The Water Children

by Anne Berry

  ‘Tell us about the drowned village,’ Naomi said into the sudden ringing silence. ‘Tell us about the village that lies at the bottom of the lake.’ She was crouching down expectantly, her hands, with their bitten nails, resting on his parted knees. Their eyes, his granite grey, inscrutable, hers of two distinctive shades, locked. The silence climbed a scale or two until it screamed. Feeling a vein pulse at his temple, Owen balked. This was the last topic he could wish to discuss. Unable to help himself, he imagined that they were all under this fabled lake, that funnels of muddy green light were filtering down from the surface penetrating the gloom that engulfed them. His dope-fuelled fantasy conjured ghosts of the drowned flitting past them to skulk in the sunken houses. Sarah’s ghost, her blonde curls water-tousled, still wearing her spotted swimsuit, was among them. Naomi wetted her lips with the sharpened point of her tongue. ‘Tell us about Teodora. Tell us about the woman who sat combing her long dark hair and staring into the fire, while her husband froze to death on the mountain.’ With a heavy heart, Owen realized she was as insistent as an eager child wanting to hear a favourite oft-told bedtime story.

  Without breaking her gaze, Enrico strummed a few chords on the guitar slung in his lap. They shared a smile and she drummed her fingers on his knees, while the plucked cat gut reverberated in the hollow wooden belly. Owen took stock of the tall Italian, of his sprawled rangy limbs, of his olive skin and his distracting orange string beard. Before such a blatant show of masculinity, Naomi looked feminine and petite. As for Owen, he perched beside the bare-chested musician feeling as uncomfortable as a schoolboy in a staff-room. If it were not for the fretboard of the instrument pinning him back, he would have been tempted to flee discourteously into the night’s obscurity.

  Sean loured in the tatty spoon-back armchair, seeming no keener than Owen to let Enrico take centre stage. It was a poor throne, with its shabby green velvet upholstery. He was staring morosely into his tumbler of brandy, as if transfixed by something he saw there. His face was drawn, his sea-coloured eyes redrimmed and underscored with livid smudges. Despite the heat he was still wearing his swordfish-grey trousers. His suit jacket did sleeve his chair-back though, so that the toxic purple lining was visible. He was sweating profusely. And the patches mapped on his white shirt were fast spreading, like oceans reclaiming the land, Owen reflected dismally. His tie, a dizzying pattern of inter-locking diamonds in eye-watering shades, had been loosened. His shirt collar was undone, revealing the postage stamp of flaky, inflamed skin. Owen thought that he resembled a condemned man wearing a noose, waiting for the hangman to pull the lever.

  ‘Tell us about the drowned village, Enrico,’ Naomi persisted, her tone silky and seductive.

  Sean mumbled sourly into his drink. ‘Not that fuckin’ nonsense again. It’s late. Perhaps we should call it a night. Some of us have work to do in the morning.’ His genteel Irish brogue sounded as if it had been roughed up in a bare-knuckle fight. Enrico, damned not with faint praise but this well-aimed brickbat, seemed blithely unconcerned. He arched his neck, fingered his golden medallion and swooned over his guitar. Owen felt the restraining pressure on his diaphragm. Naomi clambered up, using the Italian’s substantial knees for leverage. In the galley kitchen she opened another bottle of Mateus Rosé and topped up hers and Enrico’s glasses – though not Owen’s. He covered his and shook his head. He was unused to alcoholic beverages. The blur of a Hendrix and a Dylan poster, the lava lamp, the blow-up plastic chair, all revolved giddily about him. With each fresh heave of his stomach he earnestly wished everything were bolted down, him included. Naomi raised her glass to Enrico, sipped and then crossed to the record player on a corner shelf. She stooped to a wire rack on the floor, lifted up a single, removed its cover and whistled the dust from it.

  ‘“Suzanne”. Leonard Cohen. This is my song. He sings it for me, you see. Because I’m the lady of the lake, the lady of the sea,’ she crooned and swayed, briefly closing her eyes. ‘Mm . . . lady of the lake . . . lady of the sea.’ Her eyelids jumped, but it was a moment before they came unstuck and flew open. She put the record on and whirled round. She reached out her arms to Enrico. ‘Dance with me,’ she coaxed with a wiggle of her narrow hips. ‘Dance with me, Enrico.’ Obligingly he extricated himself from his guitar, as gently, Owen thought, as if he was climbing out of bed, trying not to disturb a sleeping lover. The music started. He moved close. They clasped each other.

