Water Born

by Rachel Ward

‘Go on,’ Kerry says, ‘help yourself.’

  ‘Um, no thanks. I don’t really . . . I haven’t . . . it’s okay.’

  ‘I haven’t drunk tap water for years, and now they’re saying it’s not safe anyway. Just goes to show, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Um, yes, I suppose . . .’

  Would it be rude to make my excuses and leave now? I know the answer, so I let her lead me into the lounge. It’s a bit cleaner in here. A few cans lying on the floor, some heaps of free newspapers. There are hardly any decorations or personal touches, though. Just a couple of saggy couches, an ancient electric fire and some photos on the mantelpiece, one of them the old school one that I’ve already seen. Her two boys in their school uniform.

  She sits on one sofa, I sit on the other, at the end nearest to her.

  ‘Your mum and dad know where you are?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Like that, is it? That’s how my boys were. I never knew where they were from one day to the next. That was one of my mistakes. I should’ve known. If I’d made them tell me every time they went out, then maybe they wouldn’t have got into so much trouble. Maybe Rob wouldn’t have . . . maybe he’d still be . . . ’

  ‘I’m not like that,’ I say quickly. ‘Not normally. Dad keeps tabs on me. He always knows where I am.’

  ‘Ah, that’s good. He’s better at this than I ever was, then. Is that him?’ She can hear my phone buzzing in my bag.

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘Get it out, then. Tell him you’re here. Your poor mum and dad must be going spare.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t want to. I want a bit of . . . a bit of space.’

  ‘Just tell him you’re safe, then. You can do that at least, can’t you?’

  ‘Yeah, I s’pose.’

  There are thirty new messages now, from Mum, Dad and Milton. And now I realise how selfish I’ve been. Kerry – Nan – is right. Mum and Dad are probably going out of their minds with worry. And Milton’s been a true friend.

  I’ve been wrong to leave them all hanging.

  So I send them each a quick text while Kerry watches and swigs from her can – I’m okay. Safe and sound. Taking some time out. See you soon. That sort of thing.

  Of course, my phone goes even crazier then, but I put it back in my bag.

  ‘That’s better,’ Kerry says. ‘Save them worrying.’

  She takes another long drink, watching me all the time. I feel like I’m being put on the spot, like it’s up to me to make all the running.

  ‘It’s very . . . nice . . . here,’ I say.

  ‘It’ll do. It’s a lot nicer than the flat I had when the boys were at home. Got condemned in the end. Damp right through, and mould, something terrible. Not fit for human habitation, that’s what they said.’

  ‘So this isn’t like where Dad grew up?’

  ‘No, love. It was a dump – and, to be honest, I didn’t help. Didn’t keep it nice. Wasn’t a very good . . . never have been . . . ’ She clears her throat. ‘When I got this place I tried to, you know, turn over a new leaf. Clean. Tidy. Respectable.’

  Oh, God. I can’t imagine what her previous places were like if this is clean and tidy. I don’t say anything, but maybe my face has given my feelings away. She leans forward, resting her forearms on her thighs.

  ‘I do my best, Nicola. My doctor used to call me a functioning alcoholic, see.’ Again, I can’t think of anything to say. I’m picturing the two little boys in the photograph, left in the care of this shambolic woman in a flat that got condemned. ‘Functioning alcoholic, yeah, but to be honest, I’m not functioning all that well these days.’ She starts laughing to herself, but soon stops. ‘It’s not funny, is it? Not really.’

  It’s impossible to talk to her. I can’t find the right words. I can’t find any words. She’s so different to anyone I know. But she’s my gran.

  ‘You never said what you’re doing here,’ she reminds me. ‘Why would you come all this way to see me?’

  ‘I found out about . . . Uncle Rob . . . and about Mum and Dad changing their names, and I wanted to find out more. You said I was this high when you last saw me,’ I say, holding my hand out level in front of me. ‘So when was that? Why did we stop seeing each other?’

  She takes another swig from the can.

  ‘You were only three or thereabouts. You moved away, that’s when it all stopped. Your mum and dad went up to Birmingham, changed their names and all.’

  ‘My dad said they wanted to make a fresh start.’

