The Drowning (6 page)

She stretches her legs out in front of her, leans back into the park bench, and puts her hands behind her head. The sun is bright in our faces and she closes her eyes.

“This is nice,” she says.

I don’t close my eyes. I sip at the Coke and look at Neisha’s face, her beautiful face, in the sunshine.

The rec is filling up with kids — little ones in the play park, bigger ones in uniforms hanging around the monkey bars or swinging on a tire someone’s rigged up in a tree. They stream onto the square of grass and mud from one corner and it takes a minute until I get it: They’re all coming out of school.

School. Mum hasn’t mentioned it and I simply forgot all about it. It doesn’t seem, I dunno, important. No one can expect me to sit in class and take it all in when my brother’s died, can they? I’m fifteen. I can’t even remember who my schoolmates are. If I’ve got any. Perhaps I’ll never have to go to school again.

I lean against a tree and finish my Coke. There’s a heavy feeling behind my eyes, a sort of pressure, and I realize I’m not far from crying again.

I look at the ground in front of me and scuff the toe of my sneakers in the dirt, then throw my empty Coke can toward the bin. It misses. I leave it lying on the ground, turn away, and start walking back to the flat, eyes on the ground.

“Aren’t you going to pick that up?”

I look up. Coming toward me is a woman in a different uniform. She’s young — younger than Mum, anyway — sturdy-looking, with gingerish curly hair that’s trying to escape from under her hat.

“I’ll get it,” she says. “This time.” She stoops down, picks up the can, and drops it in the bin, then walks over to stand next to me. “How are you doing, Carl? I’m surprised to see you out. Only got home yesterday, didn’t you?”

She seems to know all about me, but I don’t know her. At least I don’t think I do. I’m suddenly aware of the can in my inside pocket, the cigarettes, the knife, the phone, the photos. Oh God. I fold my arms across my front.

“I’m okay,” I say, avoiding her look.

“I stopped by earlier but no one answered,” she says. “We need to talk to you about Tuesday. I know you talked about it to someone in the hospital, but this is important. We need to go over it again. You on your way home now?”

“Yeah, but I’m not sure …” If the house is still empty. Where Mum’s gone. If she’s ever coming back.

“It’s okay, I’ll give your mum a ring. See if I can come around. It needs to be today, really. Sooner rather than later.”

She’s saying it kindly, but I’ve got alarm bells going off. What
does she want? I’ve got nothing to tell her. All the stuff I can remember isn’t the sort of stuff you’d tell a copper.

“Yeah, okay …” I say vaguely and start to wander away.

“I’m sorry about Rob,” she says. I stop and stare at the ground. “We had our ups and downs, but I was very sorry to hear what happened. It’s a terrible shame.”

I kind of nod, and start walking again. Got to get out of here.

“I’ll see you later, right?”

“Right, okay,” I say.

I start running toward the flat but have to stop. I feel almost sick, unpleasantly full. Running and Coke don’t mix.

The flat’s still empty. I take a few deep breaths like they showed me at the hospital, try to put everything out of my mind — Mum, Rob, the police, Neisha. God, Neisha. I’m itching to get the phone out, look at the photos again, but my stomach starts rumbling and I realize I can’t remember the last time I ate something. I think about that rather than the growing panic inside me, and set about cooking up a storm. I put a couple of slices of bread in the toaster and press the lever down, but nothing happens. It just pops up again. There’s no heat or anything. Okay, I’ll do it under the grill. It’s all electric, so all I have to do is find the right knob and turn it on. How frickin’ hard can it be? I get the grill going — four slices lined up now, nice and neat — and turn my attention to the beans. I fetch a pan out of the cupboard, slam it onto the stovetop, turn on the coiled burner, and empty the can into it.

I wander into the living room and flick on the TV to keep my mind off the policewoman. It’s some sort of cooking program. I
watch as the guy on screen chops up a load of vegetables and then starts to fry it. He’s already got some meat sizzling in the pan. He’s stirring it around, adding more stuff, squirting some sort of sauce on it — to be honest, it looks pretty tasty. I can’t take my eyes away. I can almost smell it, and the pain in my stomach is really going for it now, stabbing me from the inside. He tips the food onto a big square white plate and bends over to smell his creation.

