Fear of Drowning

‘Put a damper on the evening?’

‘Did rather.’

‘So you went home?’

‘Yes.’ She looked sheepish, avoiding eye contact.

‘Straight home?’

‘Yes.’

‘Straight to bed?’

‘Yes. It was the only thing to do. The atmosphere was tense. You could have cut it with a knife. We all went to our rooms and shut ourselves off from each other, and the world. I think Rufus and I hoped we would wake up to find that it was a terrible dream.’

‘When did you last see your parents?’

‘On the Sunday afternoon. Rufus had left by then. I stayed on for an hour, talking to Mummy, then drove to London.’

‘So you were at work on the Monday morning?’

‘Yes. I worked hard. For the first time I realized that I needed my job. I also needed the normality.’

‘Someone will verify that you were at work on Monday of this week?’

‘Yes…my colleagues…why?’

‘No reason…just a routine question, no need to be worried.’

‘Oh…’ But He

‘He was a queer fish. He was two people in one, hale-fellow well-met to the world, a tyrant at home. Poor Rufus…when he was growing up the only thing he could do without permission was to breathe, and he was lucky to do that. Mummy went along with him, she couldn’t stand up to him.’

‘And he squandered all the money? Doesn’t sound like a tyrant.’

‘Sounds like a hale-fellow-well-met, though, doesn’t it? I told you he was two personalities in one.’

‘Tell me about your uncle? The one who left your father all that money.’

‘Uncle Marcus?’ She looked nervously at He

‘Yes.’

‘He was my father’s younger brother.’

‘He died before his time then?’

Nicola Williams nodded. She avoided eye contact and He

‘Well…yes…’

‘How did he die?’

‘He drowned in the bath. Dozens of people do each year.’

‘The coroner returned an open verdict. Why do you think he did that?’

Nicola Williams looked uncomfortable.

A pause.

‘Miss Williams, if you’ve got something to tell me it’s really in your extreme best interest to do so.’

‘It’s nothing criminal.’

‘What then?’

‘It’s an awful skeleton in the family cupboard.’

‘So tell me; if it’s not relevant to the enquiry it won’t go beyond these four walls.’

‘It’s not relevant.’

‘That’s for me to decide.’

‘He was a cretin. He suffered cretinism. He was about three feet high.’

‘That’s not much of a skeleton as skeletons go.’

‘That’s not the skeleton.’

‘Oh?’

‘His mother—my grandmama—tried to drown him. She was what in today’s politically correct times would be called a “lookist”.’

‘Ah…’

‘His condition began to become apparent when he was about ten or twelve, up to then he’d been normal if a little frail…when cretinism was diagnosed, she tried to drown him…she made a determined effort, locked him and her in the bathroom…he managed to scream and Grandfather kicked the door in and saved his life. He grew up with a fear of drowning, hence the showers. He also had a lake filled in.’

‘A lake?’

‘He bought a large house which had a lake in the grounds. The first thing he did was to have the lake filled in. That’s the skeleton. It didn’t come out at the inquest because the family don’t talk about it, let alone want it made public.’

He

‘Well-kept. I only found out about it last year, or the year before, when Mummy and I were walking in the garden at the Grange.’

‘Does your brother know the story?’

‘I don’t think he does. That’s where Daddy gets his obsession with appearance from, his mother was such a lookist…if it didn’t look right it had to go. Poor Marcus couldn’t live up to the Williams image, nor to the Sieff image - Sieff being Grandmama’s maiden name - so he had to go.’

‘Where is your grandmother now?’

‘In a nursing home. Her mind has gone.’

‘Lucky her, in a sense.”Part of me wishes they had involved the police and had her charged with attempted infanticide. Ten years in a women’s prison would have done wonders for her attitude.’

He

That evening, He

In the house, cup of tea in hand, he sat at the long kitchen table and helped Daniel with his maths homework. It was pre-secondary school level and so He

‘You shouldn’t be reading that, George.’

‘Oh?’ He

‘No…’ the girl replied warmly. Then she paused and said, ‘George, what happened to your wife?’

‘Dia

‘I don’t mind.’ He

‘What caused it?’

He

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you, but there’s no need to be…I still cherish her memory and I believe that she’s still in the garden she pla

I’m mad…but I do it.’

Later that evening, when Fiona had returned from the stables, and she and Dia