by Rachel Ward
I take the home-made sandwich, fruit and yoghurt that Dad’s prepared for me out of my bag and sit listening to them. They’re all talking about the girl who drowned in the reservoir. News travels fast and people are already filling in the gaps in the official story. Apparently she went to Stanley Green School, in the same year as us. Her sister plays clarinet in the Birmingham Schools’ Orchestra. She was hanging out at the reservoir with her friends – they were all mucking about in the water when someone realised that they hadn’t seen her for a minute or two. That’s all it took. A minute. They reckon her feet got tangled in some reeds.
The chat goes on for a few minutes and it’s almost like they’re gossiping about any random girl – who she’s friends with, who she fancies, who fancies her – and then someone says, ‘What would it actually feel like?’ And everyone grows quiet – all running a version of the girl’s last moments in their heads. On your own. Water all around you. The rising panic. No one coming to help.
The lesson after lunch is unbearable. We’re in a prefab hut with big windows down both sides. The sun beats into the classroom. Those in its glare are sweating and squirming in their seats. I’m on the shady side, but the air is still clammy and thick. It’s English and we’re reading war poetry. It’s hard to think about winter and liquid mud and trench foot when it’s thirty degrees outside. Mrs Goddard asks for comments on the lines we’ve just read. Her question hangs in the air like a week-old party balloon and floats slowly down to the floor, unanswered.
‘Anybody?’ she says. ‘Come on, we can’t go on like this. This isn’t for my benefit. I’ve already got my A-levels. This is for you. You need to participate . . .’
We can’t go on like this . . . it’s been getting hotter for a couple of months now and I can’t remember the last time it rained. It can’t go on much longer, can it?
Selma puts her hand up.
‘At last! Yes, Selma . . .’
‘I feel faint, miss,’ Selma says, just before she slithers out of her chair and into an ungainly heap on the floor. A couple of the girls near her scream. Others cluster around her, flapping their hands uselessly. Quite a few of them are fanning their own faces, like they’re going to be next.
‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Mrs Goddard bellows. ‘Nicola, go and fetch Mrs Chambers.’
I willingly make for the door, happy to leave behind the growing panic. As I go down the steps, I hear another wave of screaming. I glance back and there’s a second heap on the floor. They’re going down like skittles.
It’s too hot to run, but I jog down the path to the main school building and duck into Reception. ‘We’ve got fainters in M4, miss,’ I say.
Mrs Soubrayan rolls her eyes. ‘Fainters plural?’ she says.
‘Two when I left, could be more by now.’
‘I’ll ring for help. Thanks, Nicola, go back to your classroom.’
The main building is Victorian, brick-built, solid and sprawling. It’s cooler in here than either outside or in the classroom, so I take the long route back, dawdling through the corridors, cutting upstairs and along past the staffroom and the library. I stop at the water fountain and take a long drink. The first few mouthfuls are unpleasantly warm, but it gets cooler as it runs, drawn up from pipes deep below the school. I gulp it down, splash a little on my face. I pull my hanky out of my pocket and drench it with cold water, wiping it over my face and neck.
There’s noise drifting in through the open window nearby. I go over and look down. Girls are spilling out of my classroom in twos and threes, arms around each other, crying. Staff are running towards them from all directions. What’s happening?
I find the stairs at the far end of the corridor and head back to the classroom. The heat hits me again as soon as I step outside.
‘What’s going on?’ I ask Tanya, the first girl I come across. She’s sitting on the ground with another girl, knees drawn up, head leaning on her legs.
‘It’s too hot,’ she says. ‘It’s too hot.’
‘I know, but what’s happened?’
‘Everyone’s fainting. Four, I think. Or five.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’
I’m starting to feel light-headed myself. The possibility of keeling over is suddenly very real.
I’m just hot. That’s all. I’m fine, I tell myself.
I’m still holding the wet hanky. I wipe my forehead again and the moisture brings some relief. I’m right by the classroom now.
‘Are you okay?’ a teacher asks as she draws level with me.
‘Yeah. I’m fine,’ I say.
We walk up the steps together. Inside, there’s carnage. Girls are sitting and lying on the floor. A lot of them are crying, someone’s been sick and the place reeks – it catches the back of my throat and I start gagging too. I clamp my hand to my mouth.
‘If you’re going to be like that, you might as well go home,’ the teacher says to me. ‘We don’t need any more going down. It’s nearly the end of the day anyway. Here, sign this paper and leave it by the desk near the door. Anyone going just needs to sign out.’
I don’t need telling twice. I take the paper, find a pen in my bag, sign and print my name and leave paper and pen on the desk. Then I flee.
I thread my way through the classrooms and out of the school site through a side gate. I look at my watch. Nearly ten to three. School doesn’t finish until ten past. I’m meant to go straight home. I’ve got time to walk home, eat and drink something and do my homework before Dad drives me to the pool for evening training. The walk takes about twenty-five minutes. Dad’ll be expecting me at twenty-five to four. But I’ll be there at quarter past, unless . . . unless what? It suddenly strikes me that I’ve got twenty minutes to myself. Twenty minutes of freedom. A tingle of excitement flutters up my spine. What can I do?
