The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

‘I wasn’t hiding,’ I say, and then, ‘I don’t have a swimsuit.’

‘No swimsuits allowed,’ Madame Pythia says.

I feel sick. I don’t like my body. I don’t like the hairs, I don’t like my tiny titties. I don’t like how the three of them are staring at me, waiting for me to strip down to starkers.

‘Strip, or Martin’ll do it for you,’ Madame Pythia says, and then, ‘I know this is making you uncomfortable, but there’s no other way. Let the water help you, Laurel.’

I look to Martin Savage and he licks his lips. I can’t let him be touching my skin, I can’t let him be getting that close to me. There’s something about him that I don’t like, there’s something about him that makes my stomach do hula-hoops.

‘Can I change in there?’ I ask, pointing to the blue changing cubicles that line the side of the pool. I like their pink-and-white stripy curtains.

‘Strip, now. It’s for the best, it has to be now. Please, Laurel,’ Madame Pythia says. Her voice is gentle, yet firm. Her voice, her eyes, they make me trust her. I trust that this needs to be done, but still Martin Savage is staring and I hate that he’s staring.

So I do what Madame Pythia asks me to do. I do it because I want this job, I need this job and, if I’m honest, I want the pain and sadness to go away. I start undoing the buttons of my little flowery dress. I slip out of my DMs ’cause they’re never done up tight, I let my dress fall to the floor. I fumble trying to undo my bra at the back. It used to be Mum’s but it don’t fit her no more. I’m still rubbish with the catch. I take my bra off, let it fall to the floor and I cross my arms over my titties so that Martin Savage and Silver can’t see my nipples. I feel stupid.

‘Now your panties,’ Martin Savage says.

I do as I’m told. I feel their eyes on me and my little-girl nipples. I wish I had big brown nipples like Mum.

‘Get in the water,’ Madame Pythia says. I look at Silver and he nods his head.

I walk to the edge of the pool, not sure whether to put my hands over my titties or my fanny, and grab the metal handrail. I take the wooden steps slowly, worrying that I’m going to slip and drown and Mum’ll always be wondering why I’ve died swimming with my titties out.

One, two and my feet are in the water. It’s icy. It nips at my breathing. Three, four and the water’s to my waist. I hate cold water; I’m shaking already and can’t stop myself from wondering why on earth I even thought about getting a job with these nutters.

‘Swim,’ Madame Pythia says.

‘Swim?’ I ask. She nods.

I let go of the metal handrail and I flop forward into the cold water. I hold my breath and I flap my arms about. It’s ages since I’ve been swimming.

‘Swim,’ Madame Pythia says again. I don’t look at her or Silver or Martin Savage. I look down through the water; the white tiles are too far away for my toes to touch. I look to the shallow end, I see the wooden stairs, and I reckon that I’ll swim to there and then out.

I swim badly. Mum never could afford the lessons and the ones I had with the school were pretty basic and more about avoiding being drowned by Sheldon Frances.

‘I’ll do it,’ Martin Savage says. I think that’s what he says. I look up with water splashing on my face, dripping from my fringe, and I see that he’s undoing his jeans. I feel sick. I’m going to throw up into the water and I know that’ll get me in proper trouble off Madame Pythia. I don’t want him near me, I don’t want him with his willy near me. I start to panic. I flap my arms up and down through the water, trying to make me go faster, trying and trying. But the more I flap my arms, the more it feels like I’m being pulled underwater. It’s like the water’s trying to stop me escaping and it feels like there’s fingers grabbing my ankles and pulling me down. The water’s filling my mouth and my ears and covering my head and I want to scream. I think I’m dying, I’m definitely sinking.

And that’s when I hear Madame Pythia.

‘Stay calm, Laurel, let the water help you,’ she says.

And that’s when I feel his arms around my waist. I try to kick him but my legs aren’t working like I need them to work and them fingers are still squeezing my ankles. He pulls me to the side, the fingers let go of my ankles, and then he puts his hands on my naked bum cheeks and pushes me up. Silver’s standing on the edge of the pool. He drags me out from the water and onto the mosaic tiles.

Madame Pythia is next to me. ‘You need to trust,’ she says.

I nod. I know she’s right. I know that it’s important that I prove to Madame Pythia that I can do my job, that I trust in both her and in the water. I roll so that I’m sitting up, I’m not at all graceful, then I shuffle to the edge of the pool and lower myself into the water again.

