Water Born (9 page)

FOURTEEN

H
ave you seen this? It's all over the internet
.

The message from Milton flashes up on my phone when I switch on as I'm coming out of school.

I click on the link and stare at the screen. It's a thread on some sort of forum. I try to take in the words.

The thread's been started by someone called kingsleighlad, who posts:
Too many deaths by drowning in 2030 to be accidental. There's evil out there. Evil in the water. Stay away from ponds, pools, tanks, lakes. Stay safe. Keep your daughters where you can see them. Don't let them be next. #evilinthewater

There are thirty or more replies. Some arguing about the pleasures of wild swimming and linking to swimming sites, others picking up on the paranoid vibe:

Water's gonna get you
.

only swim with friends in broad daylight

I never drink water, dude. Beer's much safer
.

Kingsleighlad pops up again, responding to some of the comments and adding a link.

Don't believe me? Check this out
.

I click on it and it's a chart listing names, dates, deaths. A chart called
Drowning Girls
.

Dad. It's got to be.

I go through the other links Milton's sent. They're all the same sort of thing. Warnings posted up in as many places as Dad could find.

I message Milton back.

Can I come over?

Yeah, course. Right now?

I'll call in at home first. Twenty mins
.

I check in. Dad's in the kitchen, pouring his madness into the internet. He closes his laptop as he hears me approaching along the hall, and looks over his shoulder.

‘All right, Princess?' The casual tone rings so false now, it's laughable. How can I be all right, with a dad who's hidden his identity from me for years, whose every waking minute is taken up with a weird obsession that he's now sharing with the world . . .

‘Yeah, I'm just going out, Dad.'

‘Out?' He looks at his watch.

‘There's no training tonight, remember? I'm only popping down the road. To Milton's.'

‘Look, if he's bothering you, I can have a word.'

‘He isn't. I asked to go and see him. It's a homework thing. He did the same topic last year.'

‘Oh. Okay. Have you got your phone?'

‘It's two doors down, Dad, but, yes, I've got my phone.'

I'm halfway down the hall when he calls out, ‘And don't drink the water there, okay? Have you got your bottle?'

‘Got it!' I shout back and I'm out of the door before he can check anything else. Clean underwear? Hanky? Some emergency money?

It's still blisteringly hot outside.

I ring the doorbell at number 12. After a brief pause, Milton opens up and invites me in. The house is dark and stifling. I can hardly make out where to tread as my eyes try to adjust to the difference. All the curtains are drawn, cutting out most of the daylight, but there's a blue-white glow of a TV coming from the front room doorway.

‘Mum's in there,' Milton says. ‘Do you wanna say hello?'

‘Sure.'

He leads me into the room. It's the same size as ours – all the houses are the same in this part of the road – but it seems much smaller. There's too much furniture squashed in, piles of newspapers and magazines on the floor. On a side table an electric fan turns one way and then the other. The place smells stale, like old kippers. The TV is an antique, a box rather than a flatscreen – must be at least thirty years old. It sits on a stand on the opposite side of the room. There's some sort of drama on: two guys hustling each other down a rubbish-strewn alleyway.

‘Mum, Nicola's here. From two doors down.'

His mother is sitting with her back to the door. From where I'm standing I can't see her face. A hand lifts up and
points the remote at the screen, freezing the action at the moment the victim is reeling back from the first punch, blood running from his nose. The hand waves the remote backwards and forwards, gesturing for us to come further into the room.

‘Come in, come in,' a voice says. ‘Let me have a look at you.'

I walk into the middle of the room and turn round. In the gloom, I'm not sure what's armchair and what's Mrs Adeyemi.

‘Put the lamp on, Milton, I can't see nothing,' she says.

He switches on a standard lamp that sticks up from behind the back of a sofa, and now I see her, Milton's mum. When I was really little, she often used to visit. I remember her and Mum sitting at our kitchen table, cups of tea cradled in their hands. I haven't seen her for years. When did she stop coming round?