  ‘He wanted to get away from here. This place. Me, maybe.’

  ‘Why, though?’

  ‘I nearly lost you, Nicola. That’s what drove them away.’

  ‘You nearly lost me . . . when I was three, in 2017?’ I remember the words on the envelope.

  ‘Yeah, that’s right. It would have been 2017. January.’

  ‘You nearly lost me, but you found me again – and you found this with me?’

  I reach into my pocket and bring out the locket.

  She gasps, leans further forward and takes the silver pendant in her palm.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘God, this necklace . . .’

  ‘Where? Where did you find me?’

  She looks up at me, her eyes threaded with sore-looking red veins.

  ‘Can you tell me about it? Please.’

  She sniffs and sits back down on her sofa. She’s cradling her can, turning it round and round. Her mouth is working, but she’s not saying anything.

  ‘Please, I need to know.’

  I tuck my legs up underneath me and lean on the arm of the sofa. Kerry responds, leaning back a little and turning towards me.

  ‘It was just after Christmas. Your mum was at the hospital, just finishing her training, and your dad was doing a shift at the factory site, demolishing it. They asked me to look after you. I was sober then, had been for a while. It was a beautiful day, very cold but clear. I wrapped you up properly, made sure you’d be warm enough, and we walked to the park. You loved it, running around, playing in the snow. We got to the lake and it was frozen right over.’

  ‘The lake? The same lake as . . .?’

  She nods.

  ‘I like to go there. It helps me to think about him. My boy. He was only seventeen. I miss him, you know.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Anyway, it was getting close to dinnertime and I thought, I’ll just have a smoke and a little rest and then we’ll head back up to the High Street, share a bag of chips. I must have only taken my eyes off you for a minute. I looked around and you weren’t there. And then I saw you, out on the ice, and you turned to wave and then you . . . disappeared. Went right through. And I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t move. I just stood there, watching the place where you’d been. Other people weren’t so . . . they rescued you, went out on to the ice. One man got in the water and got you out. They brought you back to me. You looked like a little doll, a frozen little doll, but you were alive. I held you, close, and rocked you backwards and forwards. Backwards and forwards.’

  ‘And the locket?’ How do I know what she’s going to say before she says it?

  ‘The chain was all wrapped around your fingers.’

  ‘That’s so weird.’

  ‘Yes. Especially as I’d seen it before. Seen your mum wearing it.’

  The photo in the locket. The glimpse of chain round Mum’s neck. So this is this the same one? It must be.

  ‘So how come I had it? How could that possibly happen?’

  She shrugs.

  ‘I don’t know, darlin’. Sometimes I think it was a gift. My boy gave it to you. He saved you and he was trying to let me know what he’d done. Sometimes I wonder if . . . ’

  ‘If what?’

  Her voice is very quiet now, hardly more than a whisper. ‘ . . . if he wanted to keep you there.’

  Saved me . . . or pulled me under. His voice. Got you. Thirteen years and now I’m nearly back where it started. The lake. He has to be at the lake.

&nb
sp; I shiver, try to focus on Kerry.

  ‘What was he like? Rob?’

  ‘People said all kinds of things about him, and he wasn’t no angel. I’m not daft, I know he did things he shouldn’t have done. But nobody knows a boy like his mother does. And I know he was a good boy deep down. It’s just that people hardly ever saw that. Saw what I saw.’

  He was a good boy. Maybe he was once. But he’s killed and killed again since then. He’ll keep killing unless I stop him.

  ‘If you could see him again, see him now, what would you say to him?’

  She sighs, and puts her can down on the floor next to her.

  ‘I talk to him all the time, love. I go to the lake and I can see him, like he used to be. My little boy.’

  ‘You see him?’

  She nods, reaches for her packet of cigarettes and takes one out. It trembles between her fingers, unlit.

  ‘He’s never gone away. Not for me. He’s still here, with me. He always will be.’

  I watch as she manages to light the fag and draws the smoke deep into her lungs. She turns her head to blow the smoke away from me.

  ‘I see him, too,’ I say.

  She looks back at me, mouth open. The cigarette falls from her fingers on to the carpet.

  ‘Kerry! Nan! Look out!’

