Underwaterfall

Lakeside Fowler grew up in the trenches. The shells and bombers roared overhead while he tended to the wounded. At sixteen, having lied about his age to enlist, he whispered comforting words in soldiers’ ears as he bandaged their wounds. Having no real doctoring skills, that and some cauterising with hot knives was all he could really do until the real medicos came to do the necessary amputations and such.

Lakeside was born on The Isle of Dogs, which was actually a peninsula, which he only found out at the age of five, which led him to feel his life was built on a lie. His parents named him because he was conceived at the side of Poplar Gut, an accidental lake there, which added to his feeling of the random nature of life. Most people just called him Lake for convenience, which he didn’t mind. He never got a middle name, so whatever. His parents split when he was six, which of course did nothing for his self esteem. He was left with a neurotic mother and a long gone daddy.

When the war broke out and the call went up, Lake couldn’t leave fast enough. He faked his age and went into basic training. As it was noted he, a skinny pale boy, couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, he was largely put on medical, mostly triage duty.

He learned a lot by listening. Not school type stuff, but listening to the men who came back, wounded, and the men who left, never to return, Most of them were scarcely older than him, but their barbed wire and cut throat experiences, Lake absorbed them all. The mumbled stories of their home lives, parents, girlfriends, same deal. Listening to the impact of shells aimed their way, he learned exactly how near or far they were, even before they landed, and was known by the other men for being able to give them ample warning to duck and cover. Spatial awareness helped in other ways: like knowing the feel and footfall at night, of men not so kindly disposed toward him, a skinny pale boy, and when to keep his bayonet at the ready.

After peace broke out, Lakeside was pretty much adrift. An honourable discharge, a dishonourably small amount of fuck off money, and sent on his way. Having nothing better to do, he loitered in France for a while. In Paris, he was noted for stripping to his pale skinny waist and leaping off the bridge into the river Seine, and emerging with Viking trinkets and such, which he would clean and sell. For a slight boy, he did have great lung capacity. He learned French, lived simply and hung out on the cafe scene, mostly on the periphery, listening. He did take to laudanum for sleep, because dreams of wartime were recurrent and troubling. He began to regret the stories he’d absorbed, and still kept his bayonet under his pillow at night.

One evening, at La Mouche Rouge, he was passing by a table where sat a stocky, Moorish looking lady of indeterminate age, sitting alone at a table with a deck of tarot cards. She eyed him, and beckoned.

Lakeside had had one tarot reading, and quickly realized they were simply playing cards, banished from the modern deck, with no occult status. So he wasn’t to be taken in, but obligingly took a seat opposite the lady. Behind her hung a painting of a body of water, the land on the other side just visible through the mist. The Lady of The Lake pushed a small glass of jenever over to Lakeside, which he graciously took and sipped, rather than swallowed. They regarded each other evenly. Eventually she spoke.

“You were a soldier.” She said rather than asked, toying with her cards. Lake thought about it, and chose to nod.

“And a…navigator, of a sort I think.”

Lake thought a little longer this time, and inclined his head.

“Of a sort.” Strange jazz played on 78” records in the background.

“Show me your compass.”

“I…don’t have one.”

“That’s what I thought.” She slapped her deck of cards on the table, face down. “Can you tell me which way is north?”

Lake pointed in the correct direction.

“Well, at least you know.” She packed her cards away and made to leave.

“What do you mean? Asked Lake.

“You know that too, boy,” she said. “Here you will not be missed. There, perhaps you already are - missing.”

After she left, he ate stewed meat and thought about that.

The next day he packed up and paid and out, Gave a quick goodbye and a kiss to the girl he’d been seeing occasionally, even though they meant nothing to each other really. He jumped on a freight train headed north, and found himself in a freight crate full of grizzled old men, who eyed him greedily. Lakeside pulled out his bayonet and played with it idly.

It didn’t take long before the grizzliest of them had to say something like

“Hey boy.”

The rumble of the train made speech indistinct. Lake inclined his head to show he’d heard something anyway.

“Where you headed?”

Lake inclined his head the other way, indicating north, obviously.

