The Drowning

by Rachel Ward

  “You did what you had to do,” she says. “You stood up to him.”

  “But I didn’t want … I never wanted …”

  “I know. But maybe this is the end. A full stop to all the violence. Let’s hope so.”

  A full stop. But where did it start in the first place? I bring our hands up between us, turn her hand over so it’s palm upward.

  “Rob told me what happened to your finger, Mum.”

  She glances at me, a quick, bright-eyed flash, and then she looks away. Like Neisha looked away.

  “You were just a babe in arms. But Rob … Rob saw it and I wish to God he hadn’t. It was an accident. The sort of accident that happened every time your dad had a night at the pub.”

  The muscles at the corner of her mouth are twitching.

  “It’s all right, Mum.”

  She shakes her head.

  “It doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago.”

  Her hand is trembling in mine. I bring both her hands behind my back, put them at my waist and I wrap my arms around her. We hold on tightly to each other, rocking gently from side to side, and after a few seconds her body starts shaking as she cries into my shoulder.

  Maybe this is the end, an end to the violence. It’s what she wants to believe, but Rob was here, today, outside in the mist, and he was angry. It’s not over yet. I’ve got a feeling that it’s not nearly over.

  I’m standing in the bathroom, facing the bathtub with the shower at one end.

  Rob.

  He’s there when I’m wet.

  And not when I’m dry.

  That’s it. I figured it out.

  The tap. The rain. The water slopping onto the floor from the bucket.

  The drop of water on the table. My finger touching it. Rob’s voice.

  It isn’t just the water being there, it’s me being in contact with it.

  It doesn’t seem to affect Mum or Neisha. Just me.

  If I’m right, he’ll come to me. Not when I run the water, but when I step in. When my skin is wet.

  My guts are churning. What am I doing? He hates me. He’s angry, really angry. The last couple of times he’s even launched himself at me. My shoulders spasm at the thought.

  But he can’t hurt me, can he? He’s dead. I can just turn him off. Twist the tap, towel myself dry, and he’ll be gone.

  I take a deep breath, drop my clothes in a pile on the floor, and step into the bath. Moldy grout crisscrosses between the tiles. I pick the shower nozzle up from the cradle where it sits. Keeping my back to the wall, I turn on the tap, directing the water straight at the drain.

  My feet are wet. I keep scanning around, but nothing’s happening. The water’s lukewarm. I twist the dial so it goes hotter, and move the spray up to my knees.

  Where is he?

  I hold the nozzle over my head and close my eyes as it waterfalls off my forehead and down the front of me. I’m in a haze of water, noisy and steamy and soothing. Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong. Perhaps my mind has been playing tricks. Something inside me is desperate for him not to appear — at least then I can get clean, really clean. I grope for the bottle of shampoo and lather up my hair. It’s kids’ shampoo — for some reason Mum still buys this stuff — and it smells of bananas and melons, like a massacre in a greengrocer’s. I tip my head back and let the water rinse the bubbles away, enjoying the feeling as they slide down my skin.

  And suddenly the water goes icy cold. The shock is electric. I cry out and try to open my eyes, but the remains of the soap sting them shut again. I frantically splash water against my lids, but it’s cold and foul and the stench of it makes me gag.

  I open my eyes again through the water, and he’s there. Everything’s blurry and distorted, seen through a brown haze, but I know it’s him.

  He’s close.

  The water isn’t bouncing off his body and running down like it is on me. It’s running through him. I can even see the black-and-white grid of tiles behind.

  He’s looking at me.

  He doesn’t say a word. There are holes where his eyes should be, dark gaps in his face. I want to look away. But I can’t. My guilt paralyzes me.

  And now it feels like I’m trapped here with him, in this tiny space. We’re in a cave of water and the walls are somehow solid. I’m doused in rankness. And we’re both silent. Looking.

  I’m powerless.

  I need to remember something, but I don’t know what.

