“Are you sure you want to go through with this?” I said daringly. “I know Mum’s overwhelming.”
I expected him to reply with the same dazed absentmindedness I was used to, as if he were under her spell—and was surprised when he looked at me sharply. “I suppose you think she’s too old for me,” he said.
I made some joke about cradle-snatching.
“She looks great though, doesn’t she?” Patrick went on uneasily. “For her age.”
So he wasn’t so otherworldly after all! I didn’t know whether to be triumphant, or disappointed in him.
Our guests began to arrive in the afternoon. The party grew around the outdoor fireplace Lawrence had built in the meadow years ago, when he still lived with us. Lawrence was handsome, big and ruddy-faced with thick black hair and sideburns and moustache; he made his living as a builder though he’d been to one of the famous public schools. He was in charge of barbecuing as usual, and we brought out all the rest of the food from the kitchen, to keep warm beside his fire. Fen—not handsome in the least but wickedly funny, tall and stooped with a shaved head and huge crooked nose—started doling out the drink. I wouldn’t drink, and they all thought it was because I was a puritan, controlled and disapproving; actually the reason was rather different. A year ago at another party, when no one was looking I’d helped myself to too much mushroom liquor from the bottom of one of Fen’s brews, and since then I’d been accompanied everywhere by a minor hallucination: hearing my own feet scraping on the floor like little trotting hooves. Nothing disastrous, but enough to scare me.
Patrick had scythed along the top of the meadow that morning and smells of fresh-cut grass and roasting meat mingled together. Swallows came darting and mewing among the clouds of insects in the slanting yellow light. When the Irish band turned up, Mum and Patrick danced the first dance alone, then everyone else joined in; the warmth seemed to thicken as the sun sank lower. The kids had found our old punt in the long grass and taken it out on the pond; it leaked and they had to bail it frantically. The sounds of their distant shouting and laughter and splashing, and the dogs barking at them, all came scudding back to us across the water. I thought that my sister Eithne must be down at the pond with the others, until I caught sight of her at the heart of the dancing—and she looked as if she’d been drinking, too. There was always trouble at our parties (my little hooves didn’t begin to count, in the scale of things), and this time the trouble began with Eithne.
She was fourteen, and her face was expressive enough when she was sober, with her big twisted mouth and bright auburn hair, and the funny cast in one of her hazel eyes like a black inkblot; she was wearing her pale old stretch-towelling pyjamas to dance in, and had her hair done in several plaits that bounced around her head like snakes. Eithne had all sorts of mystery illnesses; I used to get mad because I thought Mum kept her home from school on the least excuse, or if she just thought the teacher wasn’t being spiritual enough. So Eithne could hardly read or write; she didn’t know basic things like fractions or the date of the French Revolution—probably didn’t know the French Revolution had even happened. But she’d always been able to dance like a dream, the same graceful easy way that she could ride and swim.
While Mum and Patrick were drinking out of the wedding cup, which Nancy Withers had made specially, Eithne came snuggling up next to me. I felt her shivering. “Have you been at Fen’s mead?” I asked her. “You’ll make yourself sick.”
“I don’t care if I die,” she said.
“You won’t die. You’ll just be throwing up all night.”
Mum promised to love the holy wanderer in Patrick, and Patrick promised, because he could quote poetry, to love the pilgrim soul in Mum. They lifted the wedding cup between them and smashed it down against the stones of Lawrence’s fireplace, then kissed passionately. Eithne said it was disgusting, and that she was going to bed.
“I told you you’d make yourself sick,” I said.
Then when she’d gone, Mum and Patrick were smooching together for a while to the sound of the band, until Mum suddenly had one of her intuitions. She pushed Patrick away and went running up towards the house with her skirts pulled up around her knees so she could go faster. And somehow I must have half-shared in the intuition because I went running up after her, and as we left the meadow behind and came round the side of the farmhouse we could see Eithne standing framed against the last of the light, in her pyjamas, in the barn’s hayloft window—which wasn’t really a window at all, just an opening into the air, fifteen feet above the ground.
