The Water Cure(31)

‘What’s it for?’ she asks again.

‘For praying,’ James says. ‘For protection. You girls pray, don’t you?’ He smiles quickly, uncertain.

‘We do,’ says Grace.

‘We could all pray now. Together,’ he says. ‘If you like.’

‘No, thanks,’ I say.

‘No,’ says Grace. ‘But you can stay here for a while with us.’

We shuffle up to make room for him. James seems uncomfortable. We fix our eyes upon him. For once, we have the upper hand definitively. I can feel it in my chest. We could do things to hurt him. He might not fight back; he might not know how to protect himself against us. Some of the higher waves send a gentle spray up on to our skin.

‘Is Mother back yet?’ Sky asks him.

‘No,’ James tells her. ‘It’s just a matter of time, though. She’ll arrive tomorrow, I expect.’

Sky slumps against Grace, disappointed. Grace kisses her on the forehead, smooths back her hair.

‘The journey can take a few days, with King.’ She pauses. ‘Took a few days. So it’s all right. No cause for panic.’

James nods.

We fall silent at the sight of a shooting star above us. I follow it with my eyes until it winks out of view, long past the point where it interests everyone else. One star among a million; a moon refracted in its own honey, plumed by dust. It is so far away, but I want to reach into the sky and pull it down regardless. I want to hold it in my hands, to break it apart and make it mine.

The closest I ever got to one of the damaged women was sitting in the sauna, a long time ago, back in the days when it still worked. I couldn’t have been older than ten, eleven. It was rare to be left unsupervised with one of them. It could not have been an accident. She shuffled around, coughing. Like most of the women, her body seemed run-down, a creature unable to flourish. I watched her very carefully, the way I would have watched something that had limped out from the forest. I was over-warm, but she used her hands to scoop water on to the heated element with a shiver. My healthy child’s body sweated with ease. Occasionally she let out a faint moan or cry. I pretended not to hear.

What must it be like, to live in a world that wants to kill you? Where every breath is an affront? I should have asked her that day about how it felt. Occasionally she still pressed muslin to her mouth, but there was no blood that I could see. Her painful eyes, when they fixed on me, made me nervous.

That evening, we all gathered in the ballroom. One of the other women had been deemed ready for the water cure, her body practised and open. King sat on a chair pushed to the wall, behind the piano, which made a physical barrier between him and the women. There were four or five of them, most of whom had stopped flinching at the sight of him, but he was chivalrous about keeping his distance.

Mother entered the room after the rest of us were all seated. She went straight to the woman and placed a hand on her shoulder, a signal for her to rise, and brought her to the front. The large curing basin waited there, full of water, the ever-present jar of salt on the floor next to it. Mother filled both hands with the salt and sprinkled it on the surface in a spiral pattern, her movements graceful. More salted and viscous than the sea, something closer to our own blood. The woman kneeled down with difficulty and the gathered fabric of her blue gown sighed. Mother clasped her hands and put them on the back of the woman’s neck as she slowly pressed her face into the water. All the lamps along the wall were blazing.

Time passed and passed. The woman’s body was compliant at first, but soon her own hands, pressed to the floor, began to twitch, then flail. She was trying to push herself up. The water rose over the sides of the basin as the woman struggled, soaking the front of Mother’s dress. Mother did not react. We waited, our breath caught in our mouths. And then, as always, just past the point when we were sure it would be over, she was pulled up, strawberry-flushed and gasping. She reeled almost over to the floor, supported at the last minute by Mother’s arms. Mother wrapped a small white towel around her shoulders, as tenderly as if she were one of my sisters.

The cured woman stood and the others got to their feet and clapped fervently. And we, the sisters at the back, clapped too. Our father just watched, still seated, understanding that the atmosphere did not belong to him. That edge of hysteria, the sense of being saved. The woman cried as she came back to her seat, the towel trailing in her hand. It could have been joy, or shock, or both. I wonder now if she felt the difference already. If somewhere within her there lived a kernel of new strength, and whether this strength would mark her out visibly on the mainland or whether she would just live with the knowledge of it inside her, perfect and luminous.

I knew so little at the time of what she had endured, that damaged woman, though I discovered it all much later from the Welcome Book. Why didn’t the men do anything? I wondered, when I finally knew the truth. Why didn’t they make things easier? But back then, watching her walk away from the curing water of the basin, I didn’t know anything about power, or love, or taking what you can just because you can. Why should I, it wasn’t something that had been laid out for me yet, it wasn’t necessary information. ‘Sometimes it’s better not to know,’ said Mother. At the time, that was good enough for me.





Stupid to meet a stranger but I was still convinced by the intrinsic goodness of people, I was so innocent, and I had not been exposed to the world very much. I didn’t understand how rapidly things had changed, how all that had been needed was permission for everything to go to shit, and that permission had been granted. I didn’t know that there was no longer any need for the men to hold their bodies in check or to carry on the lie that we mattered.