Body of Water

by Stuart Wakefield

  Later in bed I’d think of those particular divers and the heat would return while I wondered what they’d feel like to the touch.

  I pleaded with Alex for diving lessons but he was swift to remind me that I couldn’t swim and had little prospects of ever doing so.

  “So get me some swimming lessons!”

  “How many times must we go over this?” Alex said, his head in his hands. “Mum will never let you near the water.”

  “It’s not fair. Why do I have to pay the price for her parents being drowned in sodding-”

  “Lev-”

  “-frigging-”

  “Leven-”

  “-fucking-”

  “Leven!”

  “ORKNEY?”

  “Sorry mate, it’s just not happening. Why not try skateboarding?”

  I stomped off up the stairs.

  “And don’t stomp off up the stairs. You know there’s a dodgy bit of plumbing - oh Christ!”

  I knew just the spot to hit to crack the pipe and keep Alex occupied with repairs for the rest of the day.

  A few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, one of the girls at school had a party to mark the end of the school year. Her parents had given over the entire basement of their Georgian house to her and it had been converted into a self-contained flat.

  Late in the evening, the drinking games started and she arranged us all into a circle, boy-girl, boy-girl.

  “It’s the ice cube game,” she slurred as she fumbled with the trays to loosen the contents. “You put an ice cube in your mouth, right, and pass it around the circle.”

  Several cheers went up from the rugby team and several more groans from the girls sandwiched between them. A boy with braces looked mortified, made his excuses and went home.

  Having never kissed a girl, nor wanting to, I felt mildly uncomfortable as the ice cubes came and went but it was clear that everyone else was having a great time.

  Towards the end of the game, there were multiple cubes in play.

  When the girl between me and the captain of the rugby team clamped her hand over her mouth, retched, and rushed to the toilet, a huge roar went up.

  Expecting another girl to take her place, I swallowed hard when I saw an ice cube heading towards me. The rugby captain, someone called him Shaun, took it and leaned towards me. The roar was deafening when our mouths met.

  But there was no ice.

  He made a spectacle of passing it over, and I, in my innocence, searched for it with my tongue before I realised what I was doing. As I withdrew my tongue from his mouth so his ventured into mine.

  It wasn’t how I’d imagined my first kiss. It should, I thought, follow the private declaration of eternal love from my Olympic diving, gold-medal-winning lover, not a drunken rugby joker surrounded by a baying mob of his team-mates. As soon as the length of the kiss threatened to become obvious to even the most pissed observer, he pushed me away, laughing. His good-natured jokes diverted any embarrassment on my part.

  He didn’t avoid me afterwards. If anything, he seemed friendlier than ever, throwing his arm casually around my shoulder when I found myself sitting next to him on a wall while he had a heated, if slurred, debate with his friends about the distinction between tackling and rucking.

  I didn’t see him again that summer and, as the next school year began, found out that he’d transferred to a boarding school.

  Months later, as spring breathed life back into nature, I saw a red-haired girl leave the house across the road. It wasn’t her hair that caught my attention but the fact that she’d left the house at all. For over a year the house had been undergoing considerable renovation. I’d become so used to the activity over there that I’d missed her family finally moving in.

  She dressed eccentrically. The cuffs and collar of an unremarkable jumper were stuffed with fluorescent netting. A short tartan skirt skimmed her hips and mismatched tights led the eye down to her platform trainers. She beamed up at me when she saw me at the window and I quickly stepped back, embarrassed that she’d seen me watching her.

  A moment later I heard a knock at the door.

  “Hello,” a girl’s voice said, as Ruth answered.

  “Hello. Bethany, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I was wondering if your little boy might like to come out and play? I saw him watching me.”

  The silence underlined Ruth’s utter astonishment. To my horror she complied. “Just a moment, I’ll ask him.”

  I groaned. Ruth was kind to a fault, always volunteering me to do some good deed that I had no interest in. Even as I had the thought I felt guilty. Why couldn’t I be more like her? I might complain about doing the things that she volunteered me for but once I was doing them I always felt better about myself, and happy to have pleased her. I fought with these feelings on a daily basis.

  “Darling,” Ruth said lightly as she peeked around my bedroom door, her face contorted with trying not to laugh. “Bethany-”

  “I prefer Beth, actually,” yelled the girl.

  “Sorry. Beth is asking if you’d like to come out and play.” Ruth was enjoying this too much.

  Incredulous, I groaned again. “Why? She’s like, what? Nine?”

  “I’m fourteen,” the voice bellowed from downstairs.

  “She has an older brother. He’s about your age. Maybe if you went over there you might make a new friend?”

  “I don’t want to make a friend.” That much was true. I liked this little world we had here.

  “All right, darling. I’ll tell her.”

  Ruth was barely half-way downstairs when my inner struggle began. I had no friends outside of school, that much was true. What hurt would it do if I just went over there and had a look around? I’d explored every inch of this place and although I loved it here, a part of me was curious enough to go and find out.

  Just as Ruth got to the door, I pushed past her and ran down the steps onto the pavement.

  “Come on, then,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  “Darling,” Ruth called after me. “Have you got your…?” She tapped her chest.

