Waterland

by Graham Swift

  And so he does – slips literally, aided by those frost sprinklings which quicken his descent down the bank and almost result in a sprained ankle – and, with clothes wet from lying on winter grass and thoughts in a whirl from what he has witnessed, returns along the foot of the northern bank.

  But something else happens after that strange performance of Dick’s with the bottle. Something else starts to make itself felt, faintly and scarcely noticed at first, after the plunging of that same brown-glass vessel, like a mock-Excalibur, into the river. A breeze gets up. It gets stronger by the minute. It disperses the mists. It ruffles the Leem. No doubt it rustles the holly bushes in Hockwell churchyard and shakes the ivy on Hockwell church tower. It’s blowing hard, fanning raw embers from the ashes of the western sky, by the time I get back – to rescue from the oven, before they too catch fire, a dozen blackened scones.

  The East Wind.

  39

  Stupid

  AND that same East Wind – or rather not the same, but its summer sibling, its winsome, hot-breathed sister (for, as any Fenman will tell you, the East Wind isn’t just one wind, it’s twins, and one twin kills and the other ripens) – was blowing one Thursday afternoon in August, 1943, blowing, in visible waves, across the poppy-splashed wheat fields of Polt Fen Farm, blowing through the poplars by the Hockwell Lode, making their dry leaves shimmer and jingle, as I followed the familiar route yet again to our decapitated windmill.

  Because though we had made no more arrangements to meet, though the last time we had met, Mary had walked away as if our windmill assignations were over for ever, and a whole week had passed since then – a whole week since Freddie Parr was accorded an official cause of death – I still hoped to find Mary. And I had to talk. Because for three days now I’d been playing this game of fear with Dick, this bottle game, and I didn’t know if Dick was more afraid of me or I of him. And it couldn’t go on like this. So should we tell? Own up? Go to the police? Because, sooner or later, all our little secrets are going to come out, aren’t they? Should we tell, Mary? Mary, what—?

  (You see, even then, the historian’s besetting sin: he ponders contingencies, he’s no good at action.)

  And another thing, since we’re speaking of secrets, that bottle came out of a chest, an old chest up in the attic which belonged to my grandfather, and Dick’s the only one with a—

  But I stop at the edge of the poplar spinney. For though it’s gone five o’clock, though it’s late in that magic interval – three to five-thirty – in which, in those never-to-come-again times, we would regularly meet, Mary is indeed at the windmill. And she’s doing something very strange.

  She’s standing at the very edge of the brick emplacement, where it drops, five feet or so, beside the old scoopwheel housing, to the end of the grassed-over drain. She stands, hair tousled by the breeze, and then, throwing her arms forwards and upwards, she jumps. Her skirt billows; brown knees glisten. And she lands in what seems a perversely awkward posture, body stiff, legs apart, not seeming to cushion her fall but rather to resist it. Then, letting her body sink, she squats on the grass, clasps her arms round her stomach. Then gets up and repeats the whole process. And again. And again.

  I loiter in the trembling poplar spinney, trying to interpret this bizarre ritual. Is this some kind of solitary game? Some kind of exercise routine? And hadn’t she better be careful? After all – with that baby inside her?

  I cross the wedge of pasture between the spinney and windmill. Warm wafts of meadowsweet sail through the air. The wind carries away my first shout, so that by the time Mary’s aware of my arrival, she’s poised again for another jump.

  ‘Mary, what are you—?’

  She hasn’t expected me to appear. I see that straight away. A little wince of vexation tightens her face. She’s come all alone to the windmill. On private business.

  ‘You’d better go away, Tom Crick. You’d better just get you gone.’

  ‘What’s all this – this jumping? You’ll hurt yourself.’

  ‘Stupid. Go away!’

  ‘I’ve come to talk—’

  And she jumps again, ignoring me, as if in serious practice for something, swinging her arms, screwing her eyes resolutely; as if she’s not going to be deterred, as if this jumping’s more important than anything else. And lands, in that abrupt, staggering fashion, then sinks on to her haunches.

  I run to help her up. There’s a little bruised depression in the grass from her successive landings, as if she’s been jumping like this for a good while already.

