The Memory of Water

"The ocean, it remembers us," he said, the heel of his foot dredging shallow trenches in the sand.

Mara did not reply or even acknowledge that she'd heard her brother speak. Instead, she continued looking off towards the clouds that followed the coast up from the south. Purple and swollen, they straddled the line between land and sea, crawling on watery tendrils ever northward. But the storm they carried was still a ways off yet - somewhere over the city, she imagined – and they had at least an hour before it disturbed the calm of the beach.

She'd have to leave then, before the rain hit. Return to the shelter of the small beach-house their father had left to the family many years before. A house her mother had both hated and loved for the memories it evoked. But it would be out of the rain; away from the water.

"Do you remember that time, when we were kids?" her brother was saying. "We came up here for the summer. I think I was about ten, so you would've been eight. Do you remember?"

She turned to face him for a moment, the line of his profile matching the cut of the headland in the background – a long sloped forehead weathering away to cavernous eye sockets, a rocky-edged nose flaking from over-exposure to the elements, a short ledge of lips occasionally licked slick with salty wetness. The similarity was disconcerting. She forced a smile and turned back towards the open sea, the pounding waves and distant horizon, the near and the far.

"We must've come up here a thousand times when we were kids, David," she said, knowing perfectly well which time he was talking about. "We were up here every weekend one summer and you expect me to remember just one time?"

"Yeah, I expect you to remember," David said. "You pretty much ruined the whole holiday. Mum got so upset she took us back to Sydney. I beat on you all week for it, so I doubt you'd forget". His smile was both furtive and apologetic, as good an admission of guilt and remorse as she would ever get from David.

Further down the beach a family were excavating towels, an umbrella, a volleyball, buckets and spades from the sand in preparation to leave. There were a lot more empty spaces on the beach now. Not many people remained in the water either and Mara wondered what time it could be. Almost certainly after four, but could it be as late as six? She hated daylight savings.

"Yeah, I remember," Mara said. "I got dumped by a wave and spazzed out something chronic". Mara knew it wasn't quite that simple and she pretended not to notice her hands were starting to shake. "You and mum thought I was drowning".

"Drowning! We thought you were being eaten by a damn shark! You were rolling all 'round in the water, screaming like a stuck pig. We thought it was another fucking shark, Mara".

David stopped to look out at the water. Trying to find the spot where it had happened, Mara thought. She crossed her arms, hiding her hands in her armpits to stop the shaking. Maybe, she tried to tell herself, it's just getting cold.

"And then, when we'd dragged you out, you started spluttering and screaming about Dad," David said, his voice softer and sadder than Mara had ever heard it. "Mum went white when she heard you. Started slapping you and shouting at you to shut up. Eventually you did. I didn't think either of you would ever stop..."

And then, quieter, he added, "I don't think Mum ever did stop, not really".

"David," Mara's voice trembled, "what has this got to do with anything? Why are you bringing this up now? Do you think its my fault that Mum died? That somehow I caused her to become an alcoholic? That cirrhosis of the liver is my responsibility?"

Tears started to fill Mara's eyes and the shaking grew from her hands to her arms and up into her chest.

David reached out to her across the sand, his hand brushing her shoulder, bringing out goosebumps on her skin. She could see in his eyes that she'd misread him completely.

"No, no," he said. "It's not like that at all. No, not what I meant, Sis. Last two days, since the funeral, I've been thinking. Thinking a lot. About something Mum said to me a couple of weeks ago".

He looked across at his sister, awaiting a sign it was all right to continue. When she closed her eyes and nodded her head he took that as his cue.

"She wasn't quite there, Mara. You know how she was, most times. But she was trying to be there, really trying. I could see her in there, fighting to be understood, and she said she was afraid. Afraid she wouldn't be remembered. Afraid everything she'd ever seen, or touched, or heard, every joy she'd experienced, would be erased. That eventually even our memory of her would fade away to nothing. Just like her memories of Dad. I couldn't argue with her, Mara. I couldn't tell her it wasn't true".

There were tears in David's eyes now too. Tears that overflowed and ran in salty rivulets down his cheeks.

"But after she was gone I thought, it's not true! You remembered Dad, but you weren't even born when he died. You said things that day on the beach you couldn't possibly have known. Things only Mum knew, and she'd told nobody".

