‘Well, whatever the news, I think we ought to leave tomorrow. For Pippa’s sake. She needs some peace and quiet. We all do, come to that. Let’s go home and start again.’
‘What d’you mean, start again?’
‘I love you,’ he said. It seemed as good an answer as any.
‘Do you, Daniel? Really?’
‘Why, have you been doubting it?’
‘Yes,’ she said impassively. ‘I have.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’
He seized her hand, kept hold of it. ‘But I am! More sorry than you’ll ever know.’
‘What for?’
‘Oh …’ He paused. ‘Everything and nothing.’
She climbed into the sleeping-bag, watched him zip it up. ‘You’re sounding really weird tonight.’
‘It’s rather a weird night.’ He slipped the second pillow under her head, smoothed the rumpled sleeping-bag. ‘Shall we kiss and make up, as Pippa used to say?’
She smiled. ‘She hasn’t said that for yonks.’
‘Well, she hasn’t let us kiss her for yonks.’
‘No.’ She let out a long frustrated sigh.
‘Don’t worry. She will.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
He leaned down and kissed her on the mouth. For one disquieting moment he smelt Juliet’s seductive scent. He forced her out, made the kiss much gentler. Penny smelt of nettle tea and woodsmoke. ‘I love you,’ he repeated.
She didn’t reply, didn’t say ‘I love you too.’ She will, he thought, repeating to himself the same phrase he had used about Pippa. She must, he added desperately, suddenly realizing how presumptuous it was to expect unquestioning love from a wife, a daughter – anyone.
He backed away, began collecting up the things he needed: two sets of clothes, two warm and windproof anoraks, the torches, and a towel. ‘I won’t be long,’ he reassured her, ducking out of the tent.
‘Take care,’ she shouted after him. ‘And do please look after Pippa.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course.’
Chapter Thirty Three
Daniel stood at the water’s edge, beneath an immense and daunting sky. The moon looked pocked and spongy; the stars, in contrast, were sharp-edged glittering steel. All the familiar night-noises seemed frozen in the silence like fossils in dark stone; the only movement the flicker of pale moonlight on the black jet of the lake. A second moon lay drowned there, trembling in the trembling water. Pippa was trembling too; her hand sweaty in his cool one, her teeth chattering, despite the warm night air. For her, this place was evil, connected only with death. Somehow he had to change that perception; make her understand that they had to go deep down – beyond death and pain and evil, so that they could emerge on the other side.
He squatted on the sand beside her, his face on a level with hers. ‘Pippa,’ he said softly. ‘We’re going to wade into the water and let it close above our heads. Just for a split second. That’s all it needs, so you musn’t be afraid.’
She wrenched her hand away, all but spat out her retort. ‘You’re mad!’
‘Yes,’ he said, slowly straightening up. ‘But that’s why we need to do it – to leave the madness behind.’
‘You mean, dr … drown like … like Rick?’ Her face was ashen in the moonlight, and her indignant voice had dwindled to a stutter.
‘No!’ He took her hand again and clasped his other hand around it, as if to provide a double shield. ‘Not drown, but live, survive.’
‘But why … why do we have to go into the water?’
‘I … I don’t know.’ His certainty began to waver. Was he mad – not in the healer’s positive sense of seeing things he would be blind to otherwise, but so hopelessly confused he was endangering two more lives? Rick’s limp body floated to the surface of his mind: bluish-pale, deathly still, as Penny had described it. But that was part of the expiation. It was because Rick had almost drowned here that they, too, must go under. ‘It’s … difficult to explain. I just feel it’s … right. And expected of us, somehow.’ He was groping for the appropriate words, although she wouldn’t understand them – sacrifice and ritual, total immersion.
‘But suppose we do drown?’ Pippa refused to meet his eyes. She kept fiddling with the switch on her torch, clicking it on and off, sending out panicked flashes of morse code. ‘Andrew said the water’s terribly deep. And it goes down all of a sudden, so you’re out of your depth before you even realize.’
‘No, it’s not like that just here. This is the shallowest part. It’s only a gentle slope, so we can wade in step by step. And I’ll keep hold of you all the time. And if at any moment you want to stop, we’ll turn back straight away, I promise.’
‘But it’s freezing cold, the water.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It is cold, but …’ But what? There were no buts, no commonsense arguments. What he planned to do was foolhardy, ridiculous – and desperately important. ‘Pippa, please. Do trust me. I’ll look after you, I swear.’ He could tell she didn’t believe him, and why should she, when he had failed her up till now? But if they did this thing together, they would be bonded by it, changed.
They appeared to have reached stalemate. Pippa had turned her back, become only a shape in the darkness. Far away, a bird cried – one shrill call, then silence again. The moon and stars seemed to be retreating, obscured by swirls of mist; the lake growing blacker and more sinister as the night deepened around them.
