by Tim Pears
The two adults concentrated hard on their letters, with occasional glances at the board, and placed the tiles into words. The girl thought that there must be many things they would like to say – about the woman who was wife and sister to them, their respective loyalties, fears, resentments – and perhaps, she fancied, this game was in fact a search for words to express in code what they could not share in normal speech.
‘My God has smote me,’ the girl’s mother said. ‘Struck me down. Forsaken me.’ It was morning. Stella had delivered a ripe fig, then sat on the deep windowsill. Her father had come in shortly after.
‘He’s smitten,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘He wants you with Him.’
‘You think this is funny? You’re making fun of me? My illness an excuse for a pun.’
‘Cancer is what, your God now? Is that where we are?’
The girl’s mother closed her eyes and smiled, faintly. The pallor of her skin was different today. It was thinner than ever, thin like the page of a Bible. ‘Perhaps She is.’
‘The worse your God treats you, the deeper your faith in Him. Her. Whatever,’ the girl’s father mused. He sat on the edge of the bed holding his wife’s bony hand.
‘It’s a punishment,’ she said.
‘What on earth for? What are you doing wrong? Raising a loving family? Doing good work? What kind of merciful God would punish that?’
‘Have you forgotten the Old Testament?’ The girl’s mother still spoke with her eyes closed. Opening her eyelids was too uncomfortable. ‘The one we ignored. The wrathful God. I failed to praise Her. Obey Her.’
The girl’s father stroked his wife’s hand.
‘I cannot wait to shed this rotten body. To move through that tunnel towards the light. After that, who knows?’
‘Indeed.’
The girl’s mother did not open her eyes, but raising her weak voice she said, ‘Come over here.’
Stella uncrossed her legs and slid off the sill and moved around the bed to stand beside her father. Her mother opened her eyes and saw the girl and said, ‘You know your father is a heathen, Stella. Don’t judge him too harshly. He thinks I might be recycled as carbon atoms, if I’m lucky. You take what he says with a pinch of salt and make up your own mind.’
The effort of speech was plain to see. Her mother closed her eyes. ‘Look after each other,’ she said.
‘What about Sol?’ Stella asked.
‘He’ll look after himself. Sol’s sweet selfishness. He’ll be all right.’
The girl watched the group file down the steep path towards her. There were only five of them today. Stella saw that the fat boy was not among them, and felt responsibility, guilt, triumph. When they came wading into the sea she saw that they each carried something with them. They greeted her. The tall girl raised her goggles to her head, and put the snorkel in her mouth, distorting her lips like a gumshield, as if about to enter combat underwater. Then she dived, and the others followed likewise. The girl swam after them, tracking their snorkels, but though the water was clear it rippled in the sun and the salt irritated her eyes and all she could really see was their blurred limbs swimming away from her. She climbed out on to the diving rock. Each time one of them came up to the surface, to let water out of their goggles or snorkel, they were a little further away, working along the rocks, until they’d all disappeared.
Stella dived from the rock and climbed back out and dived again, but it was no fun alone, so she sat back down and waited. Then a head bobbed up in front of her. The handsome boy climbed out. He removed his goggles and handed them to Stella, explaining how they worked. His instructions were incomprehensible but it didn’t matter, she knew how to snorkel. She nodded gratefully. In the water she strapped them on and put the snorkel in her mouth. It tasted of salt and rubber. Stella dipped underwater and in so doing crossed from one realm of existence into a wholly different one, that felt like it had more dimensions. Fish of many colours darted here and there. A crab scuttled beneath a rock. Shrimps bobbed in their element. She saw this underworld vision with magical clarity and floated in it, enthralled.