I hold onto the side. I turn, I look at Martin Savage. He’s still in the water. He’s still naked. He smiles.

‘Lie back and float,’ Madame Pythia says. I nod, then I lie back and push my feet off the wall of the swimming pool. I feel Martin’s hands under my back, I try not to think about his touching me, instead I trust, instead I ignore his fingers stroking and prodding. I float, and I float some more.

And that’s when something changes. I swear that I feel the air changing, I feel the pain and the upset fading and fading some more. I relax, I mean I proper relax, I let the water guide me and I smile a proper smile.

And at that very moment, I feel like nothing bad exists in the world and I feel the happiest I’ve ever felt.

Clever as Well as Pretty:

And when Martin comes to my desk later, he hands me an iced bun and a can of Diet Coke.

‘Sorry, pet,’ he says. ‘It was mad in there, hope we didn’t scare you. Me and Silver were trying to help.’ And he smiles and I think he means it, so I smile back.

‘Thanks,’ I say, taking the gifts from him. The last thing I need is awkward stuff at my place of work. I like that he’s being kind.

‘It’s this place,’ he says, holding his arms out wide, ‘it brings out the weird in all of us.’ Then he laughs.

I laugh too.

‘I feel so much better,’ I say.

‘It’s the water, pet,’ Martin says and then he sits down on the edge of my desk. ‘Is there anything you’ve seen so far that’s not made sense?’ he asks. His voice is all gentle and caring and nice.

I think for a minute or two. ‘I don’t understand how you learned how to do everything,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s like magic.’ I sound silly. Martin laughs.

‘I was born this way, pet. I was picked on for being different, I never fit in no place …’ His voice trails off. ‘Bit like you,’ he says. He leans over and strokes my shoulder. I nod but I don’t really understand what he’s saying.

‘You got any friends?’ he asks.

I shake my head. ‘No time, with school and the kids.’

‘Well, let’s us be friends,’ he says and he smiles. He moves a little bit closer, his leg touches mine. ‘So what you up to?’ he asks, pointing at the book on my desk.

‘Just reading,’ I say.

‘You like books?’ he asks and I nod. He leans across me, his chest in my face. I breathe in. He picks up my book and looks at the title. ‘Clever as well as pretty,’ he says.

I feel myself blushing. I try to stop the red but I can’t.

‘So, we’re friends?’ he asks, putting down my book. I don’t know what to say, I nod. ‘Good,’ he says, ‘because I’d hate you not to like me.’ And then he stands up, goes outside and has a ciggie. I watch him, he’s all smiles and he waves at me as he collects his next appointment and takes her to the Males 2nd Class pool.

And that’s when I get to figuring that I’ve been silly and really Martin’s nice and mainly he just has to put on an act for all the women who come here just to see him. He’s popular, and I should feel happy that he wants to be my friend.

Three-Day Illness:

No one knows how old Madame Pythia is. Her forehead’s covered in lines. Mum says it’s from all the scowling she does, but I think that’s just Mum being bitter. She doesn’t really like women much, especially the ones with money.

It’s not long before I start to understand how all the water-healing works and why Madame Pythia’s the way that she is. It’s all ’cause Madame Pythia believes that she’s the jug (or something like that) for all those who’ve sinned. She says she’s some kind of a working class Messiah, a prophet, and a massive absorber of all that surrounds her. She says that’s why it’s her penance, and that every third weekend of the month Madame Pythia gets to be ill for three whole days.

Every third weekend of the month sees The Oracle shut down to darkness. Locals know not to attempt an appointment. Anyone who approaches the bathhouse during those days is said to bring about a curse and ‘the death of a loved one will be inevitable’. There’s even a sign saying just that that’s pinned to each of the three wooden doors for those three days. Silver told me that it was known, that it had once happened to the great-grandfather of Edna Williams. And that’s why for those three days of every month Martin Savage and Silver get to escape to their own lives, they’re free to be and do whatever they wish. It’s not like that for me. It’s in my job description that I’m to stay over in The Oracle for them days to nurse Madame Pythia back to her proper strength.

