Dead in the Water (11 page)

Rachel is lying in a hammock, her body gleaming in the light of a wood fire. In her dreams, she moves through the forest, skimming the undergrowth, then rising up through the sea of green to the canopy, where in great strides she walks from tree to tree,.

José is some way off, also in a hammock, but closer to the ground. On either side of his body, shamans are watching him for signs of the spirit journey he is making. His fever was dangerously high when the hunters first brought them to the village, but he is cooler now. Although the bullet which passed through his upper arm did not hit a bone, it tore muscle and opened a wound, which had become seriously infected. The shamans have cared for him, placed maggots to graze on the infected flesh and clean it of putrefying material, sucked thorns from his wounds; and covered those areas where screw worms are burrowing under his skin with a thick, sticky white paste.

As Rachel drifts down into consciousness from walking on the canopy she feels serene. Lazily, she opens her eyes. The place is unfamiliar, but the strangeness does not trouble her. Simultaneously in her own body and watching herself lying in the hammock, she takes in her new surroundings. There is a voice in her head which says she should be terrified, but it’s a thin little voice, easy to ignore. She feels blissfully chilled. Whatever they gave her, she’d like some of that to take back with her. Then her attention is caught by a sudden movement. She recognises the man in the nearby hammock. His eyelids are trembling and his feet are twitching. The shamans seem to read this as a cue for action, one of them lighting what looks to Rachel like a green cigar. He inhales deeply and holds the smoke in his lungs. His face contorts and his mouth opens in a silent scream. Before fighting José’s demons, he has to smoke out his own. Then slowly, he breathes out over José’s face and from deep within him comes a low, guttural hissing sound that seems not of his own making. The smoke hangs over José, like mist over a river on an Autumn morning. The second shaman passes his hands over José’s face, hovering, gliding, trying to sense the moment when the demons’ battle brings them close to the skin.

With sudden brutality, one of the shamans wrenches José’s jaw open, purses his lips as if about to whistle, pauses… then blows gently into his mouth. Wisps of smoke curl around and enter his airways. José’s eyelids tremble. The first shaman sucks deeply on the cigar again then breathes directly into José’s mouth; his breathing accompanied now by a long cry of pain.

Rachel struggles, trying to get out of the hammock, her soporific glazed tranquillity cracking in response to what’s happening to José; but her limbs are heavy and she cannot raise the energy to lift herself. The old woman sitting on the ground nearby gets to her feet and strokes her forehead. Remaining peculiarly disconnected both from her body and her feelings, she sinks back and watches with a mixture of anthropological curiosity and voyeuristic horror.

The movement of José’s eyelids ceases. For a moment he stops breathing. Then his body is convulsed. If the shaman were not holding him down, he’d be on the ground. One blows more green smoke over him, then holds him firm while the other places his mouth on José’s forehead and sucks through the skin, through the bones of the skull to the demons inside. José’s body calms. The colour drains from his face. His arms go limp and hang on either side of the hammock. Then every muscle contorts again, his chest and stomach are lifted into the air and he retches violently. He has eaten nothing substantial for two days, so what sprays out of his mouth is thin and bilious. He retches again. And then again. Each time more violently – until finally he heaves a great sigh and collapses back into the hammock. The demons have left him.

The shamans turn him onto his side and clean his mouth and face, washing it with fresh water. They lift his head and gently pour water from a gourd into his mouth.

Time passes.

Once the shamans leave José to rest, Rachel drifts back to the altogether more pleasant world she had been enjoying before waking. She no longer roams above the forest. Instead, she drifts between close friends in familiar places and experiences far beyond her understanding. She is naked, standing waist deep in a mountain river, its ice chill waters divided by her body, then churning together in tireless tumbling foam.

Time moves forwards. Backwards. Passes. Ceases.