“Ethie, take care!” Mum called out. “Step back from the window, my darling.”
“I love Patrick,” Eithne said. “I don’t want you to marry him.”
And then she stepped forward out of the window into nothingness, flopping down like a doll and landing with a thud on a heap of rubble overgrown with nettles. Mum ran forward with an awful cry and picked her up, and I really thought my sister must be dead—but by some miracle she wasn’t hurt. (Mum said afterwards it was because she’d fallen with her limbs so floppy and relaxed.) Cradling Eithne in her arms, she told me to go and tell Patrick to wait for her. “I’ve got to deal with this,” she said. And she carried Eithne into the house and lay on the bed upstairs with her, soothing her, making everything all right. This is the kind of thing that happens at our parties.
Everyone including the band had drifted down the meadow to stand beside the pond. The kids had pulled the punt out into the grass and now everyone was waiting for the finale, when Mum and Patrick took off their clothes and walked into the water. Patrick stood at the edge by himself, looking doubtful. The sun was going down behind the row of beech trees that marked the edge of our smallholding, and its light made a shining path across the water’s surface, motionless as glass. I don’t know what made me do the mad thing I did next; perhaps it was the last kick of my year-long mushroom hallucination. Instead of giving Mum’s message to Patrick, I put my arms around his neck and kissed him. “Mum’s not coming,” I said. “Marry me.”
“Janey says Patrick ought to marry her instead,” Fen announced to everyone, booming, waving his myrtle branch.
“Marry me,” I said, louder.
“Where is she, anyway?” Patrick looked around him helplessly.
“Marry her, marry Janey instead,” they all called encouragingly, maliciously: Lawrence and Fen, Nancy and Sue, and all the rest.
The fiddle player started up the “Wedding March.”
And I pulled my dress over my head and stepped out of my knickers and unhooked my bra, not looking at anyone though I knew they were all looking at me, and I waded naked into the pond water along the shining path, up to my knees and then up to my thighs, feeling the silt oozing between my toes, not caring about the sinister, slippery things that touched me. It was such a risk; it would have been so humiliating if Patrick hadn’t come in after me. I waited, not looking back at him, looking ahead at the sunset glowing like a fire between the beeches, while he stood hesitating on the brink. I heard them all singing and I felt the first drops of rain on my skin, like a sign.
LUXURY HOUR
SARAH HALL
IT WAS THE LAST week of the season and the lido was nearly deserted. She arrived at the usual time, changed into her suit, left her clothes in a locker and walked out across the chlorine-scented vault. The concrete paving had traces of frost in the corners and was almost painful on the soles of her feet. Light rustled under the blue rectangular surface. She climbed down the metal ladder and moved away from the edge without pausing. In October, entering the unheated pool was an act of bravery; the trick was to remain thoughtless. The water was coldly radiant. Her limbs felt stiff as she kicked and her chin burned. At the halfway mark she looked up at the guard, who was sinking into the fur hood of his parka. Nothing in his demeanour gave the impression of a man ready to intervene, should it be necessary. She took a breath, put her head underwater, surfacing a few strokes later. She was awake now, her heart jabbing.
She turned on to her back, rotated her arms. The clouds above were grey and fast. Rain later, perhaps.
She swam twenty lengths, by which time she was warm and the idea of autumn seemed acceptable, then rested her head on the coping and caught her breath. The pool slopped gently against her chest. Light filaments flashed and extinguished in the rocking fluid. In summer it was hard to swim, hard to find the space; the pool was choppy, kids bombed in at the deep end, and the water washed out over the edges, soaking towels and bags. Barely an inch between sunbathers. Not many came after early September. But the old couple with rubber caps she always saw on quieter mornings were in the next lane, swimming side by side: her chin tipped high, his submerged. She followed in their wake. They nodded hello when she reached the end, and she smiled. She climbed out. Her breasts and thighs were blotched red with the chill and exertion.