He sat down on the shelf of rock where he had laid their anoraks; coaxed her to sit beside him. ‘Listen, Pippa, this will probably sound far-fetched, but our going into the water may be a way of … of … saving Rick.’
She looked at him with total incredulity – even a touch of pity. He was forcing her to contend with a crazed father, on top of all the other horrors. Wouldn’t it be kinder to forget the whole idea, turn back to safety, sanity? And yet he seemed held there by some external force, overpowering his own will. An age ago, he and the healer had sat in this same spot, and JB had talked about death. It seemed uncanny now, in light of what had happened. He could still recall the words: life was a whole series of deaths, but also a series of births, and you could be born into the present, which was a sort of resurrection. Whether it was true or false – or fatuous – a child of just thirteen couldn’t be expected to make sense of it. He placed the palm of his hand on the smooth and solid surface of the rock, as if to ground himself, convince himself. JB had also told him that he’d been cured of his own sickness by what he’d described as a violent shock. Wasn’t that what he was seeking himself – healing by ordeal? But JB had been discredited, and anyway, had he any right to inflict such a shock on Pippa, when she’d been traumatized enough? All that might result from it was that they’d both get chilled to the bone and wringing wet.
‘Rick’s probably dead already,’ Pippa blurted out, her voice bitter and almost accusing.
‘He could be, yes.’
‘And even if he’s not, how can we possibly save him by wading into the lake ourselves?’
He shook his head. He had reached the limits of language. ‘Okay,’ he said abruptly. ‘Forget it. Let’s go back. We’ll tell Mum we went for a bracing walk and we’re ready for a nice hot cup of tea.’ Now he sounded bitter; the petulant thirteen-year-old who had failed to get his way. He snatched up their change of clothes, bundled them under his arm. They would no longer be required.
‘No, wait.’
Wearily he sat down on the rock again, switching off his flashlight to save the batteries. The faint beam from Pippa’s smaller torch cast a pool of sallow light. All other colour was extinguished – her radiant hair reduced to grey, as if the tragedy had aged her. He linked his hands together, pressing each finger hard into the knuckle; chafing one thumb with the other. He found it helped to focus on small tangible things: to trace the sore patch beneath his fingernail, or the callus on his palm. The silence seemed so endless, he wondered if they’d st
ill be here at dawn; sitting dumb and motionless as the first streaks of light prised apart the dark crust of the sky.
‘Okay, I’ll try.’
He was startled when she spoke – her words grudgingly defiant, as if she was furious with herself for having changed her mind.
‘But you’re not to talk,’ she ordered him. ‘It’s more scary when you talk.’
‘All right. Hold my hand.’ He kept his own voice calm; tried to reassure her through his firm protective hand-clasp. ‘We’ll just dip our feet in first, to get the feel of the water.’
‘But what about our clothes?’
‘We’ll leave those on – well, all except our shoes and socks.’ He helped her unlace her trainers; pulled off each sock in turn – the bumble-bee socks, he noticed, retrieved from her beloved dog. It, too, had died, in a way, though only since the loss of Rick had he fully understood her misery.
He removed his own shoes; the sand clammy-cool under his bare feet. Then he put his arm round her shoulder, drew her close against his side.
‘All right?’
‘Mm.’
They stepped from pale firm sand into dark and shifting water. She moved with him, unresisting, as if his intensity, his certainty – perhaps his very madness – had finally silenced her objections. Her first violent shudder of cold reverberated through his own body as they took a second step. The water was like a padlock snapped around their legs – cold and shock at once. Though neither said a word. They had left their torches on the shore and had only the wan stare of the moon to guide them, the remote unheeding stars. They were advancing with great caution, as if fearful of being sucked into the thick black slimy mud. There was no knowing what they might tread on; only a frightening sense of stepping into void. He was acutely aware of each part of his body as the cold steel manacles crept up, from ankle to calf to knee. His trouser-legs flapped dankly around his legs, and her jeans must feel the same – waterlogged and leaden. He kept a constant eye on her, experiencing every sensation twice over: her reaction and his. As the water reached her groin she let out a muffled gasp, and he registered the pain himself, a stabbing and relentless pain inching up her stomach. His taut grip on her arm must be hurting her as well, but it was life support, intensive care.
They continued in tense silence. Nothing existed any longer save the stretch of water in front of them – its density, its danger – and the black lid of the sky. The silence was a second lake: vast, engulfing, infinite, and resenting their intrusion. They were churning up the moonlight as they walked; disturbing the dark shadows of the bleak surrounding hills. Time had been suspended, or changed to timeless time; a sense of night perpetual, without boundaries or dawn. It felt late – yet very early – as if life and colour, bird and beast had not yet been created, only darkness and immensity; the blind deaf world still waiting for its spark.