  I tapped my chest to confirm that I was wearing the pendant she had given me, insisting that I wore it at all times.

  Ruth and Alex’s house was beautiful inside, classic in design, but warm and inviting. Beth’s house was something else entirely.

  Palatial didn’t quite cover it. Marble floors stretched ahead of us and the most gigantic glass chandelier I’d ever seen hung over us, suspended from a chain that looked too feeble to carry its massive weight.

  “Do you like it? Mummy just redecorated with her friend Lawrence. He dresses a bit like a pirate.” The way Beth said his name made it perfectly clear that she disapproved.

  She talked me all the way through the ground floor but I heard nothing. Every new space we stepped into seemed grander and more opulent than the last. But the house felt cold to me, as if its heart had been buried deep under the shiny surfaces.

  Beth seemed pleased to have my company and continued the tour to the upper floors. Beautiful bathrooms with unusual fittings looked more like museum showpieces than the places a family used on a day-to-day basis.

  She hurried past one door without opening it.

  I stopped. “And what’s in there?”

  “That’s Mummy’s room. I’m not allowed in there when she’s asleep.”

  I checked my watch. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

  “She has one of her heads.”

  Beth’s room was on the top floor, at the back of the house. Just as I had expected, it was as oddly decorated as Beth herself. She threw herself onto her bed, and then peered under it for something, pulling it out and presenting it to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a gift. I made it for you.”

  I hoped she wasn’t harbouring a crush for me. I opened the little blue box’s lid tentatively and took out the tissue paper on top. Inside a papier-mache figurine rested on more tissue.

  “It’s a
merman,” she said happily. “I’d already made the top half and then I heard Daddy say that he thought you looked fishy.”

  “He said that about me?”

  “Don’t take it personally. He doesn’t like anyone.”

  “Sounds charming.”

  “My brother says he’s a wanker,” she said matter-of-factly. “What’s a wanker?”

  “You’ll find out when you start dating,” said an unexpected voice.

  A woman who I assumed to be Beth’s mother stood in the doorway, dressed only in a nightgown and clutching an empty crystal tumbler. She was everything Ruth wasn’t. Ruth didn’t wear jewellery to bed, and she certainly didn’t drink alcohol during the day. This woman looked immaculate but dangerous.

  “We’re out of ice,” she said testily. “Who on Earth are you?”

  “Hello, Mrs…um… I’m Leven.” I thrust my hand out just like Alex would and then snatched it back just as quickly.

  She raised a pencilled eyebrow and pinned me in the blazing spotlight of her glare. “What sort of a name is that?”

  “It’s a nickname.”

  Her sudden disinterest was almost audible. “Sounds rather odd to me.”

  Beth broke the tension. “Leven loves his present, don’t you?”

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s really great.”

  “Then expect to be inundated with them,” said Beth’s mother. “Everyone else loathes them. Who wants a lump of paper and glue as a gift? I’m going back to bed. Bethany, call your father and tell him to bring home some ice.” She disappeared, albeit unsteadily, as quickly as she’d appeared.

  “Your mum is-”

  “A. Drunk. B. Horrible. C. A complete cow. My brother always goes for C.” She paused. “So does Daddy, come to think of it.”

  “She doesn’t need ice with a personality that cold. How old is she?”

  “I have no idea. That’s terrible isn’t it? She’s off to Switzerland soon for some serious work.”

  “And your brother, how old is he?”

  “He’s just turned sixteen. What school do you go to?”

  “The Grammar.”

  “My brother went there but he’s at Ellesmere now on a sports scholarship.”

  “I’m not really into sport. I’d rather draw.”

  “Me too!” She bounced from her bed and pulled out a large flat leather case. “This is my portfolio. Do you want to see it?” Before I could answer she was struggling with the zip in her eagerness to get it open.

  Landscapes, fashion illustrations, and cartoons, all executed with exquisite attention to detail, spilled onto the floor.

  I flicked through them, surprised. “You did all this?”

  “Takes me ages. Mummy says I must get faster if I’m ever going to make a living at it. Lawrence thinks I could be the next Coco Chanel but I think he’s just trying to curry favour with her.”

  Just as her mother had disappeared so did Beth, although I heard her pummelling the stairs as she rushed downwards. I’d heard nothing, and wasn’t sure whether or not I was supposed to follow her, but her chatter soon began and became louder as she made her way back to her room.

  “-and his name’s Leven but it’s a nick name but I don’t know what that means and he likes his gift and he’s met Mummy and lived and he loves my portfolio but I think he secretly thinks I traced some of it but he seems really, really nice!”

  Behind her she dragged a boy bruised, grazed, and covered in mud.

  But, despite that, he was unmistakably Shaun.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Questions

  As soon as Beth said my name he must have known it was me but his attitude was as cold as his mother’s. He barely acknowledged me at all as he spoke to his sister. “I’m guessing she’s too pissed to have cooked. I’ll grab a shower and make us something to eat. Put the kettle on, sis.”

  He stopped at her door and addressed me over his shoulder. “You staying?”

  His obvious discomfort helped me decide. “I’d better get home.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  “No,” Bethany wailed. “You’ve only just got here. Stay a bit longer.”

