The Drowning (9 page)

T
here’s one word in my head.

Evil.

I don’t want to believe Neisha, but why would she lie? She’s terrified. I terrify her.

Neisha thinks I’m evil. And I don’t know any different. There’s only one other person who could tell me if she’s right.

The rain trickles down my face and I shiver. I look around for Rob, but for the moment I can’t see him.

I stumble on, hardly noticing where I walk, ending up in the town center, rain bouncing in the gutters. Nearly all the shops are closed. People are hurrying home. I scan the street. He was here before. I didn’t know it was him then, but it must have been. Darting in front of me. Ducking into the doorway.

So where is he?

I walk past the shops and turn into the square of old people’s bungalows. There’s no one around here. Doors are closed. Curtains are shut.

And now I see him. He’s pacing backward and forward in the middle of the path.

My stomach lurches. There’s something sickeningly edgy about him, like he’s full of a demonic power. Backward and
forward, like a tiger in a zoo. He’s muttering to himself, but I can’t hear the words.

He turns his face to me.

“Did we do it? Did we try to kill her?” I shout.

Now I hear him.

Kill her. Kill her.

Is he repeating what I’ve said, or talking to himself? What’s going on?

The rain spit-spots on my face. The smudges where Rob’s eyes should be narrow. Two dark slits. Soundlessly, he walks toward me, face looming up to mine. Close, closer, closer still. I back away but he’s faster. I stagger into a doorway, banging my head back on the wood behind. He’s coming. I can’t stop him.

At the last moment I flinch and close my eyes, anticipating the crunch as he smashes into me … but feel nothing except an ice-cold draft cutting through me, penetrating my bones.

“Jesus!”

I open my eyes, and he’s gone.

I look all the way down the road. No one. An empty street, tarmac glistening in the streetlight.

“Rob!” I shout out. “I need to know!”

But he’s gone. Suddenly the door I’m leaning on gives way and there’s a guy standing there, clasping a poker like a sword. He’s an old fella, wearing a checked shirt tucked into impressively high-waisted trousers held up with leather suspenders. There are slippers on his feet.

“Clear off!” he says. “Get out of here!” Then he stops. “Oh, it’s you, Carl.”

He lowers the poker. He knows me. I’m racking my brains trying to think how. What’s the connection? The paint on the door isn’t wet — the porch has protected it — but it’s shiny in the streetlight. Why am I remembering the strong, oily smell of gloss paint?

“How’s your mum coping? Worst thing a mother can go through, losing a kid.”

The air coming out from the open door is warm and stuffy. I shiver.

“What’s happened to your face, son?”

“Some lads jumped me,” I say. I hear him sigh.

“Fighting?” he says. “Don’t you think your poor mother’s got enough to deal with right now?”

I look at him then, and he sighs again.

“Come on in, son. You need to clean up that cut.” He nods toward my face. I put my hand up and suck in my breath as my fingers touch a graze on my cheek that I didn’t even know was there.

“Nah, I’ll do it at home. No worries.”

“Come on, I owe you for that work you did in the summer. You did a good job of my front door.”

“I did?”

“Huh” — he chuckles — “I thought I was the one with the spotty memory. I’m Harry, remember? The school sent you. You and your mates. Community service or something — I
don’t know what they call it — but you were a big help to me. I can’t do the things I used to, you know.”

It’s not quite there, but the memory’s not far away, either. I stand in the doorway while he turns away, heading inside.

In the hall facing the door are two rows of coat hooks, a dog leash and a collar hanging on the lower row. My hands reach forward, picking up the collar off the hook, turning it around in my hands, and my mind spins back to a dark night, a bungalow that we thought was empty.

We don’t even have to break in — the back door isn’t locked. Rob’s in front of me. I can hear barking.

“Winston?” A woman’s voice.

“Rob, get out! Get out now!”

It was here. This was the bungalow. The dog that barked — this was his collar.