She was always a big woman, tall and sturdy like Milton, but in this room she seems enormous. She fills the whole of the chair. Her legs are planted firmly on the floor, furry slippers on her feet even in this heat. Her arms rest either side of her, obscuring the arms of the chair. There's a crocheted cushion behind her head.

‘That's better. Is it really Nicola?' She looks me up and down. ‘I don't think I've seen you since you were this high.' She holds her hand out level with her shoulder. ‘Now look at you! All grown up!' Her face breaks into a wide grin, exposing a mouthful of bright, white teeth. I'm pretty sure they're not hers, at least not the ones she was born with. ‘Ah, it's lovely to see you. How's your
mum and dad?' she says.

‘They're . . . okay,' I say. ‘Mum's still working at the hospital. Dad's looking for work at the moment. How are you?'

‘Mmph, you can see. I'm fine. I've got my TV and my Milton. He's such a good boy. He looks after me.'

Milton's shuffling his feet now. I'm pretty sure he wants to get out of here, but his mum's just getting into her stride.

‘Ha, I can't get over what a beautiful young woman you are! You were always a pretty girl. My Milton, his eyes went like saucers the first time he saw you. You were moving in with your grandpa. What were you? Three? Four? My Milton had the hots for you, and I couldn't blame him! Sarita and I, we used to say you two would get married!'

She starts laughing and the chair quakes beneath her. She rocks backwards and forwards, slapping her thighs. The frame creaks under the strain. It's kind of infectious – I really want to laugh too, but when I sneak a peek at Milton, there's sweat beading on his forehead and he's grinding his toe into the carpet. He's mortified.

‘So . . .' I say, ‘shall we . . .?'

‘Yeah. Yeah, we're just going to do some studying. Okay, Mum?'

The laughter's subsiding a bit, but she's not capable of speech yet. She nods and waves at us and before we're even out of the door, the telly's on again.

I follow Milton upstairs. The stifling darkness continues up here. I'm wondering if this is a mistake. He goes
into his room and puts the light on.

‘Excuse the . . . I wasn't, um, expecting company.'

I don't know what he's apologising for. Unlike the lounge, his room is pristine. His bed is made. There's nothing on the floor. His desk has no clutter at all, just his laptop and a desk tidy with some pens, pencils and a pair of scissors sticking out. There are posters on the walls, really cool vintage ones advertising 1960s and 70s sci-fi films. His bookshelves are things of beauty: books neatly shelved by colour, creating a rainbow along the rows.

He sees me looking and smiles sheepishly.

‘I'm trying it out, the colour thing. Completely illogical, you know, can't find anything when you want it . . .'

‘It's lovely. I'm going to do mine like that.'

His grin gets broader. I hate to kill the moment.

‘Milton, those links you sent. The guy posting – it's my dad.'

‘I know.'

‘How?'

‘They all come from your IP address. Didn't think it would be you or your mum.'

‘He's been going on about this for months. He's obsessed.'

‘What's he been saying?'

‘He's just been focusing on news stories about drownings. He's paranoid about our drinking water – he lost it when the water from our taps ran brown. And he . . . he lost it again when someone shot at us with a water pistol. The police got involved. We're still waiting to see what's going to happen about that.'

‘Okay . . .'

‘I found that table he posted by accident. He'd left his laptop open and there it was. He doesn't know I know about that. He's been acting so weird . . . it feels like he's right on the edge.'

‘That's what it reads like too.'

‘Mum says he's got some sort of OCD, but that doesn't actually explain anything. I don't understand what's going on.'

It's such a relief to talk to someone about it. I end up telling him more. More than I thought I'd tell anyone.

‘Did you look at all the links?' he says.

‘Yeah.'

‘Did you google any more?'

‘No, I thought you'd sent me everything. Is there something else?'

He looks at me long and hard, but doesn't say anything.

‘Milton, there's more, isn't there? What is it?'

He puffs out his cheeks, blows out a long breath and says, ‘Come and look at this.'

