The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

Copyright

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This edition published by 4th Estate in 2016

First published in Great Britain by The Friday Project in 2013

Copyright © Caroline Smailes 2013

Cover Layout Design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Caroline Smailes asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007479092

Ebook Edition © July 2016 ISBN: 9780007479399

Version: 2016-09-28

Praise

‘Magical, weird, wonderful, dark unique Northern brilliance’

MATT HAIG

‘… there was so much about this book to love; the decrepit seaside setting, the terrible weather, the gritty realism, the magic, the freshness, the strangeness, and the way the story and the characters haunted me afterwards. I felt safe throughout this novel – I knew I was in good hands; with each change of voice and structure I remained confident in Smailes’ ability to lead things to a satisfying conclusion. And that’s exactly what she did’

CARYS BRAY

‘This thoroughly modern retelling is everything a fairy tale should be: strange, beautiful and wholly unexpected’

TANYA BYRNE

‘This beautifully told and sometimes disturbing tale will intrigue as it reaches its dramatic conclusion’

Bella

‘I loved it … so good!’

CARRIE HOPE FLETCHER

‘I cannot compare this to anything I’ve ever read. You will fall in love with this book’

EMMA BLACKERY

‘Someone should make this into a film’

LUKEISNOTSEXY

Dedication

Never enough words to thank the superlative Sophie Wright – actress, mermaid, cake baker, dream maker.

Epigraph

I got a whole world where you’ll never find me.

(‘Yours’, Gaspard Royant, feat. Marie-Flore)

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Praise

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

Laurel — Air: (Earth. Water. Fire.)

A Tiny Bow and Arrow:

The Daughter:

Silver and Elsie Hughes:

No Swimsuits Allowed:

Clever as Well as Pretty:

Three-Day Illness:

Madame Pythia and Ada Harvey:

Blinking:

His Love Story:

A Palm Reading:

He Wants a Virgin:

An Arrow Tipped with Lead:

Her Name is Madora Argon:

The Curse:

Arthur — Earth: (Water. Air. Fire.)

Delphina — Water: (Earth. Air. Fire.)

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Day Ten

Day Eleven

Arthur — Earth: (Water. Air. Fire.)

Delphina — Water: (Earth. Air. Fire.)

Day Twelve

Day Thirteen

Day Fourteen

Day Fifteen

Day Sixteen

Arthur — Earth: (Water. Air. Fire.)

Delphina — Water: (Earth. Air. Fire.)

Day Seventeen

Day Eighteen

Day Nineteen

Day Twenty

Day Twenty-One

Day Twenty-Two

Arthur — Earth: (Water. Air. Fire.)

Delphina — Water: (Earth. Air. Fire.)

Day Twenty-Two

Arthur — Earth: (Water. Air. Fire.)

Laurel — Air: (Earth. Water. Fire.)

The Victorious Hero’s Wreath:

Arthur — Earth: (Air. Water. Fire.)

Silver — Earth: (Air. Water. Fire.)

Arthur — Earth: (Air. Water. Fire.)

Madora Argon (Maddie) — Water: (Air. Earth. Fire.)

Arthur — Earth: (Air. Water. Fire.)

Kester and Pollock — Air: (Water. Earth. Fire.)

Arthur — Earth: (Air. Water. Fire.)

Tommy Clarke — Fire: (Air. Water. Earth.)

Thanking

Victoria Baths

About the Author

By the same author

About the Publisher

Introduction

Dear Reader,

READ. THIS. BOOK.

I am told by the various desperate internet searches I conducted late at night for ‘h0W d0 U WRiTe a BlO0DY FOREWORD??!!?’ that my purpose in life for the next few minutes is to convince you to read this book. So read it. There. I’m done! Time for a well-earned break, don’t you think?

Maybe not …

Over the course of this introduction, I will try to explain why you should read this book but I mean … you bloody bought the thing! Why wouldn’t you read it?! Don’t you want your money’s worth?! WHAT IS MY PURPOSE HERE?!

Okay calm. I feel like having an internal written crisis over my own existence won’t better your chances of perusing this book so here goes …

I first met Caroline Smailes, the author of this here wonderful novel, on September 5th 2014 in Highbury Fields, London. I was wearing an awful bandana in a last-ditch attempt to look vaguely artsy - an area in which, aesthetically at least, I am sorely lacking. I was nervous. So nervous in fact that my witless 20-year-old self thought he could woo a fantastic writer with a simple slice of carrot cake from a tearoom around the corner. Why was I prepared to embarrass myself like this, you ask? Well, because I’d fallen in love with Caroline’s book, and I wanted to convince her to let me and my friend Josh make it into a film. (Somehow, we managed it!)