Time altered in this new dimension, but whether it contracted or expanded Stella could not tell. She turned around reluctantly and snorkelled back the way she’d come. When she reached the rock and lifted her head and removed the goggles, she saw to her surprise that the boy was still alone. He jumped in and floated beside her. Stella gave him the goggles but he reached out and placed them on the rock and came back to her. She felt his arms under the water encircle her waist and draw her to him, then he was kissing her. His tongue was like a tentacle of an octopus in her mouth. He took hold of her hand and placed it on some hard object. It took her a moment to realise what it was. Before she could take her hand away he had wrapped his own hand tightly around hers and was jerking it up and down his penis. She pulled her mouth away from his and opened her eyes. The handsome boy’s eyes were closed, then he opened them and stared at her with a look of ferocity. He moaned, then threw his fine head back, gasping. He let go of her and floated free. She looked down and saw a thin pale trail of what she understood was semen rise through the water, and turned and swam to the shore.
Soon the others came out, the handsome boy with them. There were only four. One of the girls was missing. Had she left and gone home earlier? Was she still snorkelling, oblivious to the passing of time? Had she drowned? Stella had no idea. She watched them go, waiting until they had reached the top of the cliff and disappeared before she followed.
At supper that evening they ate a small fish, whitebait or sardine or something; they must have consumed a hundred between them, it was carnage at the dinner table. The girl’s mother and aunt reminisced.
‘Do you remember, Jiffie, the owners of this house warning us to keep away from that unsafe wreck?’
‘And the next day Mummy swam out to it.’
‘She climbed on to it and waved.’
‘Daddy was furious.’
‘Did they have one of their arguments?’
‘I’m sure they did.’
‘They must have.’
***
Stella’s mother’s energy crackled and fizzed and then was gone. Her husband and sister helped her to bed. Sol did the washing-up. Stella dried. Bobby cleared the table, put things away.
‘Doesn’t it turn your stomach,’ Sol said, ‘Ma and Jif talking about Granny and Grandpa, calling them Mummy and Daddy?’
Stella laughed. ‘Turn my stomach?’
‘It’s weird, though, isn’t it? When we’re that age, if I say, “Do you remember Mummy did this, Daddy did that,” you can take me out and shoot me like a dog.’
Stella did not know what to say. She had not considered the possibility of remaining in touch with her unpleasant brother throughout her life. A dismal prospect. He surely enjoyed her company no more than she did his.
‘Because I’ll shoot you, Stell, I can tell you that for free.’
‘What with?’ Stella asked.
‘His pistol,’ Bobby said.
Sol grinned. ‘A small silver derringer,’ he said.
The drying-up cloth Stella was using was soaked through. She draped it over a chair and grabbed another.
‘What do you do all day on the beach with Dad?’ Sol asked.
‘I go to a different beach, actually.’
‘Friendly,’ Sol said. ‘Poor Dad. Not that I blame you.’
‘What about you two?’
‘We have a project, don’t we, Bobby?’
Sol’s friend smirked. Stella finished drying the last pan and put it on the table. She hung the towel over a chair and went to her room.
The next day the girl waited on the beach all morning. They did not come until midday. This time there were only three of them. Neither the fat boy nor the handsome boy were there. Nor was the girl who had not left with the others the day before. Her fate remained a mystery.
The tall girl stripped to her black bikini and took St
ella’s hand and led her into the sea. The muscular boy and the smaller girl followed. They swam out and around the rocks, in the opposite direction from the populous bay, further than they had been before. The tall girl climbed out on to a rock. It rose from the water in a gentle slope to a commanding height. The tall girl walked up it. Stella followed. At the top, she peered over the edge and looked down into a well of clear blue water. She could see stones on the sandy floor, how far away – how deep or shallow the chamber was – she had little idea.
The tall girl turned to the other two and spoke to them, and they each stepped to the side of the rock and dived into the well of water. The tall girl said something. Stella turned to her and the girl put a hand behind Stella’s head and grasped her hair. She looked into Stella’s eyes then pulled her towards her and kissed her on the mouth, briefly. Then she let go and said something else, took a deep breath, and dived.
