The SECRET TO NOT DROWNING

by Colette Snowden

  19

  I arrive at the bar all out of breath from rushing because I was convinced I was going to be late, but I’m forgetting that I got out of the pool early and when I scan the room looking for Julie I can’t see her. I’m not sure what to do. My mum would tell me to wait outside. But it’s cold outside and that’s not what Julie would do. That’s not what Jaclyn Smith would do, either. She would order something on the rocks and sit down and flick her hair at the barman. My hair’s too wet to flick and I’d feel stupid asking for anything on the rocks but I’m not going to wait outside. I sit at the bar and when the barmaid comes over and says “What can I get you, love?” I ask for two gin and tonics and explain that I’m a bit early and I’m waiting for my friend. The barmaid doesn’t care but she stands there while I finish speaking and listens politely before tottering off on her ridiculous heels to press the two glasses up against the optic, one, then the other.

  I would like to wear heels like that. Tart’s shoes. Fuck me shoes. Shoes that would make me as tall as anyone. Shoes that could have somebody’s eye out if you ever needed to defend yourself in a dark alley – you’d need to square up and fight: there’s no way you could run away fast enough in those things.

  I’m thinking about the shoes and looking at the scruffy trainers I have on when I get one of those sudden uneasy feelings that you get sometimes when a thought flits in and out of your brain too quickly for you to remember it but not quickly enough for you to dismiss it and move on. I’m worried that maybe Julie won’t turn up and I’ll be left here drinking two gin and tonics on my own and looking stupid. But that’s not it. That’s not it. What is it?

  It’s the pub quiz. That’s it. He didn’t tell me where the pub quiz is. The feeling I have is the fleeting question: what if it’s in here? I look around. I can’t see Him but I can’t get the thought out of my head. I call the barmaid over and ask her for two packets of ready salted crisps and when she puts them on the bar I ask her, “Do you ever do pub quizzes in here?” she says, “Yes, love, Thursdays. That’s £1.20 please.” I give her the money and she teeters off again. Phew.

  I look at my phone. No missed calls. No Messages. 21.02. I told her that I get out of the pool at nine and I’d get to the pub as quickly as I could after that. She’ll probably get here about ten past. It might be quarter past. They might have a newspaper or something.

  I look round. The place is full of after workers. People in suits, people not in suits but not in weekend going-to-the-pub clothes either. People just stopping off for a drink before they go home, without thinking there’s anything odd about it. I still have that queasy feeling and I’m trying to put it down to nervousness that Julie might not turn up. But that’s not it. I’m sure she will. She will. So what’s the feeling?

  And then I see someone who looks a bit like Him. Just a bit. It’s in the way he waves his arms about when he’s talking. The guy doesn’t look like Him, he’s taller and he has less hair but there’s something similar about him that ties a knot in my stomach. What if there is no pub quiz? What if ‘pub quiz’ was just a euphemism for going out for a drink with some woman or other? What if He is here with all the other men flirting with colleagues while their wives put their dinner in the oven on a low light and look forward to presenting them with it all dried out and mushy. What if He’s here?

  I try to look like I’m not checking every face that comes through the door and peering at the people sitting at every table but I’d make a terrible undercover cop. Charlie would be disappointed in me for sure. For every table where I can’t see Him I start to feel a bit more paranoid and I’m telling myself ‘relax, relax, relax’ but it’s not working. And then I see a familiar face.

  “Julie!” Embarrassingly, I’m so delighted to see her that I pretty much somersault off the bar stool, sending my bag flying and the contents scattering across the floor.

  It turns out that she’d been there the whole time, since before I came in, having a drink with some people from work. They’d been busy talking about work stuff and she hadn’t seen me come in. Well, she’s seen me now. Pretty much everyone in here has seen me now and I’m amazed not to have had a ripple of applause. Instead I get a half-interested-in-the-answer ‘You all right love?’ from the girl behind the bar and a leery smile from the guy on the bar stool nearly next to me. Clearly he thinks I’ve had a few too many. So, dignity thoroughly irretrievable, I smile back at him and say:

  “Tricky sport, bar stool gymnastics. Need to keep working on that dismount.”