I’d fallen in love with The Drowning of Arthur Braxton because, as I had discovered while frantically devouring the book on a flight across Australia, it’s not like anything else I’ve ever read. Its 371 pages unfurl as an entrancing, hyper-real, tender modern fairy tale, a vivid picture of modern life and its idiosyncrasies which simultaneously retells and interweaves a series of Greek myths. The characters are unforgettable, partly due to the extensive research Caroline did with children and teenagers, and partly because (as you can tell when reading it) so much of this novel is so personal to her own experience. It’s real, or at least elements of it must be and they are brought together in a package which I know could not have been delivered better by anybody else.

One of the things that spoke to me most is Braxton’s honest depiction of teenage boys. Let’s face it: teenage boys are, for want of a better word, yucky. They’re often portrayed in quite a sanitised way in YA books, but Arthur’s internal monologue is unflinchingly potty-mouthed and sex-obsessed. Caroline has, whether she likes this element of Arthur’s character or not, captured the male teenage condition like no other YA writer. But despite his filthy psychobabble, Arthur is always sympathetic, a good kid confused by puberty, the pressures of patriarchal society and, ultimately, his desperation to fit in.

And then there’s Laurel: the novel’s secondary protagonist. From the title of the book you wouldn’t even know she exists, but there’s nothing I can say to capture how much love I have for her character. Her story is one of heartbreak and loss and pain, but it is perfect. She is perfect.

I think the reason why I (and so many other readers) have found Arthur and Laurel so compelling is simple. It’s because Caroline truly understands young people. When I wandered into the aforementioned Highbury Fields, bandanered and bewildered, she did not look down on me. She did not prejudge me because I had a business strategy based on cake. She had faith in me, and she trusted my creative vision, even though I was 20 years old and nervous. She understood. And that’s why Arthur and Laurel are so real. Because Caroline understands the power of speaking truthfully to her readers. Her stories and characters reek of reality; they stink of anecdote and experience. In a world where celebrities are desperate to hide imperfection; where artists and writers scramble to be seen as being on some higher realm of consciousness where they alone have insight, she is real. She speaks to us, and she listens. This is so important. This is why she deserves your time and attention.

The essential message of The Drowning of Arthur Braxton is (to me) that people seek happiness in things that will never fulfil them. In power and fear, booze and sex, popularity, money and change. It is Arthur, and Arthur alone who seeks that which can save you: love, helping others and facing your fears. It’s a message that the world needs desperately, and it is for this reason that I need you to read this book; it is for this reason that I’m making this novel into a film. I love this story. I loved it when I devoured it in 4 hours on an aeroplane. I loved it the seventeenth time I redrafted my script. And I love it now, imploring you to read it. So what are you waiting for? Your life’s about to be changed forever!

READ! THIS! BOOK!

Luke Cutforth

Director, The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

Laurel

A Tiny Bow and Arrow:

I’ll say, ‘Why don’t you just kill me?’

And I’ll mean it. I’ll wish he would.

He’ll say, ‘No point, you’re going to die within the year anyway.’

And I’ll say, ‘What?’

And he’ll say, ‘Dead, within a year.’

But right now I’m running, sweating like that fat bloke who drinks cans of Diamond White in the bus stop – down the road, around the corner, over the sand dunes and onto the beach.

’Cause it was Mum who first told me about the advert. She’d been queuing to buy a pound of mince from the butcher and spotted it on the corkboard. I’d just that second walked in from school when my mum handed me the advert, said it’d be a nice little job for me and something that I could squeeze in between school and looking after my little brothers.

‘You never took it down from the corkboard?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t want no other bugger getting it,’ Mum said, then we laughed.

The advert’s for a part-time job, for someone to take the money off folk wanting to see the water-healers at The Oracle, the public baths on the seafront. ‘Apply in person’, and Mum said that I’d best hurry. And ’cause I’m a good girl and ’cause I always do what I’m told, I’m running like a mental over the sand and sweating like that fat bloke, to try and get this job.

The Oracle had been a community swimming baths, had been around for years, then it closed down and started being derelict. The local council had put it up for sale and that’s when some out-of-town folk bought it. They said that the Males 1st Class pool was built over a spring that was full of magic water. It’s the same water that does that holy well up the hill, the one all them religious poorly folk from all over the world travel to. They reckoned the water had healing powers, I mean there’s people who’ll swear the water made their diseases disappear. None of us local folk knew the spring went under the Males 1st Class pool, but those out-of-town folk did and they bagged themselves a right bargain. That’s when the swimming baths changed its name and started charging loads of money for folk to go in.

