Janita Lawrence - The Memory of Water

“Now you are quiet,” I say, touching her cheek. It is cold. My knees are locked. How long have I been sitting over her like this? I must be heavy. It must be hurting her. I climb off, taking her hand.

“Get up now,” I say. “It’s time to go.”

I sway her gently. I shake her shoulder. It’s time to go home. God, how I want to go home.

I lift my hand to stroke her hair and as I do, I know she is dead.

When I come out of it I am still beside her, rocking and moaning. I remember this feeling from when I was eight. On the riverbank. Coming to, rolling and wailing, wondering where I had been in my head and not glad to be back. I look at her black outline. I need to get rid of her body. I stand up, switch on a lamp. Start looking around. I need to get rid of it but I don’t know how. No more bodies in rivers.

Ifind some flammable liquid in the studio. I am numb so I can’t tell what it is, but I know it will burn. I soak Denise’s clothes and then cover her body with them. Susannah’sclothes. Susannah’s body. Pour it in her hair. Empty it onto her. Drops bounce off her still skin.

There is a thought that keeps knocking, but I try to keep the door closed. It starts like this… if I am capable of murdering Denise … and then I shut it out. It comes back over and over again. If I am capable of murder… and with it comes flashbacks of Eve’s ivory face, Emily’s marble body. The thoughts slow me down until I am still and I put my head in my hands and bellow as loudly as I can to drown them out.

I find more bottles and douse the rest of the place. I paint the wall with it. The white paper flutters and turns translucent. After the studio is done I move into her bedroom and soak everything in there too. The taped-up cardboard boxes; the near-empty cupboards; the curtains; the pillows. I hear sirens in the distance. They know I am here: they have tracked me down. I start looking for a lighter, or matches. I attack the kitchen drawers, hauling everything out and dumping it on the floor. My fingerprints are everywhere. Nothing in the kitchen, nothing in the passage cupboard. Back in the studio I pillage the drawers. Blindly I loot and sack and strip until I see something I recognise. Not a lighter, but a sheet of cream-coloured paper. My body wants to keep searching for fire but this thing stops me. I pull it out, feel it between my fingers. My senses are coming back. It is thick, textured. I take it towards the lamplight. The top centre is embossed with decorative circle: a bit like a wheel.

Iam lost, but then I hear the siren again and that wakes me up, tells me I am in this place with a job to do. I crumple up the letterhead and add it to what will be the bonfire. I almost give up on the lighter but then I think: incense and candlelit baths. I walk to the bathroom and find a box of matches in the first cupboard I open. There are only a few in the box but they will do. I reach around to make sure that I have my bag on my back. The fumes are making me unsteady on my feet. I hear the wailing of the police car as if it is in the next room. I pour the last of the fuel down the entrance hall and up to the front door. I stumble around, my fingers are thick. I drop the matches, pick them up again. There are bright lights blocking out my vision. I need to get to fresh air or I will pass out. I don’t even bother to turn the handle, I just kick it open. Once outside I take a few clear breaths to make the stars recede. I see parts of the floor, parts of bricks on the wall. I put an arm out to steady myself. The siren arrives downstairs. The car brakes with a scream and crunch and the siren quits half-shriek. Doors open and boots hit gravel. Terse words are exchanged. It will take them less than a minute to get up here. I peer through the stars into the matchbox. I grab one but drop it on the floor. Another one. Then I take two and hold them steady against the flint-side and as it sparks, the wind is knocked out of me and I am pitched forward, teeth-to-tiles. The matchbox skitters across the floor. I forget about breathing and start crawling towards the box, but Edgar gets there first and picks them up in a neat collect. He glances backwards at me, white grimace in black hood, and takes off. Next thing I know I am up on my feet and chasing him. He darts down the narrow emergency steps and I follow. As we descend I can hear the cops ricocheting off the main stairway, in the opposite direction. Despite the assault, despite the blurred vision and bubbling lungs, I keep on going. We hit the basement floor and run through the parking lot. Edgar bounces off a station wagon, bounds up some concrete planters, rushes through a garden and out of the pedestrian gate. He is fast and putting extra distance between us. He is hard to spot in his dark clothes, and he runs like a pro. Trust me to get the athlete stalker. We corner the block, hitting a straight road and he picks up speed. I can feel my legs disappearing under me. I am just about to stop running when he makes a sound: a yelp. He has tripped over something, some sweet thing, and sprawls headfirst into black dew.

He ploughs into the lawn on all fours and scrambles to get up. I reach him just as he manages to lift his knees off the ground and I land a clumsy drop kick into the washboard of his stomach. He lets out a howl like a wounded animal and I kick him again, this time in the ribs. He tries to get away, clawing at the ground and trying to get a footing but the grass is slippery and I have my foot on his back. He doesn’t fight back. Acid loathing makes me kick him once more: a heavy jump on his spine and he is flattened. I grab his shoulder to roll him over and rip off his black hood so that I can see his face. I recoil at the sight: shiny pale plastic glinting in the streetlight. A mask. I dig my fingers underneath it and peel it off. The face I see topples me. He may as well have punched me in the face. I let go of him with an exclamation.

“There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”

We sit on the pavement in identical postures. We have both had the wind knocked out of us and need to stay close to the ground.

“Frank,” I say.

“I can explain,” he says, his breathing heavy, one hand up in defence, the other on his ribs.

I want to laugh. He says it sincerely, as if an explanation could make a whisper of a difference in this situation. As if it could undo terrible things. If only words could.

“You’ve been trying to kill me,” I pant.

“I’ve been… helping you,” he says, spitting out blood.

The bastard.

“Helping me?” I shout.

“Guarding you,” he grimaces. His eyes glow. “You can’t see that now, but you will.”

I wind my arm back and punch him in the face as hard as I can. There is a simultaneous crack, as my knuckle breaks his nose and breaks itself in the process. He is KO’d, sprawled like a dummy on the ground, his strings cut, blood pumping out of his nose. I shake my hand out. I see figures in the distance, running. I bolt, leaving Frank to bleed.

They’re persistent, I’ll give them that. I hurdle over a low wall and land on the soft ground on the other side. My bad ankle twinges. I hear their hurried footfall just metres away. I remember trying to outrun the cops in Bangkok and hope that this time I will have better luck. I charge down to the spruit where I am whipped by willow branches and splash in, wading thigh-deep in the murk to get across then up the oily hill on the other side. They have torches but not dogs. I look for a way to get into one of the properties on the other side but the walls are all so high and the electric fence lines glimmer hostile in the moonlight. All I can do is keep running, even though I can feel them gaining on me. Eventually there is a wormhole: a house under construction has a sharp, square hole in their temporary entrance of ramshackle tin. I drop my bag and push my body through, tearing my clothes and scraping off a good layer of skin as I go. Once inside I find my way through the maze of walls and punch-outs for windows, making the wrong turn twice before finding the exit. Blinking in the dark, trying to see where to go next, I hear a whistle. Involuntarily I look in the direction of the noise and something behind me knocks me out.