Swimmer Page 5

  ‘So she came through? The busty mystic in the low-cut dress?’

  ‘Susan? She’s interesting. A very interesting young woman. And very, genuinely sensitive. And interesting.’

  ‘And busty.’

  ‘Yes, busty. Okay. That’s a natural attribute. But that’s not what makes her interesting.’

  ‘All the same, you like her.’

  ‘Sure I like her. I’m not going to deny it. I like lots of women. No, I didn’t say that right. I like lots of women, not lots of women. For God’s sake. But I still want you to come to Washington with me. I mean, this is why I’m calling. This is a genuine repeat offer for a limited time only. I’ve thought very seriously about your color-coded sweaters and I’ve thought about your step aerobics and your logical mind and your tofu; and I’ve come to the conclusion that I could easily adapt. Easily. Do you know what I did this evening, when I came home? I rearranged my spice rack. It’s all in alphabetical order, starting with Allspice and ending with Wasabi. Then I tidied my sock drawer. I swear to God. All of my socks are matching and they’re all rolled together and they’re all in rows. They look like a passing-out parade at West Point. Well, except for seven or eight of them that don’t seem to have a friend.’

  ‘Maybe your busty mystic in the low-cut dress could help. If she can do orchard therapy I’m sure she can manage sock treatment.’

  ‘Karen, it’s you I’m asking to come to Washington. Nobody else. Marry me.’

  ‘No, Jim. I’m sorry. What we have together … it’s good. Occasionally it’s nearly wonderful. But it’s not enough.’

  ‘It’s not enough?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You’re sorry. How do you think I feel?’

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Jim. But it could never work out, alphabetical spices or not.’

  ‘I see. Well, I guess I can take a hint.’

  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, at college.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Don’t be angry, Jim. You know it wouldn’t work. There’s more to marriage than a tidy sock drawer.’

  From where he was sitting on the couch, Jim caught sight of a pair of shorts that he had kicked under the armchair about five days ago. Candy-striped, faded and crumpled. He was beginning to feel very sorry for himself, but he dropped his head in mock-resignation, like a marionette with its strings cut.

  He fell asleep within five or ten minutes, which was unusual after a day in which he had been involved in so much psychic activity. Most days, a supernatural experience would leave him nervy and sweating, and he would roll about in bed for hour after hour while all kinds of mysterious images danced and flickered in his head like black-and-white movies. Pale, featureless faces, staring, half hidden behind misted-up windows. Monk-like figures in hoods and habits, rushing silently around corners before he could reach them. Sometimes he heard music, somebody playing a discordant piano in an echoing upstairs room. Sometimes he heard women weeping, ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t …’ over and over.

  But tonight he slid down that long dark shelf into unconsciousness almost immediately, and when he opened his eyes he was caught up in a dream so sharp and detailed that it was even more realistic than life itself.

  He was walking along a wide gray seashore, with the wind fluffing in his ears. The sky was overcast, and the beach was so flat that the waves were only inches deep. The waves poured over the sides of his shoes and soaked his socks, and then retreated.

  As he walked along, he became aware that somebody was walking far up ahead of him – a woman, it looked like, with her hair streaming in the wind and her shoulders bowed. He tried to walk faster, to catch her up, but she always seemed to remain out of reach. He had the urgent feeling that he needed to talk to her, or else something was going to go seriously wrong. The wind was rising now, and very much colder, and the waves began to splash against the legs of his pants, soaking him up to his knees.

  Without warning he was hit by a huge, overwhelming wave. It was freezing cold, and it dropped on top of him like a ton of wet cement, forcing him down to his knees. He tried to stand up, but the undertow dragged his feet away from him, and the next thing he knew he was floundering in nine or ten feet of salty water, his arms waving and his legs thrashing, completely helpless.

  Desperately, he tried to swim to the surface. But no matter how hard he kicked his legs and paddled his arms, he couldn’t seem to rise any higher. There was something clutching his ankle … something dragging him back down again.

  Bursting for breath, he twisted himself around to see what it was. With a cold shock of recognition, he saw that it was the same liquid figure he had seen climbing out of Jennie’s pool – a sinuous shape with long, fluent hair, fashioned entirely out of water. Her skin rippled like a fast-flowing current, and her eyes gleamed like glass, without pupils or irises. Her expression alone was enough to terrify him: she was furious-faced, and obviously intent on drowning him.

