Water Babies
When they first moved into the house Aine knew that this room would be hers. She stood by the window and put her hand on the original wooden frame. Her thumb fell into a barely visible but definite groove, she wondered about the person or persons who had stood here before her. She looked out at the lake and she knew that there was no other room she could have.
Her children, one fair, one dark, one dead, all alike in their darting eyes and their busy minds, had the largest of the bedrooms. The third bedroom had most recently become his. He had promised her it wasn’t a permanent move telling her in his gentle doctor’s voice that he just needed space and time to get used to things but she thought differently. She wondered if he’d ever come back to her. He with his mop of wilful hair and his soft hands. He with his clever words and his gentle voice. He as the very foundations upon which she had built herself. He looked at her now with a look in his eyes that she didn’t recognise and fixed her with his long silences before telling her to get some rest. As if resting wasn’t all she was doing. Resting when she wasn’t allowed to do anything else. Resting and mothering. And she was failing at both.
Today she stood in the old worn out footprints with her thumb in the groove looking out over the lake. Darkened by the overhanging trees in the daylight and brightened at night by the moonlight, to her the lake was inviting, inspiring, ominous and beautiful all at once.
She could see Sascha in the lake. She was beautiful too. With her red dress pinned up to her waist and her honeyed curls escaping from their restrictive plaits she jumped and splashed and giggled. Her blue wellington boots stood side by wrong side next to each other on the muddy bank. Aine opened the window to call her and she disappeared.
The window slammed shut and she sat down heavily on the bed. The pink counterpane with its delicate roses annoyed her. She wondered why her silent husband had chosen such a hideous thing and why she had kept it on her bed. She pulled it off the bed and threw it into the corner of the room where it landed with a thud in a crumpled heap. This was her room and she was going to make it hers. She took his clothes from the wardrobe and methodically removed them from their hangers. She neatly unrolled all his ties and his socks and delicately scattered them onto the floor of the spare bedroom.
Aine felt lighter after rearranging his things,. She thought maybe it would be OK after all. She floated down the stairs, pausing on the fifth step as she always did. Five people, five minutes to go, five steps to heaven. The smell of dinner was in the air. Aine wrinkled her nose while her bemused thoughts gathered themselves. She thought that perhaps he had come home early from work and cooked dinner. Or did he even go to work this morning? Thinking about it, Aine couldn’t actually remember when he had last gone to work at all and she wondered what had happened to him. She knew she hadn’t paid much attention lately; the world had been so clouded. Though today she thought she felt much clearer.
The cold dinner on the table looked unappealing. In stark contrast to the three empty plates her place looked liked no-one lived there anymore. Maybe they’re right, she thought. She tipped the untouched dinner into the waste bin and filled the sink. The water warmed her hands. She kept them there until her fingers turned red and her wrists tingled then, without having touched the dirty plates, she walked away.
Upstairs the bath was filled with bubbles and steam was rising. The children were undressing and they smiled up at her. She shut the door and sat down on the floor to watch them. She envied them. Their uncomplicated lives, their freedom, the ease with which they accepted whatever life threw at them and moved on. She envied the trust which their father gave them knowing that they hadn’t had the chance to prove him wrong yet. She was no longer allowed a closed door. Not since the misunderstanding.
He had broken the door down after she hadn’t answered him. She had been under just long enough to see Sascha’s face but not quite long enough to reach her. He didn’t understand. She was only trying to hold her baby one more time. He’d dragged her out and pounded her chest until she coughed up all the water she’d breathed in. He’d held her to his chest soaking his white shirt. He’d cried. She hadn’t. That was five months ago. Or two months after, depending on which way you counted.
Aine’s counting always began and ended on May sixteenth. It had been so hot that day. Ridiculously hot, unseasonably hot. Aine relived that day everyday.
He was getting ready for work. ‘My surgery awaits’ he said, as he had said every morning for as long as they all could remember. Aine got up from the breakfast table where her three perfect children were eating cereal and drinking orange juice. She kissed her husband full on the lips. He tasted of toothpaste and mouth wash and love. She tasted of marmalade. He thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever met and even after ten years he couldn’t wait to come home to her every night. Her kiss promised him her undivided attention and she said one word to him in the voice she knew would keep him thinking of her all day. ‘Later.’ Her children grinned at her seductive smile and watched as their father reluctantly left the house.
Aine showered and dressed in the blue summer dress with the little flowers all over it. Sascha told her that it was her favourite dress and Aine scooped her youngest daughter up into her arms. When everyone was dressed Aine announced picnic time and the children all cheered. They made jam sandwiches and cheese sandwiches. They packed the wicker basket with a flask of lemonade and the cakes which they had made the day before and topped it off with the red checked blanket.
