Resonance (31 page)

Dead Water

T
INA CROSSES THE
lawns with me, Harry striding ahead, determined and terrified. The light is pressing hungry fingers against them, the creature attempting to force its grief into Tina’s mind. But I am holding Tina’s hand, and so she is calm, because I am her anchor.

We are pushing the pram with our free hands. The thing within blinks up at the passing sky, the beads of Tina’s rosary twinkling between its fingers.

I remember this rosary. It is made of Austrian crystal, and Fran and the Lady Nana gave it to Tina the day she made her first communion.

I remember that day. She and all the little girls of our parish paraded down the street, happy and proud in their veils and dresses. There were white crepe ribbons on all the buildings leading to the church. White paper bunting hung from one side of the street to the other. I stood on the corner in my scruff, and Tina grinned at me from behind her veil.

That was when she was seven.

I remember when she was fourteen, and suddenly it was like she was made of crystal, she was so bright and
shining and alive. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. She had already moved from our street, but we were always together. I remember Mickey began following her with his eyes, then. He began to go quiet when she was near. I knew if I wasn’t hanging around her, she wouldn’t be in his vision. I knew I should remove myself from her life. But I didn’t want to.

I remember Mickey followed her to her building. I watched the door swallow him while I stood paralysed on the street. It was just a moment’s hesitation, but even now the shame of it burns me up. By the time I ran in, Tina was descending the stairs like an Amazon, whipping him ahead of her with that selfsame rosary. I remember the fierce glittering arc of it, swinging through the sun from the skylight. It must have been the first thing she’d snatched up, and he was lucky it wasn’t a poker, because she nearly took his eye out with it.

That night, Mickey bounced me off the wall so hard I left an imprint in the plaster. Daymo, dragging potatoes from the ashes of the fire, snickered. Ma turned her face to the wall. The ladies moved to the other side of the city very soon after.

Now here I am, with Tina’s hand in mine. I’ve kissed her, and she has kissed me; a boy who could turn out to be my best friend is striding ahead of us, and it is the most included, the most loved, I have ever felt in my life.

But we are walking through a torment of light, towards a great black hole of nothing; I can barely look at the contents of the pram that Tina and I are pushing; the people who live here are no longer human, and I am empty. Inside my chest, I am empty – there is a small, suspended space where my heartbeat should be.

I need to get her out of here.

Harry marches straight past the frilled moon of that woman’s parasol and out onto the ice. He sheds clothes as he goes, a trail of small bundles, as if he hopes they will lead him back to shore.

The creature in the pram gurgles happily. When I look back up from its contented face, Harry has already disappeared, following that black man underwater.

The light is gushing overhead, pouring into the ice, where it disappears without return. Some of it comes and goes from Tina, bringing messages to the creature underground, but most of it,
most
of it, is sucked into the ice and dies there. I can see all this through Tina’s eyes. If she lets go of my hand, I will not see even a fraction of it.

The wheels of the pram whisper through frozen grass as we near the shore. The closer we get to the water, the stranger I feel.

The air is dead here. It pushes dead fingers into my eyes and ears and onto the top of my head, pressing me down. Surely I am sinking?

At my side, Tina takes a long breath and releases my hand. I turn to her in panic, feeling as if I am plummeting away from her. She smiles at me, the strain no longer evident in her face. Her voice comes from far away. ‘It’s much quieter down here, isn’t it, Joe? I think I can manage by myself down here.’

I release the pram and she pushes resolutely forward, heading for the water. I feel like I have sunk knee-deep into the yielding ground. But I take one step, then another, and I am moving and walking and following on behind.

We round the screen of the parasol, and a woman is
standing there. At the sight of Tina’s stolen pram, she starts forward.

Tina says, ‘I wouldn’t look in here if I were you,’ and the woman stops.

‘Why not?’ she whispers. ‘You haven’t put a baby in there, have you?’

‘It’s not a baby,’ says Tina.

