The Drowning of Arthur Braxton

His Love Story:

Next day I’m at my desk, struggling to complete a piece of GCSE coursework. I’m too close to the deadline and that’s making me panic even more. It’s English language, it’s a love story, and mainly I’m struggling ’cause I don’t really think I believe in love. I mean, it’s not like my mum has found her happily-ever-after and it’s not like any of the women who come here are celebrating amazing marriages. Everyone moans about their husbands and their partners and their kids. I don’t think I know anyone who’s in love, I mean not like I read about in all Madame Pythia’s books. And that’s why I’m struggling.

That’s when Martin comes up to the desk, he’s on a fifteen-minute break before his drop-in sessions start. As usual he sits, then shuffles closer and rests a hand on my shoulder. My stomach hula-hoops and I try to move my chair back a bit without him noticing.

‘What you up to?’ he asks.

‘Coursework,’ I say. ‘Got to write about love, like I know anything about love.’

‘What do you want to know? I’m a bit of an expert,’ he asks, he winks.

I look at him, I blush because his eyes are that strong and powerful and scary. ‘Everything,’ I say. ‘Don’t reckon I believe in it,’ I say.

‘Love exists,’ Martin says. ‘I once knew a woman,’ he says. ‘She was one of my first-ever clients. Gwendolyn Price was her name. She came here for treatment but me and her, well she was my fit. I mean she fitted onto me and I fitted into her and it was different. I know that’s lame and all pathetic and I know that my wife’d have a paddy at me daring to say that me, that the father of her kids, was with the wrong lass. But Gwendolyn was the woman I should have married.’

I don’t say anything. I pick up my pencil and start making notes. Martin’s still perching on the edge of my desk, but he’s taken his hand off my shoulder.

‘Mainly at night when I was lying in bed, when I’d just shagged my wife, well I’d be thinking about Gwendolyn. And I’d be thinking about when I could next be with her. I still loved my wife, but it was clear I wasn’t in love with her. Sometimes I even hated her because she could be a right nasty bitch to me and the kids. But mainly we just ended up shagging because that’s what married folk do and if I did then she’d not be suspecting that I was at it with some person else,’ he says, then he laughs. I laugh too, even though I don’t think he’s funny. ‘What do you think about that?’

‘I don’t know,’ I say. I don’t. I mean I look at Martin and I see someone who’s old, he’s like the age my dad probably is. I don’t really understand what he’s trying to tell me. ‘I don’t get it. How do you do that? How can you love, but not be in love?’ I ask.

‘Love’s not that black and white, pet,’ he says. ‘I wanted to leave the wife, but it was my kids that kept me and the wife together. I thought that the responsibility I felt towards my kids was more important than the love I felt for Gwendolyn. I reckon that me and the wife, that having kids was the reason why everything started going wrong between us, but we were good parents. Being with Gwendolyn was my only bit of me-time, the only time I could have some fun, away from dull-as-fuck routine,’ he says.

‘So what happened?’ I ask, ready with my pencil.

‘I couldn’t leave my kids, financial and emotional shit, Gwendolyn got fed up of not having all of me. We ended after a year and I reckon my heart broke,’ he says.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say, ’cause I am. He looks sad.

‘I still think about her every day,’ he says and he sighs. I’ve not seen him sad before, I feel sad too.

‘I reckon that you can fall in and out of love all through your life, but there’s only one person who really fits. And that love, that love trumps all other love. The problem is, that like everything in life, you can blink and you’ll miss your moment,’ he says, and then he’s laughing again.

I laugh too.

‘So Gwendolyn was my first-and-only real affair. And, of course, after losing Gwendolyn,’ he says, ‘that’s when I started resenting my life. I decided I had nothing to lose and now I shag anything with a pulse. If I can’t be with Gwendolyn then I don’t give a fuck about anything else.’

That’s when I look up at him and he winks and gets down from the edge of the table.

‘People have affairs,’ he says, walking towards the main door. ‘Of course they do. And I do my duty as a husband, I’m there for my wife and I’m there for my kiddies. And I love every one of the women I’ve shagged, almost as much as they’ve loved my cock inside them. Everyone’s happy and everyone’s getting a piece of me. But it’s never been like it was with Gwendolyn. I’m just a giving kind of bloke. I shag women and I give them a love that lasts for anything from five to thirty minutes.’ He laughs again, I don’t really understand his joke. ‘What I can do with my cock …’

He doesn’t finish his sentence and I’m really not sure what he’s trying to tell me about love. I’m feeling even more confused.

But a bit later, I’m just coming out the toilet after having a wee and he’s waiting. At first I’m wondering why he’s waiting to go in the girl’s toilet but then I get to realising that he’s waiting to see me.

‘So when you going to let me take you out?’ he asks.

‘Out?’ I ask.

