The Drowning (5 page)

I feel churned up inside, sick. The brick wall in my head, the blankness, was better than this. Maybe there was a reason I forgot everything. Maybe this was the reason. The truth is best forgotten.

There’s no vibration through the metal, there’s no noise, but suddenly I know I’m not on my own anymore. There’s someone close. I sense him and shudder, thinking of the shadow darting into the doorway, the pale shape across the street.

I force myself to twist around and look through the metal bars. I jump. There’s a face looking back. The eyes are fixed on mine. The lips move.

You bastard, Cee.

I blink and he’s gone.

Shit! I’ve got to get out of here. Go home. I’m going mad. My mind is playing tricks.

I jump up from my perch and stumble across the rec, looking all around me as I run. I dash through the empty parking lot and haul myself up the steps of our building. There’s a set of keys in the other pocket. I let myself in and head straight upstairs. I don’t check the room first. I just go in, drop the jacket on the floor, strip off my wet things, towel my hair with a dry T-shirt from the heap, and flop down on my mattress. I lie on my right side, facing the wall, so I can’t see Rob’s sleeping bag, and I close my eyes tight shut.

This time I don’t hear him breathing as I drift off, and I don’t hear him telling me to say good night, but at the last moment something clicks in my brain, and just before I’m asleep, I whisper the words, “Night, Rob.” And that’s the last thing I hear, my own voice … and the
drip, drip, drip
of the bathroom tap.

I
have restless dreams, dreams where I don’t know if I’m awake or asleep, what’s real and what isn’t. Dreams of me, of Rob, of Neisha. With her clothes on. With her clothes off. When I finally wake up, the first thought that hits me is,
My brother’s dead. Rob’s dead.

I’m in our room, on my own, and he’s dead. The words are starting to mean something now. He was dead yesterday and he’s still dead today. Is it always going to be like this? This sledgehammer? Is this how I’ll wake up for the rest of my life?

It’s light. I stick my hand out from the clammy folds of my sleeping bag, grope around the floor by my bed until I find my watch. It says ten past three. I shake my head and look again. The second hand’s ticking around, so it’s working. It must be the afternoon.

I leave the sleeping bag in a heap on my mattress. Where the curtains are parted I can see condensation fogging up the window, blotting out the world outside. I stagger into the bathroom, trying not to put too much weight on my painful left leg. The cold tap is still dripping; it’s even worse now.

Catching my reflection in the mirror, my heart jumps into
the back of my throat. The shape of my face, the angle of the gray-blue eyes, the set of my mouth and the lines of dirt. All these things say Rob. The face they zipped away — eyes open, skin pale and streaked with mud.

But I’m not Rob. I’ve got to remember that. I look like him, but that’s all. We were at the lake together, we were there, struggling in the water … but I got out alive.

The dirt on my face must be from when I fell over by the bungalows. I feel a shudder of revulsion, but I can wash it away. I can clean myself up. I reach for the hot tap and wince: My palm is sore. There are little raw points, bright red oozy pinpricks, where the skin’s been taken off. I put the plug in and start to turn the tap, but then I stop, remembering what happened last night when I splashed my face.

The memories. The voice.

But it was the middle of the night. I was tired. Confused.

Even so, I check behind me. There’s no one there, of course.

I watch the water dripping from the cold tap, forming a clear pool in the bottom of the sink, and anxiety stabs me in the guts.

For Chrissake, just wash your face. Look at you. You’re a mess.
A voice in my head is urging me on.

I turn the hot tap full on, so it’s gushing and spluttering, and dip one hand into the water, swooshing it around to feel the temperature. I’m looking down but my eye catches something flashing in the mirror behind me, a movement. It’s gone before I’m even sure if I saw it, but my chest starts heaving, and I can
feel sweat prickling on my upper lip. I spin around and face the room.

It’s empty.

I turn back to the sink.
Come on, you can do this.
The water is nearly up to the outlet. I turn the hot tap off and tighten up the cold one so that it stops dripping, too. I plunge both hands into the water, lean forward, and splash my face.

She’s screaming. Her hands are tearing at his, trying to wrench them away from her throat. I take another deep breath and swim toward them. I look up again. Rain splashes on the surface, making it seem alive, obscuring my view. But I can still hear her. Hear her screaming for her life.

There’s sweat between my shoulder blades, my stomach’s contracting, my heart’s pounding. It’s not real; it’s a memory, that’s all. I force myself to pick up the soap and work my hands together. I lean forward again and scrub my cheeks and forehead, along my jawline and around my eyes.

Get clean, wash all this away.

I slop water onto my face again to rinse it. When I open my eyes the soapy drips have merged with the rest, clouding the water in the bowl below. I can still see the dark circle of the plug at the bottom, but there’s something else. A face looking up at me.

His face. Deathly pale. Marked skin.

“No!”

I rear back, fumbling for the towel. I dry my face and inch forward, peering over the rim of the sink. There’s a pale shadow there now, the outline of a face and neck. Trembling, I lean closer. The shape gets larger. Closer still. Larger again.

It’s me, of course. My reflection on the surface of the water.

I pull the plug and watch the water disappear. Then I look at myself in the mirror.

How can you tell if you’re going mad? Do you look different? Can you see it in your own eyes?