The woman relaxes. ‘Very wise,
flor
. Babies are messy and fragile. They break your heart. Only one in eight ever survives, you know, and even then he leaves without …’

She looks confused. She starts again.

‘I did not give you permission, though,
flor
. One should always ask before …’

Her eyes flick to me, and she stops talking. She seems struck dumb by me. Can she see I am sinking into the ground?

‘This is Mr Joe Gosling,’ says Tina. ‘Your friends stole him at the same time they stole me.’

‘But … but who is he for?’

Those little children are running towards us from the bridge, shouting. They are angry, and – something that at first is difficult for me to read – they are
delighted
to be so. The joy of it fizzes off them.

‘Mama!’ screeches the girl. ‘She has your things! How is she allowed? Who is that boy? What is he for?’

Her brother runs beside her, his face a savage twist of determination. Cornelius Wolcroft strides behind, his hair flying, his eyes fixed on the woman as if anxious for her.

She is looking me up and down. ‘What is
wrong
with you?’ she whispers. ‘You are so dark.’

Tina grabs my hand, and my mind is filled once more
with the light gushing overhead. She pushes the pram through the rustling reeds, and I force my feet to follow as she leads me onto the lake. I feel the ice beneath my feet, and I am so
heavy
. I am lead.

Tina releases my hand and bends to retrieve the first of Harry’s discarded clothes. I am pressed down even as I feel like I am rising above myself. Heavy and light at the same time, I look into the sky, expecting to see the balloon of my thoughts float away. Darkness is seeping up from the ice, filling me from my feet to my empty head. I am falling. I am falling. The darkness has sucked the light from me.

I am dead.

There is a dull and distant
thud
as I hit the frozen surface of the lake. Tina’s face fills the clouded sky as she bends across me. I am gone.

Beloved

‘J
OE?’ WHISPERED
T
INA.
‘Oh, Joe, don’t!’

Footsteps thudded dully on the ice, and the woman’s skirts came into view. The last of the light went from Joe’s eyes as she bent to look into them. ‘What ails him?’ she asked.

Tina snatched Joe’s arm and stood. He was unbelievably heavy – even accustomed as she was to hauling sacks and boxes at the market, she could barely move him.

The woman took his other arm. ‘Allow me,’ she said.

Shoving the pram with one hand, dragging Joe with the other, Tina made for shore. Suspended between her and the woman, Joe seemed to float on the green and blue billows of their skirts, his face turned peacefully upwards as if in sleep.

Those children were coming from shore now, pushing through the reeds. Light was sparking and wheeling from them – they were so wickedly alive. Lord Wolcroft followed them, his attention riveted on the woman, who was gazing down into Joe’s upturned face, rapt.

‘So young,’ she murmured.

Tina tightened her grip on his arm. ‘If those brats come near him, I’ll batter them.’

The woman lifted her dark eyes.

‘I’m not joking,’ said Tina. ‘You’d better keep them away from us.’

‘I would never allow the children to play with you.’

‘I’m not asking for your
protection
, missus. I’m telling you what’ll happen if they lay a finger on my friends.’

The woman grimaced at the contents of the pram. ‘You consider
that
a friend?’

Tina jarred to a halt. ‘I swear to Jesus, missus. You let them children near her and I will gouge out their eyes.’ She held the woman’s gaze for a fierce moment, then concentrated on getting to shore.

It was a hundred times easier to focus down here. Though the light still roared around and through her, her mind was her own.

She was fully aware of Joe as a dead weight on the end of her arm –
Joe. Oh, Joe
– and of the ice as a dead surface beneath her feet. Harry and the man named Vincent had faded as soon as they sank into the lake, dropping from her awareness into a nothingness of silence below. But she could still feel the Contagion, coiling in its sleep down there – tenuously contained by the last flickering remnants of the Angel’s strength.

Not for long though, Joe. Not if we can’t help him.