  Sean glowered at them over the rim of his glass. His eyes lingered on Naomi, on her snaking arms, her circling buttocks, on the page of flesh that gaped from her hipsters to her sleeveless shirt, which was knotted under her small breasts. Draining his drink, he jerked to his feet. He shouldered his way past the gyrating couple, and into the galley kitchen. There he poured himself another drink.

  Although the guitar, propped up against the settee, was no longer an impediment to escape, Owen stayed seated. He felt stiff as a cardboard cut-out. Covertly he glanced about at the remains of the dinner party, plates smeared red with pasta sauce, scattered breadcrumbs, dregs of wine, melting butter. There was a mess of dirty cutlery too, looking as if murder had been done, or perhaps was about to be enacted. The flat is a lot pokier than Sean had initially let him believe, a lot shabbier. That night, his introduction to it, he was taken aback by the discrepancy between his employer’s earlier description and the reality that met him. Tiredness had fled now, to be replaced with the kind of itch that came when a wound was trying to repair itself.

  Back in his chair nursing his drink, Sean’s sullen eyes resettled on the dancing partners. Naomi’s mouth was open, her tongue feeling its way along the serrated edges of her teeth. Owen detected the creak of Enrico’s leather waistcoat in the drone of music. His eyes followed the ripple of his dragon tattoo as he flexed his biceps, and the swish of his dark ponytail as he circled his head. The ants must really have been biting that evening because Jack rocketed out of his box again. Sean’s heels cracked on the wooden floor. The empty glass fell from his hand and bowled along a floorboard before coming to rest. Only Owen seemed to pay attention, sitting up a little straighter. The song finished. The record continued revolving on its turntable. The needle scratched rhythmically. Without haste or embarrassment the melded bodies divided.

  Naomi blearily focused on Enrico’s medallion, St Christopher, patron saint of travellers, gleaming against a few curls of dark moist chest hair. She leaned in and kissed it. ‘I’m your lady of the lake,’ she muttered, then took a pace or two backwards. She put her palms together in a gesture of prayer, bowed her head, raised her eyes to Enrico’s, and giggled. He winked back, then tossed himself down on the settee. Naomi snuggled between him and Owen, then like déjà vu she said, ‘Tell us about Italy, about the village under the lake. Tell us about your home, Vagli Sotto, which overlooked the reservoir. Tell us about the woman who drowned in her cottage when they flooded the valley.’ And all Owen’s hopes that the taboo subject had been forgotten were dashed.

  Enrico made himself comfortable, a far-off look stealing into his grey eyes. ‘Teodora was very young and beautiful. Big dark eyes. Thick black hair. She was in love with a boy from a nearby village. But he was poor.’ He shrugged and gave a half-smile. ‘Her father disapproved of the match and forced her to marry Anselmo. He was old and ugly,’ he continued, accompanying his narrative with an insolent grin and a sly nod of his head at his reluctant Irish host. ‘But he was rich.’ Sean sighed in irritation at the intended slight. Naomi was absorbed. But Owen was full of mute dread. ‘One freezing winter’s day, Anselmo went to collect fire-wood on the slopes. He strayed and lost track of the time. He missed his footing on the icy rocks, fell and broke his leg. He knew that if they did not come for him he would freeze to death overnight. But he consoled himself that his anxious wife was sure to raise the alarm. Soon they would rescue him.’

  Naomi reached forward and playfully flicked the beads knotted into Enrico’s tassel beard. They jiggled and caught the light. She traced the metronome arc
of them and whispered, ‘What happened then?’ Her bare arms were all gooseflesh with anticipation. Glimpsing Sean’s clenched fists, Owen gained the impression that he would quite like to punch Enrico’s teeth out. As if telepathic, the object of his rage bared his large, gleaming, white teeth – intact, every one.

  Then, ‘Teodora sat by the fire and recalled her wedding night. She was filled with disgust at the memory. As the hours crawled by she glanced at the mantle-clock. But she stayed put, cosy by the fire, until daybreak. Only then did she raise the alarm. They bore his frozen body home late that afternoon and laid it out inside the church. And when Teodora came they eyed her fearfully, and called her a witch and a murderess.’

  Naomi leapt to her feet. ‘Anyone would have done the same.’

  Enrico raised his dark eyebrows sardonically. ‘She cursed them all. And when they dammed the Edron river and flooded the valley, the legend has it she stayed in her cottage and drowned with the village of Fabbriche di Careggine. It is still there, you know. In times of drought you can see the church tower poke up from the depths of the lake. And they say if you squint at the water, you can see Teodora swimming like a mermaid under the surface.’

