The Water Children

by Anne Berry

  Now her nails are driving into her shoulders, pinching so tightly that it feels as if they are being hammered through her bones. And she is being pulled across the room, through the doorway and down the corridor. She smells Miss Elstob’s bad breath, foul as a sewer drain, and with it she sniffs the acrid buried scent of coal. Then she is being thrown into the coal cupboard with such force that her head strikes the wall with a crack, so that she thinks her skull may have broken open like an egg. The door slams shut and the key turns in the lock. ‘Don’t,’ she whimpers quietly. ‘Don’t . . . Miss Elstob.’ But the next second the line of light, the line of hope, under it is gone, and she is plunged into absolute darkness.

  She is sprawled on a heap of coal. She can feel ragged lumps and points of it digging into her battered body. And there is the taste of salt metal on her lips. She licks it and savours her own blood. The heat in the coffin-like space is so intense that it is as though she is being cooked alive. But she does not cry out. And this, not because she is brave, not now. Now she would holler all night, and beat upon the door until her fists are worn to tattered stumps of bleeding flesh. She does not cry now because, just as the baby will soon discover, it is senseless. No one will come to rescue her.

  She is breathing in the soot. It is choking her lungs, clogging her pores. With each painful move the coal possesses more of her, blacks up her white skin, fills her nostrils and her mouth with peppery dust. By daybreak she will be a chimney sweep, the soot so ingrained in her that she will not be able to wash it off. She will be branded with its sooty mark. And the crust of fear in her stomach is a living thing, a black spider with a hundred tangled legs spinning fur balls inside her. Her bladder is full and suddenly she feels the stinging warmth of her own urine as it empties. If she dies this second it will be okay. She rests her head against the bricks, lets them bruise her cheeks with their rough touch.

  The black is only a seed behind her eyes when it is born – a dot, a speck, no more. But it propagates. A bright jet bead that sends out a million inky shoots to dye every cell in her body. And with this black dawn comes rage, a murderous, unwieldy, uncompromising tidal wave sweeping through her. She scrambles to her knees and the sharp spears of coal stab agonizingly at her kneecaps. She grits her teeth and feels for the door. She knows it is painted in sky-blue enamel gloss. With the black wind at her back she carves her name. She uses all her fingers, all her nails, chipping at the paintwork, digging them deep into the wood. In the stillness the scratching seems loud, deafening. A splinter jabs under one nail, two, then three. She pauses, listens to the ‘huff, huff’ of her rapid breathing, feels in the dark for the needles of wood, and carefully picks them out. When next she carves her fingertips are bloody. She cannot see it, will not see it till morning, but her blood has stained the pale wood, coloured the engraving. ‘Mara’ is inscribed in red. She speaks with the little breath she has left. ‘I am Mara,’ she hisses. ‘I am Mara.’ Then she sinks back on her bed of coal. In her overheated dreams she becomes a mermaid. As she darts through the healing coolness of water, the blackness dissolves to reveal the spangle of her platinum scales.

  ***

  Owen’s second night in the flat. They share a salad. It is too hot to eat. And they drink chilled white wine. Naomi plays records, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, then later, when they are all mellow, Johnny Cash. She knows her music and Owen wonders about that. If they ate little, Sean ate nothing. But he drinks as if he has an unquenchable thirst. Owen, tracing the falling level in the brandy bottle, marvels at his appearance of sobriety, at his steady hand and clear speech. He goes to bed before them, wary that he may be intruding, pleading exhaustion. He lies back on the divan, among the towers of cardboard boxes full of stock for the stall. For once there are no visitations from the Merfolk, or from Sarah either. He takes this as a good sign. He dozes for a time and wakes to the sounds of Sean and Naomi making love. In spite of feeling like a guilty voyeur, he listens intently, hardly daring to breathe. With only a stud wall between them, their mounting tension is his, the rock and roll of their tussle, the ascending scale of their groans and gasps, the shudder of Sean’s pleasure, the shriek of Naomi’s orgasm. Afterwards he becomes aware of the leaking bath taps hissing. Sean keeps promising to replace the washers, but for now it is an unending chorus of laryngitic croaks. It is as though they are having a conversation, as though there are spirits locked in the pipes.

