Into the Water(13)

And unless you mean it, you said, why do it? Don’t be a tourist. No one likes a tourist.

People can survive the fall, but that doesn’t mean they will. Here you are, after all, and you didn’t dive. You went in feet first and here you are: your legs are broken, your back is broken, you are broken. What does that mean, Nel? Does it mean that you lost your nerve? (Not like you at all.) Could you not bear it, the idea of going in head first, ruining your beautiful face? (You always were very vain.) It doesn’t make sense to me. It’s not like you to do what you said you wouldn’t, to go against yourself.

(Lena said there’s no mystery here, but what does she know?)

I took your hand and it felt alien in mine, not just because it was so cold, but because I didn’t recognize the shape of it, the feel. When did I last hold your hand? Perhaps you reached for mine at Mum’s funeral? I remember turning away from you, turning to Dad. I remember the look on your face. (What did you expect?) My heart turned wooden in my chest, its beat slowed to a mournful drum.

Someone spoke. ‘Sorry, but you’re not supposed to touch her.’

The light buzzed above my head, illuminating your skin, pale and grey against the steel beneath you. I placed my thumb upon your forehead, ran my finger along the side of your face.

‘Please, don’t touch her.’ DS Morgan was standing just behind me. I could hear her breathing, slowly and evenly, above the sound of the buzzing lights.

‘Where are her things?’ I asked. ‘The clothes she was wearing, her jewellery?’

‘They’ll be returned to you,’ DS Morgan said, ‘after Forensics have checked them over.’

‘Was there a bracelet?’ I asked her.

She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, but whatever she was wearing, it’ll be returned to you.’

‘There should be a bracelet,’ I said quietly, looking down at Nel. ‘A silver bracelet with a clasp made of onyx. It belonged to Mum, it was engraved with her initials. SJA. Sarah Jane. She wore it all the time. Mum did. And then you did.’ The detective was staring at me. ‘I mean, she did. I mean Nel did.’

I returned my gaze to you, to your slender wrist, to the place where the onyx clasp would have rested on blue veins. I wanted to touch you again, to feel your skin. I felt sure I could wake you up. I whispered your name and waited for you to quiver, for your eyes to flick open and follow me around the room. I thought perhaps that I should kiss you, if like Sleeping Beauty that might do the trick, and that made me smile because you’d hate that idea. You were never the princess, you were never the passive beauty waiting for a prince, you were something else. You sided with darkness, with the wicked stepmother, the bad fairy, the witch.

I felt the detective’s eyes on me and I pursed my lips to suppress the smile. My eyes were dry and my throat empty, and when I whispered to you there seemed to be no sound at all.

‘What did you want to tell me?’





Lena


IT SHOULD HAVE been me. I am her next of kin, her family. The person who loved her. It should have been me, but they wouldn’t allow me to go. I was left alone, with nothing to do but sit in an empty house and smoke until I ran out of cigarettes. I went to the village shop to get some – the fat woman in there sometimes asks for ID but I knew she wouldn’t today. I was just leaving when I saw those bitches from school – Tanya and Ellie and all that lot – coming down the road towards me.

I felt like I was going to be sick, I just put my head down and turned away and started walking as fast as I could, but they saw me, they called out and they all started running to catch up with me. I didn’t know what they were going to do. Actually when they caught up they all started hugging me and saying how sorry they were and Ellie actually had the gall to cry some fucking fake tears. I let them hang all over me, let them put their arms around me and smooth back my hair. It actually felt good to be touched.

We walked over the bridge – they were talking about going up to the Wards’ cottage to take some pills and go swimming – ‘It would be like a wake, kind of a celebration,’ Tanya said. Fucking idiot. Did she honestly think I felt like getting monged and swimming in that water today? I was trying to think of what to say but then I saw Louise and it was like serendipity and I could just walk away from them without saying anything and there was nothing they could do.

At first I thought she hadn’t heard me but when I caught up with her I could see she was crying and she didn’t want to be near me. I grabbed hold of her. I don’t know why, but I just wanted her to not walk away, to not leave me there with those vulture bitches watching and pretending to be sad and all the while enjoying the fucking drama. She was trying to pull away, prising my fingers away one at a time, and she was saying, ‘I’m sorry, Lena, I can’t talk to you now. I can’t talk to you.’

I wanted to say something to her, like: You lost your daughter and I lost my mother. Doesn’t that make us even? Can’t you just forgive me now?

I didn’t, though, and then that clueless policewoman came along and tried to make out we were arguing, so I told her where to go, and I walked home alone.

I thought Julia would be back by the time I came home. How long would it take, really, to go to the morgue and watch them pull the sheet back and say, yes, that’s her? It’s not as though Julia would have wanted to sit with her, to hold her hand, to comfort her, like I would have done.