The Outcast (7 page)

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writhing very violently; she grabbed onto him and they both stayed down. The water felt heavy on top of them and she wasn’t really free and they were struggling together and he didn’t know what they were struggling for, except that he didn’t have any breath at all and there was a bad pain in his chest. He started to choke. Her fingers were gripping him and he was held down by her. He was swallowing water and felt terror and pushed off from the bottom again, wrenching her hands away, and got free and when he surfaced he could only get his face out of the water, he couldn’t seem to come out of the water properly. Why doesn’t she come, he thought, why doesn’t she come up? He tried to get up in the water and get his breath, and he was so angry with her, and then he went down again, half on purpose and half because he couldn’t help it. Her hair was floating over her face and in the way of them, and the sand and mud were all around them. He tried to pull her again, but she was much heavier somehow and even though she didn’t grab him, he couldn’t do anything with her; he got her hand and tried to swim, but he was tired and had no strength. He tried to swim pulling her hand – as if he were tugging along the road, to show her something – but he kept letting go. He came up again. He felt weak and he couldn’t seem to think what to do. His mind felt weak and his body wouldn’t connect with it and he heard a sound coming out of himself, but couldn’t feel himself making it.

He tried to go down again, but found he couldn’t. He tried to peer down through the water, but his breath and panic made it move too much to see anything, and anyway it was muddy and he didn’t know where she was now. He felt himself cramp up; he felt his legs, or his breath, or whatever it was that made him a swimmer stop working and he knew that he was going to

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drown. He knew that he wasn’t going be able to get out of the water.Then he thought, in a normal way: this hasn’t taken very long, I can run and get help. It was as if all of it, however long it had taken, had never happened. He’d heard of lots of people nearly drowning, lots of people didn’t breathe for ages and then they were saved.

He was very near the side of the river, not the bank with the picnic, but the other one, and he made for it. He almost didn’t get to it and, when he did, he fell. After trying to get up a few times and being angry with his body, he started to run to the trees, trying to remember what house was nearest, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t remember any of the houses, or any of the villages, or where the path went; there was just the wood and no picture of anything past it. He started back to the water, but it seemed hopeless and he was so frightened, so he ran back towards the trees again. He imagined someone walking in the woods just near him with their dog and he thought they’d be bound to help him. He shouted,‘Help!’ – thinking the person with the dog would hear, and then he remembered there wasn’t a person with a dog and his mother was under the water and he didn’t have time to find the person with the dog, and he ran back to the river and stopped.

The water was still again and he could see her; he could see her paleness and then a dark shadow where her head was, but not her face. He saw that she was under the water, but not if she was moving. She seemed to be moving, but the water was moving. He was going to go back in. He pictured very clearly going into the water and diving down to save her and what she would feel like when he got hold of her, but then he was on the ground. His mind made a lot of pictures, pictures of him in the water, of his pulling her out, of the person with the dog coming

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and seeing him, but he was just lying on the ground next to the river. His mother was under the water. She was about ten feet away from him and lying still under the water.

The drops of rain were sluggish at first, then colder. He stayed where he was. He thought he’d go back in and get her out when he could move. He didn’t know when that would be.The rain was harder for a while, but never like a real rain and then it stopped, and the whiteness came back and the wood was just the same.

Lewis lay by the water. His eyes were half open and he had stopped shivering. He had been sick and had moved away from it and closer to the water. It was darker now, but he kept his eyes on the other bank where he could still see the basket on the blanket and the towels and his mother’s book. He could see the empty wine bottle on its side and his shoes on the ground nearby.The time went by him and he had no sense of it, but he kept his eyes on the bank opposite with the picnic things on it.

In the morning there was a mist and the sun coming up made it very bright and pearl-coloured. Gilbert and the policeman came out of the woods into the bright light and saw Lewis, and the remains of the picnic on the ground on the other side of the river. He didn’t answer any of their questions, or seem to see them. Gilbert picked him up to carry him home and Lewis’s head was pressed against his father’s chest. Gilbert was talking about what could have happened, saying all the terrible pos- sibilities, and the policeman was walking next to him and answering him and then Gilbert stopped. He put Lewis down,

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onto the ground, and went to the bank. He looked down into the water and then went down on his knees, still looking. Wilson ran over to him and the two men stared down into the water and Lewis, lying on the ground, didn’t move.