  ‘Why—? Isn’t it dangerous? With—’

  ‘Stupid. Get away.’

  And then, as Mary turns her head, I see that her face, for all the weeks of summer tanning it’s had, is pale, and it’s glistening with sweat. Not the trickly sweat of exercise and heat, but a cold-looking dew of sweat. What’s more, in the corner of each of Mary’s eyes are bright, exasperated drops which aren’t sweat at all.

  ‘Stupid! Stupid!’

  Like a scolding, pestered mother. Like a—

  I realize.

  (Ah, the budding student of history. So clever at analysing events …)

  ‘So you’re—?’

  ‘Yes. Stupid. Out of my way.’

  ‘You really mean—?’

  (So little aware, till now, that Mary can be a real Mummy, that that thing in Mary’s tummy is really there. But she can. It is. He’ll see.)

  She clambers once more, panting, past the weed-choked culvert, on to the brick emplacement.

  And I don’t stop her. I don’t put out restraining hands or shout outraged words. For while for the second time in two weeks reality comes up, just as the ground comes up to meet Mary, and gives me a dizzying jolt, and while as the ground meets Mary it seems simultaneously to leave me, to make my vision reel and my stomach turn – what hard and sharp little thought am I none the less thinking?

  It must be Dick’s. If she wants to kill – if she wants to get rid of it. It must be Dick’s. Because she doesn’t want the baby of a— Because she wouldn’t kill our—

  And as she turns again that waxy, glistening face, I catch her by the arm and suddenly scream, ‘It’s Dick’s, isn’t it? All along. Dick’s. Dick’s!’

  ‘Why don’t you just get out of here?’

  She heads once more to her jumping-off point.

  ‘Mary, don’t. Don’t do it.’

  The way one talks to a suicide.

  ‘Don’t jump.’

  She jumps. Crouches. Grunts. Walks back to jump again.

  I grab her arm.

  ‘Stop it. Stop doing it.’

  She shakes off my grip. Her face is fierce, teeth set. The wind whips her hair about her eyes.

  ‘It’s Dick’s, isn’t it? Dick’s, Dick’s!’

  She gets back on to the emplacement.

  ‘All right. It’s Dick’s.’

  (So, little father-to-be: satisfied?)

  She moves to the edge to jump again.

  ‘Mary, I think he knows I know. Mary, talk to me. Oh Christ— I came to tell you. I think we— There’s this chest—’

  (Mary, if you’d just stop this—)

  But Mary isn’t listening. Because, before she can jump again, before another jolt can do its work, her knees suddenly give beneath her, she gropes to steady herself against the tarred boards of the windmill. Squats, drops her head.

  I scramble on to the emplacement. Crouch beside her. Put an arm around her. There’s this cold intensity about her skin. I can almost feel, transmitting itself to me, the tingling of her nerve-ends.

  ‘Something’s happened,’ she says, looking up with the ghost of a laugh. ‘Works, after all.’

  Then she says, tears suddenly starting in her eyes: ‘Not Dick’s. Ours. Ours. You understand?’

  The wind blows, fluttering poplar leaves and scarlet poppies and Mary’s nut-brown hair. It blows, ripening East Anglian corn, turning Fenland wheat fields with its oven-gusts to the colour of the loaves they will one da
y become. But though it’s a warm wind, though it’s slackening now in any case, because it’s getting on for evening, it might as well be that cold, relentless wind of winter …

  We crawl into the shell of the old windmill. Where once we sowed love, we wait for its precipitate fruit-fall. I lean against the desiccated boards. Mary leans in my arms. She pulls up her skirt.

  ‘Not much blood. Something’s just happened inside. Just. Have to wait … See.’

  She can’t get up. Makes her sick.

  We wait (whispers and whimpers; flapping of the wind; squealing of swallows) while an hour or more passes. And nothing happens.

  I venture: ‘Mary, maybe it’s – all right. Maybe it’s not going to happen.’

  (But that’s what we’re waiting for, isn’t it? For Nothing to happen. For something to unhappen.)

