The Water Cure
Page 5
‘You are both cruel,’ says Mother. She splits the skin from an apple slice with her thumbnail, peels it off in one vulturous motion.
We are not supposed to see what she does to the men, but we watch from Grace’s room, which turns out to have a good view. Sky and I stay ducked down at the window, our hair all in our faces and mouths. Grace keeps up a running commentary, her voice distant.
‘She is making them take off all their clothes,’ she says.
We strain our eyes to look. There the men are, pulling off their T-shirts and jeans. Mother gestures. She is holding King’s pistol up to them. They take their underwear off too. Their skin is striped with different colours, like ours, but that is the only thing we seem to share. I am grimly fascinated. Grace makes a small sound of disgust.
‘She is checking their clothes and rucksack for weapons,’ she continues. Sure enough, the men have backed away and Mother is lifting their limp garments, shaking them with great vigour and letting them drop.
‘She is pointing the gun at them again,’ Grace says. I wish she would be quiet. We can all see Mother after all, her arm raised, clearly right up close to them now. They try to shield themselves with their hands but she must have instructed them to stop that, to press their arms close to their sides, their bodies exposed.
We meet them properly for the first time at the dinner table, when they enter the room dressed in clothes that belonged to our father, clothes which are too big for them, even though the grown men are at least a head taller than any of us. We are sitting already when they come in, but we rise to our feet, ceremonial. I touch the square of muslin folded up in my pocket, just in case. The men line up on the opposite end of the table to us, sunburnt and weary. Mother stands at the head.
‘I’m Llew,’ the dark-haired one says. He puts a hand on the shoulder of the boy, next to him. ‘This is Gwil. Say hello.’
Gwil moves his feet, looks at each of our faces quickly, then to the grimy ceiling. ‘Hello,’ he says.
‘I’m James,’ says the older one. ‘Gwil’s uncle. Llew’s brother.’
I am surprised and happy at the idea that blood ties them together; it feels like some kind of familiarity. We say our own names, in order of age.
‘Sit,’ instructs Mother, and we do as we are told.
The men eat quickly, too quickly. I worry they will choke. Llew shucks oysters and slides them on to his plate and on to Gwil’s. There’s something about the smoothness of his movements, his eyes luminous and quick. His arms have a fur on them that disgusts and enchants me at the same time. Grace kicks me under the table sideways when she sees me looking.
Llew teaches us how to pronounce his name, but none of us can do it. I resolve to practise it secretly so I can impress him. Drops of condensation roll down the wine glass that holds my water.
James asks me how old I am, and I shrug. When he turns his attention to Grace and asks how far along she is, Mother takes the opportunity to preach about the superiority of daughters. We shuffle in our chairs.
‘Do you have daughters?’ she asks the men.
No, not yet, they tell her. Maybe one day. She is disappointed. Grace murderously dismembers the tail end of the fish.
We eat in silence for a while. Mother seems to be debating whether or not to say something. In the end, she puts down her fork.
‘Nobody comes here any more,’ she tells them. Her voice is lowered, but we can all still hear her. ‘It’s not like it was before.’ She pauses. ‘So, I don’t know. You need to make your own way from here.’
I think of the damaged women in the boats with their thinning hair, their strange voices and gifts wrapped in brown paper. The translucent skin at their temples, at the backs of their hands.
‘They’ll come,’ Llew tells her as he takes more food. His voice is kind. ‘They’ll find us. We just need to stay here for a few days until they do.’
Mother doesn’t say anything more, just lifts the fork to her mouth. I want to cry at the ease with which they know they will be found.
After dinner, we go about the rituals stealthily. Mother distracts the men with playing cards, fanning them out on the dining table and encouraging them to play. We leave the room through the tall glass doors and watch the shadows of them moving against the wall, arms reaching, the unfamiliar hum of their voices falling away. We pick our way down to the shore with salt cupped between our palms, and we lay it down with the usual care.
