Water Born

by Rachel Ward

  ‘Nothing,’ they snap, at exactly the same time.

  ‘What?’

  Silence this time.

  ‘You never wanted me to learn to swim, you don’t like water pistols, and Dad . . .’ I stop, just in time. I’m not meant to know about the files on his computer. ‘Dad’s obsessed with the news, that girl that drowned. What is it? And don’t say “nothing” cos I’m not stupid, okay? I mean seriously, what’s going on?’

  They look at each other for a long time.

  Then Mum says, very slowly, ‘Dad’s got a thing about water. It’s . . . it’s irrational. Like . . . OCD or something.’

  She nods at Dad, and he joins in. ‘It’s my problem. It’s something I’ve got to deal with. I’ll get help, I will. I’m sorry it’s causing both of you problems too.’

  Mum goes over to him and puts her arms round him.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ she says. ‘Come here.’ She extends her left arm, inviting me into their hug. Drawn in, I let myself be hugged at first, then my resistance dissolves and I put my arms round both of their waists. I want everything to be okay. I want things to be how they’ve always been, to stay the same.

  When we draw apart, Mum sighs.

  ‘I’m tired and too hot,’ she says. ‘I’m going to have a cool shower, see if that helps.’

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ I say. ‘With the police?’

  ‘I don’t know. They didn’t say, just took a statement and told him they’d get back to him. But we’ll stick together. We’ll help Dad through this. They might need to talk to you.’

  ‘Yeah, ’course,’ I say. ‘But I don’t want to — I mean, I don’t know what I should tell them.’

  Mum strokes my hair, like she did when I was little.

  ‘It’s fine. I’ll be there. They can’t interview you without a chaperone. Just tell them the truth. Telling the truth is always best.’ She walks to the foot of the stairs, then turns round. ‘There’s nothing else I should know, is there?’

  Dad hesitates.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘’Course not.’ He pulls a face and holds up three fingers. ‘Scout’s honour.’

  Mum smiles and carries on up the stairs. But I’m not so easily reassured. It was the Scout’s honour thing. Two words too many.

  *

  Back in my room, I open up my laptop. I don’t believe this OCD story. Why hasn’t it come up before? It just doesn’t ring true. I find the email I sent to myself and open the attachment. Death by Drowning.

  Let’s start again, look at it with fresh eyes.

  I read from the top, trying to take it all in, to see some patterns in the information. Name, Age, Date, Location, Death. I scan down each column. There’s something about the ages. I thought they were all mixed up, but now I see that’s only the boys. I highlight the girls’ rows in turquoise, and it stands out, as clear as day: the figure in the age column is the same. All the girls are, were, sixteen.

  Okay, that’s something. I set up a second page, copy the table and delete all the boys’ rows. Now I’ve got a list of thirteen girls, from all over the UK, who have died this year. I start doing what Dad must have done. Typing their names into Google, reading the articles about them. And suddenly, there it is – the names, the faces. They’re all Asian, or mixed race. Just like me.

  Thirteen girls.

  And they’ve all drowned.

  I click on Dad’s map and look again. The map pins are labelled with dates. They’re converging on this city. The drownings are getting closer.

  I’ve got a heavy feeling in the pit of my stomach. This whole thing is sick – Dad collecting these stories about girls like me. Me looking at them.

  I look away from the screen. This is crazy. These are all accidents, aren’t they? Horrible, unfortunate, desperately sad accidents.

  But Dad doesn’t think so.

  I don’t understand. Maybe I don’t want to.

  I slam the lid shut.

  SEVEN

  It’s quiet in the changing room. Everyone’s focused on the business of getting ready for the trials. I’m trying to keep my nerves under control, but I’m buzzing with excitement. I’m pretty sure of my place in the freestyle relay team, but what I really want is the spot in the individual 400 metres freestyle. I was level with Christie last time. I need to go one better.