  She shakes her head. Knickers, blood-stained, round her knees. Done now. No undoing.

  ‘Do you – understand?’

  Yes, I understand. Because if this baby had never … Then Dick would never … And Freddie … Because cause, effect … Because Mary said, I know what I’m going to …

  I understand, but I don’t understand this mellowing August sunshine, this harvest wind, this scent of meadowsweet, and, up above – where once, in Thomas Atkinson’s day, the wooden sails turned, draining, draining – this cruel circle of cornflower sky.

  Evening draws on. The wind fades.

  Cradling Mary in my arms, invoking the bedtime voice of my mother (but I’m the infant, and she—) I start to say, in the frail tones of grown-ups who in the midst of crisis try to maintain before their children that all is well: ‘Do you remember, Mary, when we first came here, when we, when—?’

  (Do you remember, Mary, long ago, long ago? When there were no TV sets or tower blocks, no rockets to the moon, no contraceptive pills, no tranquillizers or pocket calculators, no supermarkets or comprehensive schools, no nuclear missiles … when there were steam-trains and fairy-tales … when the lighters passing on the Leem still bore on their prows, from olden times, two crossed yellow ears of barley? Do you remember, that windmill? That journey we made to Wash Fen Mere …?)

  But Mary’s not interested. Her face is white and clammy. Her eyes clench. She’s not interested in stories. Not curious.

  Windmill-refuge, windmill-shelter. How could its already ruined walls protect us now? How could its wooden embrace comfort us now?

  But we lay there, waiting, that golden August evening, as if it was the last place on earth. Because that’s what I thought, despite wheat fields and poppies and cornflower heavens: everything’s coming to an end.

  40

  About Contemporary Nightmares

  ‘AND people are all getting into their cars, sir, and taking to the streets. They think they’re going to get away somewhere safe. They think that, even though they’ve been told it’s pointless. My parents push me and my sister into our car. They don’t think about food or clothes or nothing. Then as soon as we get to the main road it’s blocked with cars. People are honking their horns and screaming and wailing. And I think, this is how it’s going to end – we’re all going to die in a great big traffic jam …’

  ‘… and I have this dream that when the warning goes I’m miles from anyone I know. I’ve got to get to them. I just want to see them before— But …’

  ‘… they announce it on the telly. You know: you’ve got four minutes … But no one seems to notice. No one moves. My Dad’s snoring in his chair. I’m screaming. My mum just sits there wanting to know what’s happened to Crossroads …’

  ‘… all the buildings go red-hot and then they go white and all the people go red too and white …’

  (‘You couldn’t see that – you’d be dead. Stupid.’)

  ‘… an’ my baby brother’s writhing about all burnt an’ that, an’ I know I’ve gotta kill him …’

  ‘Suicide pills, sir. We sit round and all take them together …’

  ‘… and no one wants to be first to leave the shelter …’

  ‘Funny thing is, in my dream I’m the only one left. I’m not hurt. But everywhere there’s just this dust. And I’m walking round thinking it won’t ever be, it can’t ever be …’

  41

  A Feeling in the Guts

  BUT all the stories were once real. And all the events of history, the battles and costume-pieces, once really happened. All the stories were once a feeling in the guts. I’ve got a feeling in the guts right now, Price – no I don’t want another drink. Hadn’t we better be on our way? And you’ve got a feeling. About Nothing. And Mary certainly had a feeling, that August evening …

  One day, Price, one day in the future, you’ll say: There was once this history teacher, who gave these crazy lessons, and whose wife— Other realities will come along.

  But when the world is about to end there’ll be no more reality, only stories. All that will be left to us will be stories. We’ll sit down, in our shelter, and tell stories, like poor Scheherazade, hoping it will never …

  Huddled in our windmill. Whispers. Whimpers. The wind dies; the shadows of the poplars lengthen. Little cramps – not so little cramps – in Mary’s guts. And Mary says at last, because it’s not working, it’s not happening: ‘We’ve got to go to Martha Clay’s.’

