The Water Cure(10)

There has always been the worry that I would catch something of Grace’s trauma, because she was exposed young, at the age when any trace of toxin would cause immeasurable harm, whether or not she remembered it. Mother and King were traumatized too in their own ways, but they spoke of adulthood like a mantle, something that repelled.

Scream therapy then, in the early days, was supposed to tap our feelings out of us, allow us to expel the excess through the mouth. Up on the terrace on a windy day, we stood in the air. King still had some of his hair back then, nestling at the ears. I remember him being a giant, remember the wind bending me and Grace. Mother wore earplugs and held her arms around us, supporting us in the hot gusts. King held a stick that he called a conducting baton. He stood a few feet away from us, no earplugs, all the better to check we were screaming with the correct cadence, with sufficient enthusiasm.

‘Scream from the chest,’ he had told us. ‘Low down. None of that throat-screaming. Not through the nose.’

We did. The air came out of our mouths, heavy, full.

‘Louder!’ shouted King. The wind was taking the sound away. I would never be able to scream loud enough. I launched my voice with all my force and felt unendurably happy. I had been waiting my whole short life to feel that way.

‘Now move to a throat scream,’ he told us, lifting the baton higher. We adjusted how the air was being expelled. The shrieking was high-pitched now, a noise of terror rather than of fierce joy. The baton moved from side to side, Grace screaming more powerfully, and then me. My voice cracked slightly. Our mouths were dry.

‘One final push,’ King encouraged us. ‘One last go. Give it all you’ve got.’

A pause, a breath. We gathered ourselves and then we let loose, we opened our mouths as wide as they would go and the blood flooded my face, there was no more air. My cheeks were wet with unexpected tears. It was such a relief, to do that. It was such a relief.





Grace, Lia, Sky


Without our father, it is very hard not to think about things going wrong. Years ago we saw something forbidden – something that washed up in a storm, one of the times when Mother had locked us in the house and drawn the curtains tight. But there are so many rooms here, so many windows. When she went outside we simply found another room at the top of the house, and through the glass we saw the lump that Mother and King were digging a hole for. What could only be a ghost, fat and blue. It had been a woman, was now the nightmarish memory of a woman. It was undoubtedly toxic and yet we could not look away.

Mother was surrounded by the damaged women and they were crying hysterically, all of them. But King did not cry. He was grim and resolute. As we watched he covered the ghost with a sheet and drove the shovel into the sand like it was an enemy he was killing.





Grace


I am walking towards your grave when I notice the browning of the leaves. It’s too early for the summer death of the greenery. I move through the forest carefully, noting other changes. When I come to the border, I can see it has rusted badly, some parts almost broken.

I have a theory that pregnancy ramps up your ability to intuit a threat. Extra-sensory. Mother has a theory that pregnancy makes you histrionic. I am milky, hormonal, prone to sticking cold teaspoons in my mouth so I can taste the metal.

I have tried to discuss the border with Mother, but either she doesn’t want to know or she doesn’t want to talk about it with me.

It causes me a lot of stress to think about pushing the wet lump of my baby out into a compromised world.





Lia


There are some things I thought had died with our father, but I am wrong. Mother tells us over breakfast that we will be heading down to the shore for a love therapy, and I have to put down my spoon. Suddenly I am not hungry. The slick orbs of tinned fruit, anaemic, swim in their juice. A prune like a dark yolk next to them. Grace continues to spoon mandarin segments into her mouth, unperturbed. The therapies are never as bad for her. Her hands never tremble when she puts them in the sack, when she moves to draw an iron out.

As we approach the beach I see two small cardboard boxes with air holes in the lid and a large bucket next to them, several gallons’ capacity, already full of water. Also a smaller bucket, a box of matches, a pile of twigs and leaves, and two pairs of thick gardening gloves. Sky grasps for Grace’s hand and I twist my own behind my back.

‘My girls,’ Mother says. Her face is speckled from the season, from the heat, her eyes like two pale chips of glass against the skin, her lips cracked. She always loves this, seeing us being brave. She gestures for me and Sky to come forward.

‘Lia, you first,’ she tells me. The one with the least love always starts it. I pull on the thick gloves. She ducks to the floor and picks up both boxes. ‘Choose.’

I take one from her and hold it in my hands. Something inside runs around, the box’s centre of gravity moving. I place it on the sand next to me, and take the other. Something is in this one too, but it is slower. Dank woodland smells from both of them. I put it down.

‘I choose the first one,’ I tell her. Get it over with. She nods.

‘It’s a mouse,’ she says. ‘I found it this morning in the traps.’ She looks from me to Sky. ‘Sky, take the box.’

Sky picks up the first box. The movements become quicker, a scuffling at the edge of the box. Her hands are shaking.