  ‘What a load of gobshite!’ Sean exclaimed, on his feet for a third time. ‘I’m going to bed.’ He stomped from the room, tangling briefly and bad temperedly in the doorway’s bead curtain. The entire flat seemed to shake.

  Enrico dragged himself up, gave a leisurely yawn, stretched and retrieved his guitar. ‘Perhaps I’d better go,’ he said, a remark that fell into the sudden stillness like an overdue library book. He leant over Naomi and spoke into her dishevelled hair, ‘Would you like to go? Would you like to see the lady in the lake for yourself ?’ For a second their eyes held, and then her gaze slipped past him. Next that hesitant blink of hers that Owen was getting used to, and the spell was broken. She rose, pushing him away, and shooed him off into the torrid night.

  ‘Oh, it’s hot as Africa here,’ she grumbled, fanning herself with a record sleeve. Her extraordinary eyes came to rest on Owen. ‘I’m sorry. I forgot about you.’ He looked up like a startled rabbit. She touched his arm, then took hold of his hand. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing. It’s . . . it’s . . . late, that’s all. I’m overtired.’

  ‘Of course.’ She pulled him to his feet. ‘Let me show you your bed. I have made it up with clean sheets.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he murmured back. But he had not heard her. He was miles away, high up in the Tuscan mountains, where a dead village lay sprawled at the bottom of a lake. It was Teodora and not Naomi he saw leading the way. And she was not taking him to bed but to his watery grave.

  Since then, he has had an unhealthy preoccupation with the lake and the submerged village. Now as he spots Naomi descending the stairs in a shaft of sunlight, he is reminded of his thirst. She pauses to flirt with Enrico, tiring of the sport suddenly and striding towards him. Sean is absent, utilizing the flexible two-way street to the full. He is often away and gives no explanations of his frequent comings and goings. A fat balding man rifles through a tray of belt buckles with sausage fingers. Owen polices him with his savvy eyes, giving fair warning that already he is wise to shop-lifters. But he stays perched on the stool, hostage to his lethargy. Why waste the effort? This man won’t buy, he can see it in his mean, closed expression. He will fiddle with the buckles, then say he doesn’t like any of them. After a minute, as he surmised, the fat man waddles off with an impatient shrug.

  Owen fixes on the large paper cups of iced tea clasped in Naomi’s hands, thinks of her bitten nails digging into the cold condensation. His own throat is cardboard dry. He tries to swallow but can’t. Droplets of sweat trickle down from under his armpits, along the ridges of his spine, collect in the bends of his knees. His cheeks burn and his eyes itch. Then she is beside him.

  ‘Why so serious?’ she asks with a giggle.

  His shoulders cave in. ‘It’s the heat,’ he pants. Her amazing eyes crinkle at the corners. He can see the swell of her breasts above the white vest top as she breathes in, breathes out. She sets the cups down on the mirrored counter, then ruffles his hair. The gesture has the element of surprise about it, of intimacy. Her fingers, still cool from their contact with the cups, feel like sprinkles of cologne on his scalp, the sensation making the roots of his hair tingle. Now she takes the lid off his tea and picks out an ice cube. Pinching it between thumb and forefinger, she circles his face, draws it down his brow, along the bridge of his nose, over the tip, brings it to rest on his slightly parted lips. He can feel the scald of the ice trail. The cube is melting. He sucks in the cold moisture, feels a gelid slick soaking into his cardboard throat so that it spasms in thirsty anticipation. In a blink he summons the vast basin of Lake Vagli, with moonlit serpents flickering over its shivering surface. His hands are faintly trembling. He cannot hear the Abba lyrics, only the eerily bewitching song of Teodora, luring him into the chill marbled waters. Her eyes lock on his.

  ‘Better?’ she says.

  He nods. And she pops the melting cube into her mouth and crunches it up.

  Chapter 8

  The crying baby is keeping Naomi awake, that and the heat, the interminable heat. The thin reedy wail bores like a screwdriver into her head. Why doesn’t Sean do something? It’s his baby, isn’t it? Bria? Only, this isn’t Bria. This is the baby growing inside her, the ball of cells dividing and sub-dividing, getting bigger every day. And already, nestled in the red blanket of her womb, as hot and sleepless as she is, it has begun its endless mewling. She turns to Sean, but Sean is drunk. Sean is wallowing in oblivion. His breaths are so shallow he might as well be dead. She must take care of it herself, be Mother to it, rock it to sleep. Because that’s what mothers do, they comfort their crying babies, when they are sad they make them happy again.