  ‘Haaa . . .’

  ‘Ahhh . . .’

  Sometimes they stutter or give a wheezy cough. He nods off again listening to their ghoulish dialogue. When his eyes open next, apart from the taps all appears peaceful, so that he ponders what must have disturbed him. Then a scraping noise, or is it scratching? He sits up and pays heed. Is there someone moving outside his room? The scratching noise resumes. He turns on the light, rises, creeps to the door and opens it a few inches. The rest of the flat is in darkness. He passes a hand across his brow and wipes off sweat. He sleeps in boxer shorts and has no dressing gown. He contemplates pulling on his jeans, and then decides he is being foolish. In all likelihood it is nothing, night nonsense, the creaks and whines of old buildings expanding in the heat. And even if it is Sean or Naomi, he is decent.

  He does not switch on the corridor light. He has no desire to attract attention to himself. They may feel it is peculiar, their new lodger prowling about in the middle of the night, on the pretext that he was disturbed by scuffling sounds. He steals past the bathroom where the taps whine like the wind, then moves stealthily through the bead curtain and into the lounge. The sash windows are still open, and a warm breeze, tainted with the residue of exhaust fumes, reaches his nostrils. A mix of moonlight and lamplight filters through them. Far off a door slams. He picks out the bulky shapes of furniture, not yet familiar to him. He glances to his right at the galley kitchen. All clear. He is about to go, to return to bed, when he hears the noise again, much louder now, very close, here in the room with him. His heartbeat is instantly racing. Perhaps they have mice, says the voice of reason. He stands very still, his eyes raking the semi-darkness.

  He spots her knees then, her knees capped in moonlight. In a few steps he rounds the end of the settee and sees her, quite naked, curled up in the space between the settee end and the corner of the room. Her head is resting against the wall, and her fingers are scrabbling over it. Her silvered body takes him unawares so that he staggers back a pace. Her nipples appear black, and to his surprise so do the curls that cover her sex.

  ‘Naomi?’ He keeps his volume low, his tone reassuring and steady, though all this while his heart bangs in his ear. ‘Naomi? Are you all right?’ She makes no response – none at all. Her eyes are glazed over, unseeing. The blue is luminous, picked out in the nocturnal rays. The brown is one huge black pupil. He thinks that she may be sleepwalking, knows that it is dangerous to rouse someone too quickly from this hypnotic state. Snatching up a throw from the settee and crouching down, he cloaks her nudity with it. Her lips are moving but he cannot decipher any words. ‘It’s Owen, Naomi. Did you have a bad dream? Shall I take you back to bed?’

  ‘The baby won’t stop crying,’ she whimpers. ‘Someone make it stop.’ She must still be dreaming, Owen concludes. ‘It’s sick. Has a temperature. Needs a cool bath. I need a cool bath.’

  ‘Shall I take you to the bathroom? I can wet a flannel to cool you down.’

  She seems not to hear him. ‘Look at me. Look at me.’ Her hands fall, palms outwards, inviting inspection. She might be reciting a nursery rhyme. Her tone is sing-song, a childish chant. It unnerves Owen because there are traces of Sarah in it. It has the cadence of need. ‘I’m all black, all filthy, just like she said. And I want to wash it away but I can’t.’ It is definitely a nightmare. He will have to be very careful not to startle her awake. There is no knowing what she might do as a result of such trauma. He considers fetching Sean, and then thinks about how much brandy he has consumed and decides not to. He attempts to lift her to her feet, but she resists.

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nbsp; ‘No, no, I won’t go with you. I want to stay in my bunk. I want to stay with The Blind Ones.’ Now she is humming, a nasal hum interspersed with a few lyrics. He recognizes the song. Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’. The record she put on the night he came for dinner, the night she danced with Enrico, the night the Italian described the drowned village that lay at the bottom of Lake Vagli. He has begun to feel the pull of it, of the ghost village where once the stone buildings breathed the mountain air. Today no sky opens up above the hamlet. It is buried in water, icy dark water. ‘Walt? Walt? Is it you?’