Beside the lake they spread the blanket in the shade of a willow tree. Aine lay down with her legs in the sun and got out her book. The children picked flowers for their mother and she put them in a glass with water from the lake. They wanted to paddle so she told the girls to tuck their red dresses into their knickers. They complained that their brother was allowed in without adjusting his shorts and Aine laughed. Sascha’s curls were coming free from the plaits which had been done the night before making it look as though she had a golden halo and she lined up the blue wellington boots that she’d insisted on wearing next to each other. Aine closed her eyes and listened to the contented giggling and gentle splashing of her beautiful children.
Later, the giggling was replaced by silence. Later, confusion. Later, the voices. Later, sirens, lights, flashes. The house full of police. Later, the red dress. Later, her mother arriving from somewhere. Her sisters on the phone. Crying. Her wet clothes removed by unknown hands. A wailing voice that she didn’t recognise as her own. The doctors. The tablets. The fuzzy edges that made her feel almost whole again. The children gathered at her feet. And then he came home.
The questions. Softly at first. He sat next to her for a while. Then the shouting. Later still, the silence followed by shouting followed by silence. He withdrew to the spare room leaving her in hell.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She knew that children needed watching near the water but she’d been confident that she would hear them. She just didn’t know how quietly a child would drown.
The cold pruny children in the bath shivered. Their chattering teeth told Aine that she’d forgotten them again. She wondered where he had hidden himself this time. He blamed her even though he told her he didn’t. She understood his blame. She felt it in the air when she chanced to be near him. It shrouded him with unspoken words. It was killing them with its twisting vines that grew from his heart and wrapped themselves around his head. She tripped over them every time she followed him. She could tell which room he’d just left because of the smell of blame that he left behind. Yes, she understood his blame.
Her own blame filled her head. Her eyes refused to close anymore. Her restless mind no longer knew who she was. Aine was a stranger in her house. Her children looked at her and they saw a ghost. They tried to remember the way her voice had been before. She thought she hid it well. He saw her and tried to remember how he’d loved her. She didn’t see herself. She looked in the mirror and saw Sascha.
Two children wrapped in towels waited for Aine. She dried them and dressed them in their soft pyjamas. They cuddled her and she took them to their bedroom where she tried to make up for forgetting them by reading them Sascha’s favourite story. They had complained that it was too babyish once. She hadn’t spoken to them for three days.
Downstairs the cool evening air was curling around the corners of the room. Aine, on the sofa, drew her knees up to her chest. She tucked her feet under a cushion and blankly stared at the television. A noisy drama was unfolding before her and she caught snatches of scripted conversation as she drifted in and out.
He was reading a paper and drinking whisky. He didn’t ever used to drink. She did and now she doesn’t. She thought how funny it was the way their habits had reversed themselves. She wondered whether a drink might help her sleep or whether it would just make her dreams more real. She decided she didn’t want to find out.
Aine woke up with a start, she sat up. Sascha was calling her. The lapping of her voice on the shore whispered sweet words. The deep untold darkness beneath the surface beckoned Aine with its promises of Sascha. Aine looked longingly on Sascha’s face reflected everywhere. In the sky. In the clouds. On the lake, especially on the lake. Quietly she got out of bed and carefully dressed in Sascha’s favourite dress. Aine went to the children’s bedroom and sat in the rocking chair. The rhythmic breathing of the sleeping children lulled her into a false sense of security. The blanket of their peacefulness rested heavily on her shoulders and weighed her down with its quiet sighs. Softly she kissed the heads of her living children. Her cold lips made the little one stir. She tucked the duvet around his small body and stroked his dark head. Then walked out of the door.
Dewy grass on her bare feet made Aine freeze momentarily but then she smiled as she felt Sascha’s tiny fingertips in the dewdrops caressing her toes. The trees reached out to her and the wet grass continued to soothe her as the sliver of moon appeared briefly from behind a cloud. At the edge of the lake Aine began to sing. Words of long forgotten lullabies tumbled out of her mouth and splashed into the lake, where they were swallowed up by Sascha’s eager ears. As she stepped into the lake, Sascha’s cold arms embraced Aine’s legs. Her fingers braceleted her ankles making Aine weep. The tears slid down her face and dropped into the darkness. Walking further in Aine could feel Sascha urging her on. ‘Mummy, find me.’ Her voice was louder now. The water covered Aine’s ears. Aine could feel her heart beat becoming one with Sascha’s. She opened her eyes and the darkness enveloped her. Sascha all around her. Sascha with her. Sascha in her.