He indicates for me to sit on the computer chair while he kneels on the floor next to me and calls up his bookmarks. ‘Here,' he says. ‘He's the one behind this.'

Onscreen is an online petition:
Close all pools now. Implement emergency water-saving measures
.

I read the full text. It's calling for a range of water bans to be brought in, but the main focus is closing public and private swimming pools.

‘Why do you think my dad's behind this? The name of the sponsor is nothing like his.'

‘Same IP address again. It's got to be your dad.'

‘When was it posted?'

‘Couple of days ago.'

‘Shit, Milton, I don't understand. I really don't. He never wanted me to swim, but now all of a sudden he's my biggest supporter, at least to my face. He plots my training with Clive, he plans my diet . . .'

‘. . . and yet he wants you to stop and he's doing everything he can to make it happen.'

‘Why? Why would he do that? Why would he try to ban the thing that I love, the thing that could mean a future for the whole family?'

‘He's scared, Nicola.'

‘But why? This sort of thing – a phobia like this – doesn't come out of nowhere. There's got to be something, some reason why he's like this. I can't think of anything in the past year or so.'

‘Maybe it's further back. A lot further. The rubber-ducky scene.'

‘What?'

‘I was reading a book on scriptwriting. It called it the rubber-ducky scene. When someone in a film or play remembers a traumatic moment in the past that made them the way they are.'

‘This isn't a story, Milton. It's not a game.'

‘I know. Sorry.'

‘Why were you reading a book on scriptwriting anyway?'

‘I was just . . . you know . . . it's something I'm working on.'

‘What?'

‘I'm writing a film. Sci-fi.'

‘I thought you were into computers and stuff.'

‘Yeah, that too.'

‘Are you some sort of freakin' genius, Milton? Should I be getting your autograph now before you're too famous to talk to me?'

‘Yeah, that'd be a good idea. Cos when I make it, there's no way I'll have time in my life for little people like you.'

He says this without a hint of a smile. He's so serious that I don't know whether to believe him or not, and then he cracks up. He's so dry, it's unreal.

‘Well, I can't remember anything in my childhood that would make him feel like this. So maybe it was before I was born.'

‘Do you remember where you lived before you moved?'

I think for a moment, trying to dig back. Suddenly I'm aware of the necklace inside my T-shirt. Even though I've worn it continuously for days against my hot skin, the metal is cold. Always cold. And, again, there's that feeling that I had when I found it in the envelope . . .

Falling, sinking, the breath shocked out of me by the cold. Drifting down to a place sucked clean of colour and light. And a voice in my ear. ‘Got you.'

I should tell Milton. I should tell him about the necklace, but I can't, not yet.

‘I don't remember – Mum and Dad never talk about it – but I've got this . . .'

I dig in my school bag and bring out the folded certificate.

‘Brilliant, Watson!'

‘No, not Watson, Adams. My real name's Nicola Adams. Look.'

I unfold it and smooth it out on Milton's desk.

‘Neisha Gupta. Carl Adams. Nicola Adams. Kingsleigh. I can search for all those things. This is gold dust, Nic.'

‘I think it means I'm not adopted, too.'

He lifts his hand to high-five me. I lift mine in response, but half-heartedly.

‘What was that?' Milton says. ‘That was like high-fiving a wet fish. This is a good thing – your mum and dad
are
your mum and dad.'

‘I know. But who are they really? And why's my dad such a nutter?'

‘I'm telling you, Nic, he's scared about something. If we find out what's wrong, it'll help. I swear it will. Shall we do it now?'

I look at the bottom of the computer screen. 17:35.

‘I should get back.'

‘Really?'

I shrug.

‘I'm meant to be helping get tea today.'

‘Well, I reckon I might pull an all-nighter looking at this stuff. No school tomorrow.'

‘Message me if you find anything. I'll be at home, but I probably won't be able to sleep. Too hot. Too much to think about.'

‘Okay.'

I pick the certificate up from the desk.

‘Can I take a photo of that?' Milton asks.