by Sadie Jones
He watched the English children playing, and had no idea how to go about joining in. Joining in wasn’t something he’d ever learned, it had just happened and now it had just stopped happening. The others in the swimming pool played diving games and bombing games and their shouts and splashing weren’t anything he wanted. He was sitting near Alice, who was on a lounger by the water looking at a magazine. She had a hat and sunglasses and a tall drink and she was utterly absorbed in looking at the pictures of clothes. Lewis thought the hotel could have crumbled into the sea around her and she would be unmoved. His father was just sleeping. In the middle of the day. Not having even been to work. Lewis got up and went over to the edge of the water. He looked down into it and watched the ripples and sparkles bounce off. He looked up at the enormous dark blue sea that shrank away and expanded in one swelling wave that came to meet him and went away in rhythm.
The concrete was warm under his feet, but the sounds of people were getting far away again. He wondered if he was visible or invisible. He put one hand down to the edge and slipped into the water and felt it close over his head. It tasted of salt and not like a river at all. He wondered how long he could stay under without any breath. He let all the air go out of him and went slowly down until he got to the bottom. It was much quieter underwater. It felt much more like him. He lay down on the bottom and spread his arms out.
It didn’t take long at all, with no air, to need to come up, and the first breath was something that had to be done, not something he decided to do, and that felt good. He played that for an hour. Having no air and being deep underwater made you feel very alive when you came up, but apart from that it was just something to do.
PART TWO
Chapter One
July 1952
The sun was shining down onto Tamsin’s hair as she walked, not all the time, but when it could find its way through the leaves and, when it did, it made her glow. All of her skin seemed to be golden, as if being blonde had burnished her all over. The colours of her went together now. She had a primrose coloured dress, and her waist was very narrow and the skirt of the dress went wider to the knee and stopped just on it, so that her calves were perfect below the skirt. Her arms were bare and her neck seemed particularly bare coming out of the dress and Lewis hadn’t known why that was; everybody else had bare arms and neck, but they didn’t seem so bare. Her cheek, looking at the side of her and just from behind, as he had, was curved and then he could see her mouth, smiling. It was her hair, though, the paleness of it, the way it was so soft and held back with a white ribbon – or hairband, or hairband covered in ribbon, held back with something – that shone, and then went into a heavy curl at the bottom of her neck and it seemed like he could feel it.
Everyone else was just walking along. Nobody else seemed to notice at all, except bloody Ed Rawlins, who had always got to be the same age as her, and would always be. Tamsin and he were walking together and being sixteen together, and just lending their presence, with the understanding that they didn’t really have to be there.
Last holidays she hadn’t been sixteen and she hadn’t been blonde. Her birthday was in May and Claire had finally taken her up to town to get her hair done, and Tamsin looked at herself in the mirror of Henri’s on Walton Street and knew that she was about to emerge. She felt as if she was returning to something she had always been inside. Being a blonde child, and then losing blondeness, made her feel cheated. She knew she was really blonde, and she would one day show that she was again, but it had been awful having to wait with brown hair and not have people know. She was blonde until she was six and when it darkened down she never did accept that it had, and every summer when the sun made it lighter she would think: there, that’s my blonde hair trying to come out again. So sitting in Henri’s, with Henri himself taking off the bleaching lotion and putting in her rollers and checking the tone and the texture, and all the assistants and her mother and even other customers looking at her in what could only be described as wonder – well – it was nothing less than a restoration to a throne. She was herself again. Now Ed was plainly in love with her and she thought Lewis Aldridge was too, except he was so quiet. Fred and Robert Johnson were walking next to Lewis and she thought they were too immature to be in love with her, but she wouldn’t have been surprised. Lewis seemed older than them, he was as tall as Ed and didn’t have all the things wrong that fourteen-year-old boys often did, but if he wasn’t awkward physically, he certainly was in every other way. He was so quiet and odd, and no-one really had anything to say to him any more.
