The Drowning of Arthur Braxton. Caroline Smailes

The Daughter:

      ‘I’m to work every night after school, from four until eight. Madame Pythia reckons that’s the busiest times. They open at two, but they’ve got their cleaner, Maggie, covering until I get there,’ I tell Mum.

      ‘What about weekends?’ Mum asks. Mum’s sitting on the sofa, a can of Diamond White in one hand, a ciggie in the other.

      ‘They’re open from two until eight, but then I’ve got to do full days and nights three days every month when Madame Pythia is “absorbed of everyone’s sins”,’ I say.

      ‘You what?’ Mum says.

      ‘I’ve no idea, the woman’s cuckoo, Mum,’ I say. ‘I’m to take money, check appointments, sit at a desk in the Males 1st Class reception and pretend like I’m hard as nails and scary.’

      Mum laughs. She pushes her ciggie butt into the almost-empty can.

      ‘Piece of piss, our Laurel, and you get paid for doing it. Don’t know how I’ll manage with the kids without you, though,’ Mum says.

      ‘We can give it a go for a bit, Mum, see how it all works out. Two pounds fifty pence an hour, cash in hand, that’ll really help out,’ I say and Mum nods. Mum’s all about the money.

      And I reckon that the pay’s okay for the job I’m doing. I mean I don’t tell Mum, but really I think that working at The Oracle is going to be better for me than being at home looking after my brothers. The youngest is two, Sammy he’s called, and he’s a proper handful, into everything, and I spend all my time running after him and stopping him from climbing out windows. Madame Pythia even said that she’s okay with me doing my homework at my desk in reception. ’Course I don’t tell Mum that, mainly ’cause I don’t want her thinking that I’m having it too easy, and ’cause it’s almost too good to be true. I’m going to be able to do all my homework while I’m at work. I’ll be able to read books and hear myself think. I reckon it’s possibly the best job in the world.

      When I get to really thinking about it, I don’t even know how I got the job. Mum reckons it’s fate, that it was meant to be, but I don’t even know if I believe in all that sort of stuff.

       Silver and Elsie Hughes:

      It doesn’t take long before I realise that most of the people who come to The Oracle are desperate, I mean proper desperate. It’s only my second day, I mean I’ve only been at my desk for fifteen minutes and I’m trying to figure out algebra, but Elsie Hughes has turned up sobbing. My mum and Elsie used to be best mates, before Mum shagged Elsie’s brother and got pregnant with our Sammy.

      ‘I don’t have an appointment, Laurel,’ she says.

      ‘Who do you want to see?’ I ask.

      There are three pools, Males 1st Class, Males 2nd Class and Females, and each of the water-healers works from one pool. Men or women can go in the male pools, it’s not strict, just has them labels ’cause they’re carved in stone over the entrance doors. I think it used to be a lot stricter in the old days. Only Madame Pythia’s pool has water direct from the spring in it, the other pools have a mix of local water and seawater and magic water. That’s why proper poorly people tend to go to Madame Pythia for healing.

      ‘I need to see Madame Pythia,’ Elsie Hughes says, wiping snot on her red coat sleeve. Elsie’s a bit plump and her hair’s all scruffy, with some of it still in rollers. She’s holding a plastic bag with a blue towel not quite fitting in it.

      I look at Madame Pythia’s appointments, I shake my head.

      ‘Soz, Elsie,’ I say. ‘She’s booked solid for the next two days.’ I turn the pages and look at Silver’s bookings. ‘Silver’s got a cancellation in fifteen minutes,’ I say.

      She stops her crying. I think she might have been holding her breath.

      ‘Okay,’ she says, sighing. Then she moves to stand outside. I see her taking a ciggie from a blue packet and cupping her hands round it. She’s trying to light it but her whole body’s proper shaking.

      I watch her. I mean I’m supposed to be doing my homework, but something about the way she shakes, something about how desperate she is to light that ciggie, something about the way she stares down to the stone steps, makes me want to cry with her. I’ve never seen anyone that sad before. I mean Mum’s been in floods of crying, especially after one of her loser boyfriends has dumped her, but there’s nothing deep about her tears. I’ve always known that she’ll be out down The Swan on the pull the following night. Mum’s bed’s never empty for long. But with Elsie Hughes, her pain’s different. It’s like it’s all the way around her and covering her like a shower curtain. I think she might be trapped and I think she might be desperate for someone to make her better.

      I hear Silver coming. He always whistles the same tune. I think it’s from an old film but I don’t know him well enough yet to ask.

      ‘Elsie Hughes is your next appointment,’ I say to Silver, pointing out the door to Elsie.

      Silver looks at Elsie Hughes and frowns. He walks out the wooden door but I can still hear them talking.

      ‘You going to run away again?’ he asks Elsie Hughes.

      ‘No, Silver, I’m hoping you can help me last a bit longer,’ she says to him.

      Silver starts whistling again. I hold my breath until they’ve gone down the steps and they’ve turned left towards the Females bath entrance.

       No Swimsuits Allowed:

      It’s been nearly a week now and I’m proper shattered. I’ve got no energy and I feel proper sad inside. There’s so much pain and upset in the air in The Oracle. Some days I’ve wished I was wearing my fluffy pink earmuffs. Apparently that’s normal. And that’s why Madame Pythia came in earlier to tell me that part of my job was to take a weekly swim in the Males 1st Class pool. She said the spring water would take away all the weight I’d absorbed during my first week here. That was a couple of hours ago.

      Now I’m practically being carried by Silver and Martin. They’ve each got me under one of my arms and my DMs are off the ground. I’m worried that they can see my knickers ’cause my dress is silly short and with the dragging it’s going up and up. I’m practically making tiny running steps in the air as they take me to Madame Pythia.

      She’s standing next to the wooden steps going down into the deep end of the pool. Martin and Silver let me go, my knees buckle, and I fall to the mosaic floor.

      ‘You’re being ridiculous, Laurel, this is for your own good, and hiding—’ Madame Pythia says.

      ‘I wasn’t hiding,’ I say, and then, ‘I don’t have a swimsuit.’

      ‘No swimsuits allowed,’ Madame Pythia says.

      I feel sick. I don’t like my body. I don’t like the hairs, I don’t like my tiny titties. I don’t like how the three of them are staring at me, waiting for me to strip down to starkers.

      ‘Strip, or Martin’ll do it for you,’ Madame Pythia says, and then, ‘I know this is making you uncomfortable, but there’s no other way. Let the water help you, Laurel.’

      I look to Martin Savage and he licks his lips. I can’t let him be touching my skin, I can’t let him be getting that close to me. There’s something about him that I don’t like, there’s something about him that makes my stomach do hula-hoops.

      ‘Can I change in there?’ I ask, pointing to the blue changing cubicles that line