‘On a date,’ he says, and I laugh. ‘What’s funny?’ he asks and I think I might have upset his feelings.

‘Soz,’ I say, I blush.

‘How about the pictures?’ he asks.

I shake my head, I don’t look at him, I look down at the mosaic tiles. ‘My mum wouldn’t let me,’ I say. And that’s when he walks away.

‘I’m in love with you, Laurel,’ he shouts over his shoulder, he laughs as he turns the corner. ‘Think of it as research for your coursework,’ he says.

And I’m left wondering what that even means.

A Palm Reading:

’Course, I’d known that Silver reads palms. I’ve been working six weeks now and I know pretty much everything that goes on. I’m sitting on the stone steps outside the Males 1st Class entrance, reading and loving that it’s a suntrap. I’ve got another one of my little dresses on, Mum treated me, buying it from Miss Selfridges instead of Mark One. It’s got tiny yellow-and-blue flowers on it. I’ve got it hitched up into my knickers. I’m stretching out my legs across the steps and I’ve even taken off my DMs. I’m happy. I hear him whistling. Silver comes and sits next to me.

‘Show me your palm,’ he says and I do. I mean I don’t even think twice about it. I like Silver, he’s got kind eyes and he’s bought me a tube of Smarties from the shops every day for the last two weeks. I’m saving the lids, trying to spell out ‘Laurel’, but I’ve not got ‘r’ or ‘u’ yet and I’ve only got one ‘l’. I slide my hand off my open book and hold it up to his face. Silver smiles.

Silver lifts my palm up close to his eyes. He tilts my palm this way and that way and bends my fingers one by one. He runs his chubby man-fingers over the lines.

‘Oh,’ he says.

‘What?’ I ask.

I look at Silver, tears are already falling from his eyes.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘Run for your life,’ Silver says, letting go of my palm with a deep sob. He steadies himself on the metal railing, trying to get to his feet.

‘Silver, tell me,’ I say. I’m terrified.

‘I can’t, pet,’ he says. ‘It isn’t what I do. Things happen as they should.’ Then he walks back through the open wooden doors and into The Oracle. I hear him sobbing.

‘Silver,’ I shout, dropping my book and getting to my feet. The steps are hot.

‘I wouldn’t bother,’ Martin Savage says. I hadn’t seen him coming. I pull at my dress, to make sure that it’s not still tucked in my knickers. He’s at the bottom of the stone steps, dragging on a rolled ciggie. ‘He’ll not tell you if it’s bad.’

‘Will you?’ I ask.

‘Don’t know if I should, what with you not letting me take you out,’ he says.

‘Please,’ I say.

‘Okay,’ he says, and then, ‘But you’ll owe me one.’

He climbs the steps to beside me.

‘Sit down, Laurel,’ he says. I do. I don’t want to owe him, but I’m that desperate.

‘Give me your palm,’ he says. I do.

‘How old are you again, Laurel?’ he asks.

‘Nearly fifteen,’ I say.

‘You’re pretty,’ he says, stroking his index finger up my fingers and down to the base of my palm. It tickles, I giggle even though I don’t want to giggle. Then he brings my palm up to his mouth and kisses it with his lips. He makes me want to be sick, I don’t like his kisses. ‘Ask Madame Pythia,’ he says.

‘Ask her what?’ I say.

‘To read your palm, I do tarot.’ He laughs, a low and dirty laugh.

He lets go of my palm and leans towards me and kisses my cheek. ‘You owe me one, you promised. Nice girls don’t break their promises,’ he says.

He smells of ciggies and stale beer and he makes my insides hula-hoop. I’ve seen what he likes to do. A couple of nights ago I sneaked up onto the viewing gallery and sat on the back row, on one of them fold-down seats. I was quiet, proper quiet and I watched just what he does to heal the women. I wanted to understand all that stuff he’d said about love. And that’s why I know that Martin Savage’s dirty, I mean he does proper dirty things. The noises he made and the mess they made. If that’s what love is, then I don’t want any of it. And I certainly don’t want him loving me.

But Martin Savage is used to having women falling at his feet. I mean I’ve seen them all at The Oracle. They’ll be queuing down the steps leading up to the Males 2nd Class pool. Some days the queue goes all the way down and onto the beach. He’s the only one of the water-healers who does a drop-in session every night. I’ve watched when Martin’ll come swaggering along the sand and the women’ll turn into quivering wrecks, dying to take their clothes off and let him swim naked with them in the Males 2nd Class pool. I overheard one of the women saying that after one of her friends had let Martin Savage do things to her in the pool, then she’d been able to have babies. She reckoned that Martin Savage could heal insides and because word’s spread now every woman in the world’s wanting to have a bit of him. It isn’t like that with me. I mean I don’t get why all the women are falling at his feet, and I know that there are some women who’d happily swim to him sitting naked on the edge of the pool and suck on his willy, while he’s huffing and puffing for Wales and trying to say words to heal them.

