The Drowning (20 page)

“I’m not letting this go, Carl. You say you’re being haunted. You want me to believe you, and I do — at least I’m trying to. But you have to be straight with me. What does he want, Carl? What does Rob want?”

I stop walking and face her. “He wants to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?”

“Yeah. No. More than that. He wants to kill you, Neisha. And he wants me to help him. To prove my loyalty. To make me pay for killing him and for kissing you, fancying you … loving you …”

She’s quiet for a moment. I’m not even sure if she heard me clearly. Then her eyes soften.

“Loving me?”

“I’m sorry, it’s too soon. Too much.”

“No. No …”

She reaches out to me and we draw together, holding each other close.

“But why does he hate me so much? Why can’t he let it go? I don’t understand what I did to deserve this.”

This is the moment, the chance to tell her the whole truth, get it out. I bottle it.

“You know he thought we were seeing each other, and then you threatened to tell about the burglary. It’s just unfinished business in his eyes. That’s why I pulled you away from the lake that time. That’s why I made you promise not to go there. He wants you back there … He wants to drown you. So I want you to promise me again. Promise me that you’ll never, never go back to the lake.” I kiss the top of her head.

“Of course.”

“No, say it. Say it, Neisha. I need to hear it.”

“Carl, I promise you that I won’t go back to the lake.”

“And you mean it?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”

“Because that’s what all this is about, Neisha. That’s why I ran away. I want to keep you safe. I love you, Neisha. I really love you.”

My words disappear into her mouth as she moves in and kisses me. She breathes them in, swallows them. And for a moment I’m lost again, in the sweet wet world we make together when we do this. And the warm swell of happiness is there again, and I catch myself thinking,
It’s going to be all right. I love her. She loves me. We’re going to be okay.

But even as I think this, I know it’s not true. Because although everything I’ve said to her is the truth and I mean every word, I haven’t told her the whole truth.

She thinks she’s kissing Carl, the boy who saved her. She’s not. She’s kissing the boy who betrayed her.

W
hen I kiss Neisha, really kiss her, it feels like the rest of the world is falling away. Or else it’s shrinking down to this, to us, to the only thing that matters. It’s shocking, delicious.

My senses concentrate on the soft place where we meet and this contact, a few square inches of flesh moving on flesh, sends messages out to every other cell in my body. I’m going to explode, or melt, or both. I’m naked, electric.

Even if I were wearing ten layers of clothes, I’d still be naked. And so would she. My naked body is connected to her naked body. And there’s nowhere to hide.

And that’s when I know I’ve got to say it. This naked moment. Because I’ve never felt like this before, and I want it to be perfect. I don’t want to have any secrets. I want her to know me, to accept me, to love me.

I pull back from her and hold her a little away from me, so I can see her face.

“I need to tell you something,” I say. “Something big. I should have told you as soon as I remembered it. I tried to tell you, I did try, but I couldn’t get the words out.”

“What is it?”

It feels like the whole world has gone quiet. Like everyone and everything is waiting for what I’m going to say next.

“It was my fault.”

She shakes her head, tries to move forward, kiss me again, but I hold her back. Now there’s tension between us, her pushing, me resisting.

“Carl, we’ve been through this. You did what you did to save me. Blaming yourself like this, it doesn’t help.”

“No, not that.”

“What, then?”

I can feel her arms relaxing in my hands. She’s ready to listen.

“It was my fault you were at the lake in the first place.”

“ ’Course it wasn’t. He wanted to see me, threatened me to make me go.”

I wish it were that simple. I wish I didn’t have to say this.

“No. It was my fault. I said something to him that started this whole thing off. I’m to blame for all of this, because I was a coward, because he was taunting me about fancying you. I told him I didn’t care about you at all, that I wouldn’t even care if he killed you.”

“What?”

She’s frozen now, like someone’s pressed
PAUSE
and she’s stopped, dead. I can’t look at her anymore.

“One time when you got back together I heard you talking with him and you were laughing about me, you were telling him you didn’t fancy me, would never fancy me. I was so … so crushed, Neisha, so jealous. It was a stupid thing to say. He thought I was daring him to do it. I was upset and in the heat of the moment … I said such a stupid, stupid thing.”

I thought it was quiet before, but this is something else.

I squint at her through half-shut eyes. This is bad, really bad. Her face is sagging with shock, jaw slack. But it’s her eyes that get me. They’re pooling with tears.

“I don’t understand. I thought you liked me. You just said you loved me,” she says.

“I did. I do. I love you, Neisha, I always have.”

“So how could you … ?”

“I wanted Rob to stop hitting me, and I was angry because you didn’t want me. It was only for a moment, and then I’d said it and I thought Rob would forget it. But he didn’t.”

I can’t talk anymore. I just stand and wait for her to start on me. But she doesn’t. She shrugs me off and turns away, starts walking out of the playground. Her hands are rammed in her pockets, her shoulders are up and her face is down.

I watch for a second or two, then go after her.

“Neisha!” I call out.

She doesn’t turn around.

I vault over the fence and land in front of her. She tries to walk past, turning her head away. I step into her path. She dodges the other way and I grab her arm.

“Don’t!” she spits out. “Don’t touch me.”

I keep hold of her, and under her clothes her arm muscles are taut.

“I just wanted you to know the truth.”

“And now I do.”

Our eyes meet for a moment and it feels like my eyeballs are vaporizing in the heat of her hatred.

Everything’s changed.

I’ve lost her.

“That was the old me, though,” I say quickly. “I’m not like that anymore. I’m —”

“Shut up, Carl. Just shut the fuck up.”

“But —”

“I don’t want to hear it. Any of it.”

She shakes my hand off her arm and breaks away.

“Neisha —”

She turns to face me.