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C
hapter
F
our
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Elizabeth’s elder sister, Kate, travelled up from Dorset on the Monday before the funeral. On the train she thought about what should be done with Lewis, if he should live with her and her husband and boys. She had to change trains and the journey was long and she brought sandwiches with her, which she shared with a little girl who was travelling alone and whose mother had asked Kate to keep an eye on. She and the little girl played beg-o’-my-neighbour, resting the cards on the seat between, and Kate felt absolutely calm and cool about travel- ling to see Gilbert and Lewis, with her sister dead. She placed the cards carefully on the sloping seat and planned the funeral and imagined taking Lewis back on the train with her.

Gilbert met her atWaterford station.The house felt strange and cold and Kate tried to be efficient, while Lewis and Gilbert were almost silent and kept apart from one another, and from her.

OnTuesday morning the coroner, doctor, two policemen and a stenographer came to the house to talk to Lewis about his mother dying. The rest of the inquest was to be in Guildford the next day. Kate led Lewis into the drawing room and sat him in the straight-backed chair brought in from the hall.

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‘Now, Lewis, how are you feeling?’This was Dr Straechen. ‘Fine, thank you.’

Gilbert sat on the arm of the flowered armchair next to Lewis, and looked down at his hands on his knees.

‘Let me introduce you to all of these scary people,’ said the doctor and Lewis looked around the faces.

‘Of course you know me – and I’ve known you since you were born, haven’t I? That gentleman there is called Mr Liley, he’s what we call a coroner, which is a sort of official who finds out about things, often sad things, like deaths. You know Constable Wilson don’t you? And Detective-Sergeant White. Your daddy’s going to sit by you and all you have to do is answer the questions we put to you, calmly and sensibly, and tell the absolute truth. Do you understand?’

Lewis nodded.

‘I’m afraid you need to say “yes” or “no” because that lady there is called a stenographer and she’s going to take down everything we all say on that clever machine, so that Mr Liley can look at it all later, and she can’t put down nods and head shakes. All right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Let’s start with an easy one.What’s your name?’ ‘Lewis Robert Aldridge.’

Kate, watching him, glimpsed the boy he had been in the way that he said it.

‘How old are you, Lewis?’ ‘Ten.’

‘Good. Well done. Now, do you remember what happened on Thursday? Do you remember what happened on that very bad day?’

‘Yes.’

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‘You went for a picnic with your mother, didn’t you?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Where did you go to?’ ‘To the river.’

‘It was quite far away, wasn’t it? Near what’s called the Deer Park, by Overhill House, wasn’t it?’

Kate felt removed and quiet. She wondered if she really should take him back to Dorset with her, if she should offer to Gilbert to take him away. That’s what many people would do. That might be the best thing, four boys instead of three; Gilbert would help with money.

‘Did you have a nice picnic? . . . Did you swim?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Did your mummy go swimming too?’ ‘Yes.’

‘Were you swimming together?’ ‘No. I went first.’

‘Then her?’ ‘Yes.’

‘I know this is very difficult for you, Lewis, we’re all very sorry indeed for you. Do you think you could tell us, in your own words, what happened to your mummy?’

Everybody waited.

Nobody knows but this child, thought Kate; she looked at Gilbert, wondering what he could possibly be thinking, waiting to hear this. Then she looked back at Lewis and found she couldn’t look away from his face. She didn’t ever want to know. She had to know.

‘Can you tell us what happened to your mummy?’ said the doctor again. Lewis looked back at Dr Straechen.‘Lewis?Tell us what happened.’

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‘Does he understand?’ Gilbert, perched on the arm of the chair, leaned forward.

‘Everyone needs to know, Lewis.’ ‘Lewis? Would you speak to us, please?’

‘I went swimming and I was trying to get the rudder off the wreck that’s there.’