Pippa was clinging to him so tightly they had become one shape, one being – a strange amorphous creature with a single grotesque shadow. He was too numb to feel his individual limbs, but his mind had sharpened and all his senses were heightened, so that he could smell and taste the darkness; seemed to hear his silent footfalls on the soft bed of the lake.
He looked anxiously at Pippa again. The water was lapping at her chest, yet her face was set in a resolute expression and she had uttered no word of complaint.
‘I think I’d better pick you up, Pippa, then you needn’t put your head under – not if you don’t want to.’
She gave the briefest nod. He lifted her awkwardly into his arms, so that her head was higher than his, well out of the water. It was more difficult to walk now. Her body restricted his view, blocked out the light of the moon. Though ironically it was not her bulk which impeded him, but his once lightweight summer clothes: the saturated trousers dragging at his legs; his shirtsleeves obscenely bloated, as if the flesh beneath had swollen. The cold had become a voracious mouth snapping at his chest and stomach, but still not satisfied; the black teeth eating into him, gnawing at his spine. Then, suddenly, the ground shelved steeply and he was floundering shoulder-deep. Pippa gave a cry, which involuntarily he echoed as icy water closed around his neck. It was impossible to stand now. The water was swirling about his legs, lifting his feet off the bottom, compelling him to float.
‘Pippa …’ he spluttered, trying to warn her that he was going to duck under, but the force of the water defeated him, mangling his words into meaningless gasps.
She appeared to understand, however, without the need for words. He felt her arms tighten round his neck; clasped her more securely in response. Then he shut his eyes and took a deep breath in. A rush of icy blackness surged past his lips and lashes; pounded in his ears, deadening all other sound. He continued plummeting down – deeper than it was possible to go, to the bottom of a bottomless lake. And yet still he went on down; back through the decades until he touched his childhood, felt it flinch with pain. He fought the pain, lungs bursting with the effort, chest constricted, heart hammering in fear. He had lost all sense of direction; lost his sight and speech. A blindfold sealed his eyes, a black rock stopped his mouth, and tight iron bands prevented him from breathing. And still darkness succeeded darkness, until, suddenly, he had left the pain behind; passed beyond a barrier where there was neither hate nor fear, and where all resistance was futile. He surrendered to the darkness, accepted it, embraced it; let himself be powerless: submerged, negated, drowned.
‘Daniel! Come back.’
A voice was summoning him. He climbed towards the sound, gasping and struggling into life: a puny infant being born into the present. The voice rang out again, frightened but insistent, and much closer to him now.
‘You were down so long! I was terrified. I thought you must have drowned.’ Pippa was clutching on to his hair, pulling at his shirt-collar – the midwife tugging him wet and slimy into existence. He wanted to respond, to tell her that he had drowned, but he needed every shred of strength just to fight for his next breath. There was a fierce pain in his chest, and his stinging eyes had reduced his vision to a grey and flickering blur. He kept shaking his head and blinking, until Pippa’s face jolted into focus. Water streamed from her hair, tiny droplets glistened on her lashes, and she was snatching gulps of air with the same urgency as he was. So she, too, had gone under. Or had he dragged her with him? Either way, they had both been down together; had both returned.
He positioned her more firmly in his arms and began to wade back slowly towards the shore, his clothes moulding themselves to his body, cumbersome and clammy as he laboured through the water beneath the cold breath of the sky.
All at once he stopped. There seemed to be a figure standing on the shore – a familiar figure, watching him – though it was so shadowy and blurred, it could be just a spur of rock silhouetted in the moonlight. Then suddenly, inexplicably, he felt flooding through his own body the motion of the wood-pigeon as it soared into the sky – uplifting and reviving him, as if he too had been released. He stood completely still, overwhelmed by the violence of the feelings: an exhilarating uprush of hope and reassurance.
‘What’s wrong?’ asked Pippa, prodding his shoulder anxiously. ‘Why have we stopped? What are you looking at?’
‘N … nothing.’
The figure was already less distinct. Perhaps he’d only imagined it – a mere trick of the light, which he had clothed with flesh, with meaning. He set Pippa on her feet again. The water was barely knee-deep; no longer any hazard. She was looking at him fearfully, as if he might suggest some new preposterous exploit. He took her hand, chastened by its icy coldness. Was he just deluded: a blind and even dangerous man who had harmed all those around him, including an innocent bird?
Or had the healer come here to tell him Rick was saved?
He made himself wade on, eyes fixed obsessively on the shore. Only the moonlight now – shifting, insubstantial, confusing all certainties, rippling lake and sand alike. And the triumphant wings of the wood-pigeon still shocking through his bod
y.
Copyright
First published in 1994 by Flamingo
This edition published 2012 by Bello an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR Basingstoke and Oxford Associated companies throughout the world
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Copyright © Wendy Perriam, 1994
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