time slows, as the armies of ants abandon their long march at midday, and even the flies can manage no more than slow, drunken arcs, I go back to the dark of Eden.
Until one afternoon, my stomach heavy with bread and my head with the shandy I have found in the pantry, I fall asleep.
When I wake it’s late. The sun is high in the sky – it is two now, three even. Time to go.
“Shit.” I stagger to my feet, begin to gather my things, gather the evidence – bottles, a cracker packet, a can. A hand grasps mine, pulls me down again.
“Don’t go.”
“I have to,” I say, snatching up the rest of the rubbish, stuffing it into my bag. “I have to see someone. This – this friend of Julia’s.” It’s not a lie. He is. “If I’m late he’ll come looking for me. And he’ll find you.”
“Just half an hour. We could swim,” he says. “Please?”
And I know I cannot leave. I let my hands drop to my sides, let the bag slip from my shoulder to the floor.
“I knew you would,” he says.
I’ve swum in the creek since I was four; learnt to swim here. I have jumped off the pontoon in black school swimsuits, and gold bikinis; have even once, as a dare, dived in topless. And yet now I can’t take off my T-shirt because I’m embarrassed at what is underneath. Because I’m not her. Because underneath the black cotton triangles and beaded straps, I’m still a child; skinny, etiolated, my breasts barely more than the buds I had aged twelve. While she was a blossoming 32D, full-flowered at fifteen.
I was a freak, I thought, a weirdo. I would look at Alice Cordwainer’s black C-cups spilling brazenly out of her top drawer, while I stuffed back the horror of my white 30A Cross Your Heart behind my knee socks and knickers. And then I would lie, late at night in the dorm, and trade impossible promises for breasts.
“Please God make them grow and I will eat all my cauliflower at supper.”
“Please God make them grow and I will never ever swear again, not even if Bea tells me to.”
“Please God make them grow and I will believe in you for ever.”
But God had other fish to fry – Petra Deeds’ missing periods, Holly Stanton’s fat thighs, Bea’s playing Mary in the school play – and he didn’t hear my pleas, or chose to ignore them.
I take off my shorts but leave my T-shirt on, pull it down over my bikini bottoms.
“Take it off,” he says. “You’ll get soaked.”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “I’m just— cold. I’m a bit cold.”
He shrugs. It’s thirty degrees, maybe more. But he doesn’t question me. Just smiles, and then steps backwards, walking to the water’s edge as if he will balance, Jesus-like, on the surface.
But he is flesh and bone, and he sinks, a mere human after all, then rises a few seconds later, laughing as his arms bring with them a tangle of weed, the slick green fronds clinging to his skin and hair.
“Poseidon,” he yells. “I’m Poseidon.”
Not Jesus, then. A god.
“Come on,” shouts the god. “Come in.”
And so I do. I close my eyes, and I jump.
We swim slowly, silently, circling each other at first until he stops and stands in the falling tide, and watches me, waits for me.
I feel his eyes on me as I plough through the water, my arms reaching from breaststroke to crawl. I’m trying to shake the adrenalin that runs through me, tainting my blood, heating it. My feet skim the bottom, sending a swirl of sand up to the surface, so that I don’t see him reach out for me. He pulls me towards him. And then we are both standing, facing each other as if we’re in a ballroom, not the middle of a river. I drop my head, so that he can’t see what I’m thinking, but he brings it up again, raising my chin in his hand, moving it to touch my cheek, my hair.
And then he says it, faltering, but sure. “You … you look like her.”
I feel something shift in me, a giving, and I cannot tell if it is relief, or sorrow.
“I don’t.”
“You do. That
Until one afternoon, my stomach heavy with bread and my head with the shandy I have found in the pantry, I fall asleep.
When I wake it’s late. The sun is high in the sky – it is two now, three even. Time to go.
“Shit.” I stagger to my feet, begin to gather my things, gather the evidence – bottles, a cracker packet, a can. A hand grasps mine, pulls me down again.
“Don’t go.”
“I have to,” I say, snatching up the rest of the rubbish, stuffing it into my bag. “I have to see someone. This – this friend of Julia’s.” It’s not a lie. He is. “If I’m late he’ll come looking for me. And he’ll find you.”
“Just half an hour. We could swim,” he says. “Please?”
And I know I cannot leave. I let my hands drop to my sides, let the bag slip from my shoulder to the floor.
“I knew you would,” he says.
I’ve swum in the creek since I was four; learnt to swim here. I have jumped off the pontoon in black school swimsuits, and gold bikinis; have even once, as a dare, dived in topless. And yet now I can’t take off my T-shirt because I’m embarrassed at what is underneath. Because I’m not her. Because underneath the black cotton triangles and beaded straps, I’m still a child; skinny, etiolated, my breasts barely more than the buds I had aged twelve. While she was a blossoming 32D, full-flowered at fifteen.
I was a freak, I thought, a weirdo. I would look at Alice Cordwainer’s black C-cups spilling brazenly out of her top drawer, while I stuffed back the horror of my white 30A Cross Your Heart behind my knee socks and knickers. And then I would lie, late at night in the dorm, and trade impossible promises for breasts.
“Please God make them grow and I will eat all my cauliflower at supper.”
“Please God make them grow and I will never ever swear again, not even if Bea tells me to.”
“Please God make them grow and I will believe in you for ever.”
But God had other fish to fry – Petra Deeds’ missing periods, Holly Stanton’s fat thighs, Bea’s playing Mary in the school play – and he didn’t hear my pleas, or chose to ignore them.
I take off my shorts but leave my T-shirt on, pull it down over my bikini bottoms.
“Take it off,” he says. “You’ll get soaked.”
“It’s fine,” I say quickly. “I’m just— cold. I’m a bit cold.”
He shrugs. It’s thirty degrees, maybe more. But he doesn’t question me. Just smiles, and then steps backwards, walking to the water’s edge as if he will balance, Jesus-like, on the surface.
But he is flesh and bone, and he sinks, a mere human after all, then rises a few seconds later, laughing as his arms bring with them a tangle of weed, the slick green fronds clinging to his skin and hair.
“Poseidon,” he yells. “I’m Poseidon.”
Not Jesus, then. A god.
“Come on,” shouts the god. “Come in.”
And so I do. I close my eyes, and I jump.
We swim slowly, silently, circling each other at first until he stops and stands in the falling tide, and watches me, waits for me.
I feel his eyes on me as I plough through the water, my arms reaching from breaststroke to crawl. I’m trying to shake the adrenalin that runs through me, tainting my blood, heating it. My feet skim the bottom, sending a swirl of sand up to the surface, so that I don’t see him reach out for me. He pulls me towards him. And then we are both standing, facing each other as if we’re in a ballroom, not the middle of a river. I drop my head, so that he can’t see what I’m thinking, but he brings it up again, raising my chin in his hand, moving it to touch my cheek, my hair.
And then he says it, faltering, but sure. “You … you look like her.”
I feel something shift in me, a giving, and I cannot tell if it is relief, or sorrow.
“I don’t.”
“You do. That
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