  The water pounds down, drilling a hole in my skull, and the cold isn’t just on the surface now, on my skin — it’s seeping through me, getting into my muscles and bones. It’s an ache, a pain; it’s infecting me.

  I know that the thing I can’t remember was important, but it’s gone.

  My knees buckle and I hit the hard bottom of the bathtub. The shower nozzle twists in my hands and sprays upward, ricocheting off the ceiling. Water pummels my shoulders and the top of my back. I’m slumped in a vile brown soup at Rob’s feet.

  All my energy seems to have disappeared in the arctic cold of the water. All I can do is look at my brother. His blue-white feet, the deep red welt around one ankle. Scratches on his face, and scrapes on his knuckles, mud under his nails. I can see it all, every detail.

  He’s there and not there. Solid and mud-streaked and see-through.

  The water is flowing into him and through him and out of him, flooding out from his nose and mouth, oozing from the pores of his skin.

  The water on my shoulders is digging in now. Dropping like nails on the same sore patch of skin. I wish I’d never started this.

  You owe me, little brother.

  He’s looking down at me. His mouth doesn’t move, but it’s his voice. Am I reading his thoughts? Is he reading mine?

  “I don’t know what you mean. What do you want?” I say. I tip my face up toward his and water batters it, making me flinch and cough.

  Now he coughs, too, spasms that make his whole body twitch and dance. He crouches next to me, leans to the side and is sick, muddy water gushing out of him, filling the air with its stink. It swirls around my feet and backside.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Bring the whore to the lake.

  “No!” I don’t want to hear any more.

  Cee, he says. Cee, you owe me.

  If I could just remember how to get rid of him. The cold has numbed my brain. The relentlessness of the water drowns out the thoughts that are trying to form.

  There’s a change in the water around my feet. It seems alive. Rivulets begin to flow up my legs, snaking their way around my ankles and calves. What’s happening?

  He’s closer than ever, looming over me, around me. I turn my head and he’s there. I twist away and he’s there again. Wherever I look, his eyeless sockets are boring into me with their cold, dark power. And the water is flowing into my mouth now, up my nostrils. It’s forcing its way into my throat. I’m coughing, choking. How do I make this go away? How can I turn him off?

  Turn him off.

  That’s what I told myself I could do. That’s what I needed to remember. I’m in control — all I have to do is turn off the tap. I reach behind me. I can’t find the faucet at first. My fingers grasp at thin air. Where is it? I turn around and my movement must have tilted the showerhead because now the water is all falling on my hand. Cold, hard drops battering against the skin. It’s so cold that my joints stiffen. I can’t feel the ends of my fingers.

  Don’t you fucking dare.

  I’m still holding the nozzle in my other hand. I try to angle it away, turn it over so it’s facing down, but it slips out of my grip and now it’s alive. The metal hose writhes in the bottom of the tub, twisting and turning under the pressure of the water, and at the end of it, the showerhead spews out its icy guts and no matter which way it starts out, all the water ends up attacking my hand. It thunders down from above. It snakes up the side of the tub. My hand is numb — a useless lump of meat on the end of my arm.

  My other hand sti
ll works, though. I slam it down on the end of the rod that switches the water from the faucet to the shower, holding it firm as the water stops spurting out of the showerhead and starts gushing out of the tap. It runs straight down the drain.

  Mouth open, breathing fast, I look up.

  Rob’s still there, but the background is clearer now — he’s fading a little.

  You bastard. Finish her or I’ll finish you, he says.

  I’m shivering, but my brain has unfrozen. Get dry. I need to get dry. Leaving the faucet running, I climb out of the bath and start scrubbing myself furiously with a towel, using the hand that still works.

  I can’t see Rob anymore, only the place where he used to be: a slight haziness, a blurring of that space, nothing more. He’s gone, or almost, but he manages one last whisper.

  Finish her.

  I lean against the wall, shivering, gasping. The only thing I can think is he’s after Neisha. I’ve got to keep her safe. I’ve got to keep her away from the lake.