She gets out of the river clean and refreshed. And looks for her clothes. It doesn’t trouble her that when she opens her eyes she’s lying down. She doesn’t wonder why she’s in a hammock. She doesn’t think to question where she is. She’s warm enough. She doesn’t need her clothes just yet. But she looks to see where she has left them.

In the middle of a clearing a collection of objects has been gathered together. In amongst these objects, some of which she doesn’t recognise, are her clothes and José’s, her survival bag, the plastic bag, the satphone and the camera. All of them lying on bare earth, each item of clothing, each object, given space of its own. Nothing touching anything else. She cannot remember why she placed them like this, nor where she found the skulls. She is not even sure what kind of skulls they are – animals, monkeys, human? Something in her remembers that the camera should not get wet. Maybe that’s why everything is laid out like this. Maybe she did it to dry things out. There’s a fire nearby, although she doesn’t remember having lit a fire. It would be good to make a video of this. What a shame she hadn’t noticed the camera before; she could have filmed the shamans’ treatment of José. But she must have put the camera there for a reason.

She has an indistinct recollection from her studies about the placing of fetish objects within circles; but the detail eludes her. She’s tired and the hammock is comfortable. Why not shut just her eyes…?

1
7
North West London

When eventually, a few minutes after eight, the police leave the house, Suzie is still in bed, with every intention of staying there for another couple of hours Thankfully, they didn’t want to interview her. At this time in the morning, belligerent is a good mood for Suzie. Allan makes her a fresh cup of tea and takes it up for her. She grunts, he kisses her on the cheek, she grunts again. He would love to slide back into bed with her, to be there when she finally comes to life. The trouble is that work is just beginning to pick up and he reckons that in this game the way to crack it is to be totally reliable. Not cheap. Not fancy. But reliable. Friendly, good humoured and utterly reliable. And if that means working on a Saturday morning, then that’s what you do. And the job he has on this morning is one he’s enjoyed, even if it has taken longer than it should have. One of his mates, Dave, a joiner by trade, has bought a large end-of-terrace house in Bounds Green ‘in need of attention’; and Allan is installing a solar heating system. At least this bloody useless government is offering hefty grants to anyone who adds a renewable energy source to any major house improvement.

The roof panels are fixed, the new tank and controls are all in place. It’s part-time, return-a-favour-for-a-friend work, this, squeezed in between the major jobs; a few evenings here and there, a couple of hours at weekends when Suzie’s working on her stained glass. He’d have finished it off last night but one of the by-pass valves was faulty and he has to pick up a replacement on his way over to Bounds Green and get it all set up and working before Monday. He leaves a note for Suzie saying he’ll be back for lunch and apologising for borrowing the car without asking. His calmness sometimes exasperates Suzie. But to Allan it’s perfectly logical. You get angry about things when it’s going to make a difference. Get angry with the insurance company if they don’t cough up, get angry with some bugger nicking your parking spot; but the van theft is history now. There’s nothing he can do about it.

18
Clifton Hamden, Oxfordshire

After a fitful night’s sleep, Mark wanders down to the kitchen in his dressing gown. The old rosewood wall clock that came from his parents’ house says ten to seven. He’s boiled the kettle and is about to make a pot of tea and some toast when his mobile rings. It’s Jay Porter.
At this time?
Mark’s needed in London that afternoon. Angela Walker has demanded a meeting at Andrew Linden’s house in Stoke Newington. He doesn’t have to get there until half four, but he’s irritated all the same. He wanted a full weekend with Stephen, although it does at least mean that he’s back in favour with Mrs Walker.

He takes a mug of tea back to the guest room, reads through the report he was working on last night, then showers. When he returns to the kitchen, Joanna has surfaced. He’s pleased to see her dressed in what she calls her gardening clothes: jeans, and an old light green cotton shirt. It means she’s planning on being at home for the morning.

“
You look nice,” he says.

“
I look scruffy.”

“
Scruffy looks nice.”

“
Flirt.”

“
Am I allowed to flirt with my wife?”

She doesn’t answer that. “Have you had breakfast?” she asks.

