The Water Children

by Anne Berry

  She closes her eyes and sees lipstick edging Mother’s front teeth, pearly pink, and her headscarf fluttering in the wind, and the sun shivering on her sunglasses, and golden buttons on the uniform of the soldier, and the salt taste of the sea on her tongue, the way it carried her in its swingeing grey-green arms, how it beat the badness out of her, broke up the coal in her and turned the nasty dust to gleaming white sand. The last thing she hears before the black rubs her out, is the high-pitched whistling scream of the train as it roars into a station. Or is it baby’s piercing cries hacking at her head again, making it ache so?

  ***

  Raw terror grips Owen. His heart bucks, his senses sharpen, nausea takes hold. He might run if he thought that his legs would carry him, if he thought that he stood a chance. Knowing it is risky to turn your back on an attacking dog, he faces them, Blue and his thug. His back is to the counter, his arms propping him up. There is no browsing today. They bullet through the shoppers and stall-holders, shoving aside anyone that makes the mistake of obstructing them. They wear dark trousers, long-sleeved shirts, ties – but no jackets. Blue hops agilely up on the stool, his minder flanking him.

  ‘You heard from Sean?’ Blue asks without preamble, his blue eyes like lasers burning into Owen’s.

  ‘No,’ Owen lies. ‘I told you yesterday.’

  Blue loosens his tie. The blue and gold stripes remind Owen of his old school uniform tie. ‘That was yesterday. This is today. A lot can change in twenty-four hours,’ he says in a tone of barely concealed threat. He undoes his top button.

  ‘He went off at the start of the week, said he’d be back by Thursday. Like I said before. But he hasn’t showed yet.’

  Blue winces and draws a finger delicately over his effeminate mouth. ‘What’s your name?’ he says softly, the finger still sliding over his lips.

  ‘Owen.’ His legs are trembling so that he has to concentrate on keeping them braced.

  ‘Well, Owen, your boss has my money. A great deal of money, as it happens. And I want it back. Understand?’ He lowers his hand and picks a speck of dust off one of his trouser legs.

  Owen nods. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about that. I only work for him part time.’ His high voice and the rapid pace of his words betray his dread.

  ‘Are you smart, Owen?’ Blue asks.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Are you smart?’ he repeats obdurately. Owen shrugs. ‘Because you’re not telling me what I want to hear, and that’s plain idiotic.’ He grinds his teeth. The minder sees off a couple of customers.

  ‘If I had any information, if I knew Sean’s whereabouts, I’d pass it on to you.’ He flicks his tongue over his dry lips, swallows, then clears his throat.

  Blue takes a thoughtful breath, surveying him head to toe, then blinks slowly. ‘You’re trying my patience, kid.’

  Owen manufactures a fretful sigh and scratches the back of his head. ‘What do you want me to say? I’ve told you the truth.’

  ‘Oh I hope so, for your sake, Owen. I do hope so.’

  ‘Honestly, I wish I could be more—’ But he never finishes the sentence. At a sign from Blue, the minder lunges forwards and lands a punch directly in his solar plexus. Owen folds like a hairpin, every atom of breath knocked out of him. He is trying to hoop air back into his collapsed lungs, but he is winded and they will not inflate. The blurred shapes of his own shoes rush at his eyes. He is suffocating, dark stars zooming towards him. He totters, nearly overbalances, feels a hand bunching the collar of his shirt, hoisting him up like a puppet. He is going to pass out. In a second the stars will meld together and become one glittering black moon, obliterating all else. Then a merciful vein of air seeps into him. Slowly, and with a scalpel thrust of pain, his lungs begin to swell. Immediately, he is seized by a spasm of violent coughing, his breath cannoning out of him with pumice-stone friction. The hand unhooks him and he stumbles. Tears are coursing down his cheeks as he gulps in oxygen and spits it out, a wicked spur jabbing his diaphragm. The present reasserts itself. Faces bear down on him, immutable eyes hold his.

  ‘Jogged your memory?’ Blue says. Owen gabbles, unable to latch onto any words. He works his mouth for a moment but all he manages is some more gibberish. Blue slips a hanky from his trouser pocket and unfolds it carefully. He makes much of blotting his brow and wiping his hands on it. After he has tucked it away he rubs his palms, once, twice, on his trouser legs.