  Her own mother died, and that was very careless of her because it meant that when she was sad there was no one to make her happy again. And when she cried, there was no one to comfort her. Soon she would be a mother herself. She wondered if she would know what to do, how to dry up the tears. This baby is hers, hers and Sean’s. Or is it hers and Enrico’s? Enrico’s baby? She doesn’t know, doesn’t care. She only wants it to be quiet. She will do anything for silence, anything at all. She squeezes her eyes shut, wishing herself away, somewhere quiet, somewhere she can be solitary. But when she reopens them time has played its customary trick on her. It has drawn her back through the veil of years, unmade the woman until she is a girl again, an unwanted child, one among many, inconvenient, abandoned, orphaned, wakeful in the unending night. On and on and on it goes, the crying baby in the cot by her bed. It no longer knows for what it cries, just that it has needs, needs that no one will fulfil. Why doesn’t the house mother come and shut it up? Why doesn’t she make it stop? It will not let her rest, the screaming baby.

  She kicks back the sheet and still she is too hot, sliding about in her own sweat. So she tears off her sleeping shift and stands in the thin grey moonlight, reviving her body with her fluttering hands. If The Blind Ones hear Baby howling, if they peek through the narrowed slits of their eyelids and see her out of bed, they also choose to be deaf and dumb. Both sash windows are stuck fast. Using all her might, she manages to lift one an inch, lowers her face to the warm draught, gulps in air. But the other will not budge at all. She reported it to Miss Elstob, told her they were stuck, that she needed to get Mr Plinge to come and mend them. But nothing was done. Nothing is ever fixed here. And still the baby cries, wailing and wailing into the suffocating gloom. She treads softly, reaches the cot, sees Baby, the sickly scrap, rigid and purple, eyes bulging, face wet with tears and snot, night shift sodden and stinking. She can smell piss, piss and puke. She reaches down and feels the forehead. It has a fever. Miss Elstob should give it a bath, a cool bath to bring the temperature down.

  Someone should put the poor hot baby in a tub of cold water and wash all the hotness away. Now she grabs one of the waving arms, g
rips the tiny forearm so tightly that the infant gives a piercing yell, making her eardrums itch. The door immediately flies open, as if the house mother has been waiting behind it, and the light blinks on. And there she is, Miss Elstob, in a stained dressing gown, her wide-set mud-coloured eyes screwed up, her broom-brush hair awry, the large black mole on her knobbly nose quivering with each indignant inhalation.

  ‘Mara! What are you doing? Why are you naked? Have you no shame, girl? You’re a whore, like your dead mother was. All filth, that’s what you are. I told you not to touch the baby, never to touch the baby again. Your job is to clean the shoes and make the beds.’ She speaks in a voice that is dreadfully kind and mushy. ‘Do you remember what I said? If I saw you near the baby again I’d have to punish you.’ And The Blind Ones hunch their necks into their tortoiseshell shoulders, and fist their sheets more tightly. They push their sightless faces into their mattresses. ‘You need to be taught not to behave like a savage.’

  She begins to advance. But Mara stands her ground. She pulls herself up so that although she is small, she feels as if she is growing tall as a giant. And Miss Elstob must also see the giant for a second, because she pauses, her eyes running all over her nakedness. ‘The baby . . . the baby won’t stop crying.’ Between the wooden slats of its cot, Naomi sees bubbling spit frothing at the baby’s open mouth. It fights for breath, making ghastly grinding choking noises. ‘I took my shift off because I am hot, too hot. The windows won’t open. I told you they wouldn’t. And I am hot, hot as fire.’ The baby takes a sudden gasp, then a beat, followed by a howl that makes Mara’s blood curdle.

  In one stride Miss Elstob is at her, slapping her face, her chest, punching her in the belly, kicking her legs out from under her. She has a hold of Mara’s wrist, and each time she strikes her and the child flies backwards, she tugs her in again. Then she drags her kicking and screaming downstairs, in passing seizing up her cane, where it lies propped in a corner. They are in the kitchen, the homely room with the big table that all the children sit round to take their meals. She grabs a fistful of Mara’s long black hair as she wields the cane. She can hear it whistling through the air, feel it biting rabidly into her buttocks. But she will not cry out, she will never cry out. Her hair is being torn from the roots, her beautiful black hair, but still she makes no sound.