Into the Water(15)

Part of me is gone, and I wasn’t even allowed to see her. I wasn’t allowed to squeeze her hand or kiss her goodbye or tell her how sorry I am.





Jules


I DIDN’T FOLLOW. I didn’t actually want to catch up with Lena. I didn’t know what I wanted. So I just stood there, on the front steps, my hands rubbing against my upper arms, my eyes gradually growing accustomed to the gathering dusk.

I knew what I didn’t want: I didn’t want to confront her, didn’t want to hear any more. My fault? How could this be my fault? If you were unhappy, you never told me. If you had told me that, I would have listened. In my head, you laughed. OK, but if you’d told me you’d stopped swimming, Nel, then I would have known something was wrong. Swimming was essential to your sanity, that’s what you told me; without it, you fell apart. Nothing kept you out of the water, just like nothing could draw me into it.

Except that something did. Something must have done.

I felt suddenly ravenous, had a violent urge to be sated, somehow. I went back inside and served myself a bowl of Bolognese, and then another, and a third. I ate and ate and then, disgusted with myself, I went upstairs.

On my knees in the bathroom, I left the light off. A habit long abandoned but so old it felt almost like comfort, I hunched over in the dark, the blood vessels in my face strained to bursting point, my eyes streaming as I purged. When I felt there was nothing left, I stood and flushed, then splashed water on my face, avoiding my own gaze in the mirror only to have it fall on the reflection of the bathtub behind me.

I have not sat immersed in water for more than twenty years. For weeks after my near-drowning, I found it difficult to wash properly at all. When I began to smell, my mother had to force me under the shower head and hold me there.

I closed my eyes and splashed my face again. I heard a car slowing in the lane outside, my heart rate rising as it did, and then falling once more as the car sped off. ‘No one is coming,’ I said out loud. ‘There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

Lena hadn’t returned, yet I had no idea where to look for her in this town, at once familiar and foreign. I went to bed but didn’t sleep. Each time I closed my eyes I saw your face, blue and pale, your lips lavender, and in my imagination they drew back over your gums and even though your mouth was full of blood, you smiled.

‘Stop it, Nel.’ I was speaking out loud again, like a madwoman. ‘Just stop it.’

I listened for your reply and all I got was silence; silence broken by the sound of the water, the noise of the house moving, shifting and creaking as the river pushed past. In the dark, I fumbled for my phone on the bedside table and dialled into my voicemail. You have no new messages, the electronic voice told me, and seven saved messages.

The most recent one came last Tuesday, less than a week before you died, at one thirty in the morning.

Julia, it’s me. I need you to call me back. Please, Julia. It’s important. I need you to call me, as soon as you can, all right? I … uh … it’s important. OK. Bye.

I pressed 1 to repeat the message, again and again. I listened to your voice, not just the huskiness, the faint but irritating mid-Atlanticism of the pronunciation, I listened to you. What were you trying to tell me?

You left the message in the middle of the night and I picked it up in the early hours of the morning, rolling over in bed to see the tell-tale white flash on my phone. I listened to your first three words, Julia, it’s me, and hung up. I was tired and I was feeling low and I didn’t want to hear your voice. I listened to the rest of it later. I didn’t find it strange and I didn’t find it particularly intriguing. It’s the sort of thing you do: leave cryptic messages in order to pique my interest. You’ve been doing it for years, and then when you call again, a month or two later, I realize that there was no crisis, no mystery, no big event. You were just trying to get my attention. It was a game.

Wasn’t it?

I listened to the message, over and over, and now that I was hearing it properly I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before the slight breathlessness of your delivery, the uncharacteristic softness of your speech, hesitant, faltering.

You were afraid.

What were you afraid of? Who were you afraid of? The people in this village, the ones who stop and stare but offer no condolences, the ones who bring no food, send no flowers? It doesn’t seem, Nel, that you are much missed. Or maybe you were afraid of your strange, cold, angry daughter, who doesn’t weep for you, who insists that you killed yourself, without evidence, without reason.

I got out of bed and crept next door to your bedroom. I felt suddenly childlike. I used to do this – creep next door – when my parents slept here, when I was afraid at night, when I’d had nightmares after listening to one of your stories. I pushed the door open and slipped inside.

The room felt stuffy, warm, and the sight of your unmade bed brought me suddenly to tears.

I perched on the edge of it, picked up your pillow, crisp slate-grey linen with blood-red edging, and held it against me. I had the clearest memory of the two of us coming in here on Mum’s birthday. We’d made breakfast for her, she was ill then and we were making an effort, trying to get along. Those truces never lasted long: you tired of having me around, I never failed to lose your attention. I’d drift back to Mum’s side and you would watch through narrowed eyes, contemptuous and hurt at the same time.