Boy Underwater

by Adam Baron

  And we still had no idea where it was.

  But then Vi bent down to my present. I turned from the picture to see her holding it out to me: a Charlton shirt. She’d got me one, something so kind and great that for a second it drew me away from the painting. A home shirt, a proper one, which I know is really expensive. And not only that. She turned it over and I saw that she’d got my name done on the back. I couldn’t help but smile, imagining wearing it, though the smile turned to excitement. My name.

  Of course.

  I still hadn’t finished the picture of Mr Fluffy, had I? It was my turn to drop down to my knees and scrabble in my bag. I grabbed a pencil and wrote the words that Mum had painted and which I’d forgotten to put on Mr Fluffy’s T-shirt. They were ‘Eglinhs Hretigae’.

  ‘Oh, Cymbeline,’ said Veronique. ‘Your spelling is terrible!’

  And here’s what happened next. Vi’s dad called her over to put her boots on and she ran off. Veronique sounded like a kettle about to boil as she explained that it was not ‘Eglinhs Hretigae’; it was English Heritage. She told me that it was this organisation that looks after castles and big houses, though I already knew that. We’d been to one on Clay’s birthday once, where the Cavaliers were supposed to attack the Roundheads, but the Roundheads’ minibus had been stuck in traffic. When they did finally show up, they must have been in a hurry because one of them was still eating a Mars bar and this other one, who died right in front of us, had left his phone on. Someone rang him and it played ‘I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles’ from inside his gunpowder pouch as he went red. Clay had started to boo.

  ‘I’m glad you’re dead,’ he said. ‘I hate West Ham.’

  A man in the crowd behind us leaned forward and told him to ‘Watch it’.

  English Heritage. On Mr Fluffy’s T-shirt. It was an English Heritage place that Mum had painted. That’s where he’d come from.

  ‘But how do we know which one?’ I said.

  ‘Billy’s phone!’ squealed Veronique, before running off to find him.

  Billy ran back with her and we watched, hardly able to breathe, as he went into Google (on his phone, in Year 4, I know!). I’d been to one English Heritage place and Veronique said she’d been to two at least. That was three, but did they have any more than that?

  ‘Four hundred,’ Billy said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Says here, “English Heritage looks after four hundred of England’s historic buildings.”’

  ‘So which one is it?’ I cried, once again staring down at the picture.

  And that was it. The end. It had to be. What else could we do? We had less than two hours if we wanted to get there by midday. And they had four hundred places. I turned to Veronique, knowing that she was a brilliant, everything-speaking Grade Five genius. But she had no answer. And Billy just shrugged. For the last time I squinted at the painting, my eyes boring into the paint. And I was so frustrated, almost as if it was teasing me on purpose, giving little pieces of meaningless help but never the one thing that mattered. On impulse I snatched it up from the grass, about to tear it into pieces, when Billy grabbed my hand.

  ‘There must be something,’ he said. ‘Some way of knowing which one it is.’

  ‘But what? How can we tell?’

  ‘Easy,’ said a voice right behind me.

  And it was him. Lan … Bradley. I hadn’t seen him arrive. I spun round and there he was, in his St Saviour’s kit. I folded my arms, about to tell him to get lost. But Veronique leapt forward.

  ‘Easy?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘So you mean …’ She could hardly bring herself to say it. ‘You know where this place is?’

  ‘Course,’ said Bradley again, and he pointed to the top of the painting, at all the people walking past.

  Or on bikes.

  ‘Whitecross House. I go there all the time.’

  ‘You …?’

  ‘With me and my dad’s cycling club.’

  ‘Your …?’

  ‘My dad-dad,’ he added. ‘Why do you want to know?’

  I told Bradley what had happened, and begged him to tell me where Whitecross House was.

  ‘Depends,’ he said.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Well, are we friends again, or aren’t we?’

  ‘YOU ARE!’ yelled Billy and Veronique.