  She keeps staring, oblivious. I dart forward and pick up the cigarette. The carpet is smouldering. I stamp on it, grind my foot round on the spot.

  ‘I think that’s got it,’ I say. I’m still holding the fag. I put it in the nearest ashtray and sit down again. Kerry’s still frozen, like she’s in some sort of trance. I reach over and touch her hand.

  ‘Kerry? Nan?’

  She looks down at her hand and mine, then back up at me.

  ‘You see him,’ she murmurs. ‘Rob. My Rob. So he’s not dead . . .’

  I stroke the back of her hand with my thumb.

  ‘He is dead, Kerry. It’s just . . . he’s just . . . a sort of ghost, I think.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I can see him sometimes, talk to him. But he comes and goes. He lives through water. The thing is—’ How can I say this? How can tell her Rob’s a serial killer? ‘ The thing is, he’s not happy. He’s . . . restless.’

  She gives a sob and her free hand goes up to her mouth.

  ‘My boy!’

  I don’t know if I can carry on, but I must.

  ‘He’s . . . he’s been hurting people. Girls.’

  She wrenches her other hand from under mine.

  ‘You’re just like the others,’ she says, her eyes narrow and hard. ‘Spreading lies about my boy. Telling tales.’

  ‘No! I don’t want it to be like this. I didn’t want any of this. But it’s real. It’s happening.’

  ‘What is? What’s going on?’

  ‘He’s . . . he’s killed a lot of girls. Drowned them. He’s dangerous.’

  ‘No! It’s not true.’

  ‘I’m not lying. Didn’t he ever hurt anyone when he was alive?’ She closes her eyes, like she’s shutting me out. ‘Nan, please tell me. I’m scared. Scared of him.’

  She sighs and opens her eyes again.

  ‘He wasn’t an angel, but he wouldn’t do that, what you’re saying.’

  ‘Wouldn’t he? So it’s all right for me to go to the lake, is it? Nothing’s going to happen? It’s perfectly safe?’

  And now she leans towards me and takes my hands in hers.

  ‘Don’t go down there, Nicola. Keep away.’ She’s looking into my eyes, and I see pain, fear and uncertainty in hers. She’s scared too. ‘Nicola,’ she says again, ‘promise me you won’t go there. Promise.’

  Her claw-like fingers are digging in, her eyes searching mine.

  ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I won’t go. I’ll head home in a bit. I got what I came for.’

  Her hands relax a little, but she doesn’t let go.

  ‘Will I see you again?’ she says.

  Her eyes show genuine distress, and whatever I feel about her – and I’m really not sure what that is – I know that somehow we’ve made a sort of connection. A connection I don’t want to lose.

  ‘Yes, of course. What’s your number? I’ll put it in my phone.’

  ‘Ain’t got one. I can’t be doing with them. Phones bring bad news.’

  ‘They bring good news too. If I got you one, we could text or something. Keep in touch.’

  ‘I s’pose.’

  ‘I’d like it if we did.’

  She smiles. ‘I’d like it too.’

  I stay for a little while. She insists on giving me a couple of cans for my journey home. Our goodbyes are awkward. We don’t hug or kiss – there’s no physical contact at all, except right at the end when, as I’m turning away to go through the door, I think I feel her brush the top of my arm. As I glance back, her hand is hovering in mid-air, and she raises it and curls her fingers in an awkward, childish wave.

  ‘Bye . . . Nan.’

  ‘Oh God, call me Kerry. Nan’s someone old, isn’t it?’

  I walk away thinking about her little claw-like hand, the lines puckering the edge of her mouth, the red threads clouding the whites of her eyes. And I think of how easy it was to lie to her.

  Because, of course, I’m not heading home. I’m following the map on my phone – the one that shows the way from the flats to the park . . . and the lake.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The lake isn’t like it was in the pictures. Seventeen years ago it was full to the banks, a grey stretch of water, rippling in the autumn wind. Fourteen years ago it was frozen over, transformed by ice. Now, just like the reservoir, the tide’s gone out. The exposed mud that stretches away from the lip of the bank is cracked at the edges, like crazy paving.