Lewis walked with his head down and wished the twins would shut up. Fred and Robert always seemed not quite whole people; maybe it was being twins, there wasn’t enough of them to go round, as if they’d had to share materials. They were still little boys and were having conversations with no disagreements in them about The Beano or insects, and Lewis wasn’t interested.
Away through the trees, and on her own, was Kit. Joanna Napper was away and there just wasn’t anyone else of ten for her to be with. She was with a child called Annie, who was staying with the Johnson twins and being ignored by them, and who was very young indeed. She’d been following Kit around all summer and Kit had to endure being ‘you little ones’ until she thought she’d slay herself. Annie was trailing behind now and Kit was being nice because she knew what it was like, but was hating being nice, and she had her big frown on and was getting hot and miserable.
It had rained for the first two weeks of the holidays and Kit had read nearly all of Of Human Bondage while Tamsin arranged her hair and talked about frocks with her mother. They had been up and down to London buying things and even going for cocktails, and the thought of that was death to Kit and she wouldn’t have gone even if she’d been old enough.
Lewis had no expectations of the summer. He and Alice avoided each other pretty much in the daytime and then it was just a matter of either rowing or not rowing with Gilbert and her through the evening. Some evenings were better than others; alcohol and the mood between the two of them were the main variables. He could have called round to Ed or Tom or the twins, but he’d got out of the habit of that years ago and now didn’t think it would be an easy thing to do.
The family went to church on Sundays and Lewis endured that all right, being used to chapel every day at school. Standing out in the pouring rain, he had seen the Carmichaels getting out of their car at the gate. Tamsin and Claire each had an umbrella and Tamsin was wearing a silk scarf over her hair. He hadn’t seen her all holidays, she’d been up in town with her mother the first couple of weeks and now, when she ran under the porch of the church, laughing and pulling off her scarf, dressed like a woman – and what’s more, looking like one – he’d just stared at her. The only woman he’d seen since he’d wanted to see one was matron and, however hard you tried, she just didn’t count. Tamsin ran towards him and he’d had to move out into the rain again to make room for her. As she pulled off her scarf she saw him and said, ‘Oh, hello, Lewis’ over her shoulder.
He’d spent the whole service looking over at her and pretending not to.
She knew he was looking, she knew everyone was looking, and knowing it made her happy and not at all embarrassed. The rain beat so loudly on the roof you could hardly hear the vicar, even if you were listening, and it was cold enough that steam was coming off the wet coats. After the service the families had gone home to their respective Sunday lunches.
Lewis had thought about Tamsin sometimes and when, a few days later, he had seen her and Ed and the others walk past his gate on their way up to the woods he’d followed and joined them. He wasn’t soft over her, he just wanted to see her and check if she really looked that good. She did. The twins were the same and so was Kit, except taller and with teeth. She’d been happy to see him at least, but the others, when he’d called to them, had turned around and looked at him as if they’d all never met. Still, here they all were, walking in the woods and towards the river and Lewis was wondering which way t
hey’d go and hoping they’d change direction soon. Being with them was all right, and looking at Tamsin was good, but the woods were oppressive and he wanted to get out of them.
Kit looked at Lewis and tried to remember what he had been like when he wasn’t like this.
‘We could walk into Turville,’ said Ed.
‘Too far,’ said Fred.
‘Too hot,’ said Robert.
‘Be rather nice to swim,’ said Ed, smiling at Tamsin.
‘I don’t have a bathing suit. None of us do,’ said Tamsin, knowing Ed was wondering what she’d look like with and without one, and smiling back at him.
‘Let’s go back and get our things and swim,’ said Ed.