Soldier eh?”

“Medic mostly.”

“Oh…” Grizzly leaned forward.

“You got any of the good stuff then?”

Lake shook his head, but still Grizzly came closer.

“I bet you can find something for me.” He said with dripping saliva.

Lake drew up his bayonet, and prodded it pointedly into the man’s torso.

“I can find your liver.” He said.

Grizzly snarled, and backed down to sit opposite again, still eyeballing Lake with angry lust.

Lake leaned back, and let his eyelids droop.

As soon as he slumped a little, all the grizzly men took their cue to come at him. Lake leapt up, slashing wildly, actually cutting one’s nose off, and hurled himself out of the car, landing heavily on his bag, on the dusty path next to the tracks.

He got up after a few minutes, heaved a deep breath as he watched the train disappear, and continued north on foot. He spotted the severed nose on the ground along the way, but decided he didn’t need a keepsake.

Tired, he lay down under some trees in an orchard. Listening, the wind whistling through overhead seemed to be echoing the Lady of the Lake’s words. The lone poplar tree in the meadow across the tracks seemed to be doing the same, but for now Lake fell into a comfortable sleep.

He awoke and rose with the larks, shouldered his bag, and continued north. The sun shone behind quiet skies of grey and he felt happy enough walking for now. A farmer with a horse and cart rolled by and tossed him an orange.

When he reached Dover, the clouds had turned charcoal grey and distant thunder rumbled. He took a train to London and got out in time for the storm to break. As the rain lashed down and lightning chased the thunder, he pulled up his collar and made a beeline for the nearest pub.

It was a pub hotel, named The Watering Hole, and was warm and kind of inviting. No one seemed to pay him much more than a passing glance as he wandered in. He took off his sodden jacket and cap before sitting down at the bar next to a surprisingly familiar figure.

Old Tim, a skinny, whiskery man of maybe eighty, maybe more, was a local from the Island. What he was doing in this particular pub in south London at this particular time was nobody’s business but his own.

After quietly surprised greetings, and general talk of the changes and the constants in life, Old Tim felt it incumbent on him to advise that Eleanor, Lake’s mother, was severely ill and probably would not see out the winter.

“She’s been suffering for a while now boy.” Said Old Tim, refilling his glass from the bottle sitting between them.

“No one’s been able to help her.”

Old Tim leaned forward. There was a glint in his eye coming off the gas lighting.

“Tell me boy. Did you find God in the foxholes?”

Lake shifted uncomfortably.

“I wasn’t in any foxholes much. Just the trenches.”

“Ah,” said Old Tim. “I’m sure he visited there as well.”

Lake shrugged. “Not that I saw.”

“So what brought you home then?”

“A crazy fortune telling lady. I think. Nothing to do with God.”

Old Tim cackled a little. “Ah well, the Good Lord doesn't always work directly y’know.”

More lightning flashed and thunder roared, rain pummeled the windows. Nobody in the pub looked like they were going anywhere.

Lake wondered if he should try and get home tonight.

Old Tim gazed out at the torrent coming down outside. Lake yawned suddenly, as weariness began to creep. Old Tim noticed.

“I wouldn’t try and get up there tonight my boy. Get yourself a bed and head up the river in the morning. Tomorrow’ll be soon enough.”

Lake thought this right, and did.

Tomorrow wasn’t soon enough.

Lake slept well, as he tended to, then rose early and caught a barge up to the estuary. He got off at Millwall dock, and made his way through the township, up to Poplar and the old house.

When he arrived at the old house, Lake came to an unlocked door, opening on a thick, heavy silence. He made his way in. Down a musty hallway, he found his mother’s room, and there she was: frozen stiff and cold. From the look and feel, maybe a day or so.

Lake made the appropriate calls. Some neighbourhood people drifted by with token words, but they were obviously pretty disinterested in Eleanor’s fate, never having liked her much anyway. He arranged to have her buried in the church cemetery, where he was the only attendee while the pastor said his words. Lake quietly thanked the priest and left. Father MacKenzie walked from the grave, wiping the dirt from his hands. No one was saved.

