The Swimming Pool

by Louise Candlish

  In spite of myself, I looked up the reference as soon as I’d delivered Inky to Sarah and got home. It was Blyton, of course, from The Faraway Tree. (Who was this woman who could make The Faraway Tree sinister and threatening? She was surely suffering from some sort of arrested development.) The children didn’t enjoy their time in the Land of Do As You Please, where they drove a runaway train.

  Breakneck was exciting for only so long, seemed to be the message.

  24

  Wednesday, 19 August

  The next morning, I lacked the mojo I’d grown accustomed to feeling on waking and experienced instead a disappointing throwback dullness that made it hard to raise my bones at all. I didn’t like to dwell on what had caused it, but as I shuffled to the kitchen for coffee, I considered giving the lido a miss that day. No firm plan had been made with Lara, so I wouldn’t be letting her down.

  To cheer myself up, I phoned Molly. Mobile signal being uncertain at the Stoneborough house, I’d been calling her there on the landline, trying not to feel hurt on the occasions she chose not to come to the phone but have her news relayed through an elder. When she did, she released few snippets. Great-grandma’s glasses had fallen off her nose into the trifle. The custard in said trifle hadn’t set properly and Molly didn’t want to eat it. (‘You know I can’t eat anything sloppy.’) It was too hot. Her bedroom smelt weird. Also, she hadn’t been able to WhatsApp her friends because the house was the only place in the western hemisphere without WiFi.

  ‘Have you seen Rio again?’ I asked.

  ‘We saw him with his great-gran yesterday. Grandma says there isn’t a great-granddad, not because he’s dead but because he’s a deadbeat.’

  ‘I see, how witty. Well, he used to be around, in the old days.’ I had a memory then of Mel’s father, a muscle-bound pit bull of a man, arguing in the street with another kid’s mother. Not Nessie’s – I would have remembered if it was hers. Someone else’s, one of the boys’. ‘Your daughter is a hooligan,’ she’d shouted, ‘and so is her horrible friend.’ And Mel’s dad had shoved her and sworn at her. Mel and I had taken pleasure in being called hooligans.

  ‘Don’t get involved,’ I said, glad to be out of earshot of Ed, who was in his study prepping for his eleven o’clock.

  ‘Get involved in what?’ Molly asked.

  ‘Just them. That family. You know, if they approach you …’

  ‘Why? What’re they going to do to me? Drag me into the woods and tear my clothes off? He’s, like, eight years old, Mum! That’s messed up.’

  At the sound of her snickering, I sighed. ‘Even when I’m being mocked, it’s lovely to hear your voice. We miss you, Molls.’

  ‘Actually, I did go to the woods yesterday,’ she said unexpectedly, ‘with Grandma. She showed me the pond where you and Mel used to go.’

  ‘Oh.’ Immediately, I cursed my mother. I had briefed her minutely on Molly’s recent progress and my thoughts for avoiding any relapse, yet she’d apparently decided it a good idea to lead her straight to a body of dark water hemmed in on all sides by tall trees. ‘I hope you were all right, sweetie?’

  ‘I was fine,’ Molly said, her tone a little shorter. ‘The water’s drained now.’

  ‘Is it?’ There was a pause as I asked silent forgiveness of my mother. (Would Molly do this one day, always assume the mistake was mine? Perhaps I’d never know, not if both accusation and apology, like so many of mine, went unvoiced.) ‘Well, I’m impressed she managed to get you out for a walk,’ I said. The pond was a good couple of miles from the house.

  ‘I thought I might be able to get a signal on my phone,’ Molly said. ‘But it was still rubbish.’

  ‘In the middle of the woods? That’s a surprise.’ That made me smile. ‘Can you imagine a whole summer, a whole childhood without technology? Only a landline nailed to the wall that you had to ask permission to use. That’s all we had.’

  ‘I’d rather be dead,’