The Water Children. Anne Berry

like an embroidered pillow on the green, green grass. Now she lifts herself up and folds her body over the man’s stretched out by her side. Light as dandelion seeds blown on a breath of wind, she bends to kiss his fair hair, the fine skin around the vivid eyes, the unlined forehead, then lets her lips brush his. The kiss deepens and his arms close about her, the two blurring into one another. Owen wants to ask where his mother is but he does not.

      Instead he says to his father, ‘Do you want any help?’

      And his father shakes his head, the wisps of greying hair flying about making him look like a mad professor bending over his marvellous new invention, the onion. With an effort he straightens his shoulders and summons up a gritty smile, a tracery of fine, brown lines cracking his lips.

      ‘I’ll call you when . . . when tea’s ready,’ he assures his son in wavering tones. Then, as the boy creeps from the room, he adds robustly, ‘We’re having . . .’ but he never finishes the sentence. As Owen mounts the stairs he hears him sob, and feels his own heart jerk in answer.

      There is no tea that night. Owen sits upstairs in Sarah’s room on the balding, apple-green coverlet, as the darkness digests the small house. He resists its advance, leaving on the bedside lamp. He will not give way to tiredness and close his eyes. And, as if he is plagued with vertigo crouching on the ledge of a skyscraper, he will not look down either. He does not have to peek to know they are there, reptiles writhing about his bed. Their shadows glide like blue-grey fish among the sweeping ferns of her flocked wallpaper. Sometime in the night, or perhaps it is the morning, he hears the Humber Super Snipe return, hears it revving outside the window. But still he does not move, just follows the Merfolk as they weave and slide along the aquarium walls of Sarah’s bedroom. Later, the click of the front door sounds very loud in the orphaned house, and the drone of the milk float that follows it, almost deafening.

      When he ventures out of Sarah’s room he finds his mother sitting on the stairs, a suitcase propped on her lap. He has to clamber over her and it is a tricky operation in the greyness. On a lower step he swivels round and, feet apart, legs braced, faces her. For a longest time their eyes lock. He wonders if, like him, she is thinking of the day they made the snowman together.

      ‘Where are you going, Mother?’ he asks in a small voice. He hears a noise and glancing over his shoulder sees his father, face crinkled like a used teabag, cheeks still stained with brown streaks, standing, hands in pockets in the lounge doorway. ‘Are you leaving, Mother?’

      But his mother does not answer. And then a moment, a moment when a diver is on the edge of a high board, when he sways forwards, feels for the point of balance, and holds himself there. Owen listens to the sound of his own breathing, light puffs, and his father’s dragon breaths dragging painfully in and out. His mother inhales and expels air silently under her butter-yellow belted summer coat. The horn of the Humber Super Snipe shrills, and Owen and his father swing round to stare accusingly in its direction. After a pause it screeches again. The note seems more urgent now, more impatient.

      When Owen looks back, his mother has risen and is clasping the suitcase. And the way she stares at the front door, is as if everything else in the cramped hall, the telephone table, the telephone, the coat stand, the man and the boy, are without any substance at all. One last time the car horn blares, and this, a long sustained beep that makes all their ears ring as if they have been roundly boxed. Owen steps aside so that she can pass by un impeded. She treads down the stairs, crosses to the front door and rests her hand on the handle. He is still riveted to the spot where she sat and so he does not see her glance back, not at his father but at him. Slowly she turns and starts to heft the case back up the flight of stairs. Outside, the engine that has been idling, leaps into life with a bellicose roar. Then it is the purr of a contented cat. And finally it is no more than a mouse scampering away, the horn a distant squeak.