  ‘It’s Owen, Naomi. Come on. It’s Owen. You’re safe with me. Let me take you back to bed.’

  ‘Walt, you shouldn’t have left me and gone with Judy. You shouldn’t have made me angry.’

  This time when he gently pulls her up she is compliant, allowing herself to be meekly led. He hesitates before hers and Sean’s door, cautious of waking him. But he need not be. Sean is in his own drink-induced stupor, and does not stir. Owen helps her into the free side of the double bed, and tucks her in as if she is a child. Before he leaves he hears her mutter something. Back in his room he runs the sentence over again.

  ‘Walt, you shouldn’t have left me and gone with her. You shouldn’t have made me angry.’ A past boyfriend who had been unfaithful? Possibly even a husband? He mulls it over for several minutes. If he is correct, it is ironic. After all, isn’t Naomi stealing Catherine’s husband now? He thinks of his own mother, of Ken Bascombe, of America. She stayed, but she might as well have gone for all the difference it made. He wonders idly where Walt is this very second, and if he ever thinks of Naomi, of his onetime love with the spell-binding eyes.

  Chapter 9

  Sean stares at a plug of chewing gum on the floor of the carriage as the train shuttles him back to Hounslow, reliving his exchange of barely an hour ago with Naomi.

  ‘I don’t want it.’ He did not have to think about it. His reaction was instant. She continued speaking as if she had not heard him, prattling on so that he wanted to hit her, to stop up her mouth.

  ‘It wasn’t planned. I know. But we can make it work. I’m sure we can. I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy. But it will be worth it. You know, Sean, I can’t quite believe it. I am going to be a mother. A mother! For you it’s different. You don’t have to tell me. I understand. You’re already a father. You know what to expect.’ She was moving restlessly about the bedroom, as if, he mused, she was in a cage, as if they both were. He was lying on the bed, elbows bent, clasped hands cushioning his head. The sash window was pushed up as far as it would go. They had a view onto a brick wall. The bleat of traffic, ever audible in London, filled the pauses. And there had been many so far. The hot weather was doing his rash no favours. It itched like crazy now, so that it took every ounce of his willpower to resist the urge to scratch it.

  ‘I don’t show at all, do I?’ she asked, halting to display her concave belly to him. ‘It’s incredible to think that there is a baby growing in there. I’ve been choosing names. Is that foolish?’ He did not answer. She studied his face, searching for an indication of how he was receiving this news. But his eyes were poker straight, his gaze on her steady. ‘For a boy, Ashley? Too effeminate?’ She wrinkled her nose, gave her slow, hesitant blink. ‘You’re right. We don’t want him to be teased at school.’

  On the move again, she crossed to the window. She sat on the sill and rested her head on the glass. ‘When will the rain come?’ she sighed. ‘God, I hope it’s soon.’ In a glance he saw that her hair was matted to her forehead. The black roots were plainly visible. She needed to dye it again. She was dressed in a cream blouse, muslin cotton, tied under her breasts. A single crystal gem of sweat wavered on her collar bone, broke free and trickled into her cleavage. She was not wearing a bra. She seldom did. He could see her nipples outlined clearly under the paper-thin cotton. Her pale-blue denim shorts, sitting low on her hips, were frayed about her thighs. She was barefoot. Her heavy make-up gave her features the immobile look of a ventriloquist’s dummy. She leant across the bedside table, took a cigarette from his packet of Camels, scooped up his lighter and shook it. It was almost empty, so it took her several goes to light up. She inhaled deeply then held the cigarette away from her, examining it carefully. Absently she picked a speck of tobacco from her tongue.

  ‘I suppose now I’m expecting, I should really give these up.’ He made no comment. He did not care what she did. He fucked her, enjoyed ownership of her, but that was the full extent of his investment. His shirt sleeves were rolled up. His trousers were polyester and it felt as though his legs were sheathed in plastic. But he refused to give in to the heat, though. In the market more and more flesh was on show, sometimes white, flaccid and not very appealing. Sean maintained that the impression you created was very important. If you let standards slip, before long you looked like a bum. And then it was only a matter of time before you began behaving like one. If you wanted respect, you had to earn it. But in these temperatures he gladly admitted it was proving a struggle. The Shannon called to him then, tempted him with the memory of the crisp green cling of her against his naked body.