Yesterday, Madame Pythia said, ‘My three-day illness is my penance for the spilling of secrets and my absorbing it through my healing hands.’ That’s when she raised her palms up towards the ceiling and I sort of nodded, not really sure what she was going on about. She was using words like ‘cleansed’ and ‘purged’ and I didn’t have a clue what she was meaning. That’s the problem with working here, it’s sometimes like they’re talking foreign and I’m not sure what the right response should be. Madame Pythia’s told me not to worry about anything and that everything I see and hear is perfectly natural, that everything happens as it should. She says that all the healing and the taking on of other people’s problems has to come out of her in one way or another.

But now I’m here, in The Oracle with her and I’m freaking out. The thing is, I’m now the person who has to watch her floating naked in the Males 1st Class pool, making sure that she doesn’t drown. The responsibility’s doing my head in. What if I go for a wee and that’s when she drowns? And I’m not sure how I feel about watching her floating about in the pool with her titties out. She’s not like my mum, she doesn’t have no saggy belly and her titties point up to the ceiling even when she’s lying down.

Mum says that Madame Pythia is off her head and it’s pretty obvious that she suffers from migraines when it’s her lady time of the month. ’Course I don’t say anything like that to Madame Pythia, I mean, that woman’s probably the scariest person in the world.

So instead I’m stuck here, in The Oracle, for the next three days, cleaning up sick from the pool and trying not to hurl my guts up. For the next three days I’ll be trapped in the dark and Silver’s told me that I’m not to be making any noise and not to even say one word out loud. He reckons that even the smallest noise will set Madame Pythia off into a bad place. Silver said that the more Madame Pythia floats undisturbed, then the less cleaning up I’d have to do. He’s said I should try and sleep on the wooden folding seats in the changing cubicles by the pool, but maybe keep the stripy curtains open. He’s said that at some point Madame Pythia’ll climb out and lie on the mosaic tiles and that’s when I should try and catch myself an hour’s rest. But what if I sleep too much and she rolls in the pool and drowns and everyone says I killed her and they put me in one of them women’s prisons? I’m going to try not to sleep for three days. I got myself some ProPlus.

The job itself, the working in The Oracle, hasn’t interfered much with my schoolwork. But today, ’cause I’m having to be here all day, Mum’s phoned the school and said that I’m sick. I get paid for every hour I’m here. Mum cares more about the money I’m paid than my schoolwork, and the school don’t care because they expect it of my sort. Me, well I want an easy life, but mainly I’m hoping that I can get into college and prove them all wrong. I want to learn more about English, ’cause I have all these thousands of stories running around my head and I’ve been writing them down in a pink notebook that Silver bought me last week. Most girls my age are all about Sugar and Just 17, but I’m not. I’m not wanting to marry Mark Owen and I’m not interested in his favourite colour. I’m all about books that have stories that have been here forever, I’m all about words and fainting women. Madame Pythia has a million books upstairs in her flat. She’s said that I can borrow them whenever I want. Mum doesn’t get me, probably because she has my brothers to look after and they’re right little buggers and Mum had left school by the time she was my age. I mean she’s not that old now, she’s only twenty-nine, but you’d never think it looking at her. I think that ’cause my mum’d been pregnant with me and had to drop out of school, well I guess it was my fault that Mum’s turned out like she has. I mean she could have killed me in her belly or given me away, but she didn’t. Mum gave up everything just for me.

So, I do what I have to do to make her happy. And that’s why I’m here cleaning up sick and trying not to hurl and that’s why I’m letting my mum have every penny that I earn.

Madame Pythia and Ada Harvey:

As the weeks go by I’m starting to get into a routine, knowing who to expect on what days and having my favourite clients, clients I proper look forward to seeing. There’s this woman who comes here to The Oracle every Monday evening. She has a block booking of the six o’clock slot to see Madame Pythia. She’s called Ada Harvey. She’s probably thirty but she’s got what Mum would call ‘an old face’. I think that’s because she was ill a few years ago and is still recovering. Ada knows my name and she’s really kind. If she’s baked on the Sunday afternoon, she’ll bring me a scone or a fairy bun wrapped in a piece of kitchen roll, with a bit of sellotape wrapped around it to keep it fresh and clean. Sometimes she asks me to go in with her when she sees Madame Pythia, but Madame Pythia won’t let me. She says it’s no good for me to learn the ways of the water-healers. She says that I don’t have no gift and that I won’t be around long enough to care how it works. That’s fine with me, I mean I’m getting a bit fed up of all the flashes of titties and willies I get to see around here. I think it’s put me off for life.