      He blinks and a merman has slithered out of his nightmares. He is sitting on the same step that his mother sat on minutes earlier, his scaly tail flapping against the striped runner, briny puddles soaking into it. He shakes his head, and his brass-wire hair floats up like the mane of a jellyfish, to sting the white ceiling. The salty, dead-fish stink of him fills the air, making Owen want to gag. He turns and runs into the lounge, slamming the door behind him and very nearly tumbling over his father. Bill is on all fours harvesting the vegetables that are scattered all over the carpet, orange-coned carrots, copper-balled onions, sausage strings of Lincoln-green courgettes, cucumbers lying like sea slugs on the woollen pile, and dozens of cherry tomatoes. He is still dressed in yesterday’s mud-stained gardening clothes, and Owen is still wearing his school uniform. He moves with purpose over the vegetable patch rug, uprooting the vegetables one after another, and placing them with care on the seat of the settee.

      ‘I won’t be long,’ he mumbles, taking in his son with a swift upward glance. ‘Just clear up this mess. Wouldn’t want your mother finding it like this when she gets up, now would we?’ He chortles with impish pluck. He raises his bushy eyebrows at Owen, hinting at the dire consequences that might be in store for them both if he does not complete his mission. ‘I see you’re all ready for school. Good chap. Just the ticket. Won’t be a moment and then I’ll go and start up the car.’

      Owen nods and presses his spine with all his might into the lounge door, arms spread, palms flat, knowing what lurks behind it. He thinks of the Humber Super Snipe eating up the roads, heading for the coast and the waiting ship. And then he thinks of their Hillman Husky in its washed-out shade of grey, an old, mud-caked elephant. He recalls the grains of earth freed from the upholstery creases by his weight, the gritty sensation of them sticking to his bare thighs, the stacks of plant pots that fight for space at his feet. He folds his arms, and feels his diaphragm jig to the uneven metre of his phantom tears. And then the Water Child is there, drowning his demons in a flood of light.

      Owen receives an ‘A’ for his essay on childhood memories. The Abingdon family he writes about is just like the Woodentops. The father works in an office, the mother is happy all the live-long day in the kitchen, and the son plays in the garden in the reliable sunshine. His English teacher, Miss Laye, asks him to read his essay aloud to the class. She tells the other students how accomplished it is, how vivid and descriptive. ‘Owen has set a very high standard with this excellent piece,’ she says, giving her student an approving smile. He wonders what mark he would have got if he told the truth. What would she have said to the waiting class then?

      Chapter 5

      Sean Madigan is standing on Richmond Bridge staring down at the Thames. It is a glorious evening in early summer. Tyre tracks of pale cloud etch a ghostly path across the hyacinth-blue sky. The only hint of approaching night is the denser, more richly pigmented line of the distant horizon. The river is still busy, a thoroughfare of pleasure boats and smaller rowing boats. From where he stands he can see people strolling along the towpath or enjoying a drink outdoors in one of the riverside pubs, a mother pushing a double buggy, a man walking a dog, a family of ducks bobbing on the merry-go-round of the water.

      In just under an hour he will be meeting Catherine. It is their third date and he is going to take her out to dinner at a pretty Italian restaurant on Richmond Hill. He has picked it mainly because of the views, the panoramic views over the river, though he has reconnoitred and glanced briefly at the menu. He knows she will like it. She isn’t hard to please, not one of those women who are forever summing you up, what you wear, if you’re mean or generous with your pennies, whether or not you take them somewhere besides the pub. Catherine appears content to be carried along with the current. As far as he can tell, and he admits that it is still early days, her nature is easy-going, self-contained, appreciative. She seems to enjoy listening to him talk, to his craic, to his jokes. And when he outlines his plans for setting up a business selling shampoo, her eyes follow his with interest. He recognizes that she is impressed. She sees he is a man with aspirations, that before long he will be making his mark. She has foresight, this English woman; she approves of his goals. She has the perception to look beyond an Irish navvy moving from one construction site to the next, to glimpse the man he will become. He is saving, puts by money each week, has worked out to the last detail what he will need to get his business up and running. He has sketched out his blueprint and she has encouraged him in his endeavours.

      He