Body of Water

by Stuart Wakefield

  As I closed my bedroom door behind me, I startled Dad as he loitered on the landing, somehow managing to look crumpled despite wearing the white shirt I’d starched and ironed for him last weekend.

  “It’s Saturday,” I said. “You’re going to work?”

  He clutched an envelope in his hand. The solemn look on his face signalled that this letter was urgent, important. Bad news.

  I took a long, slow breath and cleared my throat but I couldn’t talk. Dad pulled at his shirt and rubbed his head before he held the letter up to me.

  Pressing a hand to my stomach, I stepped forwards to take it. If I could have taken smaller steps I would have. Dad’s behaviour was making me as agitated as he appeared.

  As my eyes dropped to the envelope I saw my real name, Michael, my address scrawled across the front, and a jumble of stamps cowered in the upper right corner as if to get as far away from the inked words as possible. Dad made a sound as I turned it over and saw that it had been opened. He had opened it. He knew what it said.

  It was obvious but I said it anyway. “You’ve read it?” I was on autopilot.

  My eyes cut to his and he grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

  Before I could question him he hurried downstairs and left me to read it alone. What was so bad that he wouldn’t hang around while I read it for myself? It must be really bad.

  Back in my room, I sat on my bed and turned the letter over again to examine the writing. One hand had written my name using a black fountain pen, large, bold, and flamboyant. But another had written my address; small, scrappy, childlike letters. Who were these people?

  Dad’s behaviour was odd; there was no doubt about that. I felt genuinely scared of what the letter might contain. I reached for my phone and called Beth.

  No answer.

  Voice mail.

  Fuck.

  I threw the letter down and moved to the window to see if I could see any sign of Beth. Her moped was still there. I tapped the windowsill as I looked back at the letter on my bed. Despite the warm sun on my body coldness settled upon me, my fingers almost numb. Rubbing them together, I snatched up the letter and ran downstairs. I heard Dad come out of the sitting room but I was already sprinting out of the front door, jacket in one hand, letter in the other.

  The street was empty of familiar faces, not that I knew many. I mulled over which direction to head in; the park to my right or the boutiques and coffee shops to my left? If Beth wasn’t home she’d either be running or catching up with school-friends while they sipped coffee or shopped. As I was her only running partner I decided she’d only be a few streets away.

  Praying that she wasn’t just sleeping late, I considered which street to start my search for her. Apart from the park, I didn’t venture far from home. More than one street in any direction and my heart would race, my breathing become shallow and laboured, and my vision blurred.

  I swallowed down my apprehension and started walking to the end of the street, turning right and then left into the first rows of boutiques and coffee shops.

  I met no one’s gaze, and went on my business with my head down, listening for Beth’s voice. But despite my bowed head I knew exactly where everybody else was and what they were doing. My peripheral vision and hearing more than made up for my actual focus.

  By the time I passed several shops with no sign of Beth I became aware of someone watching me. I looked up and saw someone move out of sight. A red-haired man sitting outside a coffee shop, I thought, but I couldn’t be sure.

  Shaun?

  I crossed the street to where I’d seen the man but there was no sign of him. The empty table on the pavement marked the spot where I’d seen him. I reached down to touch the half-drunk cup of coffee. It was still hot.

  Unsettled, I returned home. I needed to grow some balls and read the letter myself. I wasn’t a kid too scared to open their exam results, I was a man.

  As I turned back into my street, I saw the same man disappearing into Beth’s house.

  “Shaun!”

  I broke into a sprint but the door slammed shut before I got a good look at who it was.

  For the remainder of the day I sat alone in my room, the letter clutched in my hand, my eyes trained on Beth’s house. Beth hadn’t mentioned Shaun since she had told me about his wedding. If he was home, I would wait all night for one more, one last, glimpse of him.

  I wondered why he wouldn’t have contacted me on his return before reminding myself that he hadn’t contacted me at all. Perhaps his wife - wife! - was with him. Maybe he blamed me for his father finding us together. Maybe he was scared of me for what I’d done that night. God knows his dad was.

  Thank heavens for Beth; without her I’d have no friends at all.

  At just past midnight I saw her familiar shape tottering down the street, laden with shopping bags. Clearly Beth’s day spent shopping had segued into a drinking session with her friends. She shouldn’t be drinking at sixteen. Please God, I thought, don’t let her end up like her drunken mother.

  As she neared her house I hammered on my bedroom window to get her attention. She stopped and looked up and down the road like a lazy lighthouse, unable to identify the source of the sound.

  I raced downstairs and into the street. As I reached her she dropped her bags and threw her arms around me.

  “Levvy! Levvy-kins. My darling, I’ve had the most wonderful day. You should come out with me and the girls one night. They’d love y-”

  I scooped up her bags in one hand and put my arm around her shoulder to guide her to my house. As she stumbled to keep up with me she chattered on about her day, what she’d bought, and the latest Primrose Hill gossip. In any other circumstance I’d be interested, living it with her, feeling less isolated than if I’d been left to my own devices, but right now I needed her strength and support.