I breathe in with him, expecting meat and onion and I don’t know what else. I get smoke, bitter and choking in the back of my throat. Shit! I jump back into the kitchen. Gray smoke is streaming up and out of the grill. I grab the pan. It burns my fingers as I yank it clear and let it drop onto the floor, onto the heap of wilting flowers. Their plastic wrappings hiss and shrivel in the heat. The toast is black and the beans in the saucepan have almost disappeared. What’s wrong with me? I just wanted some food. I’m so bloody hungry. The tears that were threatening to burst out earlier are back.

Why isn’t Mum here to do this? Why didn’t she teach me what to do? Where the hell is she?

I stand in the middle of the kitchen, hands hanging by my sides, crying like a baby.

“Carl?”

She’s there, in the doorway, looking at the mayhem.

“What’s going on here? Do you mind telling me what the hell is going on?”

I
was hungry, Mum. There was no food and you weren’t here. What am I supposed to do?” My voice goes higher as I rant on. “Where were you? Where were you, Mum?”

She says nothing, does nothing. She’s just standing there and now I notice that she’s got a shopping bag in each hand, blue-and-white Tesco bags bulging full of stuff. Her face looks thinner than ever, the creases deeper. Her hair’s lank and greasy. She’s tied it back, but some of it has escaped. She’s in her thirties but she looks about fifty.

“Where’ve you been?” I ask again. My throat is sore from shouting.

“I went to see about the funeral,” she says.

The funeral. I’d forgotten there’d have to be a funeral.

I step over the grill pan, avoiding the plastic flower wrappers, take her shopping bags, and put them on the table. On the stovetop the saucepan’s still making a horrible noise. I switch off the burner and the grill, and open a window.

Mum just stands there, looking lost in her own kitchen.

“Do you want to sit down?” I say. She stumbles to the kitchen table and lowers herself slowly onto a chair. “Do you want a drink?”

She nods and I grab the kettle. I turn toward the sink and stop, suddenly nervous about turning on the tap. It’s stupid, but I can’t help it.

“No,” Mum says, “a real drink.” She flips her fingers toward the fridge. Breathing out, I set the kettle back on the stovetop, reach into the fridge for a can, and put it on the table in front of her. She cradles it with both hands, but she doesn’t do anything else. I lean across and crack it open.

“Ta,” she says, and takes a sip. “I got lots of leaflets and stuff,” she says. “Have a look.” She digs in her handbag and hands me a heap of papers. “When a Child Dies.” “Bereavement Benefits.” “Guide to Hayfield Cemetery.” “Children and Funerals.”

I start reading one, but it just makes me feel sick. I push it away, across the table.

“Have you decided what’s gonna happen, then?”

She knows what I’m asking, but she doesn’t answer straightaway. She purses her lips and sucks on the inside of her mouth. I think she’s going to cry, but she doesn’t. After a while she says, “He’ll be cremated and then we’ll have the ashes here. It doesn’t seem right to have them buried or anything. We’ll bring him home.”

“Cremated?” Burned up. That can’t be right. It’s so … so final.

“Yeah. Is that all right with you? I didn’t know what to do, Carl. I had to make a decision. But we could change it, if you’re not happy.”

“Happy.” The word sits like ash in my mouth.

“I don’t mean
happy
,” she says quickly. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean …” Her eyes are filling up now.

“It’s all right,” I say, trying to stop it before it starts. “It’s all right. What you said, it’s okay. We’ll do that.”

“Okay,” she says. “It’s next Tuesday. The funeral.”

Her hand’s resting on the leaflet. She’s stroking the paper gently.

“You wouldn’t believe how much this all costs. The funeral lady said Rob’s half price because he’s only seventeen, was only seventeen … It’s free if you’re under five.”