Apparently, someone was once cured of being fat and that’s why every local lass pays their weekly subs to have a float. I’ve never been in before, but Mum and her friends are regulars. There’s three water-healers who work there. They’re local celebrities; they never pay for nowt in the shops, mainly because everyone thinks they’ll be cursed if they’re ever anything but ridiculously nice when the water-healers are around. They’re like those baddies in the second Superman movie, those three that were banished from Krypton in the big mirror prison that shattered, letting them come to Earth via the Moon and be proper terrifying. It’s our Bill’s favourite-ever film, so I must have watched it at least a million times. Well Ursa, the female baddie, looks exactly like one of the water-healers, the one who goes by the name of Madame Pythia, and then there’s Martin Savage, the main male water-healer, who’s a bit like General Zod, the one who liked to say ‘Kneeeel before Zod’ in the film. The other one, the one that would be Non, is an old man, known as Silver. He’s said to be quite nice. He refuses to give bad news when he picks up some psychic energy mid-heal; instead he bursts out crying and tells the poor customer to run for their lives.

If I’m honest, I’m a bit scared of The Oracle and the water-healers, I mean I’ve heard stories from Mum about all these local people who’ve had their now torn apart ’cause the water-healers have told them that they have nowt good in their future, that their futures are set to be proper rubbish and they can’t ever be healed. Me, I’d prefer not to know. All I want in my future is to work hard for the next two years and then to get into college, maybe even go to university and train to be a teacher. I’d like to be one of them teachers that makes a difference, ’cause they ‘proper understand’ kiddies. I don’t want some nutter putting their hands on me and telling me I can’t be healed and my dreams won’t be coming true and I’m best off jumping off the pier. My English teacher says I’ve the brains and I’m used to being around kids, what with being the oldest of seven kids by four different waste-of-space dads, ’cause even though Mum’s proper useless at picking nice blokes, she’s proper perfect at getting pregnant.

So, I’m running through the sand and up the steps onto the seafront. I can see The Oracle. It’s a massive mansion of a building that’s all orange and yellow like a bumblebee that’s transformed into a building, but really we all know it’s still a bumblebee. There’s fancy stained-glass windows and a clock tower that chimes out every hour, even though it’s something like seventeen minutes slow. There’s three wooden doors in, for the three different water-healers and the three different baths, but mainly people make their appointments through the posh door, the one that leads to Madame Pythia’s pool. But even when it’s sunny, the place still freaks me out.

I get to the metal gate and I can see the main man-healer, Martin Savage (General Zod), sitting on the stone steps leading up to the Males 1st Class entrance. He’s got a cigarette in one hand, a bacon butty in the other and the zip of his shell-suit top’s undone, showing off his hairy belly.

‘Hi,’ I say.

‘Hi,’ he says. He smiles and I’m thinking, Kneeeel before Zod.

‘I’ve come about the job,’ I say, handing him the advert that my mum’s ripped off the corkboard in the butchers.

‘You’re not what I expected,’ Martin Savage says. ‘How old are you?’ Martin Savage asks.

‘Fourteen,’ I say.

‘You got a boyfriend?’ Martin Savage asks.

‘No,’ I say.

‘Got any experience?’ Martin Savage asks.

‘No,’ I say. ‘But I learn fast,’ I say.

He smiles (Kneeeel before Zod), then he flicks his ciggie butt onto the pavement, stands and walks up the steps and through the open wooden door into The Oracle. I don’t know what to do so I start kicking the tips of my DMs against one of the steps.

‘What’s your name?’ a voice asks.

I look up and the woman one, Madame Pythia, is standing at the top of the steps, all elegant and mysterious. She walks down the steps, without making a sound, so I reckon that she must have no shoes on, but her violet dress is long and flowy.

‘Laurel,’ I say. ‘I’ve come about the job,’ I say.

‘So Martin tells me,’ she says, she stops. She looks me up, she looks me down. ‘You’re pretty,’ she says.

‘Thank you,’ I say.

‘Can you start now?’ she asks and when I nod she begins telling me all that I need to know about my hours and expected duties at The Oracle.

The Daughter:

‘I’m to work every night after school, from four until eight. Madame Pythia reckons that’s the busiest times. They open at two, but they’ve got their cleaner, Maggie, covering until I get there,’ I tell Mum.

‘What about weekends?’ Mum asks. Mum’s sitting on the sofa, a can of Diamond White in one hand, a ciggie in the other.

‘They’re open from two until eight, but then I’ve got to do full days and nights three days every month when Madame Pythia is “absorbed of everyone’s sins”,’ I say.

‘You what?’ Mum says.

‘I’ve no idea, the woman’s cuckoo, Mum,’ I say. ‘I’m to take money, check appointments, sit at a desk in the Males 1st Class reception and pretend like I’m hard as nails and scary.’

Mum laughs. She pushes her ciggie butt into the almost-empty can.

‘Piece of piss, our Laurel, and you get paid for doing it. Don’t know how I’ll manage with the kids without you, though,’ Mum says.

‘We can give it a go for a bit, Mum, see how it all works out. Two pounds fifty pence an hour, cash in hand, that’ll really help out,’ I say and Mum nods. Mum’s all about the money.