D
ownstairs, the living room is a mess, cans lying where Mum left them last night. The coat I put on top of her is on the floor. But she’s not there. I check in the kitchen, then go back through to the bottom of the stairs and shout up.

“Mum?”

I run up and knock on the other bedroom door.

“Mum?”

No reply. I look in quickly. The bed’s empty, the duvet’s half on the floor. There are old tissues and cans littering the carpet. But no Mum. Where the hell is she? I’ve just got out of the hospital and she isn’t even here.

I’m really thirsty; hungry, too. But there’s no food in the place and nothing to drink except lager, water, and some spoiled milk. I want something to get me going, get my senses working properly — something with some fizz, some caffeine.

I grab last night’s jacket from the floor and have a quick look for some money. Surely there’s some cash lying around somewhere, for God’s sake, some emergency bills stashed in a biscuit tin or under a can in the cupboard. I do a quick trawl of the kitchen and living room, stick my hand down the back of the sofa. I find fifteen pence between the cushions, and that’s it. I drop the coins in my jeans pocket.

On my way out I put the jacket on and explore the pockets. My fingers close around the phone, and last night’s guilty heat surges through me again. Don’t look now. Concentrate. As well as the pack of cigarettes and the lighter, there’s something smooth, heavy when I close my fingers around it. Without looking, I know it’s a jackknife. I can see it in his hand as he flicks the blade in and out, in and out. I let it go and keep searching, digging into the corners of both pockets. No coins. Shit.

I pull the door shut behind me. I need some food, but I’ve no idea how I’m going to get it. I jog tentatively along the walkway and down the stairs — no vaulting over the edge today. There are some little kids playing football by the garages. They stop when they see me, just stop and stare silently. One of them picks up the ball and holds it close to his chest.

I trot around the corner and swing into the shop on the end of the block. It’s the sort of place that sells everything — newspapers, toilet paper, candy bars, bread, booze — if you’ve got any money, which I haven’t. Well, hardly any. I’m just hoping I’ll think of something.

The guy behind the counter clocks me as soon as I walk in. He holds his hand up to the customer at the register. “One moment,” he says, then he leans over the counter and calls across the shop to me.

“You’re banned. Don’t you remember? I don’t want any more of my stuff going missing.”

I start to color up. The people in the queue are looking now. He’s as good as called me a thief in front of them.

“I just want to get a few things,” I say, trying to stay calm. I’m
thinking that maybe I can ask to owe him or say that my mum will pay him back.

He shakes his head.

“Not in here.”

“Please, I’m hungry and thirsty. We’ve got nothing in the house. Mum hasn’t had a chance to get anything since … since, you know.”

The guy’s expression softens. Two of the people in the queue look away, the woman nearest the register makes a sympathetic face. They all know.

“Just a can of Coke and some bread or something,” I say.

The guy nods reluctantly. “Okay. Quickly,” he says.

I open the fridge and pretend to take my time choosing, running my hand across the tops of the cans. When the shop guy goes back to serving the woman, I slip a can into the inside pocket of my jacket, and then take another. It’s instinctive, my hand does it so quickly. And it was easy, so easy — I must have done it before. I feel bad, but I haven’t got any money, have I? If he doesn’t let me have the one he can see, at least I’ll have the one in my pocket.

I follow the aisle around and pick up some sliced white bread and a can of beans, then I walk up to the queue.

“You go in front, love,” the woman close to the register says. “That’s all right, isn’t it?” she says to the people behind. They both mutter something that could be “Yeah,” too embarrassed to do anything else. I shuffle past them and stand next to her. I still don’t know how I’m going to play this.

“Can I owe you?” I say to the guy, nervously.

He looks at me in disbelief.

“What?” he says.

“Can I owe you? Mum’s gone out and taken all the cash.”

His hand shoots out and he’s gripping the top of the baked bean can. I was an idiot to even try this, but what else was I supposed to do?

“What are you doing, coming into my shop with no money? What are you doing?” His voice is much too loud and a little bit of spit lands on the top of the hand holding the can.

I can hear tutting behind me, but the woman’s scrabbling in her purse. She hands me a two-pound coin.

“It’s all right, Ashraf,” she says. “Here, Carl, pay with this.”

Ashraf looks at her like she’s completely lost her marbles.

I smile at her gratefully, put the coin on the counter, and slide it toward Ashraf.

He blows air out slowly through pursed lips, takes the coin like it’s infected, and puts my change on the counter. I look at the money and then at the woman.

“You have it,” she says. “Go on, take it. How’s your mum doing?”

Violent. Tearful. Drunk. Missing. Tears start welling up. She’s being too nice and I’m just not used to it.

“She’s okay,” I say. “She’s doing okay.”

“Give her my best,” she says. “Tell her Sue from the launderette sends her love.”

I nod my head, then pocket the coins and make a swift exit carrying my stuff in a thin plastic bag. I open the Coke outside the shop. It’s cold and sweet and fizzy, with that prickly edge to it that you get from the first sip. I neck it thirstily as I walk
across to the rec and the bubbles go up my nose, and another memory comes out of the fog in my mind.

I pass her the can and she takes a hearty swig, then hands the can back quickly, laughing and flapping her hand in front of her face.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, went up my nose. That’ll teach me to drink so fast.”

I put the can to my lips, slurping at the liquid that’s collected just inside the top rim, aware of my lips touching the lip gloss she’s left behind.