"I don't remember him, David," Mara protested. "I never even knew him. How could I when he was already gone?"

"I know, I know. You're right. You didn't remember him. The ocean remembered him, Mara. It remembers us all".

She stared at him for a moment, scared of what he might mean. David mistook the fear in her eyes for bewilderment and forged a simpler explanation of his words. His tone was as a teacher to a small child.

"Our bodies are mainly water, Mara. Salt water. We came from the sea. We return to the sea. Every minute part of you is whole, a small fragment that explains the rest, like a hologram, just as every molecule of water in the ocean out there is identical to every other. Know one and you know them all. And because we are part of that too - that cycle of life that is ruled by water - we are linked. We are linked, us and the oceans, and they remember us all".

Mara shook her head, denying his words. What he was saying was preposterous. A disjointed mental fantasy constructed from a childhood memory, layered over with fables of mother Gaia and the scam of homeopathic science. The memory of water. The persistence of states. The ocean as some intelligent mother from whom we had all crawled - finned and gilled, gasping for air - and to whom we still owed reverence.

These were the thoughts Mara was preparing herself with when David asked:

"Is that why you never go in the water any more, Mara? Does it speak to you of its memories?"

Mara didn't answer; she couldn't.

Eventually David left, returning to the beach-house, his absence an accusation in the sand beside her.

* * *

The storm did not arrive, at least for quite a while. The clouds still hovered just off to the south, caught up in some clash of pressure systems and prevailing winds that kept them churning upon themselves. Churning like Mara's thoughts. She wondered if the storm would rain itself empty before it broke free and started north again?

She sat quietly on the beach, watching the water rise and fall, advance and recede, to its own hypnotising rhythm. She felt the warmth of the sand beneath her and caught the smell of salt and seaweed mixing upon the breeze. The setting sun warmed her back as waves whispered conspiracies across the sand in front, inching ever closer on the incoming tide.

Once, during those long summer holidays, this beach and its ocean had been her playground. A wonderland of strange creatures sheltering in rock pools, of bright shells and the promise of buried treasure hidden just around the next rocky headland. Days of too little sunscreen on the ears and too much sand in her costume. Of dodging blue-bottles and poking piles of seaweed with driftwood in search of baby crabs.

Sometimes she and David would body-surf the waves or, when the tides grew too rough, snorkel the calmer channels. And after, when she was tired out from her play, she would lie in the wet sand where land met sea feeling foamy waves wash in and out over her body to cool the heat of the sun.

But Mara had not been swimming in the ocean since she was eight. Not since she had seen her father there.

She'd tried, once or twice, never getting much farther than the partial immersion of a toe or two.

It was her fear of sharks, she had told her friends when they had enquired, splashing and shouting from the waves, during one seaside excursion. There are no sharks here, they had told her, that's ridiculous. Tiny schoolgirl hands sliced water in mock imitation of menacing fins. Laughter followed Mara along the beach, back to the school bus, alone.

It was not sharks, had never been sharks, she knew that. Her father's death had been a freak occurrence. It had been the only shark attack in thirty years for a hundred kilometres up or down the coast. Sharks rarely attacked humans and even more rarely killed them. She was not afraid of sharks. It was the water itself that worried her.

She remembered riding on her mother's back, arms clasped around her neck, head held high to miss the spray of waves as they passed through or over them. She remembered David, all white and gangly, paddling over the breakers like a crippled insect on his new boogie-board - brilliant fluorescent yellow, profile of a bullet. She remembered the sun arching overhead to its zenith, harsh rays like fire on her back.

These could have been memories from any of her childhood holidays – they were all so much the same – but Mara knew this was not just any memory. She knew that soon her mother would grow tired and head back to the beach, leaving her to play on the shore's edge.

"Not too deep, Mara," her mother's voice, "you're not as old as David yet".

I'll never be as old as David, she'd thought, he'll always be ahead of me.

Two years was not a lot of difference in age and Mara could swim almost as well as her brother. She had swum out into the calm waters beyond the waves many times when her mother's back was turned, or when she had fallen asleep on the beach. So Mara swam out to where her brother lay flailing on his board. He'd been attempting to catch a wave for ages without any real success. The board was his first and the technique was obviously quite different to the more familiar body-surfing.

"Why not just body-surf like we use to?" she asked when she got there.