  Then, ‘You tell Sean that bright people don’t miss appointments with Blue. You tell him we’ll be back, and so will he with the money, or else. You tell him no one ever cheats me and gets away with it.’ His tone is sugary as candyfloss one instant, the screechy discord of a stuck pig the next. He pats his butterscotch curls into place, momentarily glimpsing his reflection in the mirrored counter. Then, carefully, he examines his fingernails, head tilted ruminatively.

  ‘I’ve broken a nail. Damn!’ he mutters, peeved. ‘You make sure that you pass on my message, all right, sonny?’

  Owen nods dumbly. He has begun trembling with shock. And then they are making their way towards the stairs, Blue taking them two at a time. Eyes of neighbouring stallholders are averted. They know Blue by reputation and that is sufficient impetus to ensure that they do not get involved. It takes several minutes for Owen to gather his wits and think coherently. He swipes the tears from his face and counts his breathing in and out, until his heartbeat calms. Then, working through the pain that radiates from his core, the pain that makes every inhalation slew through him, he begins methodically packing up the stall. The music jangles and bumps, the lights strike his eyes like paper pellets, as he goes about determinedly filling cardboard boxes and tidying them into the under-counter cupboard. His camel’s back is broken. Not another straw will it take. He will leave the keys in the flat and go – now. If this means that he is running away, that he is taking the coward’s route, so be it. He has one aim fuelled by terror, to escape London, to get far away from Blue and his cronies, from Naomi, Sean and this rat-hole of a market. He padlocks the stall doors, his eyes sweeping over the scintillating maze one last time. Then, he turns towards the sunlit stairs.

  ‘Owen, you must come quickly. There’s a call from Sean’s wife. She’s asking for you.’ Spinning round, he comes face to face with Cat, short for Catalina. She is a tall, dark-haired Hispanic woman with the stall nearest the toilets. ‘She’s hysterical. I think it may be something to do with their baby.’ And then he is racing down the aisles, dodging customers, heads turning in his direction. Finding his way across the jostling market to the telephone, he feels like a pinball hitting one obstacle after another.

  ‘Here, watch your step!’ someone yells after him. And another of the punters swears and makes an obscene gesture at his retreating back.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, who do you think you are, pushing me out of the way?’ Owen has a fleeting impression of a luminous pink miniskirt, a sequinned top and large eyes outlined with kohl. ‘Bastard!’ she screams after him. Cat ushers him through the swing doors and into a concrete cell. With a jut of her chin she indicates the ’phone dangling from its cord.

  ‘If you need me, holler,’ she tells him and vanishes. Four narrow toilet cubicles line one wall. Opposite them is a basin, and set a few feet beyond it, the payphone. He steps up to it, and warily picks up the receiver as though he is drawing a primed gun from its holster.

  ‘Catherine, Catherine it’s Owen. What’s the—’ But she interrupts him with a rush of hysterical words that he struggles to follow. ‘Who has taken her? Who has taken Bria?’ But he knows, he knows who has her. And in that moment he knows, too, that her life is imperilled.

  He listens to a repeat of the previous night’s narrative told from another perspective, that of a parent in fear for her baby’s life. A volley of words, the smell of uric acid hitting the back of his throat, and the name, Mara. A friend, a pregnant woman she met at the rec. Catherine was going to go to her parents. Sean told her to. But in the end
she couldn’t face it. And now . . . The floor and walls seem to shudder to the muffled beat of the music, an interminable drum roll. Only this story has a new chapter to it, one where Mara goes back to Catherine’s house, and they talk. And she is so nice, so kind that she trusts her implicitly. She says Catherine should have a rest, that she will mind Bria for her while she sleeps. And she is tired, very tired, and the caring eyes keep reassuring her till she assents. Mara is downstairs with her baby. She can hear her singing a lullaby. And she falls asleep. God forgive her, she falls asleep. And when she awakes, Bria has disappeared. The woman has taken her, taken her baby. A razor-edged silence comes then, like the poise of a guillotine blade seconds before it falls. The beat blunders on. Then suddenly Catherine’s curdling screams leap from the receiver into the squalid surroundings.

  ‘Listen to me, Catherine. I know who has Bria,’ he tells her firmly, his eyes on a metal mesh bin in the corner of the room where blood is slowly soaking through a shiny white sanitary bag.

  ‘Where is she? Where is my baby, Owen? Where? Tell me where to find her!’