  So, children, since these fairy-tales aren’t all sweet and cosy (just dip into your Brothers Grimm), since no fairy-tale is complete without one, let me tell you

  42

  About the Witch

  WHO was called Martha Clay. Who was Bill Clay’s wife (or so it was said). Who lived in Bill Clay’s cottage on the far side of Wash Fen Mere. Who made potions and predictions (or so it was claimed). And who also got rid of love-children …

  But first, before I tell you about Martha, let me tell you about our Fen geese …

  By which I don’t mean the feathered, beaked and web-footed kind. Not the black-necked Canadas. Not the Grey-lags, Pink-foots or White-fronts, winging their way from the Arctic, driven by migratory urges no less mysterious than those of their watery fellow-wanderer, Anguilla anguilla. Not those honking, cackling, V-forming squadrons which from time immemorial have sought the sanctuary of the Fens and given the Fen-people their ancient sign of welcome – a split goose-feather. No. On an August evening in 1943 no such geese were to be seen, for the time for geese is winter. And in any case in 1943 we had our new kind of geese. Noisy too and formation-flying, following their own migratory paths across the North Sea; made of aluminium and steel, wooden struts and perspex; and with the trick of laying explosive and inflammatory eggs while still in mid-air.

  They were taking to the wing, these twentieth-century skeins, leaving their scattered daytime roosts (for they were night-fliers) and forming, as geese should do, black soulful silhouettes against the fires of the sunset, as Mary and I (Mary white-faced, numb-lipped, catching every third breath) made our way from the Hockwell Lode to Wash Fen Mere. But we scarcely noticed them, having other things on our minds, and having grown used in any case to these throbbing evening flights, as if they were a natural phenomenon, as if they were real geese. As Mary and I journeyed to Martha Clay’s they were setting off, in the direction of Hamburg, Nuremberg or Berlin. And all the brave pilots and navigators and gunners and bomb-aimers had hearts and had once sucked mother’s milk, and all the citizens of those doomed cities had hearts also and once sucked mothers’ milk too.

  This artificial stuff, this man-made stuff. In 1793 the Apocalypse came to Paris (just a few thousand heads); in 1917 it came to the swamps of Flanders. But in August, 1943 (yes, history soberly records that, despite the scale of that earlier bloodbath, the death toll in the First War was smaller than in the Second, and included few civilians), it came in the form of detonating goose eggs to Hamburg, Nuremberg and Berlin …

  But of all this no thought (our own little emergency to face) on that August evening.

  Love. Lu-love. Lu-lu-love. Does it ward off evil? Will its magic word suspend indefini
tely the link between cause and effect? Will it help those citizens of Hamburg and Berlin, clutching in anticipation their loved ones and whispering loving words in their feeble cellars and backyard bunkers? Will it disperse these brainstorm-firestorms of realization: This is your doing, it wouldn’t have happened if— This ain’t no accident, you’ve cooked your goose …

  Along the Fenland tracks, across the Fenland dykes; by willow holts and sallow clumps, by paths and short-cuts and plank-bridges known only to us, being children of the Fens. Like Hereward and Torfrida (ah, cosy-thrilling late-night readings) fleeing through the marshes after the sack of Ely. Their love too, so the story goes, had sustained them in that hour of calamity. But this is no story …

  It’s a long way to Martha’s cottage. Round the southern fringe of the Mere, northwards to the neck of meadow between the Mere and the long easterly loop the Ouse makes below Newhithe. Sunset-pyres on our left. On our right, speared armies of reeds. Out in the midst of the Mere, smoke from Bill Clay’s marsh-hut. So Bill Clay’s there, after his summer fashion. So Martha’s alone.

  Down Mary’s leg two sudden unfurling ribbons of blood, one outpacing the other, smeared by the swish of the long grass. We stop, for a wincing pause. Anticipatory visions: spilt on to the marsh grass, a bloody tadpole, a gooey sheep’s heart. Is it going to—? Now? Christ, Mary, if we’re stuck out here in the dark. Twilight thickening. The time of owls and will-o’-the-wisps. Right time to arrive at a witch’s. Hold my hand, Mary. Hold on, Mary. Love you, Mary. Keep going, Mary. Are we going to get there? (Do we want to get there?)