Lakeside went back to his…home. He sat in the kitchen, alone, listening to distant trains. He sat like that all day, and most of the night. Then he went to sleep, on his mother’s bed.

The next day, he rose and went to the lake. He sat with it, listening. It was a quiet day. He heard the birds, the insects, the wind in the willows. He even thought he heard the fish. He sat for a long time, absorbing it all. At dusk, he went home to sleep. He dreamed of the lady in Paris, and thought of her direction home.

The next day, he rose again, and went to the lake. He stood for a good while, staring down into its depths, listening to it breathe. Almost hearing the lady speak to him under her breath.

As if compelled, Lake suddenly stripped to the waist and kicked off his shoes. He took a deep breath and dived in. He plummeted down, arms outstretched as if inviting the depths to take him in. Like returning to the womb, he felt as if he was really coming home. He travelled on downwards, until -

he reached the bottom, and looking around, he saw a great waterfall. Somehow backlit, the water thundered down from God knows where, but there it was. Lake only then realized he was breathing underwater. He half walked, half bounced up to the cascade, then into it.

He immediately choked, suddenly breathing raw air again. He doubled over and retched up the water from his lungs, then stood up, bleary eyed, to find himself in a luminescent cave. Some kind of mould coated the walls, glowing greenish.

While looking around, somewhat spellbound, he heard a whisper from nearby.

“Lakeside”

He looked down, and to his left. He saw the huddled, naked frame of a man, on the ground, almost moulded to the wall. He, like the wall, was almost covered in the luminous substance. His hair and beard were long, and snails crawled upon him. Still, his physiognomy was enough to tell Lake who he was.

He dropped to his knees next to the old man.

“Father.”

His father Paul breathed heavily as he strove to remember how to speak.

“So glad…you made it.”

He licked the wall for moisture.

“Now, I can…retire.”

Lakeside eyed this old man, supposedly his father, covered in moss and spots of glowing mould, who had apparently been down here for most of Lake’s life.

“What do you mean?”

“You must stay and guard the lake, as I have these many years.”

Lake stood.

“I don’t intend to stay down here like this.”

“You must.! You must!” The old man mustered his voice to a throaty growl.

“To repay the debt.”

“I don’t understand.” Said Lake. “What debt?”

The old man closed his eyes and leaned his head against the wall again.

“It was many years ago. I killed the Lady’s prize goose.”

He coughed. Lake went to the waterfall and cupped his hands, bringing them back to his father, who slurped it up and continued.

“She forced me to come and be the guardian of this lake. And all who came after me.”

“Well that hardly seems fair,” said Lake, “You’re the one killed the goose.”

“You don’t understand,” the old man cried. “We were broke. I killed it to feed us. You, me, and your mother. Since we all ate it, we all took on her curse.”

“Well why does she need you to watch the lake?”

“Well, she can’t be everywhere herself.”

Lake, knowing this to be untrue but choosing not to talk about it, rose again.

“I’m innocent, old man.”

He stared at the roaring torrent of water.

“I came to be reborn.”

The old man seemed to be blending with the wall. He was barely distinguishable, But he managed a bare whisper.

“I did give you…another name.”

Lake leaned down and cocked his head curiously.

“John…like the baptist.”

Then he faded, and was gone.

Lake squatted next to what used to be his father for a while. He touched it: it was stone cold. After another while spent in thought, he stood again and spoke, as if (but not) to himself.

“I’ll stay, and watch, and listen, if I have to. But not here. While I love the water, like you I need the sky.”

Lake stopped for a moment, watching and listening to the ever changing underwaterfall as if it - or perhaps the Lady - was speaking back to him.

Then Lake took a deep breath, stepped through the thundering water, and swam upwards, past strange fish who looked at him curiously. towards the dim light from a sun behind a grey sky.

He broke the surface as John Lakeside Fowler, born again.

He stayed, true to his promise, however unwillingly. He did try to leave a few times, but somehow he was always turned back and found himself back at Poplar Gut. There he spent his days by the lake, watching the geese, and listening; to the water, the insects, the trees and the wind moving through them, and even the fish.