  ‘What about Daisy for a girl?’ Naomi pushed her luck. She took another slow drag on her cigarette, then gnawed at a nail, chewing it to the quick. Her fingers were trembling. Some part of his brain registered television noise, music, Top of the Pops, he guessed. His hip flask was in his trouser pocket. He slid it out, sat on the side of the bed, unscrewed the top, took a mouthful, then another and swilled this second like mouthwash before swallowing. He hauled himself to his feet, flask still in hand. He had slipped off his shoes, was still wearing his socks, and now he pushed his feet back into them.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Her voice was shrill. He grabbed the packet of Camels, the lighter, but did not look at her.

  ‘Home,’ he said.

  And now he is being thrown about on the Piccadilly Line, feeling like he is sitting in a dustbin. It is so bloody hot that he thinks he might really kill for an ice-cold lager. The other passengers in the carriage look as dejected as he feels. He broods on the conspiracy there is against him, the snare that has been set for him. He is fed up of fighting. Like the salmon swimming up the Shannon to spawn, it seems that everything, everyone, is contriving to thwart him. Nothing in his life will stay where he has put it. It is all spinning out of control.

  He married Catherine because she was a nice girl, from a well-to-do family, a family who didn’t scrape a living on a wind-blown farm in Ireland. He’d hoped that some of their wealth would rub off on him, still does. He wanted to make his Mam proud, his brother Emmet jealous, to demonstrate to his Da, where he lay in his early grave, how smart men attained success. You did not have to get up at 4 a.m. and break ice on a tub of water to splash your tired face. You did not have to go to bed by candlelight, with calloused hands and a crippled back. You did not have to quake with superstitious fear each time the wind changed direction, or the priest frowned at you. But his Mam was tight-lipped after meeting Catherine. As always, she couldn’t see the bigger picture, how advantageous the marriage could be. ‘She isn’t of the faith. She isn’t Roman Catholic, Sean,’ she finally told him, her expression horrified. She said it the way you might say someone wasn’t human, that they were an abomination in the sight of God. ‘And she’s English,’ she continued in the same vein. ‘Whatever are you thinking of, bringing a lass like her into the family? It will only lead to trouble.’ It hurt, but her criticism just made him more determined to have her. He would show them all, he had simmered, small-minded bigots every one of them. His father had whipped him when he swam in the Shannon. But he had not broken his spirit or dashed his dreams.

  Some days, though, he wonders if she might have been correct, if he has reached too high, been too ambitious. Still, he has not abandoned his plans altogether. One day he will start up his own business. He’s had a few setbacks, but what successful man hasn’t? The market stall that seemed such a profit-making c
oncern, through an alcoholic blur minutes before the closing bell was sounded in a pub, is hardly breaking even. True, at the height of the tourist season there’s a profit to be made, but how long will it last? And Catherine, too, has done her best to jeopardize his future. She went and got herself pregnant, on their wedding night, most like. Oh, he knows it wasn’t her fault, the condom splitting and so on. But did she have to conceive? A virgin. Her first time. What were the chances of that?

  He loves Bria, but now is not the season for her to be born. This should happen later, when they are settled, and he’s bought a house and got a bit of capital behind him. Catherine’s parents think as much. They look down their snooty noses at him, at the mess he is making of things. They deplore their daughter’s judgement. They earnestly wish she had not interrupted her typing course for a good-for-nothing Irish farm lad. But if they are disappointed, well, so is he. Catherine has changed, or maybe it is just that at last he is seeing an honest image of her, not as he wants her to be, but as she really is. They have nothing in common. Why he hadn’t spotted it from the outset he cannot figure. Perhaps they were both projecting qualities onto each other that simply weren’t there. In any case, it isn’t working out. Bed is a disaster. His wife is frigid. He made an effort not to put pressure on her in the early months, understanding she was innocent, inexperienced. He needn’t have bothered. Once the pregnancy was confirmed she claimed she’d had a threatened miscarriage, and they’d given up the whole wretched business altogether. But he is a man with a man’s needs, and that was where Naomi entered his life.