“I thought you were different, Carl, but you were the same as him. You
are
the same. I hate you. I fucking hate you, Carl.”

And then she’s away. And I’m standing next to the kids’ playground, watching her run out of my life. How can this be happening when I still have the taste of her in my mouth?

The sun’s gone in. Everything that was silver before is dull gray and green and brown. I shiver and look up and there’s a massive cloud blotting out half the sky, moving rapidly from left to right.

I’m in the lake with a half-and-half sky above me, thrashing through the water. I can’t see them anymore. Neisha and Rob. The first flash of lightning scares the crap out of me, but it reveals them in its strobe light. Two heads above the water.

My legs are like jelly. I’ve got to get out of this. I’ve got to get home. Neisha’s disappeared from view and I turn and start running for home. The first raindrop hits the top of my ear, and his voice bursts into my head, clear and close. And then the sky opens and it’s as if someone is pouring water from a bucket onto
the rec and the street and the flats. People outside the shops scream as they’re soaked in an instant. The cold, the shock of it, takes my breath away.

I’m coming for you, Cee. You can’t stop me.

I try to wipe the water out of my eyes and keep running. Around me, people are scattering in panic. Rob stands in the middle of the rec, not pursuing me, just standing, his pale figure the only still thing in a world alive with water.

Kill her or I’ll kill you.

“Get away from me! Leave me alone!”

The concrete steps up to the flats are awash, turned into a waterfall. I fight my way up and stagger along the walkway, blast through the front door, and slam it shut behind me.

You can’t shut me out.

He’s still here. Close.

I climb up the stairs and go into my room. Our room. The curtains are closed. The smell in the air sticks to my skin. It invades my lungs and makes them tighten, closing down, trying to shut out the spores. I can’t see anything in the gloom. I flick on the light and I wish I hadn’t. The wall by my mattress is black now. Black and stinking and oozing. Beads of liquid sit wetly on the surface. In the corner above Rob’s bed, the place where the stain started, water is trickling down the wall. It’s coming in. It’s coming for me.

I can’t stay here. I can’t.

I’ll just change my clothes and get out. I strip down, then bend forward and start rummaging through the heaps. Everything is clammy to the touch. I burrow into another pile,
flinging clothes behind me and out the door as I sort through them. I can’t find anything.

Everything’s musty, damp, nasty. I don’t want it next to my skin.

“Carl, what’s the problem?”

I look over my shoulder. Mum’s in the doorway. She catches the last thing I threw, a football shirt.

“There’s nothing to wear. Everything’s wet,” I say.

She looks at the shirt in her hand.

“Everything stinks. I can’t get away from it. I just want to get dry, Mum. I can’t get dry …”

She’s looking at me now, almost like she’s frightened of me, and then her gaze shifts to the wall beyond.

“Jesus Christ,” she says. “That wall’s running with damp. How long has it been like this?”

“What?”

I’m trying to block out Rob’s voice, focus on Mum, figure out what she’s saying.

“How long has — ? Oh never mind, just get some clothes on, can’t you?”

Listen to Mum. Get some clothes on. Get dressed. But everything’s damp.

She fucking hates you now, Cee …

“I can’t, Mum. I can’t wear these. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t …”

I push past her onto the landing. I’m stark naked, but I don’t care. Debbie’s halfway up the stairs. She gives a little shriek when she sees me and retreats back into the living room.

“Oh my Gawd, Kerry. He’s gone mad again! Shall I call the police?”

“No, don’t call anyone!” Mum shouts back. Then to me, “Cover yourself up, Carl, for God’s sake.” She thrusts the football shirt at me.

“No, it’s no good, Mum. I can’t wear it!” I throw it down the stairs.

She turns to me.

“This has got silly now. Calm down.” But Mum’s anything but calm. Her face is red and the veins on her neck are bulging. “Calm down!” she bellows, but I’m spinning around in the hallway now, not knowing where to go, what to do, just whirling around, trying to make it all go away.

“Wait there. Just wait!” she screams. She’s gone, but only for a minute. She comes back and catches my arm. I keep turning and my arm twists behind my back until I’m brought to a halt. I unwind so that I’m facing her.

“Here,” she says. “Put this on.”

She’s holding a bathrobe. Her bathrobe. Baby pink and a bit ratty. She helps me thread my arms through the holes and wraps it around me, doing the cord up with a knot.

I stretch the top of it up and hold it to my face. It’s soft and smells of cigarette smoke and deodorant and perfume. I breathe in and out a few times and my own breath mixes with the bathrobe smells and it feels like my face is in a tent or a mask or something, a close little world that’s different from outside.

My breathing slows down. I realize I can’t hear Rob anymore. It’s quiet. The whole house is quiet.

“Is that better?” Mum says.

I can’t speak. Not yet.

“Sit down a minute,” she says, and I obey. She crouches next to me.

She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and her lighter. Her hands are shaking as she lights up and inhales. “That’s it,” she says. “We’re fine now, aren’t we? Do you want a drag?”

I shake my head. She tips her head back as she exhales.

“You got yourself in a bit of a state, didn’t you?” she says. “But I can see why. I didn’t know your room was that bad. That’s not right, that isn’t. I’ll ring the housing people. We’ll get it sorted. And I’ll take your clothes down to the launderette, get them cleaned up, shall I? You can’t live like this. No one can live like this.”

She takes another drag.

“I’ve let things get a bit out of hand, Carl. I’m sorry.”

“No, Mum. You don’t understand. It’s not this place. I think I’m going mad.”

She slumps down to the floor. I’ve still got my hand on her arm and now she puts both of her hands on mine so we’re holding each other … at arm’s length.

“ ’Course you’re not. You just had a bad day, that’s all.”

“I want to go somewhere, Mum. Get some help.”