  He is visited by a second of fright. He drops the phone, follows it swinging from its cord, casting a shadow that crawls over the concrete floor and walls. ‘Owen, Owen,’ comes the muted tinny shriek, as if travelling universes to find him. He forces himself to take hold of it again. He tries to speak but his lips refuse to respond. The door gapes open with a slap of cooler air. A big man with a shaved head, and a raised milky-green scar meandering lizard-like across one cheek, stands stolidly taking in the tableau that greets him. The look in his close-set ash-grey eyes is blasé as they jerk away from him. He steps into one of the cubicles, and seconds later Owen hears his stream of piss striking the enamel toilet bowl.

  The words come unstuck at last. ‘Mara is really Naomi, Catherine. It’s Naomi. She has your baby. She has Bria.’

  ‘Naomi? Why would she—’ A pause as one thought leads to another. Then, ‘Where? Where? Where, Owen?’ Catherine’s voice is a heavy boot striking him, making him flinch with pain. The man lumbers out of the stall, doing up his flies. He gives a knowing sneer, then without comment he melts back into the market. ‘Where?’ she echoes again, her tone altered now, hollow and pitiable. ‘Tell me where? Please?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. Maybe the flat in Covent Garden. She won’t harm her. I promise you. She’ll be looking after her. I can’t explain now but you have to believe me. You haven’t told anyone else, have you, Catherine?’ He has visions of police cars surrounding the Hounslow terrace, of it all escalating rapidly. And if Naomi feels trapped, cornered . . .

  ‘No. You’re the only one. I don’t know where Sean is. I haven’t rung my parents. I wanted to speak to you first.’

  ‘Don’t alert the police yet, Catherine. It’s very important. You stay where you are. I’m going to find Bria now. And I’m going to bring her home, safe and well. I’ll ring as soon as I have news. Wait by the phone.’

  Catherine’s voice is light as goose down. ‘Bring her back!’ she begs. ‘Bring her back, Owen!’ And all at once he is transported down the ladder of years to a bar of golden windswept sand. He is staring down at Sarah. Her skin is misty blue, like the wings of advancing night staining a blanket of snow. There is grit in her dripping curls, tiny bits of shining grit. Her eyes are shut, the heavy lids shaded purplish-grey. Her lips are slightly open so that Owen can see her tiny front teeth. His father is standing in his sodden, wrinkled clothes, his big hands at his sides fumbling in the air. Sunlight slaps his balding wet scalp, making it gleam. Salty sea tears scroll down his cheeks and mingle with his own. His mother is kneeling by the side of Sarah’s body, clutching her withered starfish hand. She lifts her head. Her eyes lock with her husband’s, his father’s.

  ‘Bring her back!’ she hisses. ‘Bring her back!’ The present reclaims him. In it another child is lost and another mother hisses, ‘Bring her back!’

  ‘I’ll bring her back,’ he tells Catherine. ‘I’ll call the moment I have news.’

  He hangs up, flicks his face with water from the corner basin, and rushes out. It seems wholly inappropriate that it is such a beautiful day, that the Londoners he shoulders past have sunflower faces upturned to the skies. They are clothed in gay cotton prints, sit at street cafés letting the hours slip through their fingers, while he strives to bring back a missing baby. His hand is shaking as he opens the door that fronts onto the street. When, gasping for breath, he reaches the third floor, he has the key at the ready. The flat door is locked from the inside.

  ‘Naomi? Naomi? It’s me, Owen.’ With a closed fist he raps smartly. ‘Come on, Naomi, let me in.’ He is an actor giving the performance of his life, his tone amicable, easygoing. He puts his ear against the wood and listens for the sounds of a baby. Nothing. Then Naomi’s voice returns to him.

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he attests jovially. ‘I’m by myself.’ With relief he hears the bolt being slid back, and the door edges open a few inches. She has been crying. The whites of her eyes are a watery pink. Her mascara has run, staining her face with sooty streaks. Both of her eyelids are shadowed with black. Her scruffy hair is tangled. She is wearing yet another smock dress, a busy viscose print with a fussy lace collar. Her cushion belly is being flattened in the narrow crack.

