‘In a minute, Malcolm is going to tip our canoe over,’ says Becky. ‘We’ll be inside.’ Her voice sounds far away. ‘It will be our job to right it.’
‘What?’ I can feel the panic rising in my throat.
‘It’s all right,’ Caleb calls from the shore. ‘You can do it! You know you can.’
I gaze around in terror.
‘It’s just like we practised earlier,’ says Becky, and I feel her grip my shoulder reassuringly.
‘But I didn’t practise, I was late for—’
Becky, it seems, hasn’t heard me.
Before I can finish my sentence, I find myself face-first in the water. Something wet and stringy covers my face and slips into my mouth. Is it algae or seaweed? It’s pitch-black and claustrophobic inside the overturned canoe, and I find myself struggling, jerking and flailing like a landed trout. Panic overwhelms me and I feel my lungs screaming for air. Is this what it was like for Michael?
From somewhere in the watery darkness comes a voice.
‘Calm down, Mum. It’s just water. You’ve lived beside it your entire life. Grew up in it. Taught me to love it just like you do.’
Michael?
‘Kick, Mum. Just kick.’
I can’t.
‘Don’t give me that bullshit. Do you remember the time I bet you that I could swim upriver to Cotehele?’
The tide was turning, and I was frightened there was no way you could make it all that way.
‘But I did.’
You were so determined.
‘I wanted to win.’
I could see how tired you were, and the current was so strong.
‘And there you were, puttering alongside me in granddad’s old dinghy.’
You were only eight. I wanted to pull you out.
‘But I wouldn’t let you.’
You were so stubborn.
‘Determined.’
Yes, determined.
‘I was a bit afraid.’
You didn’t show it.
‘What good would that do?’
How did you ever get to be so clever?
‘I had a good teacher.’
I miss you, Michael.
‘I miss you too, Mum. But now you’ve got to kick, okay?’
Suddenly, I am kicking. I surface to sunshine and the sound of laughter.
‘Kate, grab the side of the canoe.’ Becky is beside me. ‘I’m going under. When you hear me knocking on the inside, you need to flip the canoe over. After that, we’ll work on getting ourselves back in.’
Things are happening so fast I don’t have time to think or feel frightened. Becky was beside me, and now she is gone, ducking into the water and under the overturned canoe. I can feel it lifting and then grab the side and push with all my might so that it flips the right way up.
It takes a few attempts, but finally, with a bit of help from Becky, I’m pulled into the canoe. I hear cheers from my classmates on the shore.
‘I can’t believe I just did that.’
‘You were great, Kate,’ says Becky. ‘Really great.’
‘How long were we under?’
‘Under?’
‘When Malcolm tipped us into the water. How long?’
‘Just a few seconds,’ Becky seems confused by the question. ‘In fact, you were up before me.’
‘Was I?’
‘For someone afraid of water,’ says Becky, ‘it really was the bravest thing.’
I turn and smile gratefully at her. Throughout our twelve years of marriage Adam had often berated me for my lack of self-assurance. I think back to our first meeting, of sitting next to him at a colleague’s dinner party. It was so obviously a setup that it was almost embarrassing.
‘Divorced three years ago, no children.’ His summary during the pudding course was concise. ‘I suppose I spent too much time at work and not enough on the marriage.’ I remember thinking at the time how confident he appeared; his sense of absolute certainty. With Adam I had a strong, confident partner who could offer security and support, as well as being a good role model for Michael. Long gone were the days when I made decisions based on emotion. Look where that had got me: pregnant at fifteen.
My thoughts turn to Ryan on the afternoon of my mother’s funeral. Forgive me, Katie. Please say you’ll forgive me. With Adam I was strategic, clever; or so I thought. The marriage was good at first. Yes, it was true we didn’t share a joint bank account, and he did like the house – his house – to be kept just so, but I found myself easily adapting; reworking my personal habits to ensure his approval: Michael had called it keeping the grumpy monster at bay in his diary. There had been that brief separation when we escaped to my mother’s house. When I returned, I had been unequivocal.
‘If you ever try to pressure me into giving Michael prescription medication again, I will leave you for ever,’ I whispered to Adam, the first time we had sex after my return. He had looked at me in stunned silence – or perhaps grudging respect. Whichever it was, there would be no more doubt in my husband’s mind who came first.
A year later, Michael was at Edgecombe to start his GCSEs, his application supported by Adam’s friendship with a member of the Board of Governors.
You got your way in the end, Adam, didn’t you?
Feeling tense and uneasy after my experience that afternoon, I need to walk. I avoid the Cobbles and any chance of running into my classmates, and instead take a grassy path that leads behind the halls of residence and into a large, wooded area that borders the loch. I walk quickly, forcing my body onwards, hoping that the heavy exertion will steady my shallow, anxiety-driven breathing. There is nothing but body, breath and my mind gently unravelling itself. I put aside my thoughts to negotiate an enormous fallen pine, the sticky sap still bleeding from its splintered trunk. Was it a lightning strike? A windstorm? I run my fingers across the Goliath’s honey-coloured rings. I feel my breathing still and let my mind unfold into the soft green that surrounds me. I hear the crunch of a twig and, turning, see a figure emerge from behind a row of spindly pines.
‘Caleb.’ Beams of late afternoon