It is just before I go to sleep, the sky still light, when I see a strange bird pass overhead. It is not one I’ve ever seen before, and I look up in awe at the stiff wings, its shadowed shape dark against the sky. It’s far away, yet I can hear the drone of its song very faintly through the open sliver of my bathroom window. Grace is in her room and I call for her, I run to her door and knock on it until she follows me. She stands on the toilet seat to get a better angle, but she only catches the last seconds before we can no longer see it. I wonder where it nests, whether it flies endlessly or bobs on the waves, pulling together a raft made of the faltering world’s debris. Grace finds my hand with hers, and we link fingers tightly for a second before she pulls away, as if remembering that we no longer do that.
We have never been permitted to cry because it makes our energies suffocating. Crying lays you low and vulnerable, racks your body. If water is the cure for what ails us, the water that comes from our own faces and hearts is the wrong sort. It has absorbed our pain and is dangerous to let loose. Pathological despair was King’s way of describing an emergency that needed cloth, confinement, our heads held underwater. What constituted an emergency was me and my sisters crying in unison, unable to stop.
I love to cry, though. With King gone, I have forgotten to feel guilty about doing it. There is no one left to notice what I do now. Alone in my room, the windows flung open and the sun lazy against my eyes. Or underwater in the pool, where all water is the same water. Sometimes I imagine the death of my sisters, the image of them standing against the rails on the terrace and paper-crumpling down to the ground, one by one, and then the tears come even when I remind myself that they are still alive. It’s important, the knowledge that things could always be worse. Imagining them gone makes the edges of my love sharper. In those moments I almost understand what they mean to me.
The night the men come, I cry quite a lot without knowing why. My sleep is shallow. Their distant bodies are thumbprints of heat, somewhere lost in the house.
My husband left the village. My brothers left. Everyone else’s husbands, brothers, sons and fathers and uncles and nephews left too. They went in droves. They apologized for leaving. There was danger in them. They hoped that we would understand.
In the morning I pace the corridors outside our three bedrooms as if to set a boundary. We used to say that any yellow patches on the carpet are made of fire; if you stepped on them you would burn to death. I step carefully all the way to the window that looks out on the forest, lean my forearms on the sill. The air where it comes in is a sweet and clean thing, but some of the trees are going brown, dying. Vigilance, I whisper to myself. I press my ear to each of my sisters’ doors so I can check their breathing and am just about satisfied.
From the top of the staircase I can hear distant piano music. I expect to find Mother clearing her mind, but when I enter the ballroom it is Llew, facing away from me. The bulk of his shoulders, hair shorn from his neck. It’s a shock, like seeing a snake dart into the scrub of the forest. His hands fumble the notes as he turns, and I realize he is scared of me too, or at least who I could be in this moment. Mother with the pistol. Vengeful women coming to catch him off-guard. He and the piano are perfectly placed in a hot rectangle of sunlight.
‘It’s you,’ he says. ‘The one who gave us the water.’
I nod.
‘Did I wake you?’ he asks. I shake my head. ‘Good.’ He indicates the piano. ‘Can you play?’
‘No,’ I say.
‘Why not?’ he asks.
I shrug.
Mother discussed with us the importance of examining every action of our bodies. Step always with caution. The body is the purest sort of alarm. If something feels wrong, it probably is. My body does not pulse with fear, though my hands shake a little. I am curious, that’s all. The man smiles at me as I start to walk.
Llew makes room for me on the stool. Even through his clothes he is warmer than a woman would be. Like my father, he is made of meat. It’s not so terrible, to be close to him. I put a finger to the keys, pick one at random. He takes my lead and chooses a key near mine, makes a harmony, and then picks another.
‘Anyone can learn piano,’ he tells me. ‘Babies can learn it. Old people. It’s not too late for you.’
I have never learned it because I am clumsy and uninterested, because the sound of the notes puts my teeth on edge, creates a hard ball of sorrow in my chest. I don’t need that, I could tell him, I am sad enough already without it. But I let him teach me a very simple tune that I manage to remember. I play it once, then twice, faster each time. He congratulates me, but it’s only fifteen notes, it’s no great achievement. He sucks air in between his teeth, which are a lot whiter than mine. ‘See?’ he says.
When the door opens again, it is Mother; I can tell without even seeing. I stand up right away, but Llew does not move.