  Christie’s face is set hard. I can’t see any sign of nerves as she tucks her hair into her swimming cap. I take my place next to her by the mirror. There’s plenty of space, but she bumps my arm with her elbow as she turns to head to the pool.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, like it was my fault for taking up too much space. I’m expecting her to say sorry too – for us both to smile, for everything to be normal – but she doesn’t.

  ‘I was off it the other day,’ she says. ‘Cursed with the curse, but I’m fine now. There’s no way you’ll come near me.’

  She doesn’t wait for a comeback, just walks purposefully out of the changing room, leaving me open-mouthed. The other girls heard her, but no one says anything. No one even meets my eye. God, what have I done? We’re all here for the same thing, aren’t we? To swim faster than last time. To try to be the best.

  Everyone was so friendly when I first joined. I felt like I was one of the girls. I suppose it was just that I was younger than them, a bit slower, no threat. Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not going to slow down for anybody. Not Christie, or Nirmala or any of the others. If their fragile little egos don’t like it, that’s their problem.

  One last look in the mirror. The locket makes a bump under my costume. Instinctively I put my hand up to it.

  Found with Nicola.

  A shiver runs down my spine. What do those three words actually mean? What’s the story? I can’t risk rocking the boat any more at home, but I wish there was someone I could ask.

  ‘Nic, you coming?’

  I look up. The changing room’s empty apart from Nirmala, who’s popped her head round the door to chase me up.

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, thanks, Nirmala.’

  I scurry across the grey tiles, past the showers, and into the little lobby that leads to the pool. Harry’s the lifeguard today. He clocks me as I hurry in and I swear he winks at me.

  ‘Okay, girls, warm up,’ says Clive. ‘We’ll start the timed trials in twenty minutes.’

  I slip into the pool. I’ve been given the lane next to Christie. She’s already done one length and is swimming back towards me. This isn’t a race, I tell myself. Not yet. All I’ve got to do is swim at my own pace, stretch my arms and legs, warm up my muscles.

  I set off slowly, feeling the water with my first few strokes. I pass Christie midway along the pool. She’s in her lane, I’m in mine. She doesn’t acknowledge me, just powers along, expressionless. I can tell that she’s in the zone, focused. But I’m all over the place. I’m thinking about her, about the other girls. About the police. About Dad. About Sammi, the girl who drowned . . .

  Forget them. They’re not important.

  The voice is back.

  This is what matters. Here. Now.

  The voice is right. I need to let go. Let go of everything else.

  Some of the tension melts away from between my shoulders. I reach up and over and forward. I pull the water underneath me, rolling a little as my other arm goes up and over and forward.

  That’s better.

  I’m five or six metres from the end now, and suddenly I see a shape in the water beneath me. A knot forms in my stomach.

  Another swimmer near the bottom of the pool?

  Not swimming.

  Lying there.

  Pale.

  Lifeless.

  I turn my head and draw in a lungful of air. Then I jack-knife in the water and dive down. I can’t see him now. I must have swum past. I twist around, but the floor of the pool is clear. Above me I can see the other girls, ploughing their straight furrows at the surface. Down here, it’s just me.

  The boy – and I’m sure it was a boy – has g
one.

  I float slowly back up and hold on to the side of the pool. I look all around, expecting to see a boy sitting at the side, or maybe padding towards the changing rooms. But he’s not there either. Dad’s up in the viewing gallery. Clive is at the shallow end, holding his clipboard, watching me. Harry is perched on the lifeguard’s post. He’s watching me, too. It’s his job to watch, isn’t it? So he must have seen him – the boy.

  I haul myself on to the side and get to my feet. I can feel Dad’s and Clive’s and Harry’s eyes on me as I walk round the pool.

  ‘Harry? Did you see a boy just now?’

  He leans down and his blond hair flops in front of his eyes. He flicks it back and holds it in place with one hand.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There was a boy in the pool. At the bottom. I thought he . . . I thought . . .’

  He shakes his head and smiles.

  ‘There aren’t any other boys in here this morning, babe. You know that.’

  ‘But I saw him. I—’

  He clambers down the steps. So now he’s standing next to me and Clive’s walking towards us, too.