Tamsin looked over at Lewis, who hadn’t spoken for ages. He was still looking down and he looked as he always did, closed and not really there. She decided she felt awfully sorry for him. He obviously didn’t want to go to the river and it was tactless of Ed to keep going on about it; after all, it must be in all their minds what had happened to his mother. The last time she’d seen him (and she supposed anyone had seen him) was at Easter when it had been very warm and Ed had his birthday outside. He’d invited Lewis because it seemed rude not to and everyone had such a jolly time, except that Lewis hadn’t spoken. He hadn’t spoken at all. There had been no reason for it. It wasn’t surprising he didn’t get on with people; often she thought he didn’t try. She wondered what he was like at Harrow; the boys she knew there were in higher years. He felt her watching him and looked over – and she felt it, the look – and she looked away. She thought, gosh, he’s only fourteen, I must pull myself together, it’s not as if he’s anyone one would consider, and he’s a baby! Ed was saying something about swimming, why did he keep going on about it?
‘I don’t want to swim,’ said Tamsin. ‘Lewis, you don’t want to, do you?’
‘No, I don’t want to.’
‘Well, Lewis wouldn’t,’ said Ed.
‘And nor would I,’ said Tamsin quickly, ‘and if we must go to the river, I’d rather go to it in Woldham where we can have tea or ices.’
It took a moment for them to realise that Lewis had stopped walking and they only realised because Kit said, ‘What?’
They all stopped and looked back. Lewis was standing and looking at Ed.
Kit had been watching all of them. She was to one side and looking at him. He hadn’t spoken much, but he’d seemed all right so far. They were all still now, and Lewis carried on staring at Ed, who finally got fed up with it.
‘What?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why wouldn’t I want to go to the river?’
There was silence. Nobody said anything. Lewis had a look about him that was immediately dangerous, not just the promise of danger, but danger right there, and Kit felt frightened, but Ed seemed oblivious to it and enjoying the confrontation.
‘Why wouldn’t I want to go to the river?’
‘Come on, Lewis, everybody knows why.’
‘Say it.’
Tamsin touched Ed’s arm, ‘Ed—’
‘Because of your mother,’ he said it mockingly, sing-song, ‘Because of your mother dying there.’
Then Lewis started towards Ed, he walked up to him quite fast and Tamsin backed off quickly and Ed stood his ground, but didn’t step towards him. They all stared, they were all waiting.
‘So what? So what about it?’
‘Nothing about it. You’re being ridiculous.’
‘Don’t laugh.’
‘I’m not laughing,’ said Ed, laughing, ‘I’m just saying you’re being ridiculous.’
‘Take that look off your face.’
‘What look?’ Ed laughed again and looked around at everybody. ‘I must say you’re behaving in an extraordinary way.’
‘Take that fucking look off your face.’
Kit had never heard anyone of their age say that word before. She’d heard her father use it, in another room, and she’d heard it in the street, but this was different.
‘How dare you speak that way in front of the girls,’ said Ed and it would have been funny, but somehow wasn’t, and Kit thought how awful he was and that she’d never liked him.
Lewis went towards Ed again. Ed managed to move away and make it look as if he was taking up the pose of the philosopher, the commentator, but he was ready and his face looked very sharp.
‘It seems to me you’re being rather over-sensitive. If you will come walking in woods with rivers in them, on hot days, you can’t be entirely surprised if the subject of swimming comes up. We’re all very sorry your poor drunken mama had the—’
He didn’t finish his sentence because Lewis punched him in the face. Ed had known Lewis would hit him and he’d thought he’d be ready for it – he was looking forward to hitting him back and beating him – but he hadn’t expected Lewis’s punch to be so hard or so fast and he went down. His nose was broken and the pain was terrible and he didn’t get up, but lay there shouting, with blood pouring through his fingers. At school it was never like this; in a fight you never went for a chap’s face and even if you were really angry, it was more show than actual damage, with a lot of clothes-grabbing and wrestling.
Ed was lying there bleeding and Tamsin turned on Lewis, who looked as if he might kick him or get down to hit him again.
‘Oh my God! Oh my God!’
