The Water Cure(13)
The boy sits down abruptly on the sand, as if his legs have given way. The older one places a hand on his soft head.
In the time since King, we have not rigged a single trap. In the time since King, we have let the patrols slip. We have not killed the animals that could be harbouring toxins. We have become softer already, worn by the burden of vigilance. But Mother is not hasty. She knows all about the lies and exhortations of men.
‘We need time,’ she tells them. ‘Until then, you stay here. Where we can see you.’
The dark-haired one stares at her. ‘Where will we shelter?’
Mother shrugs. ‘The storm is over.’
‘Could we please have some water?’ asks the older man.
Mother gestures at the sea. ‘Knock yourself out.’
‘Are we going to let them die, then?’ Grace asks with rare interest when we are back in the house, sitting at the table for breakfast as if nothing has happened. Mother locks the dining-room doors, and the kitchen door, normally open at all times. We’ll see them if they walk towards the moorings, but neither boat is big enough to hold three men. The remaining motorboat, gleaming white and red, will carry two at most. The rowing boat takes on water and is for short journeys only.
‘Let me think, Grace,’ Mother says.
‘Maybe they are friends of King,’ Grace continues, ignoring her. ‘Maybe they have come to pay their respects.’
Mother puts her hand to her head; the stress of it all has given her a migraine. The sick voltage of the pain drifts from her left eye over the entire side of her body, and though she would usually want to be alone she insists now that we all stay together until it leaves her. We sit in her room for hours with the curtains closed, checking periodically on the men from the window, holding our breath throughout the plush mid-afternoon dark. Grace puts a wet cloth on Mother’s forehead. When she has passed out for good, the three of us watch the men from her bathroom window, together. The dark-haired one is knee-deep in the water, shirtless, his back to us. It must be very hot now. The small one is lying on the sand like something that has been spat out. The older one has his knees to his chest, and like the child he is not moving.
We stand guard in shifts through the night. When it is my turn I walk from room to room on the ground floor, exhilarated. My mouth is dry. In the kitchen I am sitting on the tiles, black diamonds against terracotta, when the knocking starts, the shadow of a man at the door leading into the garden.
It is the dark-haired one and the child. They watch me, blurred, through the glass. The boy is crying again, his face alien and liquid, and the man mouths a word at me, which I realize is Please. I am not used to being offered this word. It is a spell, a weakness. I am moved; I let them in.
It is just a step over the threshold, the matter of a few inches, outside versus in. The man doesn’t hesitate, pushing the child in one fluid motion as if afraid I will change my mind, which I could, which I should, and then both of them straighten up and look at me, making direct, unprotected eye contact with me for the first time, and their eyes are shadowed holes in their heads, containing something that I cannot comprehend.
‘We just want water,’ the dark-haired man says, quietly and urgently. ‘Maybe some food, if you have it. Then we’ll go.’
I turn my back to them and fill one glass, then another, at the sink. The proximity of their forbidden bodies has a gravitational pull. They drain the glasses and I fill them again. I find a milk bottle and fill that too. The dried fruit I was going to eat – figs from the garden, splitting hearts laid out on trays in the attic to shrivel and crystallize – I hand out without touching their skin. And then they do go, they are out of the door without looking back, and I step out after them, I am watching, I am still standing guard.
Mother is renewed in the morning, post-migraine. Everything smells better; she asks for bread and butter, for apples and tea. A vision came to her in the night. It was King, and he told her to show deep kindness for now and for always. They were swimming in the pool, meeting underwater in the middle of it. Mother woke up before they could touch. She cries a little as she tells us about it, a dab of water under her eye.
‘You mean you had a dream,’ Grace says.
‘You can’t swim,’ adds Sky.
‘You are both cruel,’ says Mother. She splits the skin from an apple slice with her thumbnail, peels it off in one vulturous motion.
We are not supposed to see what she does to the men, but we watch from Grace’s room, which turns out to have a good view. Sky and I stay ducked down at the window, our hair all in our faces and mouths. Grace keeps up a running commentary, her voice distant.
‘She is making them take off all their clothes,’ she says.
We strain our eyes to look. There the men are, pulling off their T-shirts and jeans. Mother gestures. She is holding King’s pistol up to them. They take their underwear off too. Their skin is striped with different colours, like ours, but that is the only thing we seem to share. I am grimly fascinated. Grace makes a small sound of disgust.
‘She is checking their clothes and rucksack for weapons,’ she continues. Sure enough, the men have backed away and Mother is lifting their limp garments, shaking them with great vigour and letting them drop.
‘She is pointing the gun at them again,’ Grace says. I wish she would be quiet. We can all see Mother after all, her arm raised, clearly right up close to them now. They try to shield themselves with their hands but she must have instructed them to stop that, to press their arms close to their sides, their bodies exposed.