  He kicked and kicked, but he couldn’t break her grip. His lungs felt as if they were just about to detonate. His head throbbed and it took every ounce of strength not to open his mouth and breathe in a huge lungful of icy cold seawater. He heaved himself around, and gave a desperate double kick with both feet. The figure seemed to scatter apart, like beads of liquid mercury. He kicked again, and again, propelling himself upward.

  He broke the surface, screaming for air. ‘Hah! Hah! Hah!’ He thrashed his arms, trying to keep himself afloat. And then looked around the ocean, and found that it wasn’t an ocean at all, but a bedroom, with a bedside clock, and a bureau, and a pair of khaki Dockers hanging over the back of a basketwork chair. He was still lying on his bed, his sheets twisted like the Indian rope trick and his T-shirt soaked in icy cold sweat. He sat up, wiped his face with his hands, and drank a large mouthful of tepid water. Outside his apartment, he could hear distant samba music and the sound of automobiles swishing along the street. He checked his bedside clock. It read 13:06:01.

  This was ridiculous. It wasn’t six minutes past one in the afternoon: it was more like quarter past two in the morning. He picked up the clock and stared at it. Last year’s class had given it to him, and on the back were engraved the words: JIM ROOK, BECAUSE HE OPENED OUR EYES.

  It was then that TT padded into the room, and let out the faintest mewling sound.

  ‘What? What is it now?’

  TT jumped up on to the bed beside him and nuzzled the clock.

  ‘What are you trying to say to me, you witch of darkness? My alarm clock’s gone on the fritz, that’s all. Probably a brown-out.’

  But TT mewled again, and almost head-butted the clock, and then laid her paw on top of it.

  ‘You’re trying to tell me something, right? I know. But you obviously don’t understand that you’re trying to communicate with a higher species of vastly superior intellect. When cats start writing rhyming couplets and sending each other e-mails, then I’ll worry. But right now, all of this mewling and scratching and head-banging … I’m sorry, you’ve lost me.’

  TT didn’t give up. She jumped off the bed, trotted into the living-room and jumped up on the back of the chair in front of the calendar. Jim followed her, and stared at her uncomprehendingly for a very long time. Impatient, she jumped up and swatted at the calendar with her paw.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ said Jim. But then TT ran back to the bedroom and nuzzled the clock.

  ‘Clock … calendar. Calendar … clock. What’s going on here, TT?’

  TT came back, and again she was carrying the Grimaud death card in between her teeth. She dropped it in front of Jim’s feet and stood there staring at him, almost willing him to understand.

  ‘Clock – calendar – death card. Oh, hold up a minute. This is beginning to make sense. The clock is wrong, right? So these numbers on the clock … these aren’t the time, they’re the date … thirteen, six, oh one. The thirteenth of June 2001. Which is … let’s take a look … precisely nine days from now.’

  Jim slowl
y reached up and felt the psychic necklace that was dangling on his chest. Wear it when you go to sleep tonight, and you’ll dream the day you’re going to die.

  ‘No way, José,’ he told TT. ‘I believe in seeing the past, but I don’t believe in seeing the future. It hasn’t happened yet. How can anybody know?’ TT remained where she was, staring at him implacably. ‘How can anybody know, TT? Especially a cat? Just because the Egyptians thought the sun shone out of your litter trays.’

  All the same, he went back into the bedroom and looked at the clock lying on the bed, and it was still reading 13:06:01. He had a cold, helpless feeling, like Ebenezer Scrooge must have felt when the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come showed him his own tombstone.

  He went into the kitchen, put on the kettle and made himself a mug of hot chocolate. He had been putting on a little weight lately – not much, but Karen had always told him that he looked underfed, ‘like a refugee from something that the rest of us don’t even want to think about’.

  It was 2.25 a.m. Jim was still sitting at the kitchen table finishing his chocolate when the doorbell chimed, making him start. He shuffled into the hallway and peered through the spyhole. It was Mervyn, his face covered in a livid green mudpack and his bleached-blond hair in curlers. Jim said, ‘Shit,’ under his breath, and reluctantly opened the door.