Stella watched the tall girl’s beautiful brown limbs plunge into the water, in a bubbling commotion. There was no sign of the other two. The water settled, and now Stella could see no trace of the tall girl either. She put her hands above her head, palms together, and dived. Even as she plummeted through the air, Stella understood what a terrible mistake she had made.
Once in the water all she could do was confirm that the other swimmers had magically, or infernally, departed. The girl swam around the grey inner walls of the chamber, looking for protrusions or pockets that might serve as a hand- or foothold. There were none. The grey rock was smooth. She could not climb out.
They had to have escaped underwater. Stella took a gulp of air and dived down. Here the rock was darker and dotted with clumps of seaweed, with limpets and shells. She rose to the surface and took in more air, resumed her search. The depth of water, she surmised, was about twice her height. Stella tried to scan the chamber methodically, noting a particular anemone here, a barnacle there, but there were so many.
Stella searched and returned to the surface, treading water, breathing hard, looking up at the sky, circular above the grey walls of her prison. This was a place made to die in. So this would be her time. How odd, she thought, to have come here for her mother’s farewell holiday, and die before her. Then something stirred in her, an anger. A fury. She decided – some element within her decided – that she was damned if she was going to die today. No. She would not.
The girl swam down again, and again. Finally she found the hole, by lucky touch, her foot seemingly entering solid wall encrusted with seaweed, just above the sandy ocean floor. She peered into darkness, and reached in. There was space enough to enter, but why was there no light? Perhaps this was merely a niche and the tunnel out of the chamber remained to be discovered.
Stella rose to the surface, as vertically as she could, and put her hands against the wall to keep her position while getting her breath back. With a lungful of air, she dropped and found the outlet or cavity. Pushing hands and arms ahead of her, Stella eased herself into the opening. Her back touched and scraped against the ceiling, and she imagined the weight of rock above her. It might collapse at this moment and crush her at once and forever, fossilise her bones, mash her into the stone. She was now in utter darkness. Fronds of seaweed slithered through her fingers, or perhaps they were fish. How much longer could she hold her breath?
It was not light, exactly, but Stella realised she could make out vague shapes. Then the tunnel turned to the left and ahead of her was a rough circle, a green watery glimmer. Stella pushed through to it, her lungs burning, and kicked up to the surface, which she broke and opened her mouth and felt all the parts of her body to be mere accessories to lungs that heaved like bellows in the cavern of her torso, as she gulped precious air.
***
At the top of the cliff Stella met her father climbing up from his beach. He smiled from beneath his straw hat. They walked through the waist-high corn.
‘Joining us for lunch today,’ he said. ‘You must be hungry. Been having fun?’
‘I’ve been swimming,’ the girl said. She had only put her shorts on over her bikini, wrapping the arms of her shirt around her waist.
‘Make the most of it,’ her father said. ‘Last day tomorrow.’
‘I’ve had enough of that bay,’ Stella told him.
Jif asked Stella to fetch her mother for the cocktail hour. The girl walked barefoot on the flagstones. She heard her mother speaking, and stood outside the open door.
‘I don’t want them to remember me like this.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ her father said.
‘A skeleton. A monster.’
‘They won’t.’
‘They will.’
‘Darling.’
The girl advanced silently into the doorway. Her father sat on the far side of the bed. He said, ‘Come here,’ and bent forward. Her mother leaned towards him and let him embrace her bony frame in his fleshy bear-hug.
Stella stepped back out of the room, and knocked on the door.
***
They gathered on the terrace. The girl’s father poured drinks. The girl’s mother said that she was hungry, wasn’t that a thing? She looked at Stella, her sunken eyes peering at her daughter. ‘You look like you’ve been here for months, my brown-skinned girl,’ she said. ‘You could pass for a local.’
Sol and Bobby came out. His father asked Sol what they’d like to drink. Sol said they’d love a beer, they deserved one for sure. But first would everyone come and see?
The girl’s father and Jif both moved towards her mother but she said, ‘Stella, would you help me, darling?’