  Her pleading was so endearing I couldn’t bear to disappoint her, even if it meant eating here in her room, away from him. “Well, if you don’t mind.”

  Shaun grunted and left the room. The sound of running water soon followed.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, I helped make three mugs of tea.

  “No sugar for Shaun,” she said, stopping my hand. “He’s in training so he’s only on good carbs and plenty of protein.”

  She seemed much older than fourteen.

  Shaun reappeared, looking cleaner if no less battered, and started pulling ingredients out of the fridge. I watched him cook while Beth made small talk. Her brother responded in all the right places but with little emotion and I had no doubt that he was deeply perturbed by my presence.

  Within minutes the most wonderful smell filled the kitchen, conveyed by the heat ascending from a wok.

  I didn’t speak until we were sitting around one end of a long dining table. “How are you settling in?”

  His eyes didn’t leave his plate. “This is the first time I’ve been home since we moved here.”

  “Oh right. Beth said you’d gone to a boarding school.”

  Beth interrupted. “How long have you been here, Leven?”

  “I’ve lived here since I was nine.”

  Beth’s mouth fell open. “Really? Shaun was five when we first moved to London for Daddy’s job. Mummy was due to have me the day we moved. The doctor said that she was mad and that she mustn’t want the baby if she was prepared to move house in her condition.”

  “I’m sure she wanted you,” I said. I’d take Beth home myself if I could.

  “I do wonder sometimes, the way she talks to me. Well, us. Do you mind not being wanted by your real mummy and daddy?” She suddenly burst into tears and I realised Shaun had kicked her under the table. She ran out of the room, leaving us alone.

  He pushed his plate away. “Sorry. She’s an idiot.”

  “She’s just a kid.” I kicked myself away from the table. “I’ll go and check on her.”

  “She’ll be fine. I’ve hit her harder than that before.”

  “She’s your sister.”

  “She’s a pain in the arse.”

  Not satisfied by his response, I found her in the small courtyard behind the house, crying quietly to herself as she rubbed her leg.

  “I’m really sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  I put my arm around her and patted her hair. She fell against me, sobbing freely now. “It’s all right. I don’t mind talking about it.”

  Shaun appeared bearing a bowl of ice cream and a bag of frozen peas.

  Without speaking he handed her the bowl, crouched in front of her and applied the bag to her leg. She ate her ice cream with such a forlorn expression that I chuckled.

  Red-eyed, she gazed up at me. “Is it very horrible, being adopted?”

  “I’m fostered. I’m a bit too old for adoption now. It was horrible at first, being sent to live with all these strangers. I always felt like I had to do tricks to be accepted.”

  “Why have you been with more than one family?”

  “I kept getting sent back.”

  “Why?”

  “Beth,” warned Shaun. “You’re being very rude.”

  She offered me her ice cream as an apology but Shaun took the bowl and stood up.

  “Who’s still hungry?” He headed back into the kitchen and I helped Beth follow him.

  Rummaging in the fridge, he pulled out more food. “I have to keep my food intake up while I’m training,” he said, eager to explain that he wasn’t just being greedy.

  “Leven’s not sporty,” piped up Beth. “He prefers to draw, like me.”

  He tore off some cooked chicken and chewed it thoughtfully. “How about a swim?”

  I went cold. “I’ve
never been allowed to go near the water.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “I could teach you.”

  “I don’t even have a pair of trunks.”

  “I have a new pair you can have. Still got the tags on. Why not give it a go?”

  Now he wanted me to stay? I asked myself why I was coming up with reasons not to. All I wanted to do was get some answers; ask him why he’d kissed me that night, and find out why he’d left. It was clear that he wasn’t going to acknowledge that we already knew each other in front of his sister so I played along.

  “Sure, why not? How far away is the pool from here?”

  He grinned. “About twenty feet straight down. It’s in the basement.” It was his first smile since he arrived home.

  I’d expected plans to be made for later, not right now.

  Beth groaned as her mother appeared looking no less testy but infinitely more sober. “Darling,” the woman made it sound like an insult. “Come along. We have to go to your tiresome friend’s equally tiresome mother’s… thing.”

  “Ugh,” Beth said, and then mother and daughter were gone to get Beth ready.

  Shaun led me to his room, keeping the conversation light. I didn’t know what to expect his bedroom to look like but I certainly didn’t expect one wall of stacked firewood and furniture made from reclaimed materials.

  “Do you like it?” He studied the room carefully.

  “It’s like a lodge.”

  “Is that good?” His uncertainty reassured me somehow. This was probably the first time he’d been in this room, his room, and he was nervous about my reaction to it. In a way, I felt like we were now on equal footing.

  “Shaun, why did-”

  “Later, okay? When we’re alone.”

  “But-”

  “Please?” He crossed the space between us and held the back of my head, holding his forehead against mine. “It’s complicated.”

  I wanted to put my arms around him and kiss him but I knew he wouldn’t want that, at least not right now, so I nodded and he set about finding me some trunks. He tossed them to me and I waited for him to leave, or at least turn his back but he stood, expectant.