Like the robot I am, though, I feel my feet start to follow the programmed route, along by a second-hand car lot and a row of shops, then left at the food bank and past the boys’ school. They come out later than us, but there’s someone strolling out of the gates just ahead of me, tall and solid, briefcase in hand. He looks back and spots me. The sun glints on the thick lenses of his tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. His face breaks into a broad grin.
‘Hey, Nicola!’
Too late to turn around or pretend I haven’t seen him.
‘Hi, Milton.’
He’s stopped to wait for me. Milton. He lives in my road, is in the year above me at school, but somehow I always think of him as younger than me. If I see him in the street, I usually wait a few minutes until he’s gone. I mean, he’s okay and everything, I don’t hate him, but when we were kids he used to kind of hang around by my gate all the time. He always wanted to play, I couldn’t shake him off.
‘Study period last lesson,’ he says, as if I’d asked him what was up, which I hadn’t. ‘I’ve finished my homework, so . . . how about you?’
‘I got sent home. Everyone started fainting in my class.’
‘Everyone?’
‘Like, half a dozen of them, going down like ninepins. I was okay, so they said I could go.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Just the heat and once one went down, they all started going. I felt it, too, like I could faint, but I got out in time.’
Talking about it now, the feeling sneaks back into my body. A hint of light-headedness, the rush of blood behind my eyes. It’s just the heat, I tell myself, I’m not going to faint. Milton’s feeling it too. Sweat is seeping out on his forehead and upper lip, his skin is glistening like black gold, but his tie is done up tight around his collar. The cuffs of his long-sleeved shirt are buttoned at his wrist, peeping out of the sleeves of his blazer. It makes me feel hot just to look at him.
‘That’s crazy.’
‘It’s scary. Looked like a train wreck or something, people lying all over the shop.’ The blood starts to drain out of my face as I remember it. ‘Everyone feeling worse, then feeling like the world’s starting to spin, like you can’t
get your breath . . .’
Even though I’ve stopped walking, the pavement is still moving, rising and falling under the soles of my shoes. My legs start to buckle and I sit down heavily on the lip of a little wall with railings coming out of the top.
‘Lean forward and put your head between your knees, Nic. Honest, it’ll help. Put your head down and breathe slowly.’
I do what he says. My heart’s beating really fast. My breathing’s quick and shallow. I’ve got to calm down.
I use one of the techniques I’ve learnt at swimming for controlling my breathing. I’m still hot but the panic’s subsiding. The pavement isn’t moving any more. I know I’m going to be all right.
In front of me Milton’s rummaging in his bag. ‘Here,’ he says. ‘It’s cold. I got it from the water cooler just now.’
I raise my head. He’s holding a bottle of water towards me. There’s condensation beading on the outside of it. I twist the top off and take a swig. It’s cold and flat and refreshing. I take several long gulps, feeling it work its way down inside me.
‘Better?’ he says.
I nod and hold it out to him.
‘It’s okay,’ he says. ‘It’s for you.’
I take another swig, then screw the lid back on and roll the bottle up and down my forehead and then on the back of my neck. I wipe it on my shirt then try to give it back to him, but he shrugs.
‘Keep it. Please. You need it.’
‘Thanks.’
He grins and stretches his hand out to pull me upright. I hesitate for a moment. He notices and the grin starts to fade. He looks away and starts to withdraw his hand, and I reach up and curl my fingers round his. Our palms are cool and wet from holding the bottle. They kind of slide together and make a noise like a squelchy fart. We both laugh, then stop, embarrassed. He pulls me up and we quickly let go and wipe our hands on our clothes, mirroring each other: him on his trousers, me on my skirt. Clumsy, self-conscious. I don’t want him to think I’m ungrateful, like I’m somehow wiping him away.
‘Thanks,’ I say. ‘I mean it.’
‘’S’okay. You’re welcome.’
I look at my watch. Five past three. My twenty minutes have nearly gone.
We walk along together. It’s a while since we’ve done this. Years, maybe. I feel a bit ashamed for avoiding him. I mean, he’s geeky and a bit awkward, but there’s nothing nasty about him. He’s actually all right, really.
‘If you feel weird, just stop, okay?’
‘I’m fine now. I always was, really, it’s just . . . just . . .’
‘Mass hysteria,’ he says.
‘What?’
‘It sounds like mass hysteria, happens all over the place – schools, churches, factories. One person faints and then others follow suit. It mostly affects teenage girls . . .’ He trails off, aware that I’m staring at him.
‘Are you saying I was hysterical?’
‘Um . . . that’s one possible explanation, certainly.’
‘I’m a hysterical teenage girl?’
‘I wasn’t labelling you. It’s just something that happens. It doesn’t mean anything . . . it just . . .’
‘God, Milton. I thought you were being nice.’
‘I was. I am.’
‘No, no, you’re not. You just think I’m a hysterical teenage girl.’ My voice is rising higher, and I’m aware that I’m sounding exactly like a hysterical teenage girl, but I’m in full swing now. ‘You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like. You don’t know shit, Milton!’
