntie Mill’s house, which was huge, but I shook my head because I wasn’t jealous one bit. This was our house, where we lived, and though it was a bit battered and you couldn’t get the ice cream out of the freezer, and
my bedroom door didn’t close properly, I loved it.

  More cheerful now, I walked into the living room and began. I looked in the big cabinet the telly sits on. I looked behind the sofa and on the mantelpiece, finding 37p and Park Lane (from Monopoly) but no clues about why Mum had never taken me swimming. There was nothing in the hall either or in the kitchen. Up in the bathroom there was nothing unusual except for two dead spiders and an old toothpaste tube under the chest of drawers. I was more hopeful in the boxroom and I went into bags and opened suitcases, finding loads of old clothes, though not the checked shirt my dad was wearing in the picture on the mantelpiece. There were some papers in a file and I stared at some more photos of my dad, black-and-white ones with his name on, him looking serious. Underneath were some photographs of me as a baby, some in various baby-gros, a few with nothing on and a couple of baby me and baby Lance. I didn’t want to look at those so I put them down and then sighed, really disappointed because there was nothing about swimming – and that meant there was only one place left to look.

  And I didn’t want to look in there.

  There wouldn’t be anything in my room – Mum was hardly likely to leave something in my room that she didn’t want me to know about. So that just left her room.

  Are you scared of your parents’ bedroom? Or, not scared, exactly, but you just know that there’s something different about it? Compared to the other rooms in your house? If so, you’ll understand how I felt as I stood on the landing and stared at Mum’s door. I really did not want to go in there. To begin with she wouldn’t be there and that felt odd, though she goes in my room without me all the time.

  ‘Cymbeline,’ she’d said once. She’d taken me upstairs and was pointing into my bedroom. ‘Very tidy in here, isn’t it?’

  I knew there was something different. ‘Yes!’

  ‘But half an hour ago it wasn’t tidy. It was a complete disaster. Do you know how it got tidy?’

  I thought really hard about that. But I had to give up. I shrugged and Mum frowned. ‘Elves, do you think?’

  ‘Come on, Mum, there’s no such thing as elves.’