So when he kisses me on the cheek, I mean I don’t know how to react. It’s not like I fancy him. I mean he’s old enough to be my dad and I’ve seen where his lips have been. I mean Martin Savage’s probably the kind of bloke Mum would have gone for. He’s married, he’s got kids and he’s a bad bad man. I need him not to love me.

I turn to look at Martin and he moves in to kiss me on the lips. I pull my head back and bang it on the metal rail.

‘My head,’ I say. It hurts like hell.

Martin Savage gets up, and walks into The Oracle. ‘You promised, you owe me, prick-tease,’ he says.

He Wants a Virgin:

Later, I was sitting at my desk when he came over and sat on the edge as usual, bending in right close to look at his appointments in the book.

‘I haven’t had a virgin for a couple of years,’ he said. I looked at him, he stared at me.

At first I thought I’d heard him wrong and so I didn’t say a word back to him. And that’s when he said, ‘You’d better be a virgin. I don’t want to be wasting my time on you. No one likes a filthy whore.’

‘I am,’ I said and I blushed again.

‘You’re a prick-tease, that’s what you are. We had a deal, you owe me,’ he said, before pushing the appointment book onto the floor and ordering me to pick it up. I didn’t at first, I was looking around to see if anyone was watching. They weren’t. And that’s when he shouted. ‘Pick the fucker up.’

I bent to pick up the book.

‘And the toilets in my changing rooms need cleaning,’ he said, before walking off.

That was a couple of hours ago and I’ve still not plucked up the courage to go into his changing rooms. I don’t want to be near him, I don’t even want to be here in The Oracle. I told Mum last night, told her about how weird Martin was and how he made me feel and Mum said that I should just grin and bear it. And then she said that I should stop my moaning and be grateful that I had a job and that we needed the money, and if I gave up then she’d have to think twice about whether or not I could go to college.

So I go to have a look in the Males 2nd Class changing rooms. I push the door open and shout a ‘hello’ but no one replies. I walk around, looking and looking some more, but it all seems to be pretty clean. I mean I know Maggie, the cleaner, was in this morning. I mean she comes in every morning. There’s no towels lying around, the floor isn’t dirty, there’s not even any water on the floor. I’m walking towards the toilet and that’s when I realise that he’s in the changing rooms too.

‘Time you let me suck on those little titties of yours,’ he says. I turn. He’s standing in front of the door so there’s no way I can get out. ‘Undo your dress, time to pay up,’ he says.

‘I just came to check—’ I say, but he interrupts with, ‘We both know why you came here.’

‘You told me to,’ I say.

‘You’re not stupid. Take your dress off and stop playing games,’ he says. ‘Do as I say or you’ll get the sack,’ he says. ‘And I’ll make sure no one round here gives you a job,’ he says.

I start walking towards him, hoping to get around him, hoping for a miracle, a something to make this better. He grabs my arm.

‘Get off,’ I say, trying to wriggle away, but that makes him grip harder and pull me in closer.

‘I’m going to taste you,’ he says. ‘That’s what lovers do.’

I feel sick, I’m crying, I want him to stop, I want to be back at my desk, with my book, with the clients, with the appointment book. And that’s when he lets go of my arm and that’s when he opens the door out of the changing room.

‘Off you go, prick-tease,’ he says and he slaps my arse as I walk past.

I’m still crying when I get to the desk. Silver’s there, he’s watching me, but when my eyes meet his he turns away.

‘Silver,’ I say, ‘what shall I do?’

‘Run for your life,’ Silver whispers, but he carries on walking.

An Arrow Tipped with Lead:

Next day’s here and Silver’s still ignoring me, like actually not even coming near me, and sending his last clients to ask me questions for him. I don’t know what to do. I mean, I didn’t sleep proper last night, ’cause I kept thinking about all the proper bad things that could happen to me. And I kept thinking about what Martin Savage could have done to me in them changing rooms. I ended up really freaking myself out and making my heart beat funny like I’d been sprinting in a race or something. I tried to talk to Mum this morning, but she said I was just being silly and Silver was probably having a bad day. She even said that Martin’d be a good man to ‘pop my cherry’ as he’d know what he was doing. She’d laughed, like I was being silly for being so scared. I told her I didn’t want to go into work and she got cross. I know not to push it with her, I know she’s thinking I’m just a stupid little girl but I’m not. I know Silver, he’s a kind man, he wouldn’t be being like he’s being unless there was bad stuff he didn’t want to say.

I had to talk to him, I had to find out what he meant, so I waited until his last client left and I walked into the Females pool. But Silver was having none of it. He barged past me and out the main door.