  ‘Hey, Jim! I saw your light was still burning and thought you could use some company.’ Mervyn was wrapped in a shiny pink silk kimono with huge black chrysanthemums on it, and he was wearing extraordinary Japanese clogs that made him teeter around the room with all his weight tilted forward, like a huge chicken. ‘If I’m disturbing you, you can throw me out. In these shoes, I’ll probably throw myself out. What do you think of them? A Japanese businessman gave them to me for singing “Hello, Dolly” in Japanese, or should I say “Herro Dorry”. I was sensational.’

  ‘You’re always sensational, Mervyn. Come on in, make yourself at home. I couldn’t sleep. Well, I did sleep, but I had one hell of a nightmare.’

  ‘You know why, don’t you?’ said Mervyn, collapsing into one of the kitchen chairs. ‘You’re emotionally disturbed about going to Washington. Leaving LA behind, leaving your Special Class II behind, leaving TT behind. You’re bound to be feeling anxious.’

  Jim said, ‘I’m not stressed at all. Not about leaving West Grove, anyhow. Dr Friendly’s been riding me every day for the past semester. And Special Class II … well, next year there’ll be a new Special Class II, all fresh faces. I won’t miss students I’ve never met. As for TT … Well, she’s decorative for sure, but she’s about as useful as an overstuffed cushion.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be so negative,’ said Mervyn. ‘You’re going to miss all of us, sorely. Even those students you’ve never met. By the way, I love your necklace. Very New Age.’

  Jim took it off and handed it to him. ‘It’s supposed to possess powers of clairvoyance. Ten bucks, at the psychic fair. It predicts the exact day you’re going to die.’

  ‘Oh, get out of here. You don’t believe that, do you?’

  ‘I don’t know. But this is the point. I was wearing it tonight, when I had this nightmare. I dreamed that I was being drowned. Somebody was holding my ankle, a girl, and she was pulling me under the ocean. I woke up, and this is what my clock said.’

  Mervyn stared at the clock, uncomprehendingly. ‘It’s a great little clock, isn’t it? Does it have a snooze facility? I love a clock with a snooze facility. Just the word, “snooze”, isn’t that wonderful? You can just lie there, and sort your life out before you have to climb out of bed and sort it out for real. Don’t you think real life is so depressing? I could spend the rest of my life in bed.’

  ‘Mervyn … look what the clock says.’

  Mervyn squinted at it, and then he said, ‘It’s wrong, isn’t it? This is either yesterday or tomorrow. By the way, did you ever hear me singing “Yesterday”? It brings tears to people’s eyes. It brings tears to my eyes, too. Especially the high notes.’

  ‘Mervyn … I woke up out of that nightmare and the clock said thirteen, six, oh one and it hasn’t moved since. This isn’t the time here, for God’s sake. This is the day that I’m going to shuffle off the mortal coil.’

  ‘The what?’

  ‘The mortal coil. That’s Shakespeare talk for buying the farm. This bedside alarm clock has just told me that I have nine days to live.’

  ‘Oh, that’s ridiculous.’

  ‘You think so?’ said Jim, and told him all about Jennie’s plea for help, and Susan Silverstone, and the watery figure that had risen out of the pool when Susan had set up her spirit-trace. For once, Meryvn looked serious. ‘Maybe you shouldn’t go to Washington, Jim. Maybe you’re cracking up.’

  ‘But this little nine-year-old kid was drowned, and his mother asked me to find out who did it. And then I had specific warning that something bad was going to happen to me. Something to do with water, too.’

  ‘A warning? Who from? You should tell the police.’

  ‘I can’t. They wouldn’t believe me, would they? The warning … well, it came from the cards.’

  ‘Oh, the cards. Well, you know what I think about those. They’re for menopausal women and lonely widows and middle-aged gays.’

  ‘So what? Just because they appeal to vulnerable people, that doesn’t make them any less accurate. They’re real, Mervyn. They tell the truth. And there’s nothing wrong in being menopausal or lonely. Or middle-aged. Or gay, for that matter.’

  ‘Hunh! You should try it sometime! I think I’m every one of those.’

  Jim said, ‘For God’s sake, Mervyn, I’m trying to tell you that I’m going to die in nine days from now. I think I’m going to be drowned.’

