The Lady in The Lake

For years I’ve been watching the moon and the sun move across this mirror. Heard voices sometimes, nearby or carried by the wind. Tangled greenery reaches up to a shimmering liquid sky. Birds hatch, swim, fly away and back. And fish flit about the murky depths, tickling me.

And I think about how I put the blade in your hand.

It was one of a kind. An original. In far off places and times it had cut off heads, slit open bellies. So my father used to say. It was sharp enough. I gave it to you because I had no use for it. Because it made me think of rolling heads and blood. I never imagined then you would have a mind to use it.

I remember how we met, at a wedding. I was sitting in the corner, hiding, wanting to be anywhere but there. My aunt had insisted I go with her. My father had been dead only a few months. You asked me to dance. Wouldn’t take no for an answer. You reminded me of my father who never bore refusal either. He always got what he wanted. You would have impressed him. Like his own blood.

This is the first place I’ve really belonged. Where I’ve felt truly happy. Everything moves slowly, languidly. Before, everything happened so fast. I’d barely met you before we walked down an aisle. I gave you the sword as a wedding present. It sparked and glinted in the sunlight as you held it up.

Sharp steel.

I thought you’d be pleased. And you were. When you invited your business colleagues to dinner, you’d show it off, slicing through air, through candles (which you’d practised, of course). I used to imagine you in a circus, throwing knives at me to thunderous applause, even when they struck soft skin that bled.

I served up your dinners, smiled, dressed the way you told me to, suffered to be made over into someone fit to grace your home. But when you were away, I’d let it all slide. I’d curl up with books, let my hair go lanky and dull, leave my face bare and let the house fall about me. And then, when you were almost due back, I’d put it all together again, just the way you liked it.

Until the time you came back early with a colleague to find the place a shambles.

When the ice comes creeping over, I wonder why I didn’t think of that. Why I couldn’t just turn to ice. Then you could have slipped on me and broken your neck. You could have frozen to death. I could have snapped off a shard and stabbed you with it, the way you stabbed me in the depths of night.

What I like most about this place is that I don’t know where I begin and end. Every ripple on the surface stirs me. The moon pulls me. Reminding me of those nights when my father was away on business, when I snuggled down under the covers and between the waking world and sleep, I drifted peacefully.

My aunt thought I’d be happier when I had babies to look after. But when the twins came, I pushed them around in the pram like dolls. I didn’t know how to love them, didn’t want to.

Your face looked out from theirs.

If I’d had a mother to leave them with, I would have. But she died long ago. So I left them with your other woman. Her address was in your diary. I left them on her doorstep, rang the bell and ran down to the telephone box to watch as she opened the door and looked down at the pram. A note was safety-pinned to one of them, but their faces would tell her who they were.

I’d already packed a bag, so I went to the station and caught the first train out. It was going to Wales. I’d never been to Wales. The countryside passing by lulled me to sleep. I dreamt I melted right into it, becoming part of it. I’d only just arrived at Cardiff when my mobile went. I’d forgotten about it. You always insisted I carry it around in case something went wrong with one of the babies. It was you on the other end, demanding to know where I was and what I thought I was doing.

I said fuck off like I’d wanted to for years. And, I’m not telling, none of your business, you won’t find me, goodbye.

But the station announcer was talking so loudly I’m not sure you heard it all.

I chucked the phone in a bin and stood for ages in front of the information board. I didn’t know what to do next, where to go. One of your friends came to get me. You found out where I was when you rang back and someone rescued the phone from the bin and answered. My father found me once too after I ran away.

You told everyone I had problems, depression, it was difficult for you, but you were coping, we’d get through, you were doing your best. You waited a month and one night as I lay sleeping, you started on me. I thought I was back in my old room. It must have been the teddy bear on the floor. I kept looking at it. I never noticed it looked like the one daddy sliced up with a sword. He cut the head off and pushed the stuffing in my mouth. You just used an old sock.

When the baby birds hatch and start swimming above me, I think I love them more than my own.

I never loved my own. Their mouths were always open too, always wanting more. More attention, more food, more, more, more.

You found me packing. You showed my bags to the childminder. She had me pegged as a bad mother and you as the perfect father and husband. Once she was out the room, I listened to how running away wouldn’t solve anything, and how you wouldn’t let me leave because nobody left you, ever, ever.

Your words were quiet, but they sliced through air.

It didn’t matter what I told people. Nobody believed me. You were clever. You hardly ever left a mark. One time you did, I went to my aunt, my father’s sister, who shook her head after I told her everything and said I’d been throwing myself down stairs since I was ten. She’d seen me do it with her own eyes on two occasions, and I’d had the nerve to blame my father. She said, didn’t I know I was lucky to have a man like you? Strong, she said. Reliable.

When I laughed, she slapped my face and said I had problems. She said you’d leave and take the kids and it would be all my own fault. I’d been nothing but trouble to my father, running away like I did after my mother died, and him a broken man. So, I told her just how broken a man he’d been and she slapped me again and threw me out.

The world disappeared behind a wall of glass and rain. The world melted. It rained a lot in those months, and I looked out on to a dissolving, teary landscape. I saw the twins only from a distance, coming and going in the car with the childminder. I hardly ever dressed or came downstairs. Just sat at the window of a guest room, watching the coloured blobs pass back and forth on the street outside.

Then you started on me, only you’d changed tactics. I’ve changed my mind, you said. You can go if you want. I won’t stop you. More trouble then you’re worth, and it’s not doing the kids any good. Why don’t you go? I’ll give you money to set yourself up. Go, fuck off, you know it’s what you want, really.