  I step down, away from my folded clothes and my bag, left together on the bank. The surface is hot, dry and solid. A large bird takes off from the far shore and flaps lazily towards me, scooping the air with its wings.

  And suddenly I’m walking over ice, my feet crunching the thin layer of snow on top. The sun’s in my eyes and it makes everything twinkle, like fairies live here – a sparkling, diamond world. I’m on my own here. I’ve left Nan behind with all the other people.

  There’s a funny noise, a squeaky, scrapey noise that makes my teeth feel funny. I look round to see if Nan’s heard it and I’m falling, dropping down into a black hole. The cold takes my breath away. I open my mouth to shout and the black water rushes in.

  I sink down, down, and it’s so dark and so cold and I keep falling until I see the boy. He looks at me and smiles and says, ‘Got you,’ like this is some sort of game, except his voice doesn’t sound like he’s playing. There’s something pretty in his hands – something shiny. He dangles it in front of my face.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  I stretch my hand out and he threads the chain through my fingers.

  ‘You’re mine now,’ he says.

  But there’s someone else here too. Plunging into the water. Strong hands holding me under my arms, pushing me up towards the light . . .

  The bird’s grating cry brings me back to myself. The mud beneath my feet is radiating heat. I look around. The sun is dropping towards the top of the trees, shining in my eyes.

  This is where it happened. Where Rob drowned, and where he found me beneath the ice. Kerry said she felt he was still here sometimes. Is he here now? At Turley, I felt nothing of him. No presence. Not a whisper. Here, a growing sense of dread is spreading through me.

  I walk towards what little water remains in the centre of the space. As I get nearer, the mud changes consistency. My feet break the scabby surface and find the warm, soft, slippery ooze beneath. It squirts up between my toes and the sharp twang of decay hits my nostrils. Around me the mud is singing – hissing, bubbling, popping in the heat. The surface is alive as gas bubbles rise up, tiny creatures skating across. The back of my neck is burning in the sun. Flies buzz around my head. I swat them away, but they come back for more.


  I pull one foot out of the mud. I’m wearing sticky grey socks now. I’m clothed in mud. As I step forward, my sole slips sideways. I flail my arms, trying to regain my balance, scared of falling. There’s no one here to see, but it’s not the embarrassment of slipping over I’m terrified of, it’s the mud itself – the thought of it on my face. I gag a little, cough to clear my throat. I’m breathing hard, sweating freely.

  I make myself walk on. The mud goes halfway up my calves and stops rising, thank God. I wade through towards the water, watching, listening, waiting. He must be here. He must be. I look around. There’s no sign of him. I can hear kids’ high-pitched voices drifting on the still air. An ice-cream van plays its off-key tune, weirdly distorted.

  A shadow sweeps across the surface of the water. I look up. The sky is split in two overhead; one side is a clear, midsummer blue, the other is dark and dense, a solid bank of cloud boiling and churning within itself. I can’t make sense of it – the sky has been clear for months on end. The cloud is like an alien ship, taking over the sky, casting its shadow on the earth.

  In shade now, I’ve reached what’s left of the lake water. A white, powdery scum sits on the surface. The grey mud seems inoffensive compared to this. A hot breeze ripples the water, making little waves, pushing it towards my legs. I step forward. The water’s tepid. My foot sinks into the unseen mud below.

  My mouth’s dry. I swallow, gagging at the thought of the lake water in my throat. It’s not going to happen, I tell myself – it can’t be very deep, after all. The mud only shelved gently as I walked across it. I’ll just wade in far enough so that I can see Rob. I won’t get my face in this stinking, viscous stuff.

  When I’m up to my waist, I turn round and look back at the shore. It seems a long way off. A picture comes into my head: Mum, Dad and Rob. Here. Seventeen years ago. Swimming, larking about, shouting, squealing, laughing. Before it all went wrong. Before Rob died. Before my dad . . . murdered him.

  Did he, though? Two boys and a girl. Two brothers. What really went on?

  He was a good boy deep down.

  We did things . . . things I’m not proud of.

  There’s evil in the water.

  He’s back.

  Suddenly I feel very, very alone. I should have brought someone with me. I shouldn’t be here on my own.