The War Zone Read Online Free PDF

curve us away from the bank. He shoots me a look. ‘One of us ought to watch where we’re going.’ Then, to Jessie: ‘I feel—I feel like it’s time to let loose. You know what I mean?’ ‘Was it like that with us?’ ‘Was it? I don’t know. I was a different person then. You gave me my balls. I’d got one in! I felt on fire. I felt, “Piss on anyone who doesn’t think my daughter is the best thing in the world!”’ ‘And me?’ I ask, thinking: let’s see how he handles this one. But I have to look away, because we’re about to hit a sapling growing right in the water. Trees seem to have it in for us today. ‘You I was just worried about. You were a forceps delivery, you came out with this great strawberry mark all over your face… I thought: it doesn’t matter, he’s healthy, that’s what counts, but already I could see you having a hard time. By that evening you were fine, it had gone, it was just the forceps that had done it, but you looked like a little bruiser.’
    ‘Still does,’ says Jessie. We are approaching another road bridge. The banks here are steep and grassy, and there’s a smell of cow-shit from somewhere. Or horseshit—I wouldn’t know the difference, right? Jessie has taken the bottle out of the water and is rolling the wet glass over her skin. I know, because she tried it on mine. It’s not cold enough, that’s the problem. It’s not even cool—there is definitely something strange about this water. ‘I sort of wish Mum hadn’t wanted us there, last night,’ I say. ‘It’s going to make it harder being rotten to him.’
    ‘Dad…?’ Jessie asks. ‘Have you and Mum ever really had problems over us? Do we make it more difficult, if one of you wanted to leave?’ We’ve thought a lot about that, Jessie and I. Whenever serious bother has hit our household, we’ve nearly always been able to pin its cause down to one of us. Those nights when voices have been raised after we’ve gone to bed, when silence has seemed more threatening than a row, we’ve wondered: how does this measure on the scale of things? Most of our friends’ families are divorced or remarried or something; we’ve always felt like the odd ones. But you never know what’s coming. This move to Devon was long talked about, but no tempers were lost—except over me. ‘You want an honest answer?’ Dad says. We’re under the bridge now. There’s a smell of mould. ‘Yes.’ Dad pushes us off the brickwork with his paddle. ‘It depends on the time of day. It depends on how selfish you’re feeling.’
    Then we’re out into the light, and pebbles are raining down on all sides. There’s a Durex in the water and some boys are taunting Jessie. I’m sure she enjoys it. A little further on, she slides out of the canoe and swims alongside, her turquoise bikini dazzling against the dull green fur of the riverbed.
    The trees form a sort of cathedral around us. Sunlight plays on her skin, on her bruised shoulder (and my bruised head), as she unties her bikini top, then turns on to her back to let her tanned breasts bob out of the water. Her feet kick and she glides away, struggling to remove the other half of her bikini without touching the weed under her feet. Then she rolls over again and swims back toward us, evil intent in her eyes. She grabs hold of the canoe with one hand, hesitating only a moment before putting her full weight on it to tip us in.
    ‘You stupid bitch!’ I think, without malice, as I go under: I was just getting comfortable. But really it’s OK, the water feels good even if it is giving me cancer.
    The canoe floats upside down. Jessie pisses herself laughing as Dad thrashes about, trying to locate the car keys (our other heap, not the Bentley, that’s definitely out of commission for a while) before remembering that they’re in the buttoned-down pocket of his shorts.
    But then he’s laughing, too. And suddenly we’ve all got our shorts off, swimming bare-arsed in the middle of