’Course, Martin Savage’s finding it all hilarious. Just now he said that if I showed him my titties he’d talk to Silver for me. And now, I mean I know he’s watching me now. ’Cause I’ve just run off and I’m chasing Silver down the steps, along the seafront and onto the beach. My DMs are rubbish to run in and I’m having to push my dress to my thighs to stop it from flying up and showing everyone my knickers. I can hear Martin Savage’s dirty laugh behind me and that’s when Silver stops walking, turns to me and puts his fingers in his ears.

And that’s when he shouts at me, ‘Bugger off, Laurel!’

I know I have to, I don’t want to be upsetting Silver, I think he’s a sort-of friend and I don’t have many of them, so I stop and turn back to The Oracle.

I can see him, that Martin Savage, as I walk back. He’s like a tiny black fly in front of the huge bumblebee building. I walk slow, much slower than I should, considering there’s a bit of a queue snaking out from the Males 1st Class entrance and when Madame Pythia finds out that I ran off she’ll have a proper fit.

I’m getting closer to Martin and I can see his nasty face. I don’t like him, not one little bit. He’s a cheating ball of slime, I’ve seen what he does to the women who come here to be healed. They trust him and he’s proper dirty. But the more I give him the evils and the more I refuse to speak to him, the more he seems to like it. I know he thinks I’m playing hard to get, but I’m not. I hate him.

I walk past Martin Savage and the few women who’ve formed a queue for appointments, but just before I get to the steps, he jumps forward and goes to put an arm around me.

‘GET OFF!’ I shout. I think I hear one of the queuing women tut.

‘Laurel,’ he says, in a sickly sweet voice, ‘what’s wrong, pet? Has Silver upset you?’

‘FUCK OFF!’ I shout, barging past him and knocking shoulders with at least two women in the queue.

‘Silly bitch,’ one of them says.

‘Got the manners of her mam,’ another says.

I keep walking through the entrance and that’s when I hear Martin Savage saying, ‘Now, now ladies, leave the poor lass alone. I’ll sort her out later, make sure she’s okay. I reckon she just needs some Martin-loving.’ Then he laughs.

And although the words he’s saying are sounding all nice and kind, there’s something inside of me that’s screaming for me to run for my life.

Her Name is Madora Argon:

But there’s no time for dwelling, I’ve work to do. I mean, it’s not like I’ve got a choice, I don’t want Madame Pythia having a go, but my head’s all over the place. I’m trying so hard not to stand up from my desk and throw the biggest strop ever. I need Silver to help me, I need to try and talk to him later.

So, for now, I’m sitting at my desk, my bare toes on the cold mosaic floor, and trying to lose myself in a book. That’s when I feel a young lass’s eyes staring at me. I look up and I blush, ’cause I reckon she’s been standing there for ages and I haven’t even realised.

I put my book down on my desk. ‘I’m after an appointment?’ she says.

‘For when?’ I ask. I flick the pages of the appointment book forward to when there’s some free slots.

‘Today?’ she asks. I can hear a quiver in her voice.

I shake my head, ’cause I know how busy we are, and that’s when I glance up at her and that’s when I catch a look in her eyes. I’ve been working here long enough to know when people are desperate, to know when it’s proper important that they see a healer. This lass needs help, her eyes are pleading with me to help her.

‘They’re all booked up, Martin Savage has a drop-in later,’ I say, then, quickly, ‘but Silver’s always good at squeezing in an extra session. If you don’t mind waiting?’

‘I really wanted to see Madame Pythia,’ she says, looking down at the mosaic tiles. ‘I’ve heard she’s the best.’ She’s not crying but I reckon she’s not far off. She’s pulling her red hair into a ponytail and looking anywhere but at me. I’m staring at her face, her skin’s white like posh china. She scares me, she’s proper fragile.

‘She’s booked up for weeks,’ I say, I’m still staring at her, she’s still looking at the mosaic floor. ‘But Silver’s proper good.’

She nods and her face does an angry twist. I’ve seen the look before, it’s like the lasses blame me for them not thinking ahead and booking appointments, but there’s something else there too. There’s more to her angry twist than her just being cross with me. This lass is proper desperate.

‘What’s your name?’ I ask. ‘To write in my book,’ I say, holding my pencil over Silver’s page.

‘Madora Argon. But Maddie, I’m called Maddie,’ she says and her eyes meet mine. She smiles but her eyes don’t.

‘Why don’t you wait outside in the sunshine? I’ll ask Silver when he’s likely to fit you in and let you know,’ I say.

She nods again, turns and walks out the main entrance, she’s dragging her feet and it’s like she’s no energy left and it’s like she’s two hundred years old. I want to tell her that it’ll all be okay, but I don’t know if it will be. I can tell she’s broken, I’m guessing there’s a man involved and then I think about Martin Savage and I feel sick again.