Death By Water (3 page)

– Boiling, shrieks Nini, hopping up and down as though on a hotplate, and he has to put her in the pushchair and go back in again and fetch her sandals.

By the kids’ pool he parks them in an empty deckchair. Wiggles the water wings on to Nini’s chalk-white arms. Suntan lotion, he thinks. Dismisses the thought of going back to the apartment yet again.

– Now you’ll take good care of her, he urges Truls.

– Where are you going?

– Trip down to the beach.

– I’m coming with you.

– No you’re bloody well not. You stay here and look after Nini. You think you’re here on holiday or something?

Truls gets that hangdog look that Jo can’t stand.

– Hey, pull yourself together, right? Can’t you take a joke? I won’t be long. Make sure her water wings are on properly.

He picks up his towel and starts to leave, turns and repeats what he said about the wings: – Blow them up properly. If she drowns, it’s your fault.

He runs down the steps. The sun is insanely hot. He hates the heat. Slumps down in the shadow of a stone at the end of the beach. Even there the sand is baking. Sit there like that till he boils. Until everything becomes intolerable except hurling himself into the water. Green flag today. The sea’s not moving.

Some people his own age are playing volleyball. They’re pretty good, he can see that, especially the tall lad with the fair curls. He watches them. The tall lad notices and waves. Jo doesn’t realise at first that the wave is to him. Gets up from the shade, takes a couple of steps out on to the glowing sand.

– Wanna play, the boy shouts in Norwegian.

Jo isn’t sure. He’s okay at volleyball. Football’s what he’s good at.

– Haven’t you got anything to wear on your head? the boy asks. – Your brains’ll burn up.

– Forgot my cap.

The other boy has a look round.

– Wait a sec.

He sprints up to the first row of straw parasols. Talks to some grown-ups lying there. Comes back with a white headscarf with gold trimming.

– Here, this’ll do you.

Jo looks up into the other boy’s face. Can’t recall having seen him either on the plane or in the restaurant. Of course he must know that Jo’s mother was stinking drunk and broke her glass by the pool and was sick in the toilet at the bar. But he doesn’t look at him with contempt, or like he pities him. Jo doesn’t know which he hates more.

– You play for us. My name’s Daniel.

The boy says the names of the others, too. Two Swedish boys, and one that sounds Finnish.

They win three sets. Mostly because Daniel gets the most difficult balls and has such an amazingly hard smash.

– Do you play for a club? Jo asks.

Daniel wrinkles his nose, like volleyball isn’t worth talking about. He pulls off his vest and shoes and sprints down to the water’s edge, and then on out so the water foams around his knees. The others follow, Jo too. All of them seem to have been there for a while; they’re tanned. He hasn’t had the sun on his body for months. He keeps his yellow T-shirt on.

– First one out to the buoys, Daniel shouts.

Jo reacts at once and dives in, crawling as fast as he can. Halfway out, he notices a shadow beside him, like a dolphin, or a shark. It glides past and away.

Jo reaches the buoy first and turns to wait for the others.

– You’re a good swimmer, says Daniel from behind the buoy, waiting, hanging on by an arm. He doesn’t seem even slightly out of breath.

– I’m better underwater, Jo pants, annoyed, gripping the buoy; so close that their faces are almost touching.

– Then let’s try that going back, Daniel suggests.

Jo spits. – On out, he says. – Let’s keep on going out.

Daniel glances at the horizon, then laughs. – Say when.

Jo listens to his own breathing. Waits until it’s slow and deep enough. Takes a few big breaths and makes a sign with his hand. They dive.

