Where the Rain Gets In

WHERE THE RAIN
GETS IN

by Adrian White

Part 1

T
he difficulty for Katie McGuire each day
was to find a new place to cut. Both her inner thighs were scarred from years
of cutting and although each laceration was little more than a nick, the
cumulative effect was a mess. The trouble was that in the early days, when
Katie first discovered this release, she hadn't had the reserve and
self-control she now possessed. She had cut with the abandon of the explorer so
early gashes were real gashes. These longer scars were still visible over
twenty years later and Katie avoided cutting across them because it made her
wince. Whether it really hurt more, she didn’t know. There was a numbness in
these old scars that meant her skin had lost its sense of touch (wasn’t that
the point?), but it hurt her inside, in her tummy it seemed, and only on really
bad days would she deliberately open old sores. But most days, and this was one
of those days, just a little nick of a reminder would do.

First though, her bath – this was
Katie’s luxury, her indulgence and her peace. Katie set her alarm for
six-thirty in the morning. This was unnecessary because she woke immediately
before the alarm went off but she let it be anyway. She used the radio alarm to
catch the news because, although a lot of it was nonsense, it was essential she
knew what nonsense was being spoken. There was a world out there and she was a
part of it, a very real part of it – to the extent that she sometimes helped
shape it – and the radio news was her first contact. At six-thirty there were
only the briefest of headlines but they were enough to bring her around before
the inane music and D.J. chatter took over until seven. News, weather – five
minutes already gone. What was to say how many things had already gone through
Katie’s head? She slept well and enjoyed that slept-well feeling each morning.
Her body felt good below the covers, not yet stirred into action but ready as
soon as Katie gave the word.

She’d stopped seriously working out
years before but did enough to maintain the hard-earned body of her youth. Of
course, back then the gym was part of a crazy collective life that made
exercise fun rather than a bore. When there’s a whole crowd of you pushing each
other on, when you know that all the other members hate you as they wonder how
the owners ever let this crew join and is there a time when they’re not here so
that others might exercise in peace?
And where do they get their money from:
they never seem to work?
Katie and her crowd must have seemed pretty
intimidating to the other members, but they never gave it a second thought.
They were never truly out of order, just loud and so obviously together, there
being at times up to twenty of them, mostly fewer, but always three. Always
three.

So Katie, who always had a good body
anyway – good as in well looked after – no, not well looked after because
already back then her abusive lifestyle was taking its toll, but good as in
athletically fit and strong and at a weight suitable to her height – Katie gave
her body a good grounding in those years that she would have had to go out of
her way to lose in later life. Common sense in what she ate, walking to the
station each morning and badminton once a week: these things kept her well, and
this wellness was all she hoped for these days.

Was it important to her?

It was important she felt well for
herself, and it was important she looked good for the world.

Katie explored her body as she lay in
bed but never with her hands; she travelled her body with her mind. She’d taken
what she could from yoga and enjoyed the relaxation technique of concentrating
first on one part of her body and then on the next. Toes, feet and ankles; what
did they mean by ‘feel your ankles’? Imaginary feelings? Imaginary bullshit?
Maybe, but she continued up to her calves, her shins and her knees. Yes, she
liked these parts of her body; she knew her body was what would be regarded as
beautiful. She skipped over her thighs. Her hips, her tummy, her shoulders and
arms, strong arms, she’d always liked her arms; taking her time over her hands
and fingers, touching each of her finger tips with each of her thumbs.

Enough for now, it was time to move. Ten
minutes gone – if she ran her bath now she could be lying in it, clean and
relaxed by the time for the news proper. She pushed back the covers and stood
on the hard wood floor, stretched her hands to the ceiling and felt again the
strength in each of her limbs.

Cats have it right, she thought.

She walked through to the bathroom,
still in her pyjamas. Although it was officially spring – well, official to
Katie who went by the equinox; she’d never really got to grips with the Irish
definition of when the seasons started and finished, mainly because she just
dismissed them as wrong – there was a distinct chill in the air. Katie used a
storage heater to warm the apartment through in the evening, plus a peat fire
when she really felt the need, but she never set the timer for the morning,
preferring a fresh start to the day rather than a muggy heat. She knew it
wouldn’t be to everybody’s taste, but then what would she care about that? This
wasn’t some economy drive – there was never any shortage of hot water, always
plenty of hot water – just a preference, possibly from her childhood, when
mornings in the house were a lot colder than now.

She leant over the bath to the taps,
turning on the hot water and placing the plug in the bath. Requirement number
one when looking for this apartment, for any apartment, was the bath. A good
shower was a beautiful thing, and sometimes only a shower would do, but in the
morning Katie had to have her bath. Even this simple turning on of the hot tap
and hearing the water flow, a sound so familiar and commonplace, did something
for Katie each day and she always took a second or two to let it register, to
let it wash over her. She could live without it – she could live without
anything, this she knew for a fact – but while she had the choice, she chose
not to live without her bath.

She straightened to a standing position
and looked at her face in the cabinet mirror, the briefest of glances that
signified, what – maybe nothing? She left the bathroom, the water still running
into the bath, and went on through to her living room/kitchen. She took the
water filter jug from the fridge and poured enough to fill the cup she took
from the drainer. She then poured the water from the cup into a pan standing on
the cooker hob, turning on the heat and replacing the lid on the pan. The water
jug she refilled from the tap and returned to the fridge. She took a camomile
teabag from a box in the cupboard – the press, she thought, the press – placed
the teabag in the cup and then it was back into the living area for more yoga,
again customized to her own needs.