Stella let her mother clutch her arm as they followed Sol around the corner of the house. Her mother was so light. It was as if what was left of her was dry and insubstantial. Her bones were hollow, her skin was transparent, her organs were like dried sponges.
The huge double doors of the barn were open. Bobby stood behind an inflatable float lying on the ground. Bits of rope poked out from beneath it. Sol said, ‘Stell, I need you to be Mum’s stand-in.’
‘Lie-in,’ said Bobby, grinning. He fetched a dusty chair from a corner of the barn.
Sol had his sister lie down on the blow-up lounger. ‘Pa, will you come this side? Jif, go on the other side.’ Bobby returned to the head of the lilo. Sol was at the other end, by Stella’s feet. ‘Now, everyone pick up a handle.’
It became apparent that this referred to loops of rope. The four of them grasped one each.
‘Lift on the count of three,’ Sol said. ‘One. Two. Three.’
The handles were part of a cradle of rope that fit snugly around the lilo. Stella was lifted in the air. Sol led the way as they carried her around the barn, parading her for their mother’s benefit.
‘We made it for you, Ma,’ Sol said. ‘I found all the rope in here. We’re going to carry Ma down to the beach tomorrow,’ he told the others.
Stella felt disappointed when they set her down. Her mother said, ‘Oh, Sol, darling, you’re so clever.’ Her father lifted the lilo to admire the boys’ knotwork. Bobby told him that the rope stretcher referenced fishing nets. Jif said that was very clever, considering they were by the sea.
‘So thoughtful, darling,’ Sol’s mother told him.
In the morning Jif told everyone at breakfast that her sister had had a bad night. They postponed the expedition until the evening. The hours dragged. In the afternoon they packed most of their things, ready for an early taxi to the airport the following morning.
In the early evening they crossed the cornfield. Stella was weighed down with a backpack and a bag containing her mother’s requirements and two bottles of champagne, glasses, candles. She undoubtedly bore the heaviest load. Sol, at his mother’s feet, had a speaker tied over his shoulders, playing music he’d chosen. Or curated, as Bobby put it.
They picked their way carefully down the path, to the accompaniment of ‘Marche pour la cérémonie des Turcs’ by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Stella thought that maybe her brother was some kind of genius, because the
music, in all its pompous beauty, made it seem as if their mother was a dying queen, being conveyed in regal splendour.
‘Slowly,’ said the girl’s father. Her mother grimaced with every shift and lurch.
As they approached the beach they could see that, though it was a warm evening, the heat of the day was gone and there were few people left. The rest gathered their possessions and fled the English arriving in their strange royal procession; they trudged away towards the road at the far end of the beach, where the metalwork of the remaining cars glinted in the low sun.
The girl’s father said, ‘How about here?’ Stella watched them lower her mother carefully to the sand. She put the bags down. Her mother had her eyes closed and lips tight shut. She opened them, and relaxed. ‘Help me up, someone,’ she said.
The girl’s father and brother each held one of her mother’s arms and walked her down to the sea. Jif knelt and removed her sister’s sandals and they walked her into the shallows. They were all gathered around her.
‘I loved the sea,’ she said. ‘Didn’t I, Jiffie?’
‘I’ve never seen it so calm,’ Jif said.
Stella thought her aunt was right. The tide did not seem to be either coming in or going out. There were not even ripples breaking on the shore.
‘“He made the storm be still,”’ her father said, ‘“and the waves of the sea were hushed.”’
‘Would you like us to carry you into the sea, Mum?’ Sol asked.
They walked back up the beach and helped the girl’s mother on to the blow-up mattress, and lifted her once again and walked down to the water. Stella watched them. Apart from footwear, no one had removed any of their clothing. She had her bikini on under her T-shirt and shorts, so she shucked them off and followed the others, who were now in up to their knees and had rested the lilo on the calm ocean. It lifted gently in the almost imperceptible swell. The rope cradle fell loosely away. Sol pulled it from underneath and passed it to Bobby, who carried it out of the sea, the rope sodden and heavy, soaking his clothes.