He lets Daniel swim in front. It’s like gliding through a room of molten glass. The turquoise light gathers in unstable bunches, then disappears down into the darkness. He swims easily. Don’t use up all your energy. At school they used a stopwatch to see who could hold their breath the longest. No one got even close to his record. Over two minutes. One of the doubters held a hand in front of his nose and mouth to check if he was cheating. He wasn’t cheating. He quite simply stopped breathing. Could stop for ever if necessary …

Daniel’s some way ahead of him; Jo sees his feet kicking through the columns of light. Keep going between the chilly currents, down even deeper, down towards a stream of tiny black fish, feel the blood begin to pound in his head. You might burst a blood vessel in your brain, his mother shouted once after he surfaced, and now he starts thinking about blood bursting up out of his brain and folding round it like a warm cloth. He feels dizzy. Must have air, his urgent thought, but he carries on, and that willpower comes from something that is not him, something that has started to appear in him, something he might be … Far ahead: Daniel’s feet. They’re pointing straight down, so he has given up. You must surface, your brain will explode, he hears his mother’s voice scream, but he doesn’t come up. He passes Daniel’s feet and keeps going until the pillars of light around him start to dim. Only then does he kick out and his head bursts through the surface of the water.

– You’re completely crazy, Daniel shouts over to him. The voice is distant, coming from the far side of a wall. Jo can’t answer. A mass of small black fish are still swirling round in the white light, and his stomach is on its way up through his throat. He floats back in towards land, towards Daniel, just about managing to move his arms. Tries to force a grin that says he agrees:
That’s right, I’m crazy
.

Mother and Arne have gone out by the time he lets himself back in. They must have taken Truls and Nini, because Jo didn’t see them by the kids’ pool as he ran past. Not too long since Mother was here, he says to himself, because there’s still that rancid smell in the toilet. He finishes quickly, sits down in the living room, which is also where he and Truls and Nini sleep. The sofa hasn’t been made up and the mattresses are on the floor. He turns on the air-conditioning, switches the TV on. The news in Greek. A bus accident, people crawling out of a broken window, some of them with blood all over their faces. He pulls back the bedclothes and stretches out on the sofa, his whole body still aching from the beating he gave Daniel at underwater swimming. Drops off for a few moments. Wakes to a sound. A cartoon on TV. He switches off, pads out on to the balcony. It’s like walking into a baker’s oven. The sun is directly above the roof of the house. He locates the thin grey line that divides sea from sky. If he swims out towards it and keeps going on and on, he’ll reach land in Africa. Meet warriors on camels there, robed in white against the sandstorms.

He leans forward and peers on to the neighbouring balcony. Exactly like their own. A plastic table and four chairs. The only thing different is the clothes hanging up to dry. A vest, a green towel, bikini bottoms. White with dark red hearts. Water dripping from it. The girl from the pool is his neighbour.

The balcony door is ajar. Maybe she’s alone in the apartment too. If her bikini’s hanging out here, what is she wearing? What if she’s in the shower … He listens out for the sound of running water. No sounds coming from there. Go and knock. Ask to borrow something or other. Matches, for example. Why would he need matches in the middle of the day? Steal one of his mother’s cigarettes. The two cartons she bought at the duty-free before boarding the plane are on her bedside table. She won’t notice if one packet is missing. Ask the girl next door if she wants one.

A door banging on the other side. He races through the room, opens up, sticks his head out.

It
is
her. Further down the path. On her way to the pools. She’s wearing a skirt, and a top. If he’d been just a little bit quicker …

The dining room is full. He has to search for the table. They’re sitting next to the stage. A bottle of red wine on the table, half full. Arne’s drinking beer, so Mother’s the one that’s been knocking back the wine. She’s sitting with her back turned, but he can see that she’s already a bit tipsy. Head on one side. The more she drinks, the more of an angle to her head. Nini in the baby chair is asleep. Truls is munching on a sausage. His face lights up when he sees his big brother. At that same moment Jo catches sight of her two tables away, the girl from the next-door apartment. He refuses to be seen with his mother and Arne, the way they show themselves up; stops a few metres away from them. Luckily the girl hasn’t seen him.

– Aren’t you going to have
shomeshing
to eat then, Jo? Mother says, and she’s further gone than he thought.

– Ain’t hungry. Just had a hot dog.

It’s true. Apart from the bit about the hot dog. His stomach is still churning from having swum halfway to Africa underwater. His head, too. His whole body.

– What rubbish, says Arne.

– Let him decide himself, Mother says, defending him, as if that was any help.

– Off to meet some friends.

– On you go, Mother waves.

– Come back here afterwards and take Truls and Nini with you, Arne commands.

– What are you going to do?

Mother tries to smile. – You look after them this evening, so Arne and I can have some time off. It is our holiday, you know.