  Five minutes later we were in Bradley’s dad-dad’s car. He’d dropped Bradley off and had been loping down into the village to get a coffee when we ran after him and stopped him. Veronique explained as quickly as possible what had happened because I just couldn’t say it again. We all pleaded with him to take us to Whitecross House. But he shook his head. Then he scratched the back of it, saying he should call my uncle first, and Billy and Veronique’s parents too.

  ‘But that’ll take too long! And I don’t have Uncle Chris’s number.’

  ‘Be that as it may. I can’t drive a bunch of kids around the countryside without their parents’ say-so. You’ll just have to –’

  ‘But that’s what he’d say,’ Bradley said, grabbing his dad-dad’s arm.

  ‘Who?’ said his dad-dad.

  ‘Derek,’ Bradley insisted. ‘He’d be safe and boring. He wouldn’t help at all. Saying no, that’s what he’d do.’

  His dad-dad’s back straightened. ‘Come on then!’ he said.

  His car was parked back near the school and we all piled in, pushing aside cycling magazines and old water bottles. His dad-dad drove on to the main road and then down past the running track we do our sports days on. We went past GOALS where David Finch had had his last birthday party and Marcus Breen threw up on him, and after that I didn’t recognise where we were. There was traffic and then bigger roads and then a turn-off on to smaller ones. I kept looking at the time on Billy’s phone and Bradley saw me wincing.

  ‘Come on, Dad!’

  ‘I’m going as fast as I can, son. There’s a speed limit, or didn’t you know?’

  ‘Of course I do but …’

  ‘Three points you know, even for just a few miles over. It would put the insurance way up.’

  ‘I know, Dad. But you should see him drive.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Derek. Blimey. Mum says he’s just like Lewis Hamilton.’

  ‘Is he now?’

  His dad-dad put his foot down and the car lurched forward. He overtook a tractor but had to slow down after that. But it wasn’t his fault. A queue of cars stretched ahead of us, the end ones turning left into some gates where a man in a bright green jacket was waving them through.

  ‘This is it!’ yelled Bradley, and I glanced at Billy’s phone again. I screwed my hands into fists while the cars crawled along, impatience swarming inside me like wasps.

  ‘Wait!’ bellowed Bradley’s dad-dad, as I threw the back door open.

  I pretended not to hear and sprinted up towards the gate. The others all followed. All four of us darted past the man and into a huge grass car park where other people in green jackets were telling the cars where to go.

  We ran past them and up to a wooden hut with people paying. Billy sprinted past and the people in the hut didn’t blink, assuming he had a family up ahead. I followed him, but the sight of a huge house stopped me for a moment. Massive steps led up to a stone terrace and big chimneys shot out of the roof like rocket boosters.

  Veronique grabbed hold of my arm. ‘Look,’ she shouted, spinning me round to the right.

  There were gardens, ordered and neat, surrounded by a low wall, and I thought that was what she meant. But beyond them was a field, sloping down to some trees, the land rising above them towards hills, where huge clouds marched forward. I stared but my eyes were drawn down to the trees again, and through them. For there was something glinting, shining, something sparkling through the trees like it was alive, a giant snake perhaps, slithering along in the valley. My mouth went dry and my feet stood still until Veronique pulled me forward alongside the little wall and into a field where the first thing I saw w
as a young woman reaching down to pick buttercups out of the grass. And then I stopped when I saw the picnic rug.

  For a second I couldn’t move. It wasn’t that I knew the people sitting on the rug – I didn’t – but because it was like I was in the painting. I was in it. I was standing in my own painting. These people had a pushchair too, a baby crawling around on the grass.

  ‘Cymbeline!’ Veronique called out.

  She’d gone on and I followed towards the trees and then through them, dazzled by what was in front of me. It was wide, and swirling, with jagged edges like a cheese grater. The surface seemed to burn until the sun was snaffled by a cloud. Then I was on the bank and right near me the water was slow and deliberate, shifting in different directions like it was made of black glass plates. But in the middle of the river the water was angry and snarling, carrying off branches and bits of wood, moving faster than some runners on the far bank. And this was it. The missing centre of the picture – what Mum left out, what she couldn’t paint – and thinking of her seemed to conjure her up, right there in front of my eyes.

