very moment, I feel like nothing bad exists in the world and I feel the happiest I’ve ever felt.
And when Martin comes to my desk later, he hands me an iced bun and a can of Diet Coke.
‘Sorry, pet,’ he says. ‘It was mad in there, hope we didn’t scare you. Me and Silver were trying to help.’ And he smiles and I think he means it, so I smile back.
‘Thanks,’ I say, taking the gifts from him. The last thing I need is awkward stuff at my place of work. I like that he’s being kind.
‘It’s this place,’ he says, holding his arms out wide, ‘it brings out the weird in all of us.’ Then he laughs.
I laugh too.
‘I feel so much better,’ I say.
‘It’s the water, pet,’ Martin says and then he sits down on the edge of my desk. ‘Is there anything you’ve seen so far that’s not made sense?’ he asks. His voice is all gentle and caring and nice.
I think for a minute or two. ‘I don’t understand how you learned how to do everything,’ I say. ‘I mean, it’s like magic.’ I sound silly. Martin laughs.
‘I was born this way, pet. I was picked on for being different, I never fit in no place …’ His voice trails off. ‘Bit like you,’ he says. He leans over and strokes my shoulder. I nod but I don’t really understand what he’s saying.
‘You got any friends?’ he asks.
I shake my head. ‘No time, with school and the kids.’
‘Well, let’s us be friends,’ he says and he smiles. He moves a little bit closer, his leg touches mine. ‘So what you up to?’ he asks, pointing at the book on my desk.
‘Just reading,’ I say.
‘You like books?’ he asks and I nod. He leans across me, his chest in my face. I breathe in. He picks up my book and looks at the title. ‘Clever as well as pretty,’ he says.
I feel myself blushing. I try to stop the red but I can’t.
‘So, we’re friends?’ he asks, putting down my book. I don’t know what to say, I nod. ‘Good,’ he says, ‘because I’d hate you not to like me.’ And then he stands up, goes outside and has a ciggie. I watch him, he’s all smiles and he waves at me as he collects his next appointment and takes her to the Males 2nd Class pool.
And that’s when I get to figuring that I’ve been silly and really Martin’s nice and mainly he just has to put on an act for all the women who come here just to see him. He’s popular, and I should feel happy that he wants to be my friend.
No one knows how old Madame Pythia is. Her forehead’s covered in lines. Mum says it’s from all the scowling she does, but I think that’s just Mum being bitter. She doesn’t really like women much, especially the ones with money.
It’s not long before I start to understand how all the water-healing works and why Madame Pythia’s the way that she is. It’s all ’cause Madame Pythia believes that she’s the jug (or something like that) for all those who’ve sinned. She says she’s some kind of a working class Messiah, a prophet, and a massive absorber of all that surrounds her. She says that’s why it’s her penance, and that every third weekend of the month Madame Pythia gets to be ill for three whole days.
Every third weekend of the month sees The Oracle shut down to darkness. Locals know not to attempt an appointment. Anyone who approaches the bathhouse during those days is said to bring about a curse and ‘the death of a loved one will be inevitable’. There’s even a sign saying just that that’s pinned to each of the three wooden doors for those three days. Silver told me that it was known, that it had once happened to the great-grandfather of Edna Williams. And that’s why for those three days of every month Martin Savage and Silver get to escape to their own lives, they’re free to be and do whatever they wish. It’s not like that for me. It’s in my job description that I’m to stay over in The Oracle for them days to nurse Madame Pythia back to her proper strength.
Yesterday, Madame Pythia said, ‘My three-day illness is my penance for the spilling of secrets and my absorbing it through my healing hands.’ That’s when she raised her palms up towards the ceiling and I sort of nodded, not really sure what she was going on about. She was using words like ‘cleansed’ and ‘purged’ and I didn’t have a clue what she was meaning. That’s the problem with working here, it’s sometimes like they’re talking foreign and I’m not sure what the right response should be. Madame Pythia’s told me not to worry about anything and that everything I see and hear is perfectly natural, that everything happens as it should. She says that all the healing and the taking on of other people’s problems has to come out of her in one way or another.
But now I’m here, in The Oracle with her and I’m freaking out. The thing is, I’m now the person who has to watch her floating naked in the Males 1st Class pool, making sure that she doesn’t drown. The responsibility’s doing my head in. What if I go for a wee and that’s when she drowns? And I’m not sure how I feel about watching her floating about in the pool with her titties out. She’s not like my mum, she doesn’t have no saggy belly and her titties point up to the ceiling even when she’s lying down.
Mum says that Madame Pythia is off her head and it’s pretty obvious that she suffers from migraines when it’s her lady time of the month. ’Course I don’t say anything like that to Madame Pythia, I mean, that woman’s probably the scariest person in the world.
So instead I’m stuck here, in The Oracle, for the next three days, cleaning up sick from the pool and trying not to hurl my guts up. For the next three days I’ll be trapped in the dark and Silver’s told me that I’m not to be making any noise and not to even say one word out loud. He reckons that even the smallest noise will set Madame Pythia off into a bad place. Silver said that the more Madame Pythia floats undisturbed, then the less cleaning up I’d have to do. He’s said I should try and sleep on the wooden folding seats in the changing cubicles by the pool, but maybe keep the stripy curtains open. He’s said that at some point Madame Pythia’ll climb out and lie on the mosaic tiles and that’s when I should try and catch myself an hour’s rest. But what if I sleep too much and she rolls in the pool and drowns and everyone says I killed her and they put me in one of them women’s prisons? I’m going to try not to sleep for three days. I got myself some ProPlus.
The job itself, the working in The Oracle, hasn’t interfered much with my schoolwork. But today, ’cause I’m having to be here all day, Mum’s phoned the school and said that I’m sick. I get paid for every hour I’m here. Mum cares more about the money I’m paid than my schoolwork, and the school don’t care because they expect it of my sort. Me, well I want an easy life, but mainly I’m hoping that I can get into college and prove them all wrong. I want to learn more about English, ’cause I have all these thousands of stories running around my head and I’ve been writing them down in a pink notebook that Silver bought me last week. Most girls my age are all about Sugar and Just 17, but I’m not. I’m not wanting to marry Mark Owen and I’m