And I reckon that the pay’s okay for the job I’m doing. I mean I don’t tell Mum, but really I think that working at The Oracle is going to be better for me than being at home looking after my brothers. The youngest is two, Sammy he’s called, and he’s a proper handful, into everything, and I spend all my time running after him and stopping him from climbing out windows. Madame Pythia even said that she’s okay with me doing my homework at my desk in reception. ’Course I don’t tell Mum that, mainly ’cause I don’t want her thinking that I’m having it too easy, and ’cause it’s almost too good to be true. I’m going to be able to do all my homework while I’m at work. I’ll be able to read books and hear myself think. I reckon it’s possibly the best job in the world.

When I get to really thinking about it, I don’t even know how I got the job. Mum reckons it’s fate, that it was meant to be, but I don’t even know if I believe in all that sort of stuff.

Silver and Elsie Hughes:

It doesn’t take long before I realise that most of the people who come to The Oracle are desperate, I mean proper desperate. It’s only my second day, I mean I’ve only been at my desk for fifteen minutes and I’m trying to figure out algebra, but Elsie Hughes has turned up sobbing. My mum and Elsie used to be best mates, before Mum shagged Elsie’s brother and got pregnant with our Sammy.

‘I don’t have an appointment, Laurel,’ she says.

‘Who do you want to see?’ I ask.

There are three pools, Males 1st Class, Males 2nd Class and Females, and each of the water-healers works from one pool. Men or women can go in the male pools, it’s not strict, just has them labels ’cause they’re carved in stone over the entrance doors. I think it used to be a lot stricter in the old days. Only Madame Pythia’s pool has water direct from the spring in it, the other pools have a mix of local water and seawater and magic water. That’s why proper poorly people tend to go to Madame Pythia for healing.

‘I need to see Madame Pythia,’ Elsie Hughes says, wiping snot on her red coat sleeve. Elsie’s a bit plump and her hair’s all scruffy, with some of it still in rollers. She’s holding a plastic bag with a blue towel not quite fitting in it.

I look at Madame Pythia’s appointments, I shake my head.

‘Soz, Elsie,’ I say. ‘She’s booked solid for the next two days.’ I turn the pages and look at Silver’s bookings. ‘Silver’s got a cancellation in fifteen minutes,’ I say.

She stops her crying. I think she might have been holding her breath.

‘Okay,’ she says, sighing. Then she moves to stand outside. I see her taking a ciggie from a blue packet and cupping her hands round it. She’s trying to light it but her whole body’s proper shaking.

I watch her. I mean I’m supposed to be doing my homework, but something about the way she shakes, something about how desperate she is to light that ciggie, something about the way she stares down to the stone steps, makes me want to cry with her. I’ve never seen anyone that sad before. I mean Mum’s been in floods of crying, especially after one of her loser boyfriends has dumped her, but there’s nothing deep about her tears. I’ve always known that she’ll be out down The Swan on the pull the following night. Mum’s bed’s never empty for long. But with Elsie Hughes, her pain’s different. It’s like it’s all the way around her and covering her like a shower curtain. I think she might be trapped and I think she might be desperate for someone to make her better.

I hear Silver coming. He always whistles the same tune. I think it’s from an old film but I don’t know him well enough yet to ask.

‘Elsie Hughes is your next appointment,’ I say to Silver, pointing out the door to Elsie.

Silver looks at Elsie Hughes and frowns. He walks out the wooden door but I can still hear them talking.

‘You going to run away again?’ he asks Elsie Hughes.

‘No, Silver, I’m hoping you can help me last a bit longer,’ she says to him.

Silver starts whistling again. I hold my breath until they’ve gone down the steps and they’ve turned left towards the Females bath entrance.

No Swimsuits Allowed:

It’s been nearly a week now and I’m proper shattered. I’ve got no energy and I feel proper sad inside. There’s so much pain and upset in the air in The Oracle. Some days I’ve wished I was wearing my fluffy pink earmuffs. Apparently that’s normal. And that’s why Madame Pythia came in earlier to tell me that part of my job was to take a weekly swim in the Males 1st Class pool. She said the spring water would take away all the weight I’d absorbed during my first week here. That was a couple of hours ago.

Now I’m practically being carried by Silver and Martin. They’ve each got me under one of my arms and my DMs are off the ground. I’m worried that they can see my knickers ’cause my dress is silly short and with the dragging it’s going up and up. I’m practically making tiny running steps in the air as they take me to Madame Pythia.

She’s standing next to the wooden steps going down into the deep end of the pool. Martin and Silver let me go, my knees buckle, and I fall to the mosaic floor.

‘You’re being ridiculous, Laurel, this is for your own good, and hiding—’ Madame Pythia says.