‘Good morning!’ Llew greets her. Mother ignores him.
‘It’s breakfast time,’ she says instead, fixing her eyes on me. ‘Everyone else is awake now.’
Llew puts the lid of the piano down without comment, pushes the stool back. There is a fluidity to his movements, despite his size, that tells me he has never had to justify his existence, has never had to fold himself into a hidden thing, and I wonder what that must be like, to know that your body is irreproachable. I try to follow him out of the room, but Mother grabs my wrist as I walk past her. She says nothing but gives me a look, her eyes narrowed almost shut.
For a second, I hate her. I want to lock my fingers around her throat. Then I remember as I always do that I am supposed to love her, so I look back into her eyes and think of an orb of pink light, my obedient heart.
Over breakfast, Mother lays out the new rules. She has been up all night recalibrating, fighting with the world around us. She implies that we should feel guilty about this. We test our mother’s spirit, hurt her without even realizing. Daughters are always thankless, we know by now. You could cut yourself on the sharpness of our disregard. We’re vain, senseless, arrogant. This morning I’ll admit I did pull the skin around my eyes to test the elasticity, I did put on the whitest dress – vinegar-bleached, eyelets at the hem.
‘No daughter to be alone with a man,’ she reads from her notebook. ‘No men to go near the daughters’ rooms. No men to touch the daughters, unless sanctioned by me.’
What would be enough to sanction touch? I wonder, I feel my sisters wonder. If we were drowning, maybe. If there was a wad of bread, a fishbone, lodged in our tender throats. I imagine formulas and workings-out scrawled in the margins, calculating how much our bodies can take before unspeakable damage would be done to us. I worry at a scab on the back of my right hand, a wound I don’t remember. In the new light streaming through the windows, a light there’s no hiding from, I can see the lines at James’s eyes more clearly, the fading plumpness of Gwil’s face. Llew’s arms are folded as he leans back against his chair. When I look at his body properly I feel sick, but also exultant. I realize that if I have to stand up in front of him I will fall and give myself away.
Mother draws out King’s pistol from underneath the table, and places it on the tablecloth.
‘If you touch the girls, I’ll have to kill you,’ Mother says. She is relishing it, unapologetic.
‘Right,’ says James. ‘We understand.’ He puts one hand on Gwil’s shoulder and looks at Llew.
‘Loud and clear,’ says Llew, smiling at Mother, and then at the rest of us.
Mother claps her hands. ‘Well, now that’s sorted, let’s get on with the day. Girls, I need you. Come with me.’
The men remain inside as we follow her out to the jetty. The air is dry, all moisture burned off by the ferocious sun reflecting off the flat sea. Sweat breaks out immediately on my forehead, the back of my neck. Reaching the far end, Mother holds the pistol up high. We sway with the rhythm of the water under our feet.
‘You remember this,’ she tells us. ‘Well, now is the time for you to learn how to use it.’ She reaches into her pocket. ‘This is a bullet. Look.’ She opens the gun, puts the bullet in, closes it again.
She turns around, pointing out to sea, and aims at nothing. There is a great bang that moves her backwards a little, a spiral of smoke rising, and Sky clutches at Grace. Nothing else happens.
‘If you fire that at somebody, they will die instantly,’ Mother explains calmly. ‘It’s the most effective way to kill a person. Point it at the head, or the chest.’ She rubs her shoulder.
Mother has us all try out the pistol, even Sky, who cries when it knocks her on to the wooden boards of the jetty, but only for a few seconds. I try to keep my arm exactly steady and don’t move my eyes from the middle distance even when the jolt runs through my entire body, much stronger than I expect. We fall quiet, listening out for a sound after the bang, but nothing comes.
When we turn to go back the men are watching us from the shore as if attracted by the noise, and there is something that might be relief on their faces at the sight of us, far away but unharmed.
Later I go out on the boat alone. No sharks nose at the wooden hull. They aren’t interested in me, in my bitter heart and bones. I hope that if they killed my father, the flesh of him made them sick. Muddy seaweed moves on the water’s surface like wet hair. When I’m out a safe distance from the shore I drag my skin against an exposed nail sticking from a plank, leaving a faint red mark that evaporates even as I watch it. King warned me once about lockjaw, rust infecting the blood. This isn’t the way to do what I need.