“Close the door behind you,” Harry says, reappearing from the kitchen at the back. He stops as he sees me with the collar in my hands. “Put that back, please,” he says, and there’s something in his voice that makes me do what he says, quick.

“I’m … I’m sorry.”

He keeps looking at me, and I’m starting to sweat. I can feel a confession trying to elbow its way out of me.

“I … I …”

“All right, son,” he says. “Don’t touch it again, that’s all. It’s not yours. Have you still got that book I gave you?”

“Book?”

“
Of Mice and Men
, wasn’t it? That’s a good one. I loved that book when I was your age.”

I breathe out. So it was him. In a flash of memory I remember being here before, seeing it on his shelf, picking it up because we were studying it at school. I told him someone had nicked mine and he said, “You can have that one. I don’t need it anymore.”

I couldn’t believe someone would just give me something like that.

“Yeah,” I say, “I’ve still got it. I love it, too.”

He smiles and I wish I could smile back, but this is cutting me in two, because of that other time, the time Rob and me came back here.

“Now, come into the light, in the kitchen,” he says. “I’ll be able to see that scrape better.”

Not the kitchen. Not where …

“Come on,” he says, “don’t just stand there.”

He shuffles down the hallway. I could cut and run now, but I don’t. He’s got his back to me, rummaging in a cupboard. I stand just outside the doorway scanning the floor. What did I expect? Two painted outlines highlighting where the bodies lay, a woman and a dog? The rotting remains still in a heap? There’s nothing here. No marks, no dents, no smears, no spatters. It’s linoleum, pretending to be black and white tiles.

“Come in,” he says, “I won’t bite.”

His voice is drowned out by the voice of his wife in my head.
“You bastard. You thieving, cowardly bastard.”

“I should go,” I say.

“Yes, all right. After I’ve fixed you up a bit. Come here.” He beckons me toward him. “Get under this light.”

I move forward until I’m standing on the exact spot where the dog was lying. It feels like the floor is moving underneath my feet, like there’s a paw or an ear or something trapped under there. I shift a little bit to the side.

“Here, stop moving about. Stand still.”

He’s close now, and the smell of his minty breath mixes with the sharp tang of the disinfectant that’s soaking the cotton ball in his hands. He brings it up toward me. Close up, I can see all the wear and tear in his skin, the way the whites of his eyes aren’t white but yellow. I close my eyes and flinch as the rubbing alcohol makes contact with my raw cut.

“All right,” he says. “Nearly done. There, you can open your eyes now. I’m finished. Do you want a cup of tea?”

I should go. I shouldn’t be here. Despite this, I nod.

“Go and sit down in the lounge, son.”

I walk through. It’s tiny, neat and tidy … and familiar. A patterned carpet. Wood paneling on the walls. Bookshelves on either side of the fireplace. And photographs. I walk over to the mantelpiece and look along the row of pictures. Some are of people on their own, others are group shots. I pick up one with just two people in it: the old man and a woman, his wife. There’s a caption along the bottom: “Harry & Iris, 22nd July 2012.”

They are looking straight at the camera, side by side. Heads leaning toward each other, Harry’s hand just showing where he’s got his arm around her shoulder, holding her close. They’re both togged up — him in a tweed jacket, white shirt, and tie, her in a glossy blouse with a bow loosely tied at the neck.
Nestling in the shiny material is a necklace — a silver locket on a chain.

I’m walking across the park with Neisha. She’s nervously touching the silver locket that’s swinging on a chain around her neck.

“Golden wedding, that was.” Harry’s voice makes me jump and jerk my head around to look over my shoulder. I’m ready to be told off again for touching, but he doesn’t seem to mind this time. He’s standing in the doorway holding a tray.

“Fifty years,” he says. “Fifty years … Thought we might make it to our diamond anniversary, but … That’s the last photo we had taken together.”

“What happened?”

“Don’t you remember that, either, son?”

“I’m sorry, I’ve been in the hospital. They said I got a concussion in the lake.”