She knelt in the middle of the floor
with her back straight and her palms face down on her lap. She breathed through
her nose as she accustomed herself to this position. On the third intake of
breath she deliberately took in more air and tried to direct the air to her
stomach. She was aware of the stupidity of this – naturally the air went to her
lungs – but she tried none the less to let the air expand her stomach and her
stomach only. She also tried to regulate her breathing and slow it down, taking
deeper and longer breaths. When she felt she had mastered this – only a matter
of about thirty seconds or so – she further extended the intake of breath and
allowed the air first to her stomach and then up into her chest. She tried to
imagine the motion of the air as a wave on the seashore, flowing in and flowing
out of her body. The simple suggestion of a wave had stuck in her mind for many
years now, and would probably stay with her for the rest of her life.

What was she thinking? That good posture
was as important as they claimed? Or that breathing from the stomach really did
work; that it had a calming effect, and if it worked here it would work in more
stressful situations?

The water in the pan was about to come
to the boil and the bath was just about run. On her final deep breath Katie
opened her arms to the side, raised them up above her head and brought the
palms of her hands together, holding the breath as she held the position before
letting out the air and letting down her arms. She stood and returned to the
kitchen, turning off the heat and pouring the water into the cup with the
teabag.

In the bathroom Katie caught the hot
water before it ran cold. There was just enough space to add some cooler water
but Katie didn’t bother – she liked her bath water hot, hotter than most people
could tolerate and she had her thermostat set at exactly that temperature. She
took off her pyjamas and hung them on the handle of the bathroom door. She
stepped into the bath water and, as ever, the temperature made her gasp. All
her measured breathing from the yoga was replaced by short intakes of breath as
she tried to accustom her body to the heat. First one foot and then the other;
this was the easy part. Before she had a chance to reconsider, she grabbed the
handles at the side of the bath and lowered herself to a sitting position. The
sensation was close to deliberately scolding herself with boiling water, as if
she’d poured in the water directly from the pan, but she forced herself to
slide further down in the bath so her whole body was immersed in the water. She
could feel the blood ringing in her ears and she knew this wasn’t good for her
body but, in a way that she couldn’t explain, it was right for her.

She’d heard once about a girl who bathed
each day in a solution of bleach and cold water – part of a never-ending need
for cleanliness – and Katie knew she was not so different herself. Her heart
went out to the girl even though they’d never met because Katie understood the
compulsion to do that every day. For Katie though, it wasn’t the cleanliness
and it wasn’t the pain – it was the oblivion. Whatever else might happen to her
during the day, whoever she might meet and whatever she might do, this moment
of complete aloneness was the closest the world would ever see of the real
Katie McGuire.

Katie’s body became gradually accustomed
to the temperature of the water. She was conscious of time passing, and she
listened to the news headlines as they were read out on the radio. This was
followed by a review of the day’s papers and, when she heard the more in depth
news analysis, Katie knew it was time to move. She washed herself and stood in
the bath. She pulled out the plug and the water began to drain away. She
reached across for a towel and gently dabbed at her wet body; her skin was
inflamed with the heat of the bath water and felt tender to the touch of the
towel. She looked at herself properly for the first time that day in the
cabinet mirror – it reflected the upper part of her body – and she challenged
her reflection, forcing herself to look at her blotched skin.

“Not so beautiful now, are we?” she
asked her reflection. Katie felt this conflict every day, between how the world
perceived her beauty and how she believed herself to be.

She stepped out of the bath before the
water had completely drained away and sat on the bathroom chair. For the first
and only time that day she examined the scars along her inner thigh. She
reached across to the shelf below the cabinet for a packet of flat, open razor
blades, the type that used to be fitted onto safety razors with a screw. Each
blade was individually wrapped in a paper envelope and Katie picked one out
before returning the outer packet to the shelf. She unwrapped the blade and
with absolutely no hesitation she cut into the skin of her thigh.

“You have to stay ugly,” she said
quietly.

She replaced the blade in the wrapper
and threw it into the bin – truly, a disposable razor. She reached for a packet
of cotton pads and dabbed one onto the cut to stop the flow of blood. She held
the pad with her fingers and then, as she stood, she pushed her legs together
to keep it in place.

Time was pressing now. If she was honest
with herself, plucking her eyebrows took the best part of ten minutes each
morning. She refused to set the alarm any earlier though, or to change her
routine just to give herself longer on her face, despite the fact that she
always ending up rushing out the door. She kept her make-up to a minimum, but
this no effort look was becoming harder to maintain each morning. She brushed
her hair and tied it back, away from her face. Before leaving the bathroom, she
let the pad fall away from the skin between her legs. She put it into the bin
along with the razor blade and went through to the bedroom to dress.

No one would ever know because no one
would ever need to know.

Her clothes at least gave Katie no grief
in the morning. She’d adopted a look years ago – smart, business, professional
– and had kept to it ever since. It wasn’t exactly sexless because however hard
she tried Katie couldn’t completely conceal what was so obviously a part of
her; but it was more or less what you’d expect a male investment banker to wear
– only on a woman. For the first few years in this job, Katie had always worn
trousers, both for practical purposes and also as part of the fight for the
right to wear them at work. But as dress codes changed and Katie became both
more confident and more senior, she also relaxed enough to wear the occasional
skirt. She prepared all her clothes for the week on the preceding Sunday, so
each morning it was a simple matter of dressing for the day.