  I run all the way to Neisha’s house without getting a glimpse of her. Did she say she was heading home? I’m such a coward! Why did I let her go alone? The soft, misty rain is still there, almost hovering in the air. I keep Mum’s umbrella close to my head, avoid brushing against any wet leaves, and jump over the puddles.

  The doorbell’s wet. Mustn’t touch it. I poke it with the handle of the umbrella and step back from the door, looking up at the windows. The front door opens. It’s Neisha’s dad, wearing a posh polo shirt with a little logo on it, tucked into his belt.

  “You said an hour, Neisha. It’s been —” he says as the door swings back, then sees that it’s me and not his daughter standing on the doorstep. “Oh.”

  His brow is furrowed with worry and he’s nervously stroking the tufty island of hair that clings to the top of his bald head. “Oh,” I echo. “Hello. Is Neisha here?”

  Stupid question.

  “No. I was expecting her home a while ago. I thought she was visiting you, your mother …”

  “She was. She left about an hour ago.”

  “So where — ?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “She should be here. Where I can keep my eye on her, take care of her. Her phone’s switched off. She always switches her blessed phone off when she’s with that —” He stops, like he’s suddenly aware of who he’s talking to. “I’m sorry. I’m just worried. I didn’t want her to go out. It’s too soon, it’s … I need to know where she is.”

  I’m backing away already.

  “She’s only sixteen. She’s thinks she’s an adult, that she can do what she wants, go where she wants, but …”

  “I’ll find her,” I say. “I’ll bring her home.”

  “She knows the way home,” he says, “but thank you.”

  I run out of the gate and turn left toward the center of town. Where could she have gone? I thought she was going straight home when she left our flat.

  I get an idea. I don’t know where she is, but I know where she mustn’t be. A spasm of fear clutches at my guts. She can’t be … can she? I head toward the main street. At the top end, near the church, a truck thunders past, spraying water up my leg. It soaks into my jeans.

  Finish her.

  I look around, expecting to see Rob, but the street’s just full of the normal town center types: old women with shopping carts, mums trailing toddlers or pushing strollers. He’s not there. It was just an echo in my head. But it feels like he’s just behind me, dodging out of sight when I look around.

  I stumble along the pavement, half running, half walking, checking behind me every few steps.

  There’s a shortcut from the main street to the park, down the side of the shops. I accelerate, belting down the path. At the end, there’s a volleyball net hiding behind a dense green hedge, and some tennis courts inside a high fence. Between them, they cut off the view. I run between them and soon burst out into the open green of the park. There are several sets of tire tracks in the turf running down the hill, great brown ruts gouged into the green, with water resting in the bottom. My eye follows them down and there’s a figure at the base of the slope — someone wearing a dark coat tailored at the waist, long black hair trailing down her back — just disappearing through a gap in the bushes.

  “Neisha!” I shout at the top of my lungs.

  She turns.

  “Wait! Wait for me!”

  I set off down the hill, skidding and sliding but somehow staying on my feet. Water oozes around the sides of my shoes with each step. Neisha watches me run, and as I come clattering toward her she holds one of her arms out to the side as if she’s going to catch me. I pull up before we make contact, but even so she smiles and says, “Whoa.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I just …”

  And now I don’t know what to say. How can I tell her to stay away from the lake without sounding crazy?

  “Where are you going?” I ask, though I know the answer already.

  The smile disappears from her face and she shrugs and looks down at the ground.

  “I was just … I was going back to the … you know.”

  “Going back to the lake?”

  “Yeah. I thought it might help.” She’s awkward, apologetic.

  “No!” I say, though it comes out more like a shout.

  She looks up sharply.

  “It’s all such a mess, Carl. It’s all so horrible. I want to try and make sense of it. Or find some sort of peace or something. Sorry, that sounds lame.”

  “No,” I say. “No, it doesn’t. Just … just not there, that’s all. Don’t go back there.”

  “Someone said there were flowers there, like at your house. I wanted to see. That’s all.”