– Time off so you can get sloshed, Jo mutters.

– What was that you just said? Arne growls.

Jo glances over towards the girl’s table. The fat girl with the fair hair is sitting there too. And two grown-ups. They’re busy eating. It’s much too hot in the dining room. Jo has never liked the heat. Feels as though something is about to happen. When he closes his eyes, it gets pitch dark. Opening them again, the shadow reappears. It’s carrying something that looks like a sledgehammer … He turns and leaves before anyone else notices it.

– He-ey, Joe.

Someone calls to him in English. Jo stops by the edge of the pool and looks round. In a deckchair over by the wall he sees the man he spoke to yesterday evening. The one who wanted Jo to call him Jacket. A candle burns on a table beside him. He’s sitting reading a book.

– Hi, says Jo, and feels his breath calming down out here in the dark.

– Busy? asks the man, who obviously wants to talk to him today as well.

Jo takes a step closer. Jacket is still wearing the khaki shorts and short-sleeved black shirt.

– Everything okay now? The business with your mother and all that?

Jo doesn’t answer.

– Why not sit down for a few minutes? Jacket waves his hand towards the neighbouring deckchair. Jo perches on the edge of it.

– What are you reading? he asks, just for something to say.

Jacket holds up a little sliver of a book. – A long poem.

– Poem?

– Actually a story. A journey through a dead world. Or a world of the dead.

– Like a ghost story?

– Exactly, Jacket exclaims. – I’ve read it lots of times. But I still don’t know what’s going to happen in the end.

Jo wonders what he means by that.

– The part I’m reading now is called ‘Death by Water’.

– So maybe it’s about drowning, Jo guesses.

– Yes. A young man. A Phoenician.

– Phoenician? Jo interrupts. – You mean the people who lived here thousands of years ago?

Jacket’s eyebrows rise and form twin arches. – Well I must say, Jo, you sure do pay attention in school.

Jo does. He’s as clever as he can be bothered to be.

– So he drowns, this Phoenician, he affirms, trying to make his voice sound as if it doesn’t matter. – A soldier, maybe?

– Actually a travelling salesman, it would seem. He’s been floating in the sea for fourteen days already. Not much left of him; skin and muscles have stripped away from the bone. He was probably quite rich, but that’s not much use to him now. Lying down there in another world in the depths, can’t even hear a seagull cry.

Jo suddenly feels cheered up. Jacket likes to talk to him. He isn’t just pretending.

– Pretty good way to die, he says quickly, with a glance across at the grown-up in the flickering candlelight.

Jacket sits there and studies his face. – I’ve been thinking about the conversation we had last night, he said finally.

This man has been on TV lots of times, and now he’s sitting here one metre away, in the flesh, and thinking about things a twelve year old said to him. Suddenly Jo is on the alert.

– Was there all that much to think about?

Jacket lights a smoke.

– How about one for me too?

– What do you think Mother would say if a grown-up stranger started you smoking?

Jo snorts. – It’s got nothing to do with her. She’d never find out. If she did find out, she wouldn’t give a damn. Anyway, I’ve smoked lots before.

Jacket hands him the cigarette. – You’ll have to make do with one drag. If you squeal, I’ll be in trouble. Wouldn’t take a lot more than that to get me on the front page of
VG
and
Dagbladet
and
Seen and Heard
and you name it.

Jo grins. – I’d get well paid for it. The thousand-kroner reward.

– Exactly, says Jacket. –
Celebrity on sunshine holiday lures child with cigarettes.

Jo has to laugh. He takes a deep drag on the cigarette and holds it down, feeling at once that delicious dizziness.

– I always see you alone here, he observes after another puff.

– I
am
alone here.

– You go away on holiday on your own? Don’t you have a family and all that?

Again Jacket looks at him for a long time.

– I needed to get away for a while, he answers, leaning back in the deckchair. – Made up my mind the night before, jumped on board a plane, ended up here by chance. Surprisingly good place. Might buy a house here.

Not many grown-ups live like that. Suddenly just up and off on a plane. Buy a house on Crete if they can be bothered to.

– So that business with your mother, it’s all okay now?