The Water Cure(38)

‘Give me strength,’ she says. ‘Stop acting like such a baby.’

I hand Sky the first glass, salt water, and she makes a face as she sips at it, before unexpectedly swallowing the whole lot. She squeezes her eyes shut. Grace hands her another and she does the same, before turning to the toilet and throwing up. Her hands grip the toilet seat. One of the empty glasses is knocked over by her foot.

‘Enough,’ I tell Grace, who is holding another glass of salt water.

When Sky stops, turning back to us weakly, I hand her a tumbler of the good water. She drinks this with no problem, then a second and third in quick succession, waves away a fourth. We are kinder to her than Mother or King would be, and do not force her to drink it. Instead we clear space on the floor, balancing tumblers on the cistern, the counter, the edge of the bath, the windowsill. She stretches out her body, her face wet. We have done our duty. I walk out and leave my sisters sitting there, the light refracting over and over through the liquid and the glass.

In my own bathroom, later, I inspect all the new bruises that have bloomed on my skin since the men came. I hadn’t noticed them happening at the time, but here they are. Perhaps there is a virus ripening inside my blood. Cells bursting with their own fruitfulness. Love as a protest within my body. Or perhaps it’s just that I am unused to touch, am out of practice. Bodies do not lie. This all acts as proof that he has touched me here, here, here. I pinch the back of my forearm, an unmarked spot, with satisfaction.

I am still there when Llew comes in, without knocking, and catches me looking at myself, at the faint shadows on my arms, my legs, at the patch of gauze halfway up my thigh.

‘Sometimes you terrify me,’ he says. But he is smiling, so it is fine.

If Mother returns, it will mean the end of love. It will mean no more of the long line of him against the sheets, a faded blue towel across his body. He has just showered. There is a small group of moles by his knee that I press my thumb to, a tangle at the nape of his neck in the damp hair.

Limit your exposure to the men, or find the one who doesn’t wish you harm. I overheard that once, passed from one damaged woman to another, an urgent, murmured conversation I was not supposed to witness. It’s the men who don’t even know themselves that wish you harm – those are the most dangerous ones. They will have you cower in the name of love, and feel sentimental about it. They’re the ones who hate women the most.

We have been so careful. We have been so good. But this time, when he slips out of the door as usual, he pauses for a second. ‘Hello, Grace,’ he says.

‘Hello,’ I hear her say, voice sour.

‘How’s it going?’ he asks. I shut the door quickly, stay close to it.

‘Fine,’ she replies. ‘Just fine.’

I hear his footsteps disappear and think we may have got away with it, but soon there is a knock. I do not let my body move. Grace tells me, ‘I know you’re in there, I know it, I know it,’ her voice the hiss of air escaping a balloon, but I refuse to respond.

‘I heard you,’ she says. ‘I wasn’t fucking born yesterday.’

No, I mouth to the white-painted wood, knotted like a muscle. Please. My eyes fill with shameful water.

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ my sister asks me as I wait there. She tells me my body is now in grave danger. ‘And your thoughts,’ she says. ‘Don’t they feel jumbled? Don’t they feel diseased?’

Yes, they do, but then what’s new, I long to hiss back. Will you deny me even this happiness? But I don’t need to ask to know that she would.

A change of tack. Her voice becomes mournful. She points out that I could be bringing something terrible upon us.

‘Have you noticed signs? You might be contagious.’

I worry a loose tooth in the bottom of my jaw with my tongue.

‘Let me in,’ she asks. ‘I can take your temperature.’ It is a trick.

‘Go away,’ I whisper. I sit on the carpet with my back to the door and look towards the bed, the sheets a mess. They might even still be warm. I want to wrap them around myself until I suffocate.

In the end she goes, but not before slamming her fist into the door and then crying at the pain in her hand, which is also my fault, and telling me that she’s disappointed in me, that there’s a real chance I am failing them.

‘You’re a selfish bitch,’ she says finally. Her footsteps move down the corridor, unhurried. We do not use that word on each other. I would rather she had hit me, got me right in the bottom of the stomach, much rather that than this word.

I hawk up phlegm and spit in the bathroom, brush my teeth frantically, repent repent repent, but already I know there is no staying away from him, I am a helpless animal, I am dead even as I walk.

I run away from the house, down the beach, the entire length of it, and nobody is around to see me – maybe they are watching from the windows but I don’t care, I cannot care. My feet are bare and throw the sand up with every step. Forcing myself to go faster, I threaten to turn over on my ankle but right myself and sprint harder as penance, harder. The pain grows in my chest but it is only my lungs, an honest pain, not the treacherous one in my heart. I wait for the exhilaration but it doesn’t come.

Near the rock pools I finally let myself stop. When I catch my breath, I stand as close as I dare to the ocean and scream out across it, holding the shapeless call until my voice peters out. The sound does not come back to meet me. My hand goes to my throat and I feel the hum of arterial blood somewhere above the tenderness of my voicebox.