The Weight of Water (14 page)
Read The Weight of Water Online
Authors: Sarah Crossan
And I wish I could take mine home.
To give to Mama.
As a treat.
Instead of eating it
Myself.
When I am helping to load the dishes
Melanie takes my arm and says,
‘Will you come and live with us?’
But Melanie does not know
How Mama would feel.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I can’t live here.’
I won’t leave Mama.
I cannot make Mama whole again.
Tata stole
pieces
of
her
and now she is
Jagged at the edges –
Cracked.
When I get home I take off my shoes
To keep the carpet clean
And do my homework
Without asking questions.
I tiptoe.
I am silent.
She does not look at me
Any more.
She lies in bed
With a book and a
Glass of wine
Held to her heart.
Sometimes she drinks
Half a bottle,
And maybe she drinks
Even more.
And then she goes to sleep
Without saying
goodnight,
Without turning off the light,
Without checking I’m all right.
We devour too many liquorice laces,
Too many cans of Coke
And buckets of popcorn,
So when we try to sleep
It’s impossible;
We keep thinking of funny things
To tell each other
And secrets to share,
Stories we forgot were important
Until we turned out the lights.
When I admit the reason Dalilah cannot
Sleep over at my house,
When I tell her there would be
Three people
In one bed
If she stayed,
She says, ‘I used to sleep with Grandma
When I was little. It wasn’t so bad.’
She does not feel sorry
Or come closer to comfort me:
Instead
She tells her own secrets
And they are just as strange
As mine.
And I do not feel sorry either.
When the birds start fidgeting,
When the darkness has lifted,
We are still awake
And cannot imagine sleeping
With so much on our minds.
So we go downstairs for breakfast.
Ms Morrow says I’m the
Best swimmer in Year Eight,
Maybe in Coventry.
She wants me to come with
The team to a swim-meet
In London
In two weeks,
To race
Against girls who
Could beat me.
Schools from across the country
Are competing.
Ms Morrow gives me a blank permission slip
To take home.
Mama shakes her head:
No. Absolutely. No.
She doesn’t give a reason.
She doesn’t have to.
The reason is clear:
I don’t deserve it.
Kanoro says:
‘Patience can cook a stone.’
I know he means I need to give Mama time.
I know he means she’ll stop blaming me
When she’s feeling well again.
I know he means other things too.
But I am thirteen and
Mama’s forty-two,
So she should know better.
Isn’t that what they say?
She should know better.
Kanoro received special papers,
So he’s going to work in London
At a place called St Bart’s,
As an actual doctor
For children.
When he tells Mama and me
He is so excited
He knocks over a lamp and
Rubs out the light.
Mama doesn’t care about the lamp:
For the first time in a month
She laughs
and runs to hug Kanoro.
My feelings are untidy:
I am happy
to see Mama this way,
I am sad
Kanoro must leave,
And I am confused:
I don’t know why they are both
So thrilled
When Kanoro’s news
Means he will leave us.
I tell him
not to warn me.
I do not want
to say goodbye.
I am used to lost
Goodbyes.
And so,
One day,
When I get home,
His door is open,
His bed is stripped,
His books are gone,
His room is empty.
And I change my mind:
I want to say goodbye
After all.
William says I should go to London
Anyway.
He doesn’t always do what
He’s told.
‘No one does,’ he tells me,
Kissing me,
Showing me.
We walk past my bus stop
And I don’t go straight home
To Mama.
‘I’ve lied too much already,’
I say.
And he says,
‘Then what’s one more?’
And this is true.
What harm can it do,
To lie
Just once more?
When I go to Tata’s house,
To ask him to sign the slip –
He’s my parent too
After all –
He isn’t there;
It’s just Melanie and the child.
So I plead with her to sign.
And she does,
With a blunt pencil
From Briony’s toy box.
Then she takes a
Colouring book,
And on the back
Copies down the date.
‘I’ll tell your father,’
she says.
Every day after school
I train for the competition;
Every day I am cleansed
By this daily baptism.
Every day I am swallowed and saved.
Mama doesn’t care
Where I am any more.
She’s happy to have lost me
To the water.
Mama is asleep when I
Tiptoe out
Of our room
With my kit in one hand
My permission slip in the other.
I packed my bag last night,
And hid it under the kitchen sink.
I leave a note, so she won’t worry,
A lie scratched out in the dark
About an open house at the school.
From the bus stop
I can see our window,
And I wish Mama would appear
And wave goodbye.
Goodbye and good luck.
She doesn’t, of course.
Mama’s groaning in her sleep,
Groaning and dreaming of
Tata and Kasienka
Plotting against her.
Some rules are universal:
The back of the bus is reserved for the popular.
So I’m at the front behind Ms Morrow.
And William is somewhere in the middle
With the other older boys,
Huddled around a phone watching YouTube.
The back is where Clair sits,
Surrounded by a horde of wild approval.
They actually applaud when she boards the bus,
A smattering of claps and hoots
Like echoes in a jungle.
She smiles shyly, fakes embarrassment,
And looks past me for once.
Ms Morrow turns around and says, ‘Excited?’
I pretend not to have heard
And take a book from my bag
Because I have already told
My last lie.
The echoes – the shouts and splashes,
Carry through to the changing room
Where I am pulling on my
Nearly-not-there costume.
The girls in my race are taller
And leaner, with polished toenails and shaved legs
And I am not sure I will be able to get myself
out of the changing room
And into the pool at all
If everyone’s looking.
Clair appears from a cubicle
in her own costume,
More womanly
Than all the rest –
Her breasts round,
Her nipples quiet –
And she wishes me luck
By tousling my short hair.
Now I know there’s only one way
To get Revenge.
The cheering and chants
From the throbbing crowd
Fade to nothing
When I’m on the
Block.