  ‘May I come in?’ he asks quietly. She cranes her neck and peers beyond him. He shakes his head. ‘It’s just me, Naomi.’ She snivels and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. Briefly she locks eyes with him, as if checking for traces of a lie behind his contracting pupils. At last she stands back, letting the door swing open. He steps through, and instantly she slams it behind him, relocks it. She shuffles past him. Both bedroom doors are ajar and he scans them hastily, searching for Bria. But he sees no evidence of her. Emerging through the bead curtain, he finds the lounge flooded with brutal light. From the street below comes the usual road rumble. Nothing is amiss. All the furniture is as he left it this morning. There is no addition to it – no baby.

  ‘I am very tired,’ Naomi mutters dazedly, sinking down onto the settee. Again she rubs at her nose with the back of her hand. ‘I need to sleep now.’ Unconsciously she pats her dented cushion womb. Owen crouches down and rests a hand on her bent knees. For a moment she stares blankly at it, then looks up, finding his face.

  ‘Naomi, where’s the baby?’ With protracted blinks she closes her eyes.

  ‘The baby?’ she mimics in mild puzzlement.

  ‘Yes, the baby. Bria. What have you done with the baby?’ He intones this cordially, as if he is asking the whereabouts of a lost coat, or a pair of shoes.

  ‘Oh, the baby’s dead,’ she breathes, smiling, happy to be of assistance. She leans her head to one side, her eyes now wide and staring. She gives an expansive sigh, yawns and picks at her scalp with her stubby fingers. ‘I had to get rid of it. My baby’s dead.’ She leans closer to him. ‘Come to bed, Owen.’

  ‘Where’s Bria, Naomi?’ She is wearing grey leggings and no shoes. He notices red pumps peeping out from under the fringe of throws. She worries at a tiny hole on her peaked knees. Her brow puckers into its one crooked frown line.

  ‘But it’s all right because I got another one. Bria. Bria. It’s a nice name, isn’t it?’ she says to herself. ‘Now we can be a family, Owen. A proper family. I’ll be Mother. You’ll be Father. And Bria will be Baby.’

  Fleetingly he thinks of Catherine, Bria’s true mother, staring at the ’phone. And he thinks of Sean, her father, God knows where, doing God knows what. He lifts his voice a notch. ‘That’s right, Naomi. So where is our baby? Where is Bria?’ Now she is trying to push the tip of her little finger through the hole. ‘Listen to me. She’s very small. She needs looking after. Her mother is so worried about her. And that’s why you have to tell me where she is. So that I can take her home.’

  Her vacant eyes find his. ‘I’m the Mother,’ she says. ‘This is our home.’

  ‘Yes, yes!’ Impatience colo
urs his timbre and he takes a beat to control his rising pitch. ‘So tell me where you left her, where you left our baby.’

  She seems to consider this carefully, her hands palpating her feather-filled belly unconsciously. Then her racoon eyes suddenly cloud over. ‘I was very sad,’ she says under her breath. ‘But no one cared about me, no one listened to me. They put me in the coal cupboard and it was very dark and dirty in there.’

  Owen’s stomach suddenly cramps and it dawns on him that he has eaten nothing all day. It feels tender too, the flesh bruised and sore. He scrapes back his hair, frustration and a sickening consternation warring inside him. ‘Where is Bria?’ She stares at him, a stubborn adolescent. In the silence that ensues he becomes aware of the lisping of the leaking bath taps, a sound he has grown so accustomed to that it takes a minute for it to register on his sense of hearing. Then, listlessly, Naomi straightens up and indicates the bead curtain with a nod of her head. ‘Bria is in the bath, Owen. I put her in the bath,’ she says angelically. ‘She was bad, very bad, and she wouldn’t stop crying, so I put her in the bath to make her all cool and quiet again.’

  He climbs to his feet unsteadily, feeling as if he has no skeleton to prop him up. His hands cover his mouth. He turns back to Naomi. She is staring fixedly at the wall, at the lopsided Jimi Hendrix poster, her mouth moving in a haunting rhyme. His hands fall away. ‘Dear God, Naomi, what have you done?’ But she makes no reply. He moves like a machine through the clicking beads, hesitating before the closed bathroom door. He feels the paralysing horror of the small boy on the beach, the overriding impulse to run. With a man’s courage he pushes down on the handle of the door and nudges it open. He sees the toilet, the basin, the small cabinet hanging above it, the mirrored front cracked, the bath. There is a green blanket in the bath, a sodden blanket lying in thick folds. The taps are dribbling, slowly filling the tub.