In the changing room she tried not to look at her midriff in the mirrors, the crêping and the sag. She showered and dressed, and went into the poolside café. It was busy as usual. There were prams parked between tables, people working on laptops and reading books. The debris of muesli, pastries and napkins was strewn about. On the walls were photographs from the thirties, pictures of young women diving from the high board, now dismantled, or posing with their hands on their hips. The grace, the vivacity of another era: dark mouths, straight teeth, a kind of ebullient confidence. The scenes looked pre-industrial—open sky, birds in vee formations overhead. The five-storey civic building opposite the park hadn’t been built. London had not yet arrived.
The man behind the counter leaned away from the growling espresso machine and predicted her order.
Latte?
Yes, please.
There was an immaculate row of silver rings in his bottom lip.
Bring it over.
She took a seat by the window, in the corner, and watched the old couple emerge from the lido. Their stamina was far greater than hers—an hour’s swimming at least. They stood dripping and chatting for a moment as if unaffected by the smart breeze. The woman’s legs were thin, but strung with muscle. Her belly was a tiny mound under the swimming costume. The man had a buckled torso, a white beard. There was a vast laparotomy scar up his abdomen. They were the same height and seemed perfectly suited. She wondered if they’d evolved towards their symmetry over the years. The couple parted and went towards separate changing rooms. He walked awkwardly, favouring one hip. In the pool he swam well. Occasionally she’d seen his sedate, companionable breaststroke morph into an energetic butterfly.
There was no one left in the lido. The guard rested his head on his hand, eyes closed, the whistle attached to his wrist hanging in the air. The surface of the pool stilled to a beautiful chemical blue.
Her coffee arrived. She opened a packet of sugar and poured it. She shouldn’t be taking sugar—the baby weight was still not coming off—but hadn’t ever been able to drink coffee without. She sipped slowly. The pool was hypnotic; something about the water was calming, rapturous almost. Time here, after swimming, always felt inadmissible to her day. She would linger, ignore her phone. Often she had to race round the shops to be back in time for the sitter. “Luxury hour,” Daniel called it, as if she were indulging herself, but it was the only time she had without the baby.
After a while she went to the counter, paid and left. She began to walk through the park. The breeze was strengthening, the leaves of the trees moving briskly. There were some kids playing cycle polo on one of the hard courts, wheeling about and whacking the puck against the metal cage. Dogs bounded across the grass. She passed the glass merchant’s mansion and the old glassworks, both hidden under flapping plastic drapes and renovation scaffolding. She’d hated the city when she and Daniel had first arrived. She’d missed the Devon countryside, the fragrance of peat and gorse, horses with torn manes, the lack of people. But it was what one did—for the jobs, for the culture; London’s sacrificial gravity was too strong and it had taken them. Discovering the park had changed everything, and the nearby property was just about affordable.
She passed through the rank of dark-trunked sycamores. Beyond was the meadow. Its pale brindle stirred in the wind, belts of grass lightening and darkening. The field had been resown after a local campaign by the Friends of the Park. For a century it had been a wasteland—the horses used for pulling the carts of quartz sand to the glassworks had overgrazed it. Dust, cullet and oil from the annealing ovens had polluted the soil. Now it was lush again; there were bees and mice, even city kestrels—she’d seen them tremoring above the burrows, stooping with astonishing speed. There was a dry, chaff-like smell to the meadow after the summer; the grasses clicked and hushed. The enormous, elaborate spider webs of the previous month had broken apart and were drifting free.
A man was walking down the scythed path towards her. She stepped aside to let him pass but he stopped and held out his hand.
Alex.
She looked up. For a second she didn’t recognise him. He had on a tie and a suit jacket. The planes of his face came into focus. The heavy bones, the irises, with their concentration of colour, no divisions or rings. He was a little older, his hair darker than she remembered, but it was him.