  And he laughs and so does Julie behind me, gathering up my keys and half a dozen long-forgotten lipsticks. And it’s not that bad.

  “Do you want to meet my work friends?” Julie asks. What do I say? If I say yes I might end up having to chat with them for the next hour and if I say no, she might think I’m rude.

  “Don’t feel you have to,” she says, “they’re nice but we won’t sit with them. We always end up talking about work stuff and you’d be bored stiff. I’ll just go over and get my things and then you can teach me some of your bar stool moves.”

  So I wander back to her table with her and they all smile at me while she introduces me and she goes round the table telling me their names and they wave at me when their name is called, like kids at school with her taking the register.

  “Right,” she says. “Go home. Especially you,” she says, pointing to a thirty-something with an almost empty and a completely full pint in front of him. “See you tomorrow.”

  And she links arms with me and drags me back across to the bar whispering in my ear.

  “He thinks his wife might be about to tell him she’s pregnant,” she whispers, “and he doesn’t want to hear the news!”

  The two gin and tonics are still on the bar and leery smile guy is still looking at us and still smiling.

  “I think he thinks we were whispering about him,” I say.

  “Let him,” says Julie. “We are now!” and she laughs and glances across at him and laughs again.

  I start to wonder how many she’s had before I got here, but when I give her the gin and tonic she lets out a massive sigh.

  “Oh God I’m dying for this,” she says. “I’ll only ever have one when I’m driving so I’ve been on orange juice until you got here so that we could have our G&T together. I like orange juice but it’s not a drink you look forward to at the end of the day, is it?”

  “Not like hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows....”

  “Now you’re talking. With a glug of Bailey’s in!”

  And as if we’ve rehearsed it we throw our heads back with a big, guttural ‘mmmmm’ and leery guy grins at us and we burst out laughing and I’ve completely forgotten any possibility that He might be in here.

  “What’s up?” she says. So I tell her that I’d had a bit of a panic that He might be in here and I might get in trouble for coming out for a drink instead of going straight home after swimming.

  “Give over,” she says. “What are the chances? Anyway, you’re just having one G&T with me and I’m hardly little miss wild child. Far from it, I’m usually in bed with a book by ten o’clock. It’s not like you’re lap dancing on the bar and shagging a stranger in the ladies loos.”

  I can’t quite believe she’s said that and neither can leery man, apparently. He’s now stirring his drink with a straw and trying not to look at us. Maybe he thinks he’ll hear something more interesting that way.

  I change the subject and tell Julie all about what happened in the pool. I start with the bit when the boys started pushing each other into the pool and Julie says that they could have hurt one of us, not just each other.

  “Exactly!” I say. And I tell her all about how the pool attendant and the manager did nothing and about Skinny Goggles Girl getting out and Gammy-leg Man in the shower and me going over to talk to the pool people.

  And I think she’s going to say som
ething but she just leans back on her stool and puts her hand on her hips and opens her mouth wide in theatrical shock. I wait for her to say something.

  “Go on,” she says. So I tell her how everyone was looking at me and about Tattoo Woman coming to back me up. And when I’ve finished I just say, “And that’s it, then I came here.”

  “That’s fantastic,” she says.

  “Not really.”

  “Yes really,” she says.

  “I think I maybe had an out-of-body experience or something.”

  And she laughs. But she’s not really laughing.

  “What?” I say.

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “What?” I ask again.

  “Do you remember when we used to play Charlie’s Angels and you were always Jaclyn Smith and I was always Sabrina?”

  “Yes.” I’m smiling but she’s still not. “You always wanted to be the clever one and you always thought of a way of bringing horses into the story so that you could gallop off and rescue someone.”