His father was still leaning forward and hungry-looking, and staring at him. Lewis started again, his eyes on his father’s face.

‘I couldn’t get it off. My mu— My m— She— My—’

This was terrible. They were all waiting and he couldn’t speak. How can you not be able to speak? There was a boy at school who had a terrible stammer and he thought he sounded just like him. His mind felt very small and he couldn’t make himself speak at all.

‘It’s all right.Try again.’ This was the doctor.

Lewis tried very hard to think of words, but then, after a moment, he bowed his head in defeat. Kate saw his head go down and it was unbearable. She couldn’t understand why Gilbert didn’t hold his hand, or stop them, and she wanted to get up and shout at him. She thought of her own boys, her house and the world she had made over years and she knew, clearly and shamefully, that she wasn’t going to take him. She didn’t want Lewis in her house. She imagined the upheaval of having to love him and sort out the jealousies and the rows that would be inevitable, and of seeing Elizabeth in him all the time. It was beyond her; she didn’t want this motherless thing in her home. She looked at the top of his head, dipped down like that, and he could have been one of her boys. Her boys were vulnerable, too. She had no pride, she knew she wasn’t going to help him. She got up quickly and went out to the garden.The door stuck slightly and made a loud noise and everybody except Lewis

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looked up. Kate walked quickly away from them up the garden and only knew she was crying because she couldn’t see. She hadn’t cried yet. Oh God, she thought, here it comes, here it comes.

The people in the room focused their attention on Lewis again.

‘Lewis?’ said the doctor,‘Lewis?’ Lewis looked up.

‘Try again, Lewis,’ said the doctor, very gently.

‘I w— I w— I w—’ He took a breath.‘I wanted to get the rudder up. Off the boat that’s there.’

‘Well done. Good boy.You asked her to help you?’ ‘No, she said she would do it.’

‘Did you help her?’

‘No, I was watching.’ He knew how that sounded.

‘Was there anyone else there, Lewis, or was it just you two?’

‘We were on our own.’

‘Just you two, you’re absolutely sure?’

‘We were on our own. Please, sir, I’m sorry.’

‘There’s no need to be sorry, Lewis, it’s all right. Did you run for help?’

It was no good, his mind had shut down.

‘When did you see she was in trouble in the water?’This was another voice, from the other side of the room.

‘Did you see what went wrong?’ ‘Did you try to help her?’

He felt water closing over his head. ‘Did you go in with her?’

He could hear water in his head and he couldn’t breathe.

Gilbert took his hand suddenly and it shocked him.

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‘Tell me how it happened! Tell me! Lewis, tell me.’ ‘She sh— sh—’

‘Lewis, you need to try to explain to us what happened to your mother.’

‘It’s no good. Look at him.’

‘I don’t think he can understand.’

‘I’ll take him upstairs. We should have left it another day.

Gilbert, are you all right?’

Dr Straechen took Lewis upstairs and sedated him. He had spent two days sedated before, and he went back into nothing- ness and the numb feeling inside his head with something like gratitude.

The day before Lewis went back to school Gilbert took him to the Nappers’ for tea.When Mary Napper greeted them at the door she hugged Lewis. Since his mother died, people kept touching him.They were either shaking his hand or rubbing his head or patting him on the back, as if now that he didn’t belong to his mother he belonged to everybody. At the funeral a lady bent down and did up his shoelace without saying anything to him at all and he wanted to snatch his foot away; he didn’t even know whose mother she was.

‘Gilbert, I’m so glad you came. Lewis, everyone’s outside, why don’t you run and find them?’

Lewis left the house and walked down towards the sound of playing. The badminton was set up some way from the house and the grass wasn’t smooth and flat like at the Carmichaels’, but sloped down from the red house in bumps with a paddock and a ruined well.

He sawTamsin and Ed playing badminton.The other children, Joanna and the Johnson twins, Robert and Fred, and others,

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were watching, or climbing an old apple tree nearby. There were a few apples, but they were mostly sour and wasps hovered over the ground for the rotten ones. Kit, in a good position up in the tree, saw Lewis come towards them. He stopped to watch with his hands in his pockets.