Christopher Fowler - The Water Room

‘She was so old and frail, like a little doll, and she had no idea that she owned the Water House. No idea! Of course, the walls had been painted over years before. The property belonged to her brother, and he wouldn’t sell it as long as she was alive. Suddenly it seemed so simple. Now it’s all got complicated. Come on, you.’

She pulled Kallie to her feet, then tipped the top half of her body over the bath. Setting a comfortable temperature was not an act of thoughtfulness; she did not want Kallie to be shocked awake by a sudden plunge into cold water.

This is pleasant, thought Kallie. Just what I need to take away the pain. The warmth enveloped her right arm, then the top of her head and one side of her face. She was slowly tipping, being gently lowered. The buzzing suddenly stopped, and all she could hear was the dull sonar of immersion. Water filled her nose and made her cough, and then began to flood her mouth. The sensation was not disagreeable. I’m going to join the people on the walls, she thought. I’ll get to see what they see. I’ll look out at the world with them from deep beneath the river.

She felt her head being turned further into the water, so clear and untroubled, the curving white arc of the bath below so close that her face was touching the cool ceramic base. A soft red cloud drifted slowly before her eyes. That’s just my blood, she thought, from the cut on my head, nothing to be alarmed about.

The water wasn’t deep enough. The hot tap was too slow, and now it had stuck. Heather turned on the cold with her left hand, keeping Kallie’s neck gripped firmly in her right. It was taking too long. She should have been struggling by now. Why was she so relaxed? It wasn’t a normal reaction. Her throat should have closed, she should have been sputtering and fighting for life. It was the worst thing that could happen. She needed the reaction; without it, Kallie wouldn’t gasp and suck water down into her lungs.

They’re helping me, thought Kallie, the men and women on the walls. They’re all underwater, and look how calmly they’re behaving. The waters rose and drowned them all, but in death they can see everything. They’re pointing to the river below the house. They want to be released of their tied-up lives, filled with rules and manners and pious Christian lessons. They want to be washed away, back into an ancient pagan world, to be free to swim to the wide grey sea. And that’s all I want now, to be taken with them. My life above has ended. All I have to do is breathe gently and follow them.

‘Why won’t you fight?’ screamed Heather. But even as she tried to tighten her grip on the neck of the limp, heavy body, she could feel it pulling away from her, back toward the wet floor. She had dreamed of the mural for so long, but now the exposed white faces were unnerving her, judging her. Another few seconds at the most, surely that’s all it can take, she told herself. Then this whole nightmare will be over. Ignoring the blue underwater-wide eyes that stared down on her, she pushed the head in her hands down hard once more.

Even at this crucial moment, Kallie was aware of the growing sound of water all around her. One of the candles on the floor guttered and fell over, its flame hissing out. Water was gushing from between the bricks in the chimney breast, where she had been striking them with the sledgehammer. One brick began to rattle, thin sheets of water spraying around its edges, until it was extruded from the wall and blasted to the floor.

The rest of the chimney breast came down easily. Heather was horrified to see that the wall of water extended halfway up the breach. Moments later, the icy torrent hit them both, throwing them against the far wall as the pressure loosened more bricks. All around them, the acolytes of the water room looked down, happy to accept their fate, to be condemned and redeemed beneath the absolving waters of the world.

‘No answer,’ said May, peering through the brass letterbox. ‘There’s someone home, though.’

‘How do you know?’ Bryant tried to hunch in beneath the shallow porch.

‘There are lit candles all over the place. You wouldn’t go out and leave them burning, would you?’ He turned his ear to the letterbox and listened. ‘I can hear water.’

‘Yes, it’s pouring down the back of my neck right now,’ Bryant complained impatiently.

‘No, splashing water, downstairs. My God, what is that noise?’

‘The river’s breached the basement. That does it-we have to break the door down.’

May looked at the front door in some alarm. ‘I don’t know whether I can.’

‘The wood’s older than our combined ages, it’ll have a spring-weight in the wall and a single Yale lock holding it shut. Get out of the way.’ Bryant pushed his partner aside and raised his shoe. He would have fallen backwards down the steps if May hadn’t caught him.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, let me. This is a woman’s job.’ Longbright appeared behind them. On the third kick of her steel-tipped boot, the lock popped open. They squeezed into the hall and headed for the stairs, flashing torches to the floor below, and saw water pouring from beneath the door of the bathroom.

Heather tried to hold herself upright and reach the door as the glaucous Fleet-water swirled and shoved around the room. The level was no higher than her knees, but the floor was now too slippery to gain a foothold.

The sound of the front door slamming back sounded above her. As she watched Kallie slide from her grasp and become submerged in the breached river, she felt no distress in knowing that her friend would drown. Where better to fill your lungs than here, watched by the watery corpses of those who had faced a similar fate? She stared up at the calmly floating figures revealed on the walls, the pale bodies of drowned acolytes welcoming their ancient gods, and felt suddenly glad to be leaving behind her own distress. The weight rising from her came as an immense relief. Someone else could take over the responsibility now.

Heather barely noticed the female police sergeant who dragged Kallie free. She didn’t even complain when May threw a bath towel around her shoulders. The burden of the Water House, and its terrible possession of her, had begun to wash from her heart, leaving her pure and free again, an innocent child. She smiled tightly, looking from one old face to the other, knowing that she would tell them nothing, for there was no longer anything left to tell. They would never know what she had been through, and without her testimony there was no proof.

She was safe at last.

Longbright laid Kallie’s body on the stairs and squeezed filthy water from her chest, breathing air into her lungs. ‘She’s fine,’ the detective sergeant called up the stairs. ‘She’s swallowed quite a bit, though. She’ll need shots.’

‘John, stay here with Janice. Try and get the women dried off and warmed up while they wait for an ambulance. I’ll meet you later.’ Bryant rose and gripped the bannisters, climbing unsteadily over Kallie’s body.

‘Where do you think you’re going?’ asked May.

‘Tate’s opened the conduit between the canal and the house. That’s why the water is in direct contact with the basement wall, because the river Fleet runs behind it whenever the channel-the Prince of Wales Causeway-is used. He’s changed the path of the water. I’m going after him.’ Bryant didn’t look overly keen on the idea.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said May. ‘You’re not up to it. I’ll go with Bimsley.’ He turned to climb the stairs, but Bryant scurried on ahead.

‘Come back! You are absolutely not going down a sewer at your age, with your legs. The very idea!’