I thought it was all a trick. But you kept on.

So, one morning, after you’d gone to work, I took money from the safe and packed my bag. Then I went to the study where you kept the sword and took it. The childminder told me to put it back, it was yours, and what did I think I was doing with it? She’d call the police if I didn’t put it down this instant.

I walked past her with the sword, stuffed it into a long holdall and left. When I got to the station, I realised I should have taken my passport, caught a train to London, boarded the Eurostar. But maybe customs would object to the sword, and I couldn’t think of an explanation for having it, didn’t know why I’d taken it. So, I took another train and came here to the lake. I used to come here as a child with my mother on secret days away when my father was out of the country.

We never told him about it, but I told you.

I forgot I’d told you.

I didn’t see you in the station.

The train told you where I was going.

It was late when I got here. Darkening. I got off the bus not far from the bed and breakfast my mother used to take me to for tea and scones. But I decided against the B&B and walked in the opposite direction. I had the bag with the sword over my shoulder. I’d hugged it close to me all the way. Never let it out of my sight. Now I pushed past bushes and trees until I was beside the water.

The lake shimmered.

I thought of throwing the sword in, imagined the way it would turn round and round in the air before piercing through the skin of the lake, point first. I didn’t throw it in. I lay down under a tree, pulled my jacket over my head, and went to sleep. The bag was there when I went to sleep, but in the morning it was gone.

At first I thought I’d accidentally knocked it over the edge into the water. But the water was shallow, and when I looked, it wasn’t there. I remembered my money had been in the bag. Everything I had left.

I saw a footprint.

I heard a crack behind me. A snapping sound. Light played on the ground, dancing sparkling light. When I turned, it was you, playing with the sword, making figures of eight, circles, then straight hard slashes.

You stopped. Looked at me. Everyone thinks you’ve run away, you said, and I’m chasing around looking for you. But I won’t find you. You won’t be found. And the swordlight danced again, cutting out streaks of red.

The sun had inked the water red when you rowed out to the centre of the lake and dropped me in. I was weighted down. I melted into the lake, spreading out and down, until I didn’t know where I began or ended. I rippled and eddied. The sword lay at the bottom. And then you rowed away.

The seasons passed, and the years. Sunlight, rain, moonlight and snow fell on me. The wind whipped over my surface and the world blurred and rippled. Legs sometimes waded in the water, occasionally someone swam, or a boat drifted across, oars dipping into the lake.

And then the peace was shattered.

People came and stood over the water, gazing in. They talked and talked, and as their words came to me, muffled, I understood that buildings would spring up around the lake, and boats and blades would cut through the water. Others came too, protesting, banners flying in the wind. Cameras appeared, looking across the lake and down into my depths, down into my dreams.

The pictures must have carried all the way to you. That’s why you came back.

That’s why you returned, to the lake.

You stood away from the others, watching silently. In your flickering, rippling figure, I could see the thickening of years. You looked out to the centre of the water. Then you turned and began to make your way around the edge, to the far side. The deep side. Your face seemed to age with each step.

The world was slowing plunging into the cold sea of night. The moon rose. An ocean of stars glittered. You walked further, away from the lights that were breaking up now and leaving.

Soon, all I could see of you was a single, solitary match light, and then the burning end of your cigarette. I remembered the burning end of another cigarette, pressed into my skin. My old skin. My mortal skin. The memory made me churn. And you paused, listening, alert. I could almost hear you thinking, birds, just birds splashing near the bank.

If I could have risen up, formed of water, transparent like glass, with the sword in my hand … if I could have sliced through air, sliced through your neck, I would have. I would.

The moon arced and fell behind the far hills, and still you stood. Occasionally, cigarette butts fell on the water. Once, you stepped nearer the edge and relieved yourself.

Finally, the birds began to stir and sing as the world slowly resurfaced. In the growing light, you began to pace back and forth, gazing out across the water. You had that agitated look you always had when a deal wasn’t going your way. It was some time before you noticed the bubbles. One after another, they floated up to the surface. Like a string of kisses. Like the kisses of a young girl, only not.

The reeds swayed, stretching up to you, beckoning. You stepped forward, gazed in, and my watery image looked back. My face instead of yours.

You gasped, staggered, and I blew you another line of bubbles. You rippled, wavered. Then you stepped forward, knelt and, eyes staring, plunged your arm in, reaching for me. Your hand passed through, moving frantically, searching. You moved deeper, stretching, and your fingers became entwined with the reeds that wrapped tighter and tighter. Your other arm plunged in. You tried to free yourself, but you only got more tangled. You burst into the water and I wrapped my reedy arms around you as your eyes bulged. I held on and on until the last bubble passed from your lips. And I held on even after that.

Finally, I let go, and you floated just beneath the calm surface of the lake, anchored by the weeds.

Once, you were the stronger of us two, the one who always won. But that was in a different world.

It was more than a day before the lights came, circling, screaming, to stop near the water. People moved about while others stood silently. Cameras watched. Soon, some of the lights moved off. Men searched, talked, looked out across my surface. Then the rain came to drive them all away. It beat down, washing the ground, as it had washed away the blood all those years ago.

The last of the lights disappeared behind the trees. And peace fell again. The other people had all gone too. Packing up their plans and their banners. No buildings sprang up around the edges of the water. No boats or propellers cut across me. Only the occasional rowing boat. A line drops into the water, with a baited hook. Once it almost snagged on the sword, and then the bundle that was once me. The hook dragged across before it vanished and was recast.

It caught a fish instead.

Artwork by Aleksandra at Fusion Dreams.