  “I didn’t always want to be the clever one,” she says and I think she might be about to have a go at me for bullying her into being boring old Sabrina with the rubbish haircut but she says: “I sometimes wanted to be Sabrina but I sometimes wanted to be Jaclyn Smith and I just didn’t dare to say it in case you didn’t want to swap and wouldn’t want to play with me.”

  And then she takes my hand and I can feel the charms on her bracelet tickling my little finger.

  “I don’t know what took the Jaclyn Smith out of you but she’s still in there, I think.”

  I’m not sure what to say next. I feel a bit awkward. I didn’t expect her to hold my hand. I don’t want her to let go but I don’t know what she wants me to say.

  “A bit,” I say, “but the hair could do with a bit of work!” and I flick my still damp hair and she laughs and takes her hand away.

  I want to tell her about work today too, about Mandy and the vanilla slice and all of that, but I’ve chattered on enough I think.

  “I’d better go,” she says. I’ve got a meeting in the morning and I’m useless at winging it. Do you need a lift?”

  “I’m in the car too,” I say. And we both rummage for our keys and drink the last drops from our glass and look towards the door.

  “Easy does it on that stool,” she says.

  “Less of your cheek.”

  In the car park she points to her car and I tell her ‘I’m over there.’

  “I’ll see you soon,” she says. “I’m away this weekend but we’ll have to arrange a proper evening out or something.”

  I just nod and then she hugs me. I never would have thought she was the hugging type. She’s all bony and her arms seem unfeasibly long.

  “You can always ring me,” she says as she walks backwards towards her car, putting her hand to her ear like a telephone. “Or text me and I’ll call you back,” she says even louder because she’s further away.

  “Thanks,” I mouth back at her. And I get in my car and go home.

  When I get back He’s already home and his friend Jimmy is there with Him. They’re having a can of lager and there’s a big tin of chocolate biscuits on the kitchen table.

  “You’re late back,” He says.

  I put my swimming bag on the chair next to Him so that he can smell the chlorine.

  “Yeah,” I tell Him, “there was a bit of a kerfuffle at the pool. Some lads were messing about and pushing each other in and generally making a nuisance of themselves. And guess who went up to the pool attendant and told them they should be sorting it out?”

  “I’ll bet they loved that,” He says. “And guess who valiantly came second in the quiz!”

  “Was it you by any chance?”

  “It was.” And He presents me with the tin of biscuits with a big aren’t-I-clever grin on his face.

  “We should have come first but I persuaded him on a couple of the answers and they turned out to be a bit of a bum steer,” says Jimmy. “Sorry about that.”

  “So what was the first prize?”

  “A bottle of Champagne,” He says with mock anger in Jimmy’s direction. “Never mind. You can’t beat a couple of chocolate biscuits when you’ve been for a swim, can you love? Put the kettle on then.”

  20

  I’m in the kitchen peeling apples to make an apple pie. I can remember watching my grandma doing this, with a knife just like this one. I can remember gathering up all the peelings and sprinkling sugar on them and eating them and persuading myself it was the most delicious thing on earth. My mum says I have my grandma’s gift for pastry but I don’t think I’m quite there yet. Nothing I could ever make could possibly taste as good as my grandma’s apple pie.

  It’s Saturday and it’s been a funny kind of week. He’s been nice since the pub quiz on Monday. Super-nice, in fact. On Tuesday, instead of just leaving me flowers on the table He actually gave them to me and He told me he loved me and that it will all be all right. He asked me if I want us to do anything to remember the baby by, like plant a tree or something, and I ended up crying and He just put his arms around me while I sobbed. I thought He’d get cross but He didn’t. And on Wednesday He didn’t even go out. He always – pretty much always – goes out on a Wednesday, but this Wednesday He ordered take-out and He made me sit down while He pretended to be the waiter and put on some completely ridiculous foreign accent. He made me laugh and we laughed together. We looked like some sitcom couple off the telly. We looked like an ordinary couple, just sitting at home, having a laugh. I don’t know why He’s being like this and I don’t know how long it will last. It’s happened before. There have been other times when He’s been lovely for weeks at a time and maybe this time it will be for good.