  ‘Aren’t I enough for you?’ Harry whispers. ‘You don’t need any other boys.’

  I’m getting flustered now.

  Clive calls out, ‘Everything all right?’ as he draws near.

  ‘Yeah, no. I thought I saw someone. A boy, lying on the bottom of the pool near the deep end.’

  ‘A little boy? A baby?’

  ‘No, a teenager. About my age, I guess. I’m not sure. I didn’t get a good look. I—’

  Clive peers towards the deep end.

  ‘I didn’t see anything. Did you, Harry?’

  ‘Nah. There’s no one here who shouldn’t be.’

  ‘But I was sure there was—’

  I’m starting to wonder if I did see him now. What it was that I saw. If I saw anything at all. I’m standing here, trying to explain, and it sounds stupid.

  ‘Nic, the other girls are well into their warm-up. You’re putting yourself at a disadvantage right now. You’d better get back to it.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, okay.’

  My cheeks are on fire now. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. That I’ve made a fuss about nothing. Clive’s stalking back to the shallow end. Harry puts his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘You okay?’ he says, and gives me a sympathetic smile, which just makes everything worse.

  ‘Yeah,’ I mutter, and walk back to my lane. I stand on the edge, looking down. The water is clear. No shadows lurking beneath me. No shapes that shouldn’t be there. I dive in, grateful for the cool touch of the water on my skin.

  And now I’m desperate for the rest of the world to disappear. I just want it to be me and the water. Nothing else. I want my mind to switch off and my body to take over.

  Let go. Let go of it all.

  Yes. Let it all go.

  Trust the water. Trust me.

  And I do. I trust the voice inside me. And I kick and pull and turn and breathe. The lengths seem effortless.

  When Clive blows his whistle, I know it’s time to race, and I’m ready.

  We line up on the blocks. Beside me, Christie fiddles with the strap of her goggles. Perhaps she’s nervous after all.

  The whistle goes and I dive. I enter the water smoothly. I stay down for a couple of metres longer than usual and when I surface I hit my perfect rhythm straight away. I don’t even check what the other girls are doing. I swim my own race. Lap after lap.

  You can do this.

  Only two lengths to go. And now when I take a breath I look to one side, swim five strokes and look to the other. There are two of us in contention, Christie and me. The others are way back. We’re side by side. If you freeze-framed us right now, we’d be lying on the water, almost face to face, bodies flat.

  It feels uncomfortable to be this close. Me and her. It’s personal. Like a fist-fight with no touching.

  Just thinking this is enough to put me off. I’ve slowed down. She pulls slightly ahead.

  No! Don’t let her win!

  She’s into the turn before me. I roll forward in the water, twist my body and push with my feet. My head is level with her thighs. She’s a metre ahead.

  You can take her! You can do it!

  The relaxed easy rhythm of the previous laps has gone. The adrenaline surging through me seems to be tautening the muscles in my arms and legs, but it’s okay now. If the Zen feeling of being at one with the water got me through the first fourteen lengths, then maybe aggression will get me to the end.

  Reach! Reach forward!

  I try not to think about Christie, but she’s right there.

  Forget her! Reach for the wall! So close now!

  I thrash my legs, driving myself forward. As each hand angles into the water, I stretch my arm out, straighten my fingers.

  I hit the wall and look up at Clive. Beside me, Christie’s doing the same. Neither of us knows who hit first. My chest is heaving. Even in the water, I can feel the heat in my arms and legs.

  The agonising moment stretches out. Blood pounds in my ears like the ticking of a clock, filling my head, marking the time. It’s like one of those reality shows when the lights go down and the presenter pauses before announcing who’s going home. Just when I think I can’t bear it any longer, Clive looks up from his stopwatch.

  ‘Congratulations, Christie,’ he says. It takes a split second for my brain to process his words, then the bottom drops out of my world.

  I force myself to do what I know I’ve got to do next.

  ‘Well done,’ I say.

