The Water Cure(16)
‘Loud and clear,’ says Llew, smiling at Mother, and then at the rest of us.
Mother claps her hands. ‘Well, now that’s sorted, let’s get on with the day. Girls, I need you. Come with me.’
The men remain inside as we follow her out to the jetty. The air is dry, all moisture burned off by the ferocious sun reflecting off the flat sea. Sweat breaks out immediately on my forehead, the back of my neck. Reaching the far end, Mother holds the pistol up high. We sway with the rhythm of the water under our feet.
‘You remember this,’ she tells us. ‘Well, now is the time for you to learn how to use it.’ She reaches into her pocket. ‘This is a bullet. Look.’ She opens the gun, puts the bullet in, closes it again.
She turns around, pointing out to sea, and aims at nothing. There is a great bang that moves her backwards a little, a spiral of smoke rising, and Sky clutches at Grace. Nothing else happens.
‘If you fire that at somebody, they will die instantly,’ Mother explains calmly. ‘It’s the most effective way to kill a person. Point it at the head, or the chest.’ She rubs her shoulder.
Mother has us all try out the pistol, even Sky, who cries when it knocks her on to the wooden boards of the jetty, but only for a few seconds. I try to keep my arm exactly steady and don’t move my eyes from the middle distance even when the jolt runs through my entire body, much stronger than I expect. We fall quiet, listening out for a sound after the bang, but nothing comes.
When we turn to go back the men are watching us from the shore as if attracted by the noise, and there is something that might be relief on their faces at the sight of us, far away but unharmed.
Later I go out on the boat alone. No sharks nose at the wooden hull. They aren’t interested in me, in my bitter heart and bones. I hope that if they killed my father, the flesh of him made them sick. Muddy seaweed moves on the water’s surface like wet hair. When I’m out a safe distance from the shore I drag my skin against an exposed nail sticking from a plank, leaving a faint red mark that evaporates even as I watch it. King warned me once about lockjaw, rust infecting the blood. This isn’t the way to do what I need.
Instead, I put my palm against a metal joint in the wood, steel that has soaked up the heat. Better, but nowhere near enough. I pull up a netful of writhing silver fish and let them die in the bottom of the boat, watching them as their breathing grows more desperate. Eventually it stops. I know the feeling, I tell them.
Our world is made up of humid air over rough sea, rip tides theoretical and deadly, birds that hew the blue sky with their ominous bodies. The dark frieze of the forest wraps around the edges of our vision, a reassuring bank of oak and coastal pine – names King taught me, as he cut strips of crumbling red bark to hold in my hand. And at the centre our home, glaring at me now from the middle distance, white and huge as a cake. From here it still looks like a house that will save you, that could at least get you partway there.
Many women have banked on that promise and laid themselves down on white linen, shut the blinds against the sun and the air, rested themselves. The years have been long without them. Soothing memories of soft female voices, cool gusts of air from the open windows of the lounge, feet stuttering over floorboards, chairs pulled up into the middle of the ballroom to watch a speech, a therapy. There have never been any men before. Men didn’t need what we offered.
When I return to the shore, the boy child is inspecting the shallows, careful not to get his feet wet. He is poking a stick into the sand, methodically, as if searching for something. His wrists are spindly, his mouth pinched. I keep my distance, turning over pebbles with my feet until something catches my interest: a smooth green jewel or piece of glass, clouded with age. It fits perfectly inside my palm and I slip it into my pocket, because even the unlovable deserve something, because I take my gifts where I can find them.
Higher up on the shore I find a dead bird, black feathers flocked with green. I notice it because of the flies, their sound and movement around it. It’s just on the edge of the tideline, no way of telling if the sea brought it in or it died in our own sky. I keep my distance for a while before deciding to blow the whistle around my neck. Mother and my sisters come quickly, spilling out of the door and over the sand towards me in white and blue cotton. I raise my hands to them.
‘A dead bird,’ I shout. ‘Dead.’
‘Get away from it!’ Mother calls. I don’t need telling twice, backing further away. We stand around it in a wide circle. ‘Fetch the salt, Lia.’
Llew is in the kitchen when I run in, leaning on a stainless-steel counter, eating cornflakes by the handful. He sticks his hand right in, lifts his palm to his mouth and tips his head back. I make a mental note to throw the packet out.
‘What are you doing?’ he asks, mouth full, as I dump the net of fish on the table and turn to pull out the Mason jar of salt from underneath the sink. He puts the packet down, plants his eyes very carefully on me.
‘Nothing,’ I tell him. This isn’t for him. I manage to walk out of the kitchen, but the second I’m away from his gaze I run again. The pebbles fall away from my feet. My skin is too hot.
Mother has collected driftwood and stones and debris. She and my sisters arrange it on top of the bird. Gwil watches from a distance, still holding the stick, but we ignore him.
‘Salt,’ Mother orders. I open the lid for her to scoop her hands in and she does, taking a palmful. Sky looks close to tears by now, Grace bored. They take their own handfuls of salt. They scatter it on the bonfire, and I copy them. Mother draws a matchbox from her pocket and sets the kindling alight. We jump back from the flame. A thin line of smoke rises up.