  “It’s just flowers, Neisha. It doesn’t mean anything.” There’s a sulky edge to my voice and I think, I’ve blown it now. She’s going to tell me to get stuffed.

  “It’s okay,” she says, putting her hand on my arm. Even through my sleeve I feel her warmth and it shocks me all over again. “I understand if you don’t want to go. It’s fine. We’ll go somewhere else. I can go back there on my own sometime.”

  “No!”

  There I go again, shouting in her face. This time a little fleck of spit jumps out of my mouth and lands near the corner of hers. Instinctively she takes her hand away from my arm and wipes the wetness away.

  “For God’s sake, Carl,” she says. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  I stand uselessly before her, shoulders hunched, no idea how to stop this beautiful girl from doing something that might put her in terrible danger.

  She sighs. “Let’s go somewhere,” she says. “Somewhere else.”

  She slips her hand into mine and there’s that warmth again. My fingers curl around hers and suddenly everything seems possible.

  I can figure out what to do about Rob.

  I can keep Neisha safe.

  We start walking up the hill.

  “Nice umbrella,” she says, and I take the hint and move it over a bit so it’s covering her. My shoulder will get wet, but I’m too dazzled by her to care.

  “Er … it’s Mum’s.”

  Wrong way, Cee.

  The voice is here. Rob is here, somewhere. Watching. Wanting us to turn back toward the lake. A chill touches my neck, cold air raising the hairs. I jerk the umbrella back toward me.

  “What are you — ? Oh, you’re getting wet. Come here.”

  She lets go of my hand and moves closer to me, putting her arm around my waist.

  You’re dead, you bastard. You’re both dead.

  I stiffen. What will he do next? How can I keep her safe? I peer behind us, expecting to see Rob’s pale face at my shoulder.

  “It’s all right,” Neisha says. “No one’s looking. Anyway, we’re not doing anything wrong.”

  That’s what she thinks. But I want my brother’s girl. I want her so badly every cell in my body is aware of her closeness. My neck was cold a moment
ago. Now there’s blood flushing into it and up to my face. It’s surging so hard into my groin I can hardly walk. I fancy my dead brother’s girlfriend. How messed up is that? He’s right to want me dead.

  “I miss this,” she says. “Being close to someone.”

  I’ve never had it. Have I? Any closeness me and Rob had was a different sort of contact. Holding each other in a wrestling grip, struggling to get the upper hand. This is different. This is comfort.

  And it could be more, so much more. It wouldn’t take much. She could turn or I could and then we’d be face-to-face. My face near her face. My face touching hers …

  “… to go?”

  She’s looking at me as if she expects an answer, and I’ve got no idea what she just said. I look at her blankly.

  “Shall we try the coffee shop in town?” she says. “The new one?”

  “I dunno. Your dad’s expecting you home.”

  “My dad? When did you — ?”

  “I called round there first. He was a bit antsy …”

  She rolls her eyes toward the sky.

  “I’ll ring him,” she says.

  She disentangles herself from me, then takes her phone out of her bag and switches it on.

  “Dad? I’m in the park. No, I’m fine. Honestly. I’m with a friend, we’re going to — Yes, Rob’s brother. Dad, don’t be like that. We’re going for a coffee, okay?” She holds the phone away from her ear for a few seconds, then quickly says, “I’ll see you later,” and finishes the call.

  “He’s fussing,” she says.

  “Can’t blame him,” I say.

  “I know, he never liked me going out. Now … well, now he doesn’t want me to leave the house at all.”

  “At least he cares,” I say.

  “Yeah, I know.” The phone’s ringing. She checks the screen, makes a face, presses the OFF button, and puts it in her bag.

  “So where shall we go? Not the new coffee shop?”

  I don’t want to be around people. I want it to be just me and her, like it is now. We’re walking past the park café now — a bedraggled collection of plastic tables and chairs huddled on a square of concrete by a hut with a serving kiosk. There are a couple of smokers sitting at one of the tables, hardened nicotine addicts who would still be out here even if it were snowing. And that’s all. No one else.