Annie burst into tears and the twins looked thrilled and amazed and got closer to Ed and further from Lewis. This wasn’t what normally happened, this wasn’t the way things were; it had a surreal quality, all the rules had gone, and Kit suddenly wondered if that might be normal for Lewis, not having anything to go by. She knew the feeling. Her father hitting her mother had always given her that vertiginous feeling of there being no rules.
Ed wasn’t getting up and Lewis turned and walked away, not on the path, but through the trees. Kit watched him go and envied him his violence, and pitied him for it. She wanted to go after him, but only watched him and then turned back to the clearing where Tamsin was having a lovely time helping Ed walk, and the others were following in a group like medieval villagers, scandalised.
‘Appalling, just appalling,’ Tamsin was saying.
‘— deserves whatever he gets!’ said Robert
They had all seemed to turn into their parents, Kit thought, and hated them.
They went back to the road and trooped towards the village. Ed’s nose bled for ages, but eventually stopped. He kept his hand up to it. Tamsin and Kit’s house was nearest, after the Aldridge house, and Tamsin said Ed should come to them. She sent little Annie home with the twins.
Tamsin took Ed into the kitchen where he washed his face – this was drama enough, as Tamsin hadn’t been in the kitchen for about two years.
‘I’m going to call Dr Straechen.’
Ed uncovered his face, ‘Does it look bad?’
‘Awful. Wait here, I’ll phone. If it’s broken he can set it for you. Can you set noses?’
She went off through the baize door and Ed waited at the table. Kit sat opposite with her feet up on her chair. She had a scab on her knee. She wondered if she’d ever grow out of scabs on her knee; her mother seemed to think it was her defining feature.
‘You were horrible to Lewis,’ she said.
Ed couldn’t speak very well for the blood sitting between his nose and mouth and the swelling, but he managed outrage.
‘He hit me!’
‘You asked for it. You know you did.’
‘He wanted a fight,’ he said, thickly, ‘you saw him, I couldn’t back down!’
She couldn’t go on sitting there with him. She got up and went into the hall. Dicky was standing by Tamsin who’d just come off the telephone.
‘Is it broken?’
‘I don’t know, Daddy. It looks it. It’s gone awfully big.’
‘Where is he?’
‘In the kitchen. I didn’t want him to bleed on things.’
; ‘What about Lewis? Where did he go?’
‘He ran off into the woods.’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Kit, ‘he walked.’
‘Shut up, Kit,’ said Tamsin.
‘What was he thinking, doing a thing like that?’ said Dicky, and Kit remembered the time he’d broken her mother’s arm against the fireplace in the drawing room and she’d had to tell everyone she’d fallen off a ladder picking apples, which was absurd in the first place as she’d never been up a ladder in her life and almost didn’t know where the orchard was.
Kit thought of Ed’s voice in the woods, ‘your poor drunken mama …’
‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘Lewis hit Ed because Ed said something about his mother.’
Neither Tamsin nor Dicky seemed to have heard.
‘Ring Harry Rawlins, Tamsin. Where’s Claire? He should have some ice put on it.’
Kit saw it wasn’t going to go well for Lewis.
Dicky went off to look for Claire, and Tamsin started through the telephone book on the table.
‘Tamsin! Ed was awful. He said a really awful thing.’
‘R … R. Rawlins … I know, Kit, but it’s no excuse. You saw the way he was, how he looked. He was horrid. You just don’t do things like that.’
‘Well, I’d have hit him if—’
‘Sh! Go away.’ She picked up the telephone. ‘Guildford 131 please.’
* * *
Lewis had just wanted to get out of the woods. If he hadn’t wanted to look at Tamsin, he wouldn’t have been there in the first place. His hand hurt from hitting Ed, and the feeling of Ed’s head going back and the contact of skin and the bone beneath it had stayed in his hand. The day was hotter than it had been and ahead he could see unbroken sunshine and a field. He went for the edge of the wood and soon came out of it.