  Several black coffees later she was sober enough to realise the enormity of my reluctance to read the letter. She sat at the kitchen table, opposite me. I pushed it towards her but she didn’t pick it up. She seemed as scared of its contents as I was.

  “Your dad gave you this?”

  I nodded.

  “Have you spoken to him since?”

  “No, I went out looking for you and when I got home he was out. He hasn’t come back yet.” As urgent as the letter was to me, I had another pressing concern. “Listen, Beth, earlier today I thought I saw-”

  “Shaun’s home.”

  I jumped to my feet. “I have to see him.”

  “Sit down, Lev.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed as if she’d gone over this with me a hundred times. “He won’t see you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why do you think? He doesn’t want a scene.”

  Anger pushed against the boundary of my feelings. “Why are you protecting him? You chose me, remember?”

  Beth laughed humourlessly. “I’m not protecting him. I’m protecting you. He doesn’t want a scene because he’s a coward. I don’t want a scene because I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “And if I want a scene? What about that?”

  “I think you’ve had enough scenes to last you a lifetime, haven’t you? Besides, this letter,” she picked it up, “could prove to be a massive disappointment.”

  Her brow crumpled as she saw it had already been opened. The question formed on her face before she could ask me.

  “Dad has read it.” My answer was shaky.

  “Didn’t he tell you what it said?”

  Sitting down, I shook my head then motioned for her to continue.

  “Why didn’t you just read it yourself? I’d be desperate to find out what it said.”

  “Please Beth. I can’t handle any more bad news.”

  “You’re becoming such a drama queen.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of the envelope and unfolded it. What looked like a photograph, dropped face-down onto the table. I could just make out the brand printed diagonally across the back.

  Beth pul
led her legs up so her feet perched on the edge of her chair. Her knees rested on the table. She picked up the photograph and looked at it for a long time, looked at me, and then back at the photograph. Slowly, she put it down, face-down, on the table. Her eyes roamed across the page of the letter.

  I watched her face for any flicker of emotion but it remained impassive and unreadable. When she finished the letter she put it on top of the photograph and pushed it towards me.

  The tension was unbearable. I placed my hand on the letter but was still too scared to turn it over. “What?”

  “Pour me a drink. A bloody big one.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The Orcadian

  The moment the man exploded through the doorway I wanted to run, and keep running, but fear anchored me to the spot.

  After taking less than thirty seconds to read the letter it took me less than another five to accept its invitation. Now, two days later, I was here in the Orkneys and wondered if I should have taken longer to think about it.

  Against the light flooding from the house the man was a black outline, a slab of threat, as tall and wide as the door itself. If he was anything like the wind in Orkney he wasn’t going to bother to go around me and I, the immovable object, was already beaten into submission from the violent rain. One more step and I’d be trampled underfoot.

  When he finally stopped in front of me my relief was palpable but it dissolved quickly when he grabbed me by my jacket and hauled me off my feet.

  “Who ere ye?”

  It took me a moment to process what he’d said. He had the thickest accent I’d heard during my journey here. My fellow passengers had tried to talk to me, once they’d finished staring, but I shrugged and pretended that I couldn’t hear them over the whine of the transfer plane’s engines. My mum’s Orcadian accent had been extremely soft compared to the locals I’d met so far.

  But it wasn’t just their accents that confused me; I’d felt from the moment that I set foot on the island that the ocean tugged at my guts with an invisible force.

  “Who ere ye?”

  “You what?” I said immediately, an unconscious reaction as I translated what he’d said. It was a habit I’d grown into as a child, stalling for time when I’d done something wrong and needed to think up an excuse.

  He lifted me higher until his face was level with mine. He remained silhouetted against the doorway so I couldn’t make out his expression but his tone was unmistakeable. As if talking to an imbecile, he repeated slowly, “Who ere ye?”

  I opened my mouth but doubted that I’d be able to speak, from equal measures of fear and shock. Could this monstrous man be Mackay, my real father, who had invited me here? If he was he looked much bigger than his photo suggested.

  He shook me for an answer. “Ere ye the beuy?”

  Back in London I would have come back with something smart about being a man, not a boy. In my early teens I’d hung out with the wrong crowd long enough to hold my own but now, cold, wet and lonely, suspended in this brute’s grip, my confidence melted away.

  Mute, I nodded, and tried uselessly to pull his hands off me. I tasted a sudden salty bitterness but couldn’t tell if I’d started crying or if it was the ocean spray whipped up from the waves that crashed somewhere out in the darkness. Right now all I wanted was to be back in London. I wasn’t ready for this.

  He set me down roughly. “Mackay’s expectan ye.” Fear loosened its grip on my guts. This man wasn’t my father but that didn’t stop his unrelenting attention from unsettling me.

  Fresh barbs of rain shredded the last tatters of my patience. I should be welcomed as a guest, not assaulted and questioned like an intruder.

  I puffed out my chest and set my chin high. I didn’t feel confident so hoped I could fake it. “If I’m ‘the boy’ then I guess you’re ‘the help’?” The words left my lips less boldly than I’d have liked but I managed to get them out, and heard, over the storm. This brute didn’t look like any carer I’d ever seen but my father had written that his health was failing and someone looked after him.