Ada Harvey’s just come in.

‘Laurel, you know how I’ve been having trouble with the hubbie since that last family heal?’ she says.

I nod but I didn’t know, not really.

‘Well I was making my scones and I ended up flabbergasted,’ she says and hands me a scone wrapped in kitchen roll with pictures of cats on skateboards on it. I look from the cartoon images, up to her. She continues, ‘He’s only gone and suggested that we should come to The Oracle as a couple, try again. I think he’s intrigued.’

‘A lot of people are,’ I say. ‘Thanks for my scone,’ I say.

‘To be honest, I think he’s worried that he could have done more to save his mam. She died from breast cancer fifteen years ago,’ Ada Harvey says.

Then the door to the Males 1st Class pool swings open. Mrs Winter comes out. She’s sobbing. She doesn’t even look at us, she just carries on sobbing and walking proper slowly out through the main entrance and down the steps to the seafront.

‘Looks like she had a good session,’ Ada Harvey says, pointing after Mrs Winter. ‘You know we had that family healing a while back?’ Ada asks. I shake my head. ‘Must have been before your time.’

‘Was it all that you expected it to be?’ I ask, not really knowing the right words to use.

‘Oh Laurel, it went okay, just okay. The hubbie was a little disappointed. I think he expected to see some phenomenon, like Madame Pythia walking on water or something,’ Ada Harvey says and then laughs. I laugh too. ‘Do you know how it all works?’ Ada Harvey asks. I shake my head. ‘Well,’ she says, ‘we all sat around the pool, with our feet in the water, while Madame Pythia chatted. She assured him that his mam was always with him, that she was no longer in pain and that she was clutching her right breast. She tried to explain that at his mam’s level of purification, that she can be in seven places at once. At this the hubbie laughed. So, Madame Pythia told him how recently he’d had trouble with the volume on his car stereo. She told him that it was his mam who’d turned it down. The hubbie went rather pale. I remembered as well how the volume of music in his car kept reducing, to a normal level. I mean the hubbie likes to play his music so loud when he drives, but each time he fiddled the volume to high it’d go straight back down quiet. Of course, he assumed that there was something wrong with his stereo. He even took the car to the garage. It was a newish car, a newish stereo and the garage could find no fault. And still, the volume would turn down. So Madame Pythia tells the hubbie how his mam hates loud music.’ Ada Harvey pauses.

I’ve unravelled the kitchen roll from my scone while she’s been talking. Now I’m lifting it to my mouth. ‘She’s good like a witch, isn’t she?’ I say.

‘Exactly like a witch,’ Ada Harvey says and laughs. ‘Madame Pythia told us that our son was specially gifted. Of course I smiled. The hubbie said something about how she was playing with my ego and with my emotions. She told us of how in a previous life, he was actually my sister. Then Madame Pythia told the hubbie to strip naked and get in the pool. While he did she described his character perfectly.’ Again Ada Harvey laughs, then pauses, watching me devouring the scone.

‘Are you hungry Laurel?’ she asks.

I nod.

‘Do they not feed you here?’ she asks, looking me up and down. ‘I’ll bring you more next week,’ she says, placing her hand on my arm. ‘Madame Pythia said how the hubbie was moody and stubborn. She explained that this was because he carried the spirit of a policeman who had died young, who had not accepted his physical death. She told him how, although this spirit was largely positive, he was guiding the hubbie down certain paths, that it was the spirit’s inability to accept his death that was causing the moods, the stubbornness and resentment within the hubbie. She said that’s why he needed to let the water heal him.’

‘And your husband is a policeman too?’ I ask.

‘Yes, Laurel, the spirit must have guided him into that profession.’ Ada Harvey laughs and then continues. ‘Then, Madame Pythia asked if we would like to see the spirits that were with us. My husband shouted yes, with perhaps too much enthusiasm. And so the spirits appeared in the water. I swear I saw their faces popping up – one, then another and then another. But my husband was blocked and could not allow his eyes to see. He saw nothing and that’s what’s making him angry. He thinks I’m making it all up.’

