The Water Cure(34)

‘Where is your mother?’ Sky asks, her back still to us. ‘Where is she?’ She reaches out and shakes a branch, carelessly. Birds crash out into the leaves above them.

‘Why aren’t your men looking after her?’ Grace joins in. ‘Why aren’t you?’

‘You must have left her all alone,’ says Sky.

‘What would she think if she knew?’ says Grace.

Llew walks swiftly in front of them and my sisters start, fall back. He takes Gwil’s arm. His face is tear-stained, trousers only half done up.

‘What have you done to him?’ he asks, voice dangerous. Grace stands her ground.

‘Nothing,’ she says, chin up. ‘We just found him alone in the woods.’ She looks at Gwil. ‘Sneaking around, doing the things that men do.’

Gwil turns away from them, hangs his head. He wipes his eyes with the back of his arm.

‘You leave him alone,’ Llew says.

‘Or else what?’ Grace asks, smiling. But when he takes a step closer to her she moves away from him, despite her bravado.

‘Being cruel to a child. It’s terrible,’ he says. ‘If you were a man I would have hit you without thinking about it.’

‘Good thing I’m not, then,’ Grace says, and his hands rise, but then fall back to his sides.

My sisters and I leave the men among the trees. Both of them are jittery, euphoric. We have survived another thing. And what is a boy if not a hurtable man, a safe version? Something has been proved, something established.

But we are still fragile, and we are not allowed to forget this. In the evening I am woken from a nap by Grace pulling at my hair, slapping me around the face until I raise my hands, until I roll out of the bed, and when I look at her I see how red she is, how hysterical.

‘Mother,’ she says breathlessly, stopping her assault for a second. ‘Mother!’

‘What?’ I ask her, forgetting about my ringing ears. ‘What’s happened?’

‘She’s still gone!’ Grace shouts at me.

Sky runs into the room, clawing at her face and keening until I find some muslin from my drawer and wrap it around her mouth, her throat. It does not still her voice.

It overtakes me then, the fear, and my knees buckle, and I start to scream too. Because suddenly it is real: Mother is gone.

‘She’s not coming back,’ Sky says hoarsely, and Grace slaps her hard – she never hits Sky, we are gentle with her, we are mindful of her – and so then I hit Grace to remind her she is no longer untouchable, she is no better than us. Grace looks at me, raises her hand to her face.

Then, at the doorway, presence felt before seen: the men. They come into the room and I instinctively make to push them out, but let my hands drop before I reach them. We need to stand out on the lawn and let our bodies fall to the ground, or be caught in each other’s arms; we need to push ourselves under the water over and over again.

‘Mother,’ gasps Sky, moving the muffler from where I have wrapped it, wet with her spit and tears. ‘Mother.’

‘Girls,’ says James. He looks taken aback by our force. ‘Please don’t be like this. She’ll be back soon. I know she will be. Maybe even tonight. She must have got caught up in the port. Or stayed for dinner.’

‘How do you know?’ Grace shoots at him. ‘Why should we trust you?’

And he gives the only possible answer. ‘What choice do you have?’

My eyes are drawn as usual to Llew, who looks horrified to see us like this, enough to make me feel ashamed. He refuses to meet my eyes. Gwil is the only one not bothered by our hysterics. He is watching us with an expression of intense interest, with something approaching glee.

‘It’s the same thing over and over,’ Sky says, and she is sobbing openly now. ‘You keep saying the same things, but where is Mother? When will she be back?’ She sits on the floor without warning, as if her knees have given way.

‘Please,’ says James, as if we were hurting him. ‘Come downstairs with us. Let us look after you.’ He moves to comfort Sky, but she shuffles away from him on her hands and knees, leaves him standing with his arms outstretched.

‘Right, enough of this,’ Llew says. He claps, then looks at us expectantly. ‘Come on.’

The fight has gone out of us. After some hesitation, Sky stands up. We follow the men down the stairs, holding hands, united in defeat.

The dining room is a mess, cookbooks and plates, empty bottles and packets strewn around. The men do not live lightly on our territory. I look sideways at Grace, but she doesn’t seem to notice. My hands itch to gather everything into piles, to tip it into the sink and get the water running, but I don’t want to join the men in the kitchen, their voices bright as they jostle verbally with each other. Instead we open the tall doors as wide as they go and crowd on to the sill, feeling the night air cool our faces.

‘Think how angry Mother would have been to see that,’ Grace says, and we all make quick guilty chirrups that are not really laughing. She would hate such a scene. She would have punished us without a second thought.

James comes into the dining room carrying a tray that has three china cups on it. He places it and we watch the steam rise up warily.

‘Cocoa,’ he says. ‘Just powder and water, I’m afraid.’ He makes an apologetic gesture. Llew joins us. Neither of them mentions my sisters tormenting Gwil in the woods.