The Water Cure(33)

When James goes inside for a glass of water, Llew puts out his hand to me, closes it around my forearm. The air is bone-dry, heat catching in my throat. He kisses me open-mouthed with his sunglasses still on, sunglasses I recognize as King’s, then jumps into the pool. I follow him blindly. Under the sun-warmed water I turn somersaults, over and over and over. Llew holds me under by my legs and I do not struggle to get to the surface, I leave my body weightless and inert, thinking, Do what you want do what you want do what you want.

There is a commotion at the surface as I lie suspended, joyful. Llew is thrashing at the water. He lifts me up in his arms and I respond immediately, wrapping my own around his neck, but when I break the surface he is panicked. James is standing on the side of the pool, staring.

‘I thought there was something wrong,’ Llew shouts, letting go of me. ‘Why did you do that? I thought I had drowned you.’ He stands up in the water, leans over me. His voice becomes louder. ‘Do you know what that looked like? Was that some sort of joke?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say. I forgot myself. It was peaceful, to be held under by him like that. Unchangeable stasis, the light filtering through.

‘Calm down, Llew,’ James says. ‘There’s no harm done, is there?’

Llew falls back, lets himself sink up to his neck in the water. ‘Don’t ever pull a stunt like that again,’ he says to me.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say to him, climbing out of the water. I do not like the new way he is looking at me, as if I have revealed something about myself it would have been better to keep hidden.

Before long, James falls asleep in the sun, his arm flung across his face to shade him. I watch the movement of his whistling breathing, his reddening skin.

‘Let’s go to the forest again,’ Llew says in a stage whisper. He has forgiven me and I am stupidly grateful. He throws one of my sandals at me and I almost catch it, almost fall over as I put it on. ‘Quickly!’ He glances at James. ‘Before the old fucker wakes up.’

As we walk down the pebbled ground towards the forest, I look back to search for Grace’s face at a window, but I would not be able to see her anyway: the glass reflects the glare outwards and there are too many panes to count. She could be behind any one of them.

In the forest itself we head for the border until we are sure we can’t be seen. We are uncomfortably close to it, for me at least, but I have to trust him to protect me, something that’s getting easier all the time. Llew has brought his towel but the twigs and rocks stick through. I am on my hands and knees and I know that bruises will come up almost immediately, that I am thin-skinned and woundable, and somewhere within me I like this, the proof, the map of this new joy. It is hard to keep my balance, the alcohol affecting how the forest holds itself, how I hold myself.

Afterwards, I am very happy. The leaves of the forest murmur around us as though they are happy too. It is good to be in love, to have the whole world on your side. I lie on the towel as Llew walks around nearby, throwing rocks, inspecting leaves. Even in the shade, the breeze, the heat is almost unbearable. It is warmer since their arrival, I know I am not imagining it.

Llew lies down in the shadow next to me, and I move over, rest my head on his stomach. He touches my face absent-mindedly, putting his fingers briefly inside my mouth, cupping them under my chin. I bring up the outside world, and he asks me, bored, what I want to know, but I can’t say out loud, What did it feel like to have a child? Will you have more children? What was it like for you to be young? What does it feel like to have a man’s life, and a man’s body, that solid mass? What are other men like? What does it feel like to go beyond the border? Does the air stretch the skin of your face? Does it damage your body? Do you think about dying too?

‘God, it’s boiling,’ he says. I push myself up on my forearms, purse my lips and blow on to his face. He keeps his eyes shut, moves his lips faintly into a smile, and suddenly I am sick to my stomach.

‘Anything,’ I say.

‘Why do you care so much?’ he asks.

‘I just want to know,’ I say, and my eyes start to water.

‘Are you crying?’ he asks, without opening his eyes.

‘No,’ I say. ‘I have a headache.’ I lie down so that the water won’t course down my face. Old trick, learned so early I don’t remember when. Perhaps it is a human trick, something I was born with.

‘Don’t cry,’ he says, finally looking at me properly. ‘I hate it when women cry. It’s manipulative.’ He gets to his feet. ‘Go inside and take an aspirin,’ he says, pulling me up too.

‘You want to watch that,’ he adds. ‘You want to take care of yourself better.’ He puts both hands on my shoulders and kisses me briefly on the forehead. And I wonder how much he knows about the effect his body could have on mine, whether he is taking his own precautions.

We are heading back to the house when we hear voices. Just my sisters, but they are making a commotion, the noise dipping and ebbing. Llew looks at me, unsure, but only for a second.

‘They’ll be playing a game,’ I say. We walk into the next clearing.

My sisters are standing in front of something, and they are jeering. It’s darker here, the leaves bunched close together so the light cannot get through. Rocks coated in moss like tongues, leaves fruiting with mould. They don’t hear our approach.