“
Not yet. What I have had is a phone call from Jay Porter. Angela Walker’s poisonous little lap dog.”

Joanna’s stays where she is, saying nothing, leaning back against the work surface by the sink, coffee cup in hand, as Mark explains about the meeting.

“
It’s a bloody nuisance,” he says.

She sighs; a rumbling of distant storms looming in the airless silence.

“
What’s the matter?”

“
There’s just so much we’re not dealing with, Mark.”

“
The meeting’s at half four. I’ll come back here straight afterwards. I could be back here by eight. Well, OK, nine.”

“
Would you like me to go out for the evening? Would that make it easier?”

“
For goodness sake, Joanna. No. I wanted time with you this weekend.”

“
Oh, the illusion of family, Mark.” She sighs, leans back against the sink and folds her arms. “We’re separated,” she says. With sunlight streaming in through the window behind her, Mark cannot see her face, only the dark imposing silhouette. “I’m in a relationship with Robert. You’re in a relationship with Sara. You want to spend time with her. There is nothing wrong with that. So why are we ––”

“
Joanna, this has nothing to do with Sara. The bloody country is in a crisis and I’ve been asked by the Prime Minister to attend a meeting.”

“
And I am being very unfair. I know. I’m sorry, Mark. This is about me as much as it’s about you. But I don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Neither of us has made any attempt to get a divorce.”

“
We wanted to give it time.”

She’s avoided looking at him throughout most of this. Now she comes and sits down at the table. “I have a confession to make. Are you ready for this? I was glad when Robert said he was going to a conference this weekend. And you know why? I thought it would give us a whole weekend together. And I felt guilty thinking that. I felt guilty looking forward to spending a weekend with my husband, and dreading you’d make your excuses.”

“
I want to be here, Joanna.”

“
I’m jealous, Mark. I probably see far more of Robert than you see Sara. And I’m jealous. And I don’t like it. I hate it. It’s driving me mad.”

“
I’ve said I’ll come back here after the meeting.

“
You’re missing the point.”

“
I want to come back this evening.”

She takes a drink of coffee, holds the cup in both hands, her elbows on the table, rests her forehead on the rim for a moment, before looking up. “I can’t cope with this, the way things are. I want a divorce. Either that or for us to get back together properly. Live in one house. And until we make that decision, I don’t want….”

“
What?”

“
I don’t want to mess around like this any more.”

Mark nods. “Right.”

“
Is that it? Is that all you’ve got to say?”

“
You’re right. I don’t know what else to say. I understand what you’re saying.”

“
Do you?”

“
Yes. You’re right. We have to make a decision. We’re drifting, I know. But I don’t think it should be impulsive.”

“
Oh, for God’s sake, Mark. It’s hardly impulsive. It’s two years since we first talked about separating.”

There are times when he can be very articulate about his feelings, but not when put on the spot. He’s well aware of his tendency to withdraw politely, to seek time; and he knows exactly what he’s doing when he offers to walk Charlie to the village shop to collect the paper.

“
You get the paper,” says Joanna. “I’ll take Charlie. I need some air.”

So Mark walks to the village shop, hoping that the routine will calm him. Which it does – until he gets to the shop, where there’s a queue – of one. A tall, raggedy shambles of a man, sporting nose studs, ear-rings and dreadlocked straw hair is arguing over whether he should pay a mooring fee. He’s probably not much older than Rachel, but his appearance makes his age indeterminate. No doubt Charlie would have liked him and his amiable mutt of a dog, tethered outside the shop with orange binder twine.

Clifton Hamden is a picture-postcard village on the banks of the Thames. Although most of the Boyds’ neighbours resent the invasion of the village by the ‘Boat People’ – neo-punks and hippies, river-borne travellers who inhabit unlovely and dangerous looking narrowboats – Mark has frequently said how much he likes their presence in the village, welcoming the challenge they present to ‘our cosy certainties’ about property and ownership. But not this morning.