The Water Cure(40)

‘You don’t think this is funny?’ Llew asks me. ‘Come on.’ He looks down at himself. ‘Look at me! It must have belonged to a guest. A real character.’

The suit flatters him. I can picture him standing with his feet firmly planted on the wood of the terrace, a softer time. Looking out to sea, waiting for something, analysing the signs of the waves. Oh, this man that I love.

‘It is funny,’ I say eventually.

If not the protective suit, with its years of weathering, then what could Mother have worn? Her whole body wrapped in muslin so she would be padded should she fall, bolts of it stuffed into her mouth? I don’t want to think about it.

We go together to my room without discussing it, the routine of the past days, but when I lift up my dress he barely sees me, instead falling heavy on to the bed, the suit now forgotten. He becomes difficult again.

‘I don’t know if I want to,’ he tells me.

‘Why not?’ I ask.

‘I just don’t feel like it,’ he says.

‘Please,’ I say, angry all at once, scared somewhere underneath it.

‘Oh, Lia,’ he says, misinterpreting me, reaching out to cup my chin in his palm. ‘Don’t. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

It works, anyway. He hesitates at times, as if wondering whether he is going too far.

‘Keep going,’ I say to him during those pauses – once, twice, three times – and so he does, his hand tight around my throat.

Afterwards, I feel dizzy. My body is tied in a knot, heart pushed up to my throat. When I kneel at the toilet, nothing comes up. He sits on the edge of the bathtub, watching me retch.

‘Don’t go getting pregnant on me,’ he says. He sounds nervous.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘What do you mean, what?’ he says.

‘Nothing,’ I say, standing up slowly.

‘You’re taking precautions, aren’t you?’ he asks.

I think of the water gulped in pints, the wounds on my legs, the hot water, the showers. ‘Yes,’ I say, overcome with tenderness suddenly at this proof of his care for me.

‘All right,’ he says. ‘Well, we probably should have discussed this earlier. But if you’re being careful.’ He scratches at the back of his neck.

My vision strobes, a split second of darkness. I am still dizzy, still confused, unwilling to put the pieces together.

‘I’m going to lie down,’ I tell him. I hope he will stay with me, but he turns off the light and closes the door as he leaves, no kiss, just one small gesture of the hand.

I remember Mother keening on the floor of the kitchen, King still alive then. Her arms were around her knees; her body was in the foetal position. The moonlight made her hair look like water, spilling out from its ties. And me, mute, standing there thinking, Use a blanket, use anything, why are you lying down there when there is a warm bed somewhere above you, when there are people with their arms open for you? Anger too, because she was loved. Mother, there is really no need. But now I can understand why you would lie down there, why you would seek out a place that is hard and cold.

It’s James, not Llew, who hovers above me when I wake. I have slept until dinner time. ‘I was sent to get you. Come on,’ he says. The air is thick with my sleep, curtains closed. I see him take in the disorder, the things strewn around.

‘Where’s Llew?’ I ask, single-minded.

‘Downstairs, doing something or other,’ he says. ‘He said you were feeling poorly earlier. Are you still dizzy?’

I look into his concerned face and nod.

‘Keep hold of me for a second, then,’ he says. I grasp his arm as I rise up. ‘Ah. You need to put some clothes on though,’ he adds, averting his eyes, and I realize I am just in my underwear, that I pulled off my clothes somewhere in the dead expanse of afternoon. I don’t care particularly about him seeing me like this. The damage has long been done. He locates my dress on the floor, a puddle of linen.

‘Turn around and put your arms up,’ he tells me. ‘I won’t look.’

The cool fabric passes over my head, down my body. I wonder for a second if I want him to touch me, or if it’s just that I want to be touched by anyone. When he entered the room, for a few seconds in the gloaming light he could have been Llew. I am used to compromises.

‘That’s better,’ he says, doing it up at the neck. ‘You’re decent now. Fit for company.’ He gives me a kind pat on the shoulder.

‘When will Mother be back?’ Sky asks Grace at dinner, fretfully. I push cold tinned peas around my plate and use the back of my fork to crush them, slowly, into a paste.

‘Tomorrow,’ says Grace, after a pause.

‘Do you promise?’ Sky asks.

I wait for Grace to say yes, but instead she stands up. She is still holding her cutlery. Looking at it with something approaching wonder, as if she has no idea where it came from, she throws it down to the floor. It clatters on the parquet. She walks out. We watch her go. James springs up to follow her.

‘Leave her,’ I warn him. I move to pick up the fork and knife myself, crawling on the ground under four silent gazes. Sky stands and follows our sister. I stay.

The men talk vigorously to each other. They have all gained colour in their cheeks, on their arms. Gwil seems like a different child, no longer lank and wistful. He taps out a tune with his knife on the edge of his plate, and neither Llew nor James tells him to stop it, engaged in their conversation about someone they know from elsewhere, some other man. I don’t care about any other man. Gwil stares at me, daring me to make him stop, then taps louder. I want to throttle his small throat, but I don’t.