Water Baby
By Linda Downing

The child was crying again. She could hear it's desperate wails but she could not see it, it was lost somewhere in the depths of this sea. Trapped, she too fought against water heavy and green as molten glass. Each time she struck out trying to reach the source of that dreadful wailing, the sea surged against her, salting her eyes with blindness and stopping her mouth with water thick and mucus cold. Jan knew for certain now that she and the child were dead, she would never save it, never hold it. She opened her mouth for one last scream of despair but the sea rammed a cold fist of water down her throat and the breath was gone.

Jan sat up in bed, wild eyed and panting as if indeed she had been swimming. The nightmare again. She had dreamt it the first night she had come to the cottage and for the next three nights the drowned child had called through her dreams. Of course she knew the reason. If she felt particularly charitable she would share the nightmare with her counsellor back in Newcastle.

In one corner of the bedroom there was a small basin, which she filled with ice-cold water. The shock of it as she splashed her face made Jan gasp. "Christ," she thought as she punished her face dry with a rough towel. "I can't even go mad properly. Part of being mad is that you shouldn't know about it."

Downstairs one thin finger of sunlight poked through the clouds and shone on the dresser and the polished pine table. It was such a nice friendly little holiday cottage, it deserved a cheerful family with shrimping nets, tin buckets and red shiny spades, instead it had her, half-mad, fully depressed and lonely. They had booked the place for a week but then something had cropped up at the office and Hugh couldn't make the first few days. What had made Jan want to spend the first few nights here alone? Determination to prove that she was all right? A need to escape Hugh's worried gaze? Anyway, it had been a big mistake.

The phone rang as she was making coffee, she added milk and stirred. There was no rush she knew who it would be. Sure enough, Hugh's worried voice came down the line.

"Hi, thought I'd just give you a ring before I set off for this meeting."

"Check if I'd made it through the night?"

"And have you?"

"Yes."

"See, I knew a break would do you good. I'll be down with you tomorrow and we can have some good long walks, a few pub meals, really relax."

"And then I might sleep with you again."

"Yeah well, I can't pretend I haven't missed you."

"And I can't pretend I didn't loose a baby. He was there inside me growing, kicking and then he stopped and I had to squeeze out a dead child. So do forgive me if right now I don't feel like opening my legs for you."

The line hissed in the silence, then Hugh spoke:

"Please Jan start letting it go." Silence. "I miss you."

"I had the dream again last night, he keeps calling for me and I can't reach him."

"Look Jan just hang on one more day and I'll be with you tomorrow lunchtime. We'll be all right."

She put the phone down. It would never be all right.

Their rented cottage stood on the coast road between Bamburgh and Seahouses, a bit isolated but at least it gave Jan a reason to get out and walk into the village to collect milk and paper. The milk usually soured in the bottle and the paper lay unread, but even mad women need a semblance of normality.

Today the sky was heavy with clouds and the wind blew in damp and salt laden making the maram grass on the sand dunes shiver in anticipation of a drenching. Jan gazed at the remorseless sea, yesterday it had been a clear eye-slicing blue, today it was sullen, phlegm coloured mass that heaved uneasily, but whatever happened it just went on and on. Like life.

In the bakers she remembered to ask for bread buns instead of rolls. They were still warm and the yeasty smell made her feel surprisingly hungry. Over the road there was a small park where she found a bench and began to eat, but after the first couple of bites the new bread began to wodge in her mouth like grey cotton wool. Jan threw the rest to the wind and then, trying to fill ten minutes of another endless day, she walked to where a small drinking fountain stood a little further along the path. A young boy stared at the horizon through blank, leaden eyes; in his arms he clutched a squirming fish. Clearly water was meant to gush from the thick lips of the fish into the shell basin below, but the bowl held only dust and dry leaves. At the base there was an inscription:

"Sacred to the memory of William Fenwick 1900 - 1908. Erected by his grieving mother, September 1909."

Eight years old.

"Nice bit o'work that isn't it?"

Jan turned and saw the speaker, an old man dressed in flat cap and ancient jacket.

"Yes, lovely. What happened to the boy?"

"Before my time hinny but the story is the family were on their holiday and the boy got washed off the rocks over there. The mother went a bit mad like and kept coming back to look out at the sea. Looking for him like."

"Poor woman."

"Aye there's some sadness in this world. Ah'm off to me bowls before this rain starts. See y'hinny."

As Jan walked back the threatened storm broke and the world filled with water. Ice cold it plastered down her hair and hammered on her scalp, it streamed down her face and hung on her lashes, it ran down her coat and hung from her fingertips like despair, and still she walked on a drowned woman, grieving for a dead boy.

The shrill sound of the phone met her as she stepped back into the cottage. It was Hugh again.

"Sorry we argued this morning Jan, I do love you, we'll be all right."

"Hugh, it's haunted, the cottage is haunted. A little boy was drowned on holiday; it's him I'm hearing. Hugh I can't bear it here. I've got to go."

"I'm going to come now, Jan, I'll jump straight in the car. Just hang on and I'll be with you in an hour."

Half drowned and corpse cold, Jan went into the kitchen and poured herself a whisky. Half a bottle later she felt no warmer.

"A hot bath." Perhaps if she drank enough whisky and had a bath she might be able to sleep without hearing those cries.

Her wet clothes slopped onto the tiles and she slipped into the bath. She gulped down more whisky and lay back immersing herself in water. Warmth surrounded her. Was this how he had felt, her son, floating in the waters of her womb? She closed her eyes and pictured him curled like a Nautilus, starfish hands exploring his warm pink world, his soft hair floating, fine as weed.

She lowered herself further down, water covered her lips, just a little lower and the water would rush through filling her mouth and nose. She would fill up with water and there would be no room for any more tears. It would be over.

Suddenly a hand reached down and pulled her and a voice was shouting.

"Jan, Jan, for God sake what are you doing?"

Hugh pulled her out of the cooling water and she lay in his arms like a drowned mermaid. "Oh God, let's get you warm."

He carried her into the bedroom and placed her, still dripping, between the sheets then he climbed in and held her close, all the while talking gently to her as if to a child who's sleepy eyes hold the terror of a nightmare.

"Oh, Jan, come on. It'll be all right. I love you, Jan. Don't go leaving me." He kissed the water away from her eyelids and tasted the salt tears that slid down her cheeks, he smoothed the droplets that clung to the down of her arms and planed the water from the soft curve of her belly and he felt such a longing.

"Please, Jan. I love you."

Jan turned to him shutting her ears to the rain that pounded on the window and the ocean that roared against the night. And then she slept, a deep and dreamless sleep while outside the storm fell silent. In her belly stirred the faint beginning of a new life and down in the silent park water began to bubble softly from the fountain into the waiting basin beneath.

In Weekender