I stop, aware that his body language has changed. His shoulders are hunched. His head is down. I’ve hurt him.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Let’s just leave it, okay? Thank you for the water. I’m fine to walk on my own now.’
His head drops further.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘See you later.’
He stands still, in the middle of the pavement, and I start to walk away from him. It feels like I’ve just kicked a puppy and now I’m leaving it to bleed in the street, but I can’t turn back now. I keep walking.
When I get to Mortimer Street, I glance behind me. Milton is walking twenty paces behind me. He sees me looking and looks down at the pavement again. God, things couldn’t get any more awkward. I swing through my front gate and walk up the front path.
Dad opens the front door for me, like he always does, and Misty rushes out of the door in a blurry tangle of grey fur, craftily licking my knees and the back of my legs as she dances round me, her bushy collie tail swishing enthusiastically. Did Dad spot me out of the window, or has he actually been standing in the hallway? I’ve got a vision of him getting back in the morning, having dropped me at school, and taking up his post behind the front door. Standing there for seven hours. Just waiting.
‘Hello, Princess. How’ve you got on today?’
I don’t know where to start, so I don’t answer and walk past him into the kitchen, Misty following close behind. She follows me because I’m her favourite, and because I’m likely to slip her a treat or two when no one else is looking.
Dad’s ancient laptop is on the table. There’s a file onscreen – looks like a table or something. I only glance at it on my way to the sink to get a glass of water, and I don’t really register the heading until I’m reaching into the cupboard and turning on the tap. Then the words form in my mind, like a headline.
Death by Drowning. That’s what it says. What the hell?
Dad’s followed me into the room. He casually closes the laptop lid, keeps his hand there for a little while.
‘You haven’t told me how your day was,’ he says quickly, and even though I know he’ll go overboard, I tell him about school and my walk home.
‘Sit down, Nic. Sit down. You look pale.’
‘You’re only saying that because of what I just told you. I’m fine now.’
‘They should close the school if it’s too hot. If it’s not safe.’
‘Dad, I’m fine. The world can’t just shut up shop because it’s a hot summer.’
‘I’m not saying that . . .’
‘Yeah, you are . . .’
‘I’m not. I just . . . I just want you to be safe.’
‘Dad, you’ve got to stop this. I’m as safe as anyone else is. Life isn’t a hundred per cent risk free. I can’t sit at home for ever, wrapped in a duvet . . .’ I stop, suddenly aware of what I’m saying – remembering the weeks on end, before I got on the swimming team, when Dad did exactly that, ground down by another redundancy, another rejection, another bill to pay. ‘I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Dad.’
He won’t look me in the eye now. He’s examining his hands like there’s something interesting in the palm. ‘It’s okay. I’ll stop fussing. It’s just . . . it’s just that I care so much.’
‘I know.’
He looks so forlorn. I put my glass down and walk across to hug him.
‘I love you, Dad.’
‘I love you, too, Princess.’
It’s too hot to hug, but we stay like that for a while anyway, neither wanting to be the first to let go.
‘Can anyone join in?’
Mum’s in the doorway. She’s got a T-shirt and shorts on, the ones she sleeps in. Must have just woken up – it’s only an hour or so until her shift at the hospital starts.
‘Gosh, Nic, you look pale. Everything all right? Something happened?’ This time I get the full medical once-over – pulse, temperature, feeling the glands under my ears. ‘Have you been drinking enough?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have another glass of water. It’s so easy to dehydrate.’
‘I know. I know, okay?’
‘Sit down for a while. Or lie down. You mustn’t overdo things. Skip training tonight.’
‘I can’t. They’re picking the team soon.’
‘Just one session.’
My phone pings in my pocket and I know, just know, it’s from Harry. I hope I’m not blushing but I can feel an extra glow in my face. Whatever Mum
says, I’m not missing training today.
‘It’s too important.’
She sighs.
‘Your health’s important too, Nic. I don’t want you turning up in A&E.’
‘I know, but I’m fine. If I don’t feel right in the pool, I’ll stop.’
‘Okay, but go and lie down on the sofa. I’ll bring you something to eat and drink.’
I crash on to the sofa and flick the telly on. Misty tries to jump up and lie on top of me, but it’s too hot and I shoo her away. She settles on the carpet next to me with a sigh, just within range so I can twiddle with her ear the way she likes. They’re showing the tennis at Wimbledon. Above the sound of balls being hit and players grunting, I can hear Mum and Dad talking.
‘Sarita, did you see the girl, the one who drowned? Was she brought into St Margaret’s?’ Dad says.
‘What girl?’
‘Sammi Shah. She drowned at Turley Res.’
‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Okay.’
Silence. Then, ‘Clarke, it’s been seventeen years now. You’ve got to let it go.’
‘I can’t.’
‘It’s not good for you.’
‘I can’t help it. I don’t know if I ever will.’
The room is swamped with sticky heat, but suddenly I’m shivering.
THREE
‘It can’t be about me shouting at you. It’s got to come from inside. Talk to yourself in the water. Be your own coach.’
Clive is giving us a pep talk before the final race for this session. He paces up and down the row, barking out his message, his words echoing off the tiled walls.
