JT Lawrence
THE MEMORY OF WATER
Quote: Margaret Atwood
“So here we are again, with the cold-eyed, cold-hearted artist, the one who has sacrificed himself for his art and forfeited his human ability to feel, but this time there’s a distinct suggestion of a pact with the devil.
Not only the heart has gone, but the soul has been lost as well.”
PROLOGUE
A MONUMENT TO LOST CAUSES
My little sister’s body was blue when they pulled it out of the river. Such a small thing, she was. Usually the shock of it would make one disillusioned, confused, blurry. Not me. I was startled into detail. Shocked into being the most alive I had ever been. Her sleeping lungs made mine gasp for air. I was electrified by the green of the river reeds, strangled by the summer air; everything else out of that moment was washed away by the gurgle of the persuasive current.
The men were taller than trees, the men who helped. They had heard my high-pitched flailing but not in time.
Afterwards, the grey tree-man couldn’t leave Emily lying on the ground. Cradled in his arms, her wet dress stuck, resolved, to her body. He tugged at it, as if to cover her, as if to shield her, but not in time. He was planted in such a determined way it seemed that he would never again move from that bit of land: a monument to lost causes. The other man sat on the bank, gulping, head wobbling on shaking knees. He had tried to revive her with a combination of violence and care, unsure how much the porcelain body could endure, desperate to get her drifting heart pumping. He went from savage breastbone-beating to gentle kisses and back again. Gasping, shuddering, all four of us dripped.
We waited for the screams in silence and dread.
Quote: Oscar Wilde
“An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.”
1
AT LEAST SOMEONE IS HAVING AN INTERESTING MORNING
In darkness: headpounding, stomachswimming, eyesitching.
I reach for the bottle of San Pellegrino I keep next to my bed. Someone has taken it. Bastard.
No, that’s not right.
The neighbour’s junker is grumbling. Jack Russell barking.
I left the bottle in the den last night, was using it to top up my whiskies. Amateur mistake. I raise my eyelids just enough to get a bright slice of white ceiling.
After a few shallow breaths I stand up and fall down. Starsinhead. Dizzy. Make it to the coffee machine and flick the red switch. It growls.
Scratch my stubble. Brainonfire.
The morning glare through the kitchen window is ruthless. I close my eyes for a while to give them a bit of a rest. I need to piss and shower and eat something greasy. Breakfast at Salvation Café. A double Bloody Mary blitzed with raw egg and Tabasco.
Now warm, the coffee machine grinds, blasts and spits. The fridge is vacant apart from some old oil-blemished pizza boxes, crystallized balsamic syrup and a never-opened jar of mysteries picked up at the last organic market with Eve. I should never go to organic markets. And I should never have bought such a leviathan fridge. Peering into its airy innards makes me feel lonely. It never used to be this way. This appliance has seen its fair share of riches: countless bottles of Veuve Cliquot and glittering round tins of Russian Caviar, like gold coins for giants. Now it sits, sulking, vacant, desolate. My heart is an empty refrigerator.
The milk is beyond rescue and it swirls down the sink trap. I stir the coffee too hard, slopping it down the side of the mug, leaving an eclipse on the pale marble slab of the countertop. I’ll clean it up later.
Like the walking dead, dripping hot mug in hand, I stagger to my writing desk in the den to survey the damage, taking care to not trip over the piles of books lying in the way. It doesn’t look too bad at first glance. Doesn’t look too bad at all till I see my murdered Moleskine lying like a dead animal on the edge of the bureau, creamy belly exposed, inky guts ripped out.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks. I look way better than I feel.”
It’s been a wreck of a morning so far and smiling hurts. I kiss her on the cheek and grab the chair in the shade, not too close, in the empty hope that she doesn’t smell the stale whisky leaking from my pores. I put my phone on the table beside her bunch of keys: her silver apple keyring glints in the sun.
She is dressed up. I wonder if she is meeting someone after breakfast. Another man maybe, or a sponsor. Or maybe it’s a shoot: apart from being an artist, she’s a partner in a small film company. I am immediately jealous.
She lowers her very large sunglasses slightly and takes a look at my sorry state.
“Did you party too hard last night with what’s-her-name?”
“Kind of,” I grin. Ouch. “You could say that.”
Eve sits back with her arms crossed. She always has her arms crossed. She’s always disapproving in a hot librarian kind of way.
“So? How are things with her? What’s her name again?”
The waitress arrives with menus too big to be practical. I struggle with mine and almost knock over my pre-ordered double-hot Bloody Mary.
“It’s over. So it doesn’t matter.” I mumble, but she gets the gist.
“Why am I not surprised?” She sighs, closing her menu and setting it down on the table.”What happened?”
“I broke it off last night.”
“Another non-surprise then.” She makes a show of yawning. Taps the table leg with her ballet flat. “Very boring, Slade.”
This jabs me in the stomach. There are not many things I fear more than predictability. Being a bore: I find that terrifying. She knows this and indulges me with a half-smile, to show that she was half-kidding.
God, Eve is sexy in her tailored ivory suit and bare pink lips. Jackie O shades. Although she looks just as desirable in the paint-stained oversized men’s collared shirts she works in. And her ponytail. I love her hair in a ponytail. What I wouldn’t do to grab… I realise I am daydreaming and try to remember what it was we were speaking about. I hide behind my Oakley’s: this babbelas is making me feel a thousand years old.
Ponytails, lips, yawning: Ah, whatshername.
“Well, it wasn’t working. I had to end it. She was no good.”
A man from the adjacent table glances over, curious, then turns away before I can tell him to mind his own damn business.
“No good for your writing, you mean.”
“Yes. Well, it’s the same thing, isn’t it? It’s not like I can be okay without my writing.”
It’s all I have.
I didn’t tell Eve I broke the news to the woman early in the evening so I could get home in time to work on a few notes. It didn’t work: nothing came to me. In the end I – apparently - finished a bottle of whisky and tore up my notebook. Which is becoming a habit.
I ignore the flash of annoyance in Eve’s eyes. She nibbles a nail.
“How did she take it?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Not as heartbroken as the accountant, not as happy as the talk-show host. Somewhere in between. Pretty neutral, really. I think that’s what I didn’t like about her.”