  Because she was there. Actually there. She was right there in in front of me.

  In the river.

  Veronique’s hand went up to her mouth. Just like her mum’s had earlier. Mum was to our right. She was standing up to her waist in the river, and the first thing I saw was that she was in her clothes. Not a swimming costume. Deciding to swim was mad enough, surely, but in her jeans and jumper?

  ‘Mum! Mum!!’

  But the water was too loud. She couldn’t hear me. I waved my arms and screamed again, turning to see Bradley, who’d caught up and spotted Mum. Shouting out that he’d get his dad, he sprinted back, as Veronique started to pull her shoes off. Billy did the same thing and I watched, helpless, as they both waded out into the slow bit of the water, knowing I couldn’t follow them.

  When they were deep enough they launched themselves forward, Veronique darting ahead until she got to the place where the water was moving more quickly. Billy caught her up and they both fought to go forward, towards Mum, into the fast bit, but the water was too quick, too strong, it pushed them back the way they’d come before moving them down, level with me and then past, both of them swept back into the bank.

  I ran round and grabbed Billy first, and then Veronique, both soaking, dragging them out on to the grass as I felt something. A silent shout. A pull that wasn’t physical but real nonetheless, and meant for me alone. And when I obeyed it, and looked back out across the river, Mum was staring at me.

  It’s hard to describe how it felt. I stared back across the water, our eyes seeming to lock tight, Mum very far away from me but so close too, as close as I’ve ever been to her. I mouthed her name and saw her wince, her lips trembling as she looked at me, not noticing the water behind her, which seemed somehow to gather, and then surge. And Mum stumbled.

  She didn’t mean to. She just stumbled, to the side first before spinning and falling backwards, into the angry middle of the river.

  ‘Mum!’

  But she was in the water. She couldn’t hear me. Her arms were flailing, the river seeming gleeful, snatching her like a ball and carrying her off. I moved, jogging along the bank, mirroring Mum. Billy and Veronique came after me. Mum was moving faster now so I started to run, trying to keep level with her. The people having the picnic stood up, probably because of all the shouting. And Bradley was shouting too, though he wasn’t with his dad. I thought he was on his own but he wasn’t, he was running alongside a car. A big car driving right through the middle of the field towards me.

  ‘I saw it in the car park,’ Bradley shouted. ‘Your aunt was getting out. I told her about your mum and –’

  I didn’t hear what else Bradley had to say, turning my attention to Auntie Mill instead, expecting her to jump out, to dive in the river too. But she didn’t. After a quick glance at me she gunned the engine forward, past me, heading straight towards the river bank, and don’t talk to me about gas guzzlers or planet killers because Auntie Mill’s car is epic. It took her over the bank and into the middle of the river, quite a way downstream of Mum, who ploughed straight into the side of the car where Auntie Mill was. Auntie Mill reached out of her window to grab hold of her.

  And she did grab hold of her.

  Auntie Mill grabbed Mum’s hair and her arm and Mum held on. Auntie Mill pulled her towards her window and she would have got her through. I know it. She would have saved her for certain. Mum’s head was almost through when it happened. Mum was holding on to Auntie Mill. They were both crying in the middle of the river and I could just hear them over the sound of the water – until the creak. It was a wrenching, horrible sound, coming from the car, which was side-on to the river. In disbelief I watched as slowly the river turned the car, twisting it backwards until Auntie Mill was unable to hold on to Mum, who was flung back into the water again and spun away from me.

  So all I could do was watch. Mum scrabbled backwards, grabbing at the doorframe, catching the wing mirror for a second before she lost her hold. And then she tumbled away, sometimes above the water, her red jumper flashing, then below it. Her face came up, all white, and when she went under again I thought the river had taken her forever.

  Until I saw the man.