Joe did not reply. Tina lengthened her stride. She was frightened as to what would become of her back at the house. She did not want to feel her mind fracture again, she didn’t want to slip away. But she had to get Joe back there: back to the fragrance of roses, and the mist-softened warmth; away from this dead water.

The children were racing towards them, Wolcroft striding in their wake.

‘Cornelius,’ called the woman. ‘Best you keep them away!’

The little girl howled at that, and sped the last few yards, screaming and grasping for the pram. ‘Not
fair
! I never get to play with Mama’s things! Give that to me!’

Tina thrust the pram forward and the child bounced off it, tumbling to the ground in a flurry of ribbons and frills. Tina’s skirts swept over her where she lay. The woman glanced back, but did not stop.

The little boy halted, apparently stunned. ‘Wh … why did that girl not do as she was bid?’

‘Get out of the way,’ said Tina. ‘Or I’ll walk right over you.’

‘Pap!’ The boy turned to Wolcroft. ‘Why does she not do as she is
bid
?’

Wolcroft, his eyes on Tina, gripped the boy’s shoulder. ‘Come away,’ he said.

The little girl, still tumbled on the ice, wailed. ‘She pushed me
over
!’ Tina was grimly satisfied to hear fear in her voice.

‘Find them something to do, Cornelius,’ murmured the woman, then she and Tina swept past, heading for the reed beds.

A
T THE SHORELINE
, Tina struggled to manage the pram one-handed. ‘Missus,’ she snapped. ‘
Help me
.’

After a pained hesitation, the woman averted her eyes from the contents, gripped her side of the pram handle, and pushed. Between them they manoeuvred it up onto the grass. Soon they were striding across the field of glittering frost, their skirts billowing, Joe dragging between them, lifeless as stone.

The woman spoke. As if responding to a question no one
had asked, her words were sharp with exasperation: ‘Well, what would you
have
me do?’ she snapped. ‘Regardless of their impulses, they are still but children. One cannot very well drown them like unwanted puppies.’

Tina’s attention was riveted on the seething tangle of light at the house. ‘I don’t care what you do with your brats, missus. As long as you keep them away from me and Joseph.’

‘Joseph,’ said the woman, as if tasting the name. ‘He is your beau? Is that why Cornelius brought him here?’

My beau
, thought Tina,
my beau
. All the things she had ever wanted for Joe and from Joe rose up like pain. The plans she’d had: the sewing machine she’d been saving for, the seamstresses she’d been gathering, the workshop she’d been planning to rent – a cooperative workshop, a manufactory.
My factory
, she thought.
And then … and then
… She thought the word
together
, tightened her grip on Joe and began running towards the house.

They crossed the threshold of frost back onto soft grass, and once again the light pressed in, seething and chaotic when compared to the orderly rush of the frozen places. Tina hunched her shoulders, anticipating a renewed assault of the Angel’s thoughts. But as she passed into the radius of his influence, there was no pain – just an increased thickness of the air and the familiar, probing inquisition of the light.

It was as if the Angel’s face were turned away for the moment, his urgency and grief laid aside as he sought to understand what was happening beyond the confines of his prison. Tina could sense him crouched below ground, his head angled close to the reflections of a glimmering pool. He had his beloved wrapped around his neck, and he clung to it, wishing it would translate for him, as it had always
done; wishing to see again, and hear again, to feed properly again – wishing to be We again, instead of this blind and crippled, solitary, lopsided I.

He was listening to messages from the water. It told him that something was happening – some tiny movement where previously there had been none, a ripple of life newly intruded on centuries of slow decay.

Harry
, thought Tina.
And that man
.

The Angel was tracing their descent to the bottom of the lake: two tiny insignificances pulling themselves down through a well shaft of pollution that oozed from … from what?
The Ship? The Friend? The Burden?
Tina could not untangle the feelings the Angel had towards this vast dying thing. The closer Harry and Vincent came to it, the better the Angel could feel them, and he waited, dreading and hoping at once, for the moment when they would touch its flesh.