He looked back at her with boyish disgust.

"Go away," he snapped, "this is a skill. It takes practice, and I'm going to master it".

Another wave passed under them and David paddled furiously, but much too late, to catch it. Mara had already turned, her body becoming the bullet shape of David's board, legs straight and moving swiftly from the knee. In less than a second she felt the sudden tug of the wave. For an exquisite moment she was flying, planing across the surface of the wave, with ever-increasing speed. She could feel the spray whipping up behind her; the wind rushing across her face; the incredible force of the wave as it tried to pull her back up along its surface. She could see her mother drying herself on the beach, her back to the surf, towel around her butt.

Mara was on the face of the wave now, heading for shore, the peak just starting to curl above her. The water around her was getting louder – a deafening jumbo jet roar that rattled the skull – and white foam bubbled from the waves collapsing just ahead.

Mara was smart and decided to pull out. She still had a couple of metres before the wave would end.

Just as she started to turn out and away from the wave, her mother turned as well. Their eyes locked across the gulf of sand and water and Mara saw the fear that lurked in her mother's heart. The fear that she might lose another loved one to the ocean while she stood on the beach and watched.

It was not a big wave, and there was plenty of time to turn, but the recognition that her mother was scared - had always been scared and probably always would be - was enough that Mara hesitated in her turn. The face of the wave caught her foot on the edge, sucking it in. It sucked her leg in too. Suddenly she was being pulled in two directions at once. Gravity wanted her down, the wave wanted her up.

There was an instant of panic as her face hit the water and her head was forced under too. Mara tried to curl up into a ball. She tried to hold her breath and protect her head. She tried to work out which way was up. But there was no up. Only around and around, through swirling foam and sand. Only the roaring of the water in her ears and its saltiness filling her mouth and nose.

She hit something hard. Maybe it was the sandy bottom, or the edge of the rocky shelf she knew must be somewhere to her right. Either way, it hurt and she tried to scream but more water filled her mouth and rushed down into her lungs. She skimmed across sand that felt like a cheese grater tearing at her flesh and the murky light grew darker, her limbs heavier.

Strangely though, her head felt lighter, like a balloon strung by a tether to her neck. All I need is a good rest, a sleep, she thought, right here in this comfortable spot. And then her head broke the surface.

She was kneeling up to her waist in water. Inexplicably, the stars were out above her. Where has the day gone? she thought, staring for a moment up at the moon that had replaced the sun.

Her mother and father were there, splashing and playing further out. Their heads bobbed just above the water. She had only ever seen her father in photographs. Her mother looked much younger than Mara could remember. But it was her. It was them. She knew it.

She watched fascinated as they trod the water between them. Her father's arms reached out, strong and powerful, and caught her mother by the shoulders. Her mother kicked in towards him, her lips meeting his, bodies rising out of the water just enough for Mara to see they were both naked. They kissed and moved against each other in the water, rising and falling with the tide.

Mara, eight years old, did not understand. She did not understand when her father's arms wrapped her mother, tighter and tighter, and her mother let out a little cry, eyes closed and face turned starward. She did not understand when her mother kicked her way back to shore laughing and smiling as her father roared with joyful triumph, both arms raised to the night.

Mara's mother was paddling closer, standing up in the water only metres ahead, and Mara panicked. What if her mother caught her watching? She knew she'd seen something she shouldn't. Something personal and private. She had forgotten all about her brother boogie-boarding a wave somewhere in the bright summer sun and her mother drying herself on the beach and the wave that dumped her. She had forgotten that her father had been dead eight years. She just didn't want to get caught.

But her mother was not angry. She barely seemed to notice Mara crouched in the shallow water and she was smiling as she approached. She did not stop but passed straight through, like a fog that had no substance. And then her Mother was continuing up onto the beach, and Mara turned to watch her.

Her mother laughed again and reached her towel, body all jewelled and glistening soft in the moonlight. Mother's laugh was cut short as her father's jubilant cry turned to a scream. Mara's mother started running back to the water, face contorted with dread as she called and screamed his name over and over.

Mara turned, a broken foamy wave almost knocking her on her back, and saw her father struggling with... with something. His arms were rising and falling like hammers into the water. His body moved like he had become stuck in an out-of-control washing machine – swish to the right, swish to the left, swish to the right again – and even in the moonlight Mara could see the water around him growing darker in an ever widening slick of what could only have been blood.