There’s nowhere to go with that. I let it hang in the air for a bit. It’s still hanging when a phone starts ringing. Mum looks panicked.

“It’s yours, Mum,” I say. “Is it in your bag?”

“Who is it?” she says, as if I would know.

“It’s your phone, Mum.”

“You get it. I … I can’t.”

She reaches into her bag and hands the phone to me. “Caller Unknown.” I press the green button and answer.

It’s the policewoman I saw earlier. My guts turn to jelly.

Her name’s Officer Sally Underwood. She asks to talk to Mum, but Mum just shakes her head.

“I’m sorry, she can’t come to the phone right now.”

“But she’s there? She’s at home?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it all right if I call round with a colleague in about a quarter of an hour?”

“Yeah,” I say, even though I don’t want her to come and I don’t know if it’s all right with Mum. I’ve just got a gut feeling that saying no would make everything worse.

She hangs up.

“Who was it?” Mum asks.

“The cops.”

I can see her jawbone through her skin as she clenches her teeth.

“They want to come round in a few minutes. Interview me. I saw one of them earlier.”

She looks down at the table. She’s crumpling the bereavement leaflet in her hand, but I don’t think she even knows she’s doing it.

“What’s wrong, Mum? Why wouldn’t you answer your phone?”

“That’s how they told me,” she says quietly. “The police called and told me that Rob was … in trouble. I was still on the phone when someone ran into the pub and said he was dead. And you were on your way to the hospital.”

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Mum.” I’m doing it now — saying sorry for things that aren’t my fault, like the policewoman did.

Fifteen minutes. She’s coming here in fifteen minutes. I look at the floor — the grill pan, the bits of black toast, flowers and plastic. I think of the beer cans scattered around the sofa. I can’t let her see the place like this.

“Look,” I say, “she’ll be here soon. Let’s tidy up a bit.”

I pick the grill pan off the floor and slide it back into its slot.
I put the burnt toast in the rubbish bin and start scooping up the flowers.

“Mum, why don’t you go pick up the cans in the living room, and I’ll do the floor in here? What do I use?”

“Under the sink,” she says, but makes no sign of moving from her chair.

In the cupboard under the sink there’s a plastic bucket with a cloth draped over the side, and a bottle of cleaner.

I stand the bucket in the sink and squirt some cleaner into it. Then I turn on both taps. Water thunders in. A layer of foam forms, rising up the inside of the bucket. Fear starts rising up in me at the sight of it.
God, it’s only water. Get a grip!

I dart into the living room and pick up the empty cans. When I get back the bucket’s nearly full. I dump the cans in the bin and turn off the tap. Mum’s still sitting at the table.

“Mum, please …”

She watches as I haul the bucket onto the floor. I dip the cloth in the soapy water. It’s icy cold. I wring the cloth out and a scream rips through my head. It’s so loud it’s painful, like someone poking a knitting needle into one ear and out the other.

I jerk my head up. The screaming’s stopped but I’m confused, disoriented.

I move the bucket forward and water sloshes over the top. A puddle spreads out from its base. I tip forward, stretching to mop it up, and I’ve suddenly got a feeling of pressure in my throat. I swallow hard but something comes up inside and now my mouth is full of cold, rank liquid. I clamber to my feet and
spit into the kitchen sink. As the stuff leaves my mouth I get a whiff of something stale, something stagnant and muddy and slimy.

“Jesus!” I splutter. I’m gasping for air.

“What —?” Mum’s finally on her feet. She stares at the puddle gathering around the drain — brown fluid streaked with mucus — then she turns on the tap to flush it away. “Rinse your mouth out,” she says. Her words are harsh, but she puts her hand between my shoulder blades and moves it up and down gently and I remember other times like this. Head held over the toilet, puking my guts up, and a reassuring hand on my back. Rob’s, not hers.

I hang my head under the tap, sucking the clean water in, puffing out my cheeks and swishing it from one side of my mouth to the other before I spit.

I’m coming for you, Cee.

It’s the voice, the one I heard before. It’s right beside me.

I straighten up.