Into the Water(29)

Older, yes, uglier, gone to seed, but unmistakable. A violent man. I waited for him to turn his eyes to me. I thought that if he did, one of two things would happen: I would cry or I would lunge at him. I waited, but he wasn’t looking at me. He was looking at Lena, watching her intently. My liquid insides turned to ice.

I followed blindly, pushing people out of my way. He stood to one side, his eyes still trained on Lena. He was watching her take off her shoes. Men watch girls who look like Lena in all sorts of ways: desire, hunger, distaste. I couldn’t see his eyes, but I didn’t need to. I knew what was in them.

I started towards him, a noise rising in my throat. People were looking at me, with pity or confusion, I didn’t care. I needed to get to him … And then he turned abruptly and walked away. He walked quickly down the pathway and out into the car park, and I stood, breath suddenly rushing to my lungs, adrenaline making my head swim. He climbed into a large green car, and was gone.

‘Jules? Are you all right?’ DS Morgan appeared at my side and placed a hand on my arm.

‘Did you see that man?’ I asked her. ‘Did you see him?’

‘Which man?’ she said, looking around her. ‘Who?’

‘He’s a violent man,’ I said.

She looked alarmed. ‘Where, Jules? Did someone do something … say something to you?’

‘No, I … no.’

‘Which man, Jules? Who are you talking about?’

My tongue was tied in reeds and my mouth was full of mud. I wanted to tell her, I wanted to say, I remember him. I know what he’s capable of.

‘Who did you see?’ she asked me.

‘Robbie,’ I said his name at last. ‘Robbie Cannon.’





AUGUST 1993





Jules


I’D FORGOTTEN. BEFORE the football game, something else happened. I was sitting on my towel, reading my book, no one else yet around, and then you came. You and Robbie. You didn’t see me under the trees, you ran into the water with him after you, and you swam and splashed and kissed. He took your hand and pulled you to the water’s edge, he lay on top of you, pushed your shoulders down, arched his back and looked up. And saw me, watching. And smiled.

Later that afternoon, I returned to the house alone. I took off the gingham bathing suit and the blue shorts and left them soaking in cold water in the sink. I ran myself a bath and climbed in and sank down and thought, I will never be rid of it, all this awful flesh.

A big girl. A bruiser. Legs to kickstart a 747. She could play front row for England.

Too big for the spaces I inhabited, always overflowing. I took up too much room. I sank down into the bath and the water rose. Eureka.

Back in my room, I climbed under the bedcovers and lay there, suffocating with misery, self-pity mingled with guilt, because my mother lay in bed in the very next room and she was dying of breast cancer and all I could think about was how much I didn’t want to go on, didn’t want to live like this.

I fell asleep.

My father woke me. He had to take my mother to the hospital for more tests, and they were going to stay the night in town because it would be an early start. There was some supper in the oven, he said, I was to help myself.

Nel was at home, I knew, because I could hear her music in the room next door. After a while, the music stopped, and then I could hear voices, low and then louder, and other noises too, moaning, grunting, a sharp intake of breath. I got out of bed, got dressed and went out into the corridor. The light was on, the door to Nel’s room slightly ajar. It was darker in there, but I could hear her, she was saying something, she was saying his name.

Barely daring to breathe, I took a step closer. Through the crack in the door I could make out their shapes moving in the darkness. I couldn’t bring myself to look away, I watched until I heard him make a loud, animal noise. Then he started laughing and I knew that they were finished.

Downstairs, all the lights were on. I walked around turning them off, then wandered into the kitchen and opened the fridge. I stared at its contents and out of the corner of my eye noticed a bottle of vodka, opened, half full, on the counter. I copied what I’d seen Nel do: I poured myself half a glass of orange juice and topped it up with vodka, and then, steeling myself for the nasty, bitter alcoholic taste I’d experienced from trying wine and beer, I took a sip, and found that it was sweet, not bitter at all.

I finished the drink and poured another. I enjoyed the physical sensation, the warmth spreading from my stomach into my chest, my blood heating up, my whole body loosening, that afternoon’s misery ebbing away.

I went into the living room and looked out at the river, a slick black snake running underneath the house. It was surprising to me, how suddenly I could see what I hadn’t before – that the problem of me was not insurmountable at all. I had a sudden moment of clarity: I didn’t have to be fixed, I could be fluid. Like the river. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so difficult, after all. Wasn’t it possible, to starve myself, to move more (in secret, when no one was watching)? To be transformed, caterpillar into butterfly, to become a different person, unrecognizable, so that the ugly, bleeding girl would be forgotten? I would be made new.

I went back to the kitchen to get some more to drink.

I heard footsteps upstairs, padding along the landing and then coming down the stairs. I slipped back into the living room, turned off the lamp and crouched in the darkness on the window seat, my feet pulled up beneath me.