The Drowning Pool
Lauren, again, 1983
LAUREN WALKED OUT to Anne Ward’s cottage. She went there more and more often these days – it was peaceful in a way that nowhere else in Beckford seemed to be. She felt an odd sort of kinship with poor Anne. She, too, was locked into a loveless marriage with a man who couldn’t stand her. Here, Lauren could swim and smoke and read and not be bothered by anyone. Usually.
One morning, there were two women out walking. She recognized them: a policewoman, Jeannie, a stout WPC with a ruddy face, and her sister, Nickie, the one who spoke to the dead. Lauren rather liked Nickie. She was funny and seemed kind. Even if she was a con artist.
Jeannie called out to her and Lauren waved in a dismissive way that she hoped would see them off. Usually she would have gone over to chat. But her face was a mess and she wasn’t in the mood to explain.
She went for a swim. She was conscious of doing things one final time: one last walk, one last smoke, one last kiss of her son’s pale forehead, one last dip in the river (next-to-last). As she slipped under the water, she wondered if this was how it would be, whether she would feel anything. She wondered where all her fight had gone.
It was Jeannie who arrived at the river first. She’d been at the station watching the storm when the call came: Patrick Townsend had been panicking and incoherent, shouting something over the radio about his wife. His wife and the Drowning Pool. When Jeannie got there, the boy was under the trees, his head on his knees. At first she thought he was asleep, but when he looked up his eyes were wide and black.
‘Sean,’ she said, pulling off her coat and wrapping it around him. He was blue-white and shaking, his pyjamas sodden, his bare feet caked in mud. ‘What happened?’
‘Mummy’s in the water,’ he said. ‘I’m to stay here until he comes back.’
‘Who? Your father? Where’s your father?’
Sean disentangled one skinny arm from the coat and pointed behind her, and Jeannie saw Patrick dragging himself on to the bank, his breath coming in sobs, his face twisted with agony.
Jeannie went to him. ‘Sir, I … The ambulance is on its way, ETA four minutes now—’
‘Too late,’ Patrick said, shaking his head. ‘I was too late. She’s gone.’
Others arrived: paramedics and uniforms and one or two senior detectives. Sean had got to his feet; with Jeannie’s coat wrapped around him like a cape, he clung to his father.
‘Could you take him home?’ one of the other detectives said to her.
The boy began to cry. ‘Please. No. I don’t want to. I don’t want to go.’
Patrick said, ‘Jeannie, could you take him to your place? He’s frightened and he doesn’t want to go home.’
Patrick kneeled in the mud, holding his son, cradling his head, whispering in his ear. By the time he stood, the boy seemed calm and docile. He slipped his hand into Jeannie’s, trotting along beside her without looking back.
Back at her flat, Jeannie got Sean out of his wet things. She wrapped him up in a blanket and made cheese on toast. Sean ate, quietly and carefully, leaning forward over the plate so as not to drop crumbs. When he was finished, he asked, ‘Is Mum going to be all right?’
Jeannie busied herself with clearing away the plates. ‘Are you warm enough, Sean?’ she asked him.
‘I’m OK.’
Jeannie made cups of tea and gave them two sugars each. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened, Sean?’ she asked, and he shook his head. ‘No? How did you get down to the river? You were terribly muddy.’
‘We went in the car, but I fell over on the path,’ he said.
‘OK. Did your dad drive you there, then? Or was it your mum?’
‘We all went together,’ Sean said.
‘All of you?’
Sean’s face crumpled. ‘There was a storm when I woke up, it was very loud, and there were funny noises in the kitchen.’
‘What sort of funny noises?’
‘Like … like a dog makes, when it’s sad.’
‘Like a whimper?’
Sean nodded. ‘But we don’t have a dog because I’m not allowed. Dad says I won’t look after it properly and it’ll be just another thing for him to do.’ He sipped his tea and wiped his eyes. ‘I didn’t want to be by myself because of the storm. So Dad put me in the car.’
‘And your mum?’
He frowned. ‘Well. She was in the river and I had to wait under the trees. I’m not supposed to talk about it.’
‘What do you mean, Sean? What do you mean, not supposed to talk about it?’
He shook his head and shrugged, and didn’t say another word.