“Ah, nasty. You’ll get better, though, son.”

“Yeah, it’s getting better already. I’ve just got some … gaps. I’m sorry about your wife … Iris?”

“I haven’t seen you since it happened. You haven’t been around …”

“So … ?”

He puts the tray down on a table and starts pouring steaming hot tea into two mugs. I don’t think he’s heard me or understood what I’m asking, but after he’s handed me my tea and settled into an armchair with his, he starts talking.

“I’d gone out to fetch some indigestion tablets. She … Iris … had been feeling a bit off. I wasn’t gone long, twenty
minutes or so. The pharmacy wasn’t open so I stopped by at the neighbor’s.

“I found them in the kitchen. Iris and the dog, both … both … you know. Doctor said it was a heart attack. That’s why she was feeling sick earlier. Said she must’ve found poor old Winston and that was it. It was too much for her — probably would have happened anyway. Natural causes. But there’s something bothering me, something not right.”

Up to now he’s been looking at the photo on the mantelpiece, but now he turns and leans toward me in his chair.

“Her necklace was gone. She always wore it. A silver locket on a chain. She’s wearing it in that photo. It was one I gave her on our first anniversary — twenty-second of July 1962 — she put it on and never took it off. Now I can’t find it.”

His eyes are red-rimmed.

“Things get lost,” I say, trying not to squirm in my seat.

He shakes his head.

“No, not this.” He dabs at his face with a big white hankie. “Someone was in here.”

His words hang in the air between us.

“I’d better go home,” I splutter through a mouthful of tea. “Mum’ll be wondering where I am.”

He puts his hankie away.

“Good lad,” he says, “you look after your mum. Terrible thing, to lose someone so young.”

He follows me down the hall and lets me out. It’s dry outside now; dry and dark and quiet. I pause on his doorstep, scanning
around for signs of Rob, half expecting him to be waiting there. He isn’t.

“Thanks for the tea,” I say.

I turn and walk down the path. When I look back, he’s still standing there, watching me. He raises his hand briefly and shuts the door.

I pull my hood up and head for home. I keep my eyes peeled all the way, but Rob’s nowhere to be seen.

M
um’s not on the sofa. She’s on the kitchen floor, on her hands and knees. From where I’m standing I can see her backside resting on her heels, wiggling from side to side.

“Mum? What the — ?”

She doesn’t seem to hear me. She’s scrubbing the linoleum, going at it so manically her whole body’s moving.

“Mum?” I try again.

This time she twists around. Her hair’s flopping into her eyes. She huffs out of her open mouth, making the hair waft out for a second before it flops back again.

“In a minute, Carl, I’ve just got to get this done.”

She’s wiping the same patch of floor over and over again. She starts to cry, then sits up on her heels and shoves some hair out of the way with the back of her hand.

“Where’ve you been all evening, Carl?” she says. “And how’d you get that scrape on your face?”

“What difference does it make?”

“What difference? What difference?! I’m your bloody mum, in case you hadn’t noticed. I should know where you are. If I’d known where you were, perhaps … perhaps …” She can’t bring herself to say it. Instead she says, “Rob was a good swimmer. What happened, Carl?”

In the water, I lock my arms around his neck, holding my elbows in a viselike grip, making a double layer of skin and bone. I bring them back toward me, pulling on his neck, compressing.

“I can’t remember, Mum. I told you. I can’t hardly remember anything about it.”

“But why were you there?”

“If I knew, I’d tell you, right?” I’m nearly shouting, fueled by the confusion, the disbelief, the guilt that’s been building up all day.

She goes back to scrubbing the floor, tears running down her face.

“Cleaning the floor won’t bring him back.” The words are out before I can stop them.

She’s leaning on one hand, head down, face hidden. She looks pathetic, broken. And I suddenly remember what Harry said,
“Worst thing a mother can go through, losing a kid.”
And I feel ashamed.