The Drowning by Rachel Ward Page B

for. I … killed him.”
    “It was an accident,” she says stubbornly.
    “No, Mum. It was a lot of things, but it wasn’t an accident. I wouldn’t blame you if you did turn me in.”
    “We don’t do that, Carl. Not in this family. We don’t blab. We don’t snitch.” She looks at me bleakly. “Besides, what good would it do? I’ve lost one son; I don’t want to lose another.”
    “I’m sorry,” I say again.
    Her hands tighten on mine, and I feel the end of her little finger on my skin. It’s smoother than the other fingers. Something jolts inside me. The pain she’s gone through, held inside all these years.
    “You did what you had to do,” she says. “You stood up to him.”
    “But I didn’t want … I never wanted …”
    “I know. But maybe this is the end. A full stop to all the violence. Let’s hope so.”
    A full stop. But where did it start in the first place? I bring our hands up between us, turn her hand over so it’s palm upward.
    “Rob told me what happened to your finger, Mum.”
    She glances at me, a quick, bright-eyed flash, and then she looks away. Like Neisha looked away.
    “You were just a babe in arms. But Rob … Rob saw it and I wish to God he hadn’t. It was an accident. The sort of accident that happened every time your dad had a night at the pub.”
    The muscles at the corner of her mouth are twitching.
    “It’s all right, Mum.”
    She shakes her head.
    “It doesn’t matter now. It was a long time ago.”
    Her hand is trembling in mine. I bring both her hands behind my back, put them at my waist and I wrap my armsaround her. We hold on tightly to each other, rocking gently from side to side, and after a few seconds her body starts shaking as she cries into my shoulder.
    Maybe this is the end, an end to the violence. It’s what she wants to believe, but Rob was here, today, outside in the mist, and he was angry. It’s not over yet. I’ve got a feeling that it’s not nearly over.

I ’m standing in the bathroom, facing the bathtub with the shower at one end.
    Rob.
    He’s there when I’m wet.
    And not when I’m dry.
    That’s it. I figured it out.
    The tap. The rain. The water slopping onto the floor from the bucket.
    The drop of water on the table. My finger touching it. Rob’s voice.
    It isn’t just the water being there, it’s me being in contact with it.
    It doesn’t seem to affect Mum or Neisha. Just me.
    If I’m right, he’ll come to me. Not when I run the water, but when I step in. When my skin is wet.
    My guts are churning. What am I doing? He hates me. He’s angry, really angry. The last couple of times he’s even launched himself at me. My shoulders spasm at the thought.
    But he can’t hurt me, can he? He’s dead. I can just turn him off. Twist the tap, towel myself dry, and he’ll be gone.
    I take a deep breath, drop my clothes in a pile on the floor, and step into the bath. Moldy grout crisscrosses between thetiles. I pick the shower nozzle up from the cradle where it sits. Keeping my back to the wall, I turn on the tap, directing the water straight at the drain.
    My feet are wet. I keep scanning around, but nothing’s happening. The water’s lukewarm. I twist the dial so it goes hotter, and move the spray up to my knees.
    Where is he?
    I hold the nozzle over my head and close my eyes as it waterfalls off my forehead and down the front of me. I’m in a haze of water, noisy and steamy and soothing. Perhaps I’ve got it all wrong. Perhaps my mind has been playing tricks. Something inside me is desperate for him not to appear — at least then I can get clean, really clean. I grope for the bottle of shampoo and lather up my hair. It’s kids’ shampoo — for some reason Mum still buys this stuff — and it smells of bananas and melons, like a massacre in a greengrocer’s. I tip my head back and let the water rinse the bubbles away, enjoying the feeling as they slide down my skin.
    And suddenly the water goes icy cold. The shock is electric.