  He was at a bend in the river, right on the edge of the bank, getting ready. He was crouching, so I couldn’t really see him, just his jeans and his shirt and black hair. Someone from the picnic? I didn’t think so. Was it Uncle Bill? Had he come back? Yes! I started to run as he leapt into the water – towards Mum – and grabbed her, wrestling her round, fighting the river for her until he pulled her over to the side.

  There was a little hill. I had to get over it. And there was Mum on the grass, all wet and shaking, clinging on to the man, and I so wanted to leap down into her arms. But the man turned. He turned away from Mum and stared at me, right into my face, and that was the first time ever that I saw my dad.

  My dead-dad.

  Here’s something you won’t believe. I, Cymbeline Igloo, have been swimming.

  I have been swimming exactly fourteen times.

  Well, maybe not swimming exactly, all those times. I did a lot of standing at first and then a lot of holding on to these long things called noodles. I did it at Lewisham Pool, which brought everything back at first (being pushed in, going under, Mum coming, etc., etc.). After a few times it was okay, though, and it was okay again today, but I won’t tell you about today just yet. I’ll leave that until last because you probably want to know about my dad first, don’t you? I don’t blame you, so I’ll explain that, though you are so going to love what Marcus Breen did at the swimming pool today.

  Do grown-ups tell you stuff? The real stuff that’s bad sometimes, really bad maybe, all the stuff that happens in life? Real life? Do they tell you the actual truth, or do they try to shove it to one side like an old tent stuffed behind the sofa? Maybe they just tell you some of it. They paint a picture you can live in, a copy of real life, but with stuff left out. This was what the adults were discussing – Mum and Auntie Mill, Uncles Bill and Chris, and my dad of course – while I was supposed to be down in the treehouse with Clay and Juni. I was standing at the door, though, listening, and I knew what the answer was.

  They shouldn’t leave things out. They just shouldn’t. They have to paint it all, the whole thing, and they shouldn’t be afraid of that. If they hold us tight enough, so tight we know they love us, it won’t matter what they say. Their love will get us through it. They couldn’t see that, though, and were arguing, so I walked right in there and told them. They went quiet, and stared at me, until Auntie Mill did a hard sigh, about to snap go off and play. But instead she opened her mouth and started to nod, and Uncle Chris put his hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Why don’t you sit down?’ he said to me.

  And I did.

  Uncle Chris was sitting forward on the sofa, not wearing a suit today but a blue shirt and cream trousers with creases down the front. Auntie M
ill was next to him wearing normal things and then came Uncle Bill, who didn’t look normal because he’d shaved his beard off. His face was a bit embarrassing to look at, like it didn’t have any clothes on. Mum was in a chair, in a sweatshirt of Auntie Mill’s, and my dad was sitting on the floor beside her, looking, well, just – sorry, Dad – wrong. I still couldn’t quite take it in that he’d come down from the mantelpiece. Into the world. He made everywhere look a bit crowded.

  ‘Right,’ said Uncle Chris. ‘Are you ready, Cym?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, which was a fib, because I was a very lot not ready, and I’d like to apologise for that.

  Uncle Chris put his elbows on his knees and took a big breath through his nose. Everyone stared at him, wondering what he’d say, and that was weird because of course they all knew what he was going to say. Maybe they just wanted to know where he’d begin. They didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘Your aunt used to be an actress,’ he said and Auntie Mill sighed.

  ‘I called myself an actor.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘She told me. And when she was doing Shakespeare Mum stole Dad off her. Didn’t you, Mum?’

  Mum’s eyes opened in shock, and I thought she was going to cry, but Auntie Mill squeezed her knee and turned to me.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I may have told you that, Cymbeline, but it’s not true. He just preferred her. That’s all. He didn’t owe me anything and he had every right to –’ she glanced at my dad and then looked away – ‘and she couldn’t help liking him. It wasn’t your mum’s fault. In fact, it was …’

  ‘Yes, Auntie Mill?’

  ‘Well, it was something I should have accepted. I should have accepted it but …’

  ‘You didn’t,’ said Uncle Chris.

  There was silence then as Auntie Mill swallowed. Accepted? I tried to work out what she meant.

  ‘And is that why you argue?’