The woman asked, ‘What do you see?’ and Tina realised she was standing on the edge of the driveway, her mouth hanging open, her eyes hot from not blinking.

‘They …’ she said, ‘they’re nearing the bottom of the lake. Something is down there. Like a ship. It belongs to the Angel.’

The woman seemed to search an internal landscape. ‘I sense no such thing.’

‘The Angel’s ship can feel them. And because of that, so can the Angel.’

The woman regarded her resentfully. ‘And therefore, so can you.’

‘And therefore so can I.’

The woman helped her force the pram out onto the gravel and over to the house. They laid Joe in the shelter of the porch, where Tina knelt at his side.

She tapped his dead cheek. ‘Joe?’ she whispered. ‘Please, Joe.’

Absorbed, the woman knelt, watching as if they were an exhibit. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘You are in love.’

Tina shook Joe gently. ‘Wake up …’

‘I know what love is,’ confided the woman. ‘Vicente thinks I have forgot, but how could I forget? Looking up from the accounts and seeing him for the first time, all business and smelling of the sea, ready to speak to my husband of taxes and excise duties and dues.’

She hugged her knees.

‘
O
pirata negro
– my husband used to call him that. As if Vicente were incapable of being anything else. As if legitimate business were beyond a man like him. How could I not love him? So sure and calm. So undeniably himself in the face of the world.’ Her face fell. ‘You can imagine my husband’s rage, when he finally realised my feelings.’ She shuddered. ‘Such rage.’

Tina closed her fists in Joe’s waistcoat. He was lifeless and cold beneath her hands. ‘Oh, Joe,’ she whispered. ‘What about our plans?’

The woman chuckled softly. ‘
Plans
,’ she said. ‘But of course. Because you are pretty, and because you are in love – you still believe those things are an armour against the world.’

‘Be
quiet
,’ cried Tina. ‘Stop
talking
!’

The woman glanced wryly at her, then turned her attention to the lake. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Cornelius will save you.’

At that moment, Joe’s body jerked. He made a startled noise, his hands fluttering, and the woman smiled. ‘There,’ she said. ‘See? He returns.’

Joe came alive in an abrupt series of jumps and shudders,
and suddenly Tina found herself looking down into widely alert eyes. They regarded each other for a moment, a tragedy of understanding passing between them. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said at last.

‘You only fainted.’

‘Ah, Tina.’ He struggled to sit.

‘You only
fainted
. You wouldn’t eat your dinner, so you fainted.’

He pulled her into an embrace. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered.

She squeezed her eyes tight against knowing what he was apologising for. She could feel that new, strange calmness emanating from him. His mind was cool water, the circle of his arms a still, dark cave. Tina tightened her hold on him, rested her forehead on his shoulder, and refused to admit that this was the stillness of death.

‘You didn’t eat your dinner,’ she whispered. ‘I told you to eat your dinner.’

‘I’m dead, Tina.’

‘You’re not! You’re
not
! Sure, amn’t I holding your hands, Joe?’ She grabbed his hands, the fine lace cuffs falling back as she dragged his fingers to her lips. ‘Amn’t I kissing you?’

She pressed her lips to his, to the softness of them and the warmth, to the taste of him, which had surprised her by being like apples, only sweeter – peaches maybe, or how she imagined peaches might taste. ‘How could I be doing these things, holding you so close, and kissing you at last? How could I be loving you
this much
if you were dead, Joe? It wouldn’t be fair.’

And they were clutching each other again, her fists in his shirt, as she whispered, ‘You’re alive, Joe. You’re alive. I won’t let you be anything but alive.’

Something rested lightly on her back, hot and dry and intrusive. The woman’s hand. She was leaning close, regarding them with an intense fascination.

Tina shrugged her off with almost thankful anger. ‘Stop it! Stop
watching us
!’