  ‘Thanks,’ Christie says. She’s beaming. Too excited to be snide or nasty now. Just really happy. Feeling everything I would have felt if I’d been a split second faster. The other girls swim across, ducking under the lane markers, and soon she’s the centre of attention. I stay in my lane, trying not to let my disappointment show. No tantrums this time. No tears. I try to cut myself off from my feelings, observe my body as it recovers from its exertion.

  But the real me keeps coming to the surface.

  It’s not fair.

  No, she won. I lost. That’s all there is.

  She cheated you.

  She swam faster. End of.

  You’re better than that bitch.

  She is a bitch. She is. I can’t believe I let her beat me. I can’t believe . . .

  ‘There’s no point sulking about it.’

  I look round. Nirmala’s leaning on the rope between us.

  ‘I’m not,’ I say. ‘Honestly.’

  But my face betrays me. That’s what I’m doing and exactly what it looks like to Nirmala. Her eyebrows shoot up, wrinkling her forehead, which is trapped at the hairline by her swimming cap.

  ‘Honest, Nirmala.’

  I bob under the rope and join the others, but none of them makes a space for me. I’m on the outside of the gaggle. It’s lonelier here than in my own lane.

  We carry on with more trials; I compete in the backstroke, but it’s not my speciality. I come in third.

  In the changing rooms, I try to shower and dress quickly, keen to get away from the others.

  ‘So what was the fuss earlier? Water too cold for you? Sun in your eyes? Not happy sharing the pool with the rest of us?’ Christie takes a deep swig from her water bottle. She’s parked her belongings on the other side of the clothes hooks. She’s got a towel wrapped round her and she’s wiping her face and using another one to make a turban for her hair.

  ‘No . . . I . . . I thought I saw something, someone, in the water, that’s all.’

  ‘Someone?’ She’s nearly drained her bottle now.

  ‘A boy.’

  God, why couldn’t I just have made something up? This is humiliating. My face is burning again, but when I look at Christie hers is too. She’s beetroot red and sweating.

  ‘Are you okay, Christie? You look really hot.’

  ‘I um . . . yeah, I’m not feeling too good. Just at the end of the session it felt like
the water was heating up. Did anyone else notice that? Why would they crank the temperature up?’ She drinks the final drops from her water bottle while the others murmur and shake their heads.

  ‘I didn’t notice anything . . .’

  ‘I don’t think so . . .’

  ‘I was getting hotter and hotter,’ Christie says. ‘I guess it was just swimming so hard, my muscles producing the heat . . . and then the flippin’ shower was boiling. I couldn’t get it to run any colder.’

  She notices her bottle’s empty and goes to fill it from the sinks.

  ‘That’s not drinking water,’ I say. ‘Here, have some of mine.’

  She turns back, takes a few wobbly steps and sits down heavily on the end of the bench.

  ‘Thanks,’ she says, taking the bottle from me. It’s half full. She tips her head back and drains the lot. ‘Sorry,’ she says, handing the empty bottle back. ‘I’m just really thirsty.’

  ‘That’s okay. Are you feeling better now?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. Has anyone got any more water?’ she says. She sits with her head between her knees for a minute or two, while the other girls fuss round her. Someone produces another bottle and she chugs that down.

  After a while she tries to stand up, but she staggers to one side and lands heavily on the floor. Shannon screams.

  ‘I’m okay. I’m okay. Who put the floor there?’ Christie mumbles, smiling weakly.

  I run round the row of pegs and help to lift her up from the floor and set her back on the bench.

  ‘I think I’d better lie down,’ she says, and slides off on to the floor again. She plants both palms and lowers herself on to the tiles, face down. ‘Aah, nice and cool . . .’

  ‘I’ll fetch someone,’ I say. I race out of the changing room to find a first-aider, Clive, anyone . . . I can see Harry lurking at the end of the corridor.

  ‘Harry! Over here!’

  He spots me, in my towel and nothing else. His face brightens and he starts sauntering towards me.

  ‘Christie’s ill,’ I yell. ‘She’s really bad.’

  The smile drops off his face and he breaks into a run.

  ‘What is it?’ he says as he gets nearer.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s all hot and she fell over. She seems really confused.’