  I’m standing in the kitchen peeling apples and willing Him to have turned over a permanent new leaf. If the peel I’m peeling off this apple comes off cleanly in one, long, curly, green coil then I’ll know that everything will be fine, happily ever after, Mr Nice Guy and Mrs Domestic Goddess in wedded bliss ‘til death us do part. If the peel breaks before I’ve shaved all of it off the apple I’ll take it as a bad omen that the personality transplant is temporary and all will not be well. I peel extra carefully, extra slowly. I peel as though my life depends on it. When I am almost at the end, at the prickly bit, the apple’s bottom, the peel breaks and the long snake lands on the floor, leaving me with just an almost-naked apple in one hand and a knife in the other. I could try another apple. I could tell myself not to be so stupid because believing in the power of the peel is just bonkers. But I know the apple is right. Even more bonkers than that, I think my grandma might even have made the peel break on purpose – I was so close to getting it all off in one, and so slow and careful. She always did say that you should be honest with everyone, including yourself. She died when I was eleven so she never met Him. I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t have liked Him if she had.

  So the apple peel has spoken. It’s made its prediction and it’s made me feel all uneasy, but it’s not like it’s told me anything I didn’t already know. But, anyway, it’s not exactly scientific. It could still be OK or, given that I managed to keep it all in one piece until almost the end of the apple, perhaps it will be almost OK. Ok-ish.

  It’s Saturday. Supermarket day. I have to get the pie in the oven, get the washing machine on, hoover the stairs and landing, clean the toilet, get the pie out of the oven and pick Him up from squash so that we can go to the supermarket. He thinks I should make a list but I know it’s all in my head. I know what we bought last week and I know what I’ve used since last week but He likes a list, then He can go round with a pen ticking things off as I put them in the trolley. So somewhere between the pie and the toilet I also need to make a list. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t have everything on it, as long as we have a list.

  It really has been a funny week. Two bunc
hes of flowers. One from work, which is still at work – I don’t need the questions or the stress over whether he believes the answers, even though they’re true – and one from Him, which is on the dining room table. Four texts from Julie, the latest one this morning: “Arggh! Weekend from hell. Drink after swim on Mon?” One swim, one drink after swim, two new friends – Julie and Mandy – six recipe suggestions for Mandy and her vegan boyfriend crisis – dinner party part 2 – none of which she seemed to like. I suspect it’s the boyfriend that she doesn’t like but apparently the sex is fantastic and it certainly sounds it when she’s giving me a blow-by-blow account of what she’s been up to. It’s a wonder she can manage to get up for work in the morning. It’s a wonder he’s got the energy on a diet of couscous and mung beans; she reckons lentils must be some kind of aphrodisiac. No lentils in my house (He says they disagree with Him) but one shag of my own – not disclosed to or discussed with Mandy – but only of the conventional in-the-bedroom-in-the-actual-bed variety, so much too boring to be of any real interest to Mandy anyway.

  By apple number four when I don’t have a single piece of peel intact I just stop trying to peel them all in one. Instead, I am breathing in hard to soak up the lovely fresh smell of the apples. Much fresher than the supposed ‘fresh pine’ that awaits me in the bathroom once the pie is in the oven. I love the smell of apples. It’s the smell of picnics and school trips and walks home from the park with my dad when a dull-looking green apple would miraculously appear from his coat pocket just when I thought I might collapse with hunger and he’d rub it on his coat like a cricket ball to clean it and it would go all shiny like a picture in a magazine. It’s the smell of nostalgia.

  I slice the apples into little slivers and I can’t help myself from eating a few before I put them in the pie and sprinkle them with sugar then cover them over with a blanket of pastry and tuck them in with a fork all the way around. I paint egg all over the top then cut three quick slashes in the top – Father, Son and Holy Ghost – and pray to the god of all good things that the pie will be the best one ever. Then it’s in the oven and off to fill the laundry basket.