‘Madame Pythia told me that there are some who are blind,’ I say. Then the door swings open and Madame Pythia stands tall in her violet dress.

Madame Pythia shouts, ‘Laurel, show Ada Harvey in.’

Blinking:

’Course I’m not even sure what Madame Pythia’s real name is, I mean she must have a first name, I mean no parent’d be that cruel and name a child ‘Madame’. I think I heard Silver call her Veronica or maybe it was Sally. I didn’t quite catch it, but what I do know is that Madame Pythia delivers her oracles in a proper mental state. If Silver told me she’d been popping an E or seven, I’d believe him. I mean I’ve watched her from the viewing gallery and sometimes she even sounds like she’s talking foreign.

Ada Harvey’s left and today, right now, I’m seeing stuff that’s making my stomach do hula-hoops. I mean I had a feeling it would when Silver said that I had to cancel his last appointment ’cause him and Madame Pythia were doing a healing together. I mean in all the time I’ve been here nowt like that’s happened before, so my stomach did hula-hoops even before I was seeing what I’m seeing now.

I’ve sneaked into the Males 1st Class pool. I mean I waited until they’d started their healing, ’cause I know how they get all into it and they don’t know what’s going on about them. I’m trying to be invisible right next to the changing cubicles and I reckon it’s working, ’cause no one’s shouted at me to bugger off yet. Madame Pythia, Silver and some lass I’ve not seen before are starkers, I mean they’re fully naked in the water.

But none of that even matters. ’Cause the shape of Silver’s face has just changed.

I mean it’s altered, I swear he’s stopped being Silver and, apparently, instead he’s a bloke called Simon who the lass in the water once shagged in a former life. I’m thinking this is like some dodgy remake of Ghost and trying not to freak.

A few minutes ago Madame Pythia was giving it all about showing the way to ‘reverting the body of his spirit from a former life’ and then Silver’s face stopped being Silver’s face. The lass who was being healed, her and Silver were treading water next to each other in the middle of the pool. Next thing, the lass let out the biggest scream ever and swam through the water to hug Silver. Silver hugged her back and then they snogged, with tongues, proper snogging. Madame Pythia had to pull them apart. That’s when I started giggling, ’cause that’s what I sometimes do when I’m freaked out. And that’s why I’m blinking now and blinking some more to make sure that it’s not my eyes playing tricks.

I mean I’m tired, it’s been a long shift, it’s the last appointment of the day, but none of my blinking’s making any difference. And now a proper beautiful white light’s surrounding Madame Pythia. Again, I’m blinking and, again, I’m blinking a bit more. I even use my fingers to stretch my eyes wide open. Maybe I’m confused or maybe I’m coming down with chicken pox. I know I’m not though, least I don’t think I am. I wonder if it’s the vapours off the water, I wonder if they mess with your head and make you see stuff that can’t possibly be real. None of this makes sense to me.

’Cause now Madame Pythia’s face is changing too. Ada Harvey said Madame Pythia could do that, she said how sometimes Madame Pythia allowed several spirits to ‘manifest on her ugly face’. Ada said that one of the spirits she’d seen was her grandmother who’d passed when Ada was a little lass. But this is the first time I’m seeing it with my own eyes. I’m shaking, I’m so confused. I mean it’s crazy, but I don’t think I ever thought it was real. I mean, if I’m honest, I thought the folk who came here were all nutters, that they saw and heard what they needed to see and hear to make their lives better. But now, I mean right now, I’m not sure what’s real and what’s not no more.

The other day I asked Madame Pythia why so many people came to The Oracle and she said, ‘After a long period of spiritual sleep and materialism, humans are finally awakening and opening their minds to new experiences.’ And then, ‘Humans are beginning to realise what I have known since birth, that materialism is not the answer.’ I remember nodding my head, not really listening ’cause she was going on a bit. I remember thinking she was off her face and wondering why they charged so much for each session, if it wasn’t about the money.

But that was all before I realised she could do proper freaky shit with her face. My head’s all over the place now and that’s when I hear the lass speaking.

‘I have been told that there are dark demons smothering me,’ she says.

‘Who spoke such words to you?’ Madame Pythia shouts across the pool. They’ve swam apart a bit while I’ve been freaking out.

‘A friend,’ the lass says.

‘A friend! A friend! What rot! You should choose your friends with more care and consideration, my dear!’