Oh, God, she said. Hi.
He moved to kiss her cheek. She put a hand on his arm, turned her face too much and he kissed her ear, awkwardly.
Hi. Do you still live around here?
Yes, I’m over on Hillworth. Near the station.
Nice area.
Yes.
The wind was throwing her hair around her face, tangling it. She hadn’t properly washed or brushed it in the changing room. She moved a damp strand from her forehead. It felt sticky with chlorine. He was looking at her, his expression unreadable.
I’ve been swimming.
At the lido?
She nodded.
Wow! It’s still open? I must go there. Is it cold?
It’s OK. Bracing.
Had he forgotten? The cold water never used to bother him. She ran a hand through her hair again, tried to think what to say. Her mind felt white, soft. The shock of the real. Even though he’d said he was going, she’d expected to run into him and had, for a time, avoided the park. After a few months the expectation had lessened, and the hope, and she had reclaimed the space. Then the baby had come, and life had altered drastically. She’d assumed he’d moved away for good. His face was becoming increasingly familiar as she looked. The shape of his mouth, too full, voluptuous for a man, the fine white scar in the upper lip.
So, where are you these days? she asked.
Brighton.
Brighton!
I know!
He smiled. His teeth. One of the front ones was a fraction squarer, mostly porcelain—the accident on his bike. She had liked tapping it, then the tooth next to it, to hear the difference. Heat bloomed up her neck. These days she could not remember things—where her purse was, which breast she had last fed the baby on, the name of the artist from her university dissertation. But she could remember his mouth, and lying so close to his face that the details began to blur. She felt as if she might reach out now and touch the hard wet surface of his tooth. She put her hands in her coat pockets. Around them the grass was swaying and hissing. The silk webs floated. A bird darted up out of the field, flew a few feet and then disappeared between stalks.
He was studying her too. Probably she looked tired, leached, aged, the classic new mother, not like the woman who had come up to him in a low-cut swimsuit and asked to borrow change for the locker.
I’ll pay you back tomorrow.
I might not be here tomorrow.
Yes, you will.
So confident, then.
She hadn’t applied make-up, there was no point most days really, and her mouth was dry and bitter from the coffee. At least the long coat hid her figure.
Did you go to Burma? she asked.
Myanmar, he said, quietly. I did. For eighteen months. Well, officially to Thailand for eighteen months, but we we
nt across the border most days into the training camps.
I thought you would.
Now it’s not such a problem getting in. Tourism.
She nodded. She was not up to speed on such things any more; she’d lost interest.
Was it difficult?
She was not sure what she meant by this question, only that she imagined privation, forfeit, that he had made the wrong decision.
Sometimes. We had a decent team. A lot of them were more missionaries than medics really, but on the whole the quality was good. I don’t know whether we helped really. The students qualify, then get arrested for practising.
He shrugged. He glanced towards the north end of the park.
So it’s still open?
Yes. Last week before winter closing. You should go before it shuts.
For old times’ sake. She did not say it. Nor, why have you come back?
He glanced at his watch.
I have a conference. I’m presenting the first paper, actually. I have to get to Barts.
Oh, great. Congratulations.
Hence the suit, the tidy version of his former self. He shrugged again. Humility; the duty was clearly very important. There was a pause. She could barely look at him; the past was restoring itself too viscerally. Since the baby she had felt nothing, no desire, not even sorrow that this part of her life had vanished, perhaps for good. Daniel had been understanding, patient. She couldn’t explain it: breastfeeding, different priorities, the wrong smell. Now, that familiar low ache. She wanted to step forward, reach out. Compatible immune systems, he had once said, to explain their impulses, that’s what it really is. For something to do she took her bag off her shoulder and rummaged around inside. It was a pointless act, spurred by panic; she was looking for nothing in particular. But then, in the inside pocket, she found the season ticket. She held it out.
Here. It still has a couple of swims. They won’t check the name when they stamp it, they never do.