She tried to swim out too and follow her mother but she was paralysed, her body a lead weight submerging into the sand.

Her father stopped screaming. Her mother too. There was only the lapping of waves against the shore. Mara saw her father was sinking into the sea, his head just above water, arm raised as if to point out some constellation. Mara was sinking too, her body folding, collapsing into the waves.

"Remember me, Mara," her father had said. She had heard him clearly, shouting his last, and then they were both swallowed by the ocean.

* * *

Mara remembered staggering out of the surf on that bright summer’s day. She had screamed and screamed as her brother paddled wildly to the shore and her mother ran down the beach towards her. She could not remember what she had screamed but David had told her later that it was all about Dad. She had screamed at her mother: "Why didn't you tell me!" and "He never knew, he never even knew about me!" and "I was there. I saw him die!" and her mother had started screaming too, and hitting and hitting, and telling Mara to shut up, just shut up, shut up! until David had pulled them apart.

Nothing was ever said after that, but Mara had never been back in the ocean. Or swum in a river. Or danced in the rain. She couldn't. Its every drop seeped through her pores, whispering memories, exciting neurons into wide-screen displays of someone else's life. Only tap water was dull enough, bleached of life through chemistry, for her to endure its touch.

Now she looked up and realised the sun had set behind her. Twilight painted the sky a deep indigo and splashes of orange and pink tinted the encroaching storm clouds.

Mara had no idea how long she had been sitting there, thinking of her father, but the tide had definitely risen. Its foamy fingers crawled the beach in front of her, tickling her toes. She gave in, too exhausted with emotion to fight, and let the memories wash over her. They flowed in and out like the breath of the sea through her mind. A murk of hates and fears and loves and lusts. Dreams. Nightmares. A slow settling sediment of lives and lies. She breathed them deep and her panic settled, fluttered, drifted away. The flood of memories cleared, becoming as soft as the sound of a sea-shell, and Mara started to trawl their depths.

She tried to think of who her father had really been. For the first time in years the touch of the water was soothing and calm. She stretched her foot out further into the foam, feeling it caress and flow around her toes.

"Remember me," her father had said. But she had nothing to remember him by, except that one instant of her creation and his death. Even the woman he loved was gone, her memories lost.

But David was right, she thought as the water crept slowly up her thigh, warm and inviting. She could almost feel her father, here at the edge. Could sense the man she had never known. But it'd been too long since he'd trod this beach. He's out deep now, the ocean whispered against the sand, where memories drift when they've not been thought in a while.

She listened to the rhythm of the tide. The susurration of the wind. Her eyes read the undulations of deepest blue out beyond the breakers. They all told her, but you can find him, we're sure of it.

Mara stood, her feet planted firmly in the water, and stripped off her shorts and top. She unstrapped her bra and dropped it over her shoulder. She walked out into the sea.

The water was almost the same temperature as the air. She could barely feel it but for the slow roll of waves against her calves, her thighs, her waist. And then she was in, up to her chest and kicking off from the bottom.

Out here, this way, the ocean called with a voice of many memories. Mara could almost feel her father out there, waiting. She moved her arms in lazy arcs, cutting smoothly through the surface and scooping back. The motion was tireless and soon she was at least a hundred metres out. The storm to the south appeared to be moving again and great sheets of grey rain fell from the clouds. It would hit the beach soon.

She turned for a moment and looked back to the beach and the rocky slope of green above it. There were lights amongst the trees up there, shining through holiday house windows. Through one of those windows she could imagine David looking out, searching for her on the beach. He'd be worried if he couldn't find her. Worried that she'd done something stupid and drowned herself in her sorrow.

But it doesn't matter in the long run, nothing does, she heard all around her and she was sure it was her father's voice. Even if something happened to you, nothing is lost, the voice said. Your memory and his will mingle again. Come along, it's not much further now, and I've waited so long to meet you.

Mara turned and kicked out again as the rain began to fall, joining the heavens with the earth. She headed east, into the depths of the storm. Out to where the old memories ran deep. Out to where her father would be waiting.

THE END

Andrew J McKiernan
http://www.andrewmckiernan.com/staticpages/index.php/MemoryofWater

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