Instead, I put my palm against a metal joint in the wood, steel that has soaked up the heat. Better, but nowhere near enough. I pull up a netful of writhing silver fish and let them die in the bottom of the boat, watching them as their breathing grows more desperate. Eventually it stops. I know the feeling, I tell them.
Our world is made up of humid air over rough sea, rip tides theoretical and deadly, birds that hew the blue sky with their ominous bodies. The dark frieze of the forest wraps around the edges of our vision, a reassuring bank of oak and coastal pine – names King taught me, as he cut strips of crumbling red bark to hold in my hand. And at the centre our home, glaring at me now from the middle distance, white and huge as a cake. From here it still looks like a house that will save you, that could at least get you partway there.
Many women have banked on that promise and laid themselves down on white linen, shut the blinds against the sun and the air, rested themselves. The years have been long without them. Soothing memories of soft female voices, cool gusts of air from the open windows of the lounge, feet stuttering over floorboards, chairs pulled up into the middle of the ballroom to watch a speech, a therapy. There have never been any men before. Men didn’t need what we offered.
When I return to the shore, the boy child is inspecting the shallows, careful not to get his feet wet. He is poking a stick into the sand, methodically, as if searching for something. His wrists are spindly, his mouth pinched. I keep my distance, turning over pebbles with my feet until something catches my interest: a smooth green jewel or piece of glass, clouded with age. It fits perfectly inside my palm and I slip it into my pocket, because even the unlovable deserve something, because I take my gifts where I can find them.
Higher up on the shore I find a dead bird, black feathers flocked with green. I notice it because of the flies, their sound and movement around it. It’s just on the e
dge of the tideline, no way of telling if the sea brought it in or it died in our own sky. I keep my distance for a while before deciding to blow the whistle around my neck. Mother and my sisters come quickly, spilling out of the door and over the sand towards me in white and blue cotton. I raise my hands to them.
‘A dead bird,’ I shout. ‘Dead.’
‘Get away from it!’ Mother calls. I don’t need telling twice, backing further away. We stand around it in a wide circle. ‘Fetch the salt, Lia.’
Llew is in the kitchen when I run in, leaning on a stainless-steel counter, eating cornflakes by the handful. He sticks his hand right in, lifts his palm to his mouth and tips his head back. I make a mental note to throw the packet out.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks, mouth full, as I dump the net of fish on the table and turn to pull out the Mason jar of salt from underneath the sink. He puts the packet down, plants his eyes very carefully on me.
‘Nothing,’ I tell him. This isn’t for him. I manage to walk out of the kitchen, but the second I’m away from his gaze I run again. The pebbles fall away from my feet. My skin is too hot.
Mother has collected driftwood and stones and debris. She and my sisters arrange it on top of the bird. Gwil watches from a distance, still holding the stick, but we ignore him.
‘Salt,’ Mother orders. I open the lid for her to scoop her hands in and she does, taking a palmful. Sky looks close to tears by now, Grace bored. They take their own handfuls of salt. They scatter it on the bonfire, and I copy them. Mother draws a matchbox from her pocket and sets the kindling alight. We jump back from the flame. A thin line of smoke rises up.
‘Oh, girls,’ Mother says as she watches the crisped seaweed and wood burn. There is a deep mournfulness to her voice. ‘It’s not a good sign.’
Her eyes flick to me briefly and I feel the lemon-twist of guilt, the sourness. I know what that look means.
I don’t want to play the drowning game with the men lying splayed by the pool as if they were dead, so I go to my room instead and close the door behind me. On the other side of my bed, furthest from the door, I sit on the carpet. Nobody can see me here. I open the bedside drawer and pull out sharp quartz, flint, the razor blades I have stolen from Mother and King’s bathroom cabinet. I choose a blade, even though I’ve been worrying about them running out without King’s trips to the mainland. We are noticing shortages in other areas too. I am rationing my soaps, cutting them into cubes with a paring knife. Only the salt will last, harvested from shallow tubs of seawater left to dry under the sun.