  The man drew himself up and I took an automatic step back, ready to flee if he lunged for me again, but he turned and opened the door, standing to the side so I’d have to squeeze pass him if I wanted to enter.

  With his head turned towards me I detected one half of a sly smile on his face. “Hid’s a bit blowy oot here. Ye’d better go in.”

  A bit blowy. At any moment I expected the house to be ripped from its foundations and he’s calling it ‘a bit blowy’?

  I hesitated, half-expecting him to trip me as I passed him, but I shook the feeling off and stepped into the house. I fired a withering glare in his direction but underestimated his height and wasted the look on his collar bone.

  I found myself in the kitchen and not the hallway as I’d expected. Blessed warmth radiated from an AGA on the far wall. I shambled towards it like an acolyte, my hands raised in soporific adoration. The nearer I drew to the enamelled cooker the heavier my feet became.

  He lobbed some fabric in my direction. “For yir her.”

  I looked down at a mangled tea towel so dirty that I resisted lobbing it right back at him but I was too polite to refuse. With one hand I rubbed it roughly over my head before unzipping my sodden jacket. His shadow loomed behind me and I felt him tugging at my shoulders, until he finally wrestled it off me.

  The familiar sound of wood dragging against stone broke the silence and something hard nudged the back of my knees. He pushed me down into the chair he’d pulled up for me.

  “Yir wet throo.” No hint of concern presented itself in the statement so I didn’t bother to respond. “Ah’m oot.”

  I must have misheard him. Surely, not even out here in the Orkneys, could Oot be a regular name. “Your name is Oot?”

  “Nae. Me name,” he strung the words out, “is Dom. Ah’m gaan oot.” He remained out of sight. I heard what sounded like the rubbing of bricks on canvas and guessed he was already at the door.

  “In this weather?” I realised to my horror that I sounded like Mum. “Where are you going?”

  I got up to face him and my mouth fell open. He must have been six-foot-five with a smooth, olive tan and a jaw-line you could build a city on. And then there were his eyes, slate-grey and ominous. Stamped above each one was a thick, black brow, as if to certify the workmanship of the steel discs below.

  He tucked a lock of wayward hair behind his ear and ran the same hand over his face. It rasped against his stubble.

  My vanity urged me to run away again, to lock myself in a bathroom and not come out until I was washed and polished. But even then I doubted I could compare to him. Judging by the size of his shoulders and chest alone I needed six months in a gym, maybe more.

  His breathing quickened as he studied me carefully but he remained silent. I vowed never to take my shirt off in front of him.

  When he finally spoke he failed to keep the anger out of his voice. “Ah dinnae ansa tae thee.”

  “When will you be back?” I couldn’t help it. Mum had always wanted to know where I was going and when I’d be back. Although it drove me up the wall I knew that she did it for the right reasons.

  He tilted his head and his expression changed from defiance to surprise. “Ere ye a peedie simple, beuy? Ah’ll see ye the morn’s morneen. Dinnae disturb Mackay. He’s no weel the night. Find yirself a room and do whit ye will.”

  A gust of freezing air whipped around me as he opened the door then slammed it shut behind him, leaving me cold and perplexed. Although I had understood that my father wasn’t to be disturbed and that I should find a room, I’d need an interpreter for the rest.

  Gathering up my things I explored my temporary home. The house was beautiful, the downstairs largely decorated in honey tones. I imagined bright coastal light flooding the rooms on sunny days. Everything seemed old but new at the same time. I recognised the furniture’s classic design but also its pristine condition. Even the wallpaper, although old-fashio
ned, looked like it had just been hung; the colours vivid and bright. As I climbed the stairs I felt like I was on the set of a period drama and my clothes felt out of place among the antiques.

  But there was no comfort here. Yes, the house was decorated with things that should have felt warm and inviting but it didn’t. It felt like a forgotten place, never lived in by breathing, laughing, loving people.

  I climbed the stairs and felt increasingly uncomfortable that each step took me closer to my father. I tried to imagine the hand that had written the letter inviting me here. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to see him yet, if at all.

  Doors flanked the landing on both sides and, at one end, light marked the edges of the only occupied room.

  My father’s room.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Exploration

  My curiosity piqued, I tip-toed to the door and pressed my ear against it. I heard nothing, not even the sound of breathing.

  Despite Dom’s warning I put down my things and tried the handle. Locked. My hand shook so much that the door rattled in its frame. Anxious, I edged back down the landing and tried the four remaining doors. Two opened into bedrooms, another was locked and the last was the bathroom.

  A tug on the pull cord illuminated the room. The strong, dark-green walls made the large open room feel warm and cosy. Waist-high, vertical wood panelling drew my eyes down to a black-and-white tiled floor. A deep, roll-top, cast iron bath with clawed feet beckoned me to the other side.

  I ran my hand along the smooth edge of the bath and smiled. My own bathroom at home was modern but it had no character. This bathroom looked like the magazine photos I’d pore over in a waiting room. Resisting the urge to run the water straight away I retrieved my things and set about choosing a bedroom.