  ‘In that case, you should stay away from water. I’m not just talking about pools, or the ocean. I mean, don’t even have a glass of water on your nightstand.’

  ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘I’m kidding around with you, Jim. I’m trying to make you see sense. That poor little Mike was dragged down under the water, but it was an accident, most likely. Faulty pump. Missing safety grille. The number of little children who get their hair all tangled up in swimming-pool filters, you wouldn’t believe. Those filters, they scalp more people than the Oglala Sioux. I know, I used to work for Valley Pool Pumps. The stories I could tell you. We found a guy who got his pony-tail tangled in his hot tub and he sat there for seventeen days, simmering. By the time we found him, he was guy broth.’

  ‘Well, let’s leave those horror stories for now, Mervyn. What I need to know is, did you ever hear anybody else mention a water creature, a person all made out of water?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jim, I don’t think so. You’re just trying to spook me out. I guess the nearest we had was two of our operatives who worked on a pool in Sherman Oaks. They were refilling it, after somebody’s daughter drowned in it. And when the pool was almost full, one of our operatives pushed the other one in – you know, just for a joke. But that guy came out that pool in a total panic. He said that somebody had tried to pull him under, and drown him. But who, or what? There was nobody else there. The other guy could testify to that. And there was a neighbor leaning over the fence, and the neighbor didn’t see nothing, neither.’

  ‘That sounds distinctly similar,’ said Jim. ‘That figure I saw … she was made out of nothing but water, I swear it. But she had arms that could drag you down below the surface. And she had such an expression on her face. Scowls weren’t in it. She gave me the feeling that she would kill me, as soon as she could lay hands on me.’

  ‘Hm. You’re sure it wasn’t my mother? When she’s mad, boy, the looks she gives you. They could turn cheese.’

  Jim said, ‘I feel like I’m losing it, Mervyn. I feel like I don’t know the difference between one side of reality and the other.’

  Mervyn held his hand, and gripped it tight. ‘You’re a good man, Jim. You’re better than you know. But you should allow yourself to be selfish sometimes. You should do what you wan
t to do. I clean up around here, and unblock toilets, and run errands for the old folks. But that’s not charity. That’s not martyrdom. I do it because I love it. And if you feel the same way about the things that you do … about those young people you teach how to read and write and appreciate poetry … you do it because it’s your lifeblood. You do it because what’s the point of getting up in the morning if you don’t?’

  Jim said, ‘Maybe you’re right, Mervyn. I don’t know.’

  ‘You’re scared, aren’t you?’

  Jim looked up at Mervyn, with his khaki mudpack and his bright pink curlers, like the chief of a primitive tribe, and said, ‘You’re damn right I’m scared. If this is real, I’d hate to see the supernatural.’

  ‘How about a drink?’ Mervyn suggested. ‘A piña colada with a pink beach umbrella would do.’

  ‘How about a cup of coffee?’

  ‘For sure … if you insist.’

  Jim went into the kitchen and switched on the light. As he approached the stainless-steel sink, he suddenly became aware of scurrying on the draining board, like dozens of cockroaches scuttling for shelter. But then he realized that it wasn’t cockroaches. It was drops of water, hurrying off the draining board and into the sink, and flying upward into the faucet. He stood stock-still and watched in horrified fascination as drop after drop flew upward, totally defying gravity, and disappeared from sight.

  It was just as though he had caught them out, these drops of water, and they were running away from him, and hiding.

  Very cautiously he approached the sink. He put his hand on the faucet, and wondered if he ought to fill the percolator or not.

  In the end, he went back into the living-room and said, ‘I’m sorry, Mervyn. I’m bushed. Why don’t we call it a night? Or a day, rather. Look, it’s growing light.’

  ‘No coffee?’ asked Mervyn plaintively.

  Jim shook his head. ‘Not now. It always gives me nightmares.’

  Five

  He walked into class the following morning and his students were all chatting and laughing and throwing rolled-up gum wrappers and propping their Nike trainers up on the desks. He couldn’t blame them: there were only two days to go before the end of the summer semester, the end of the year and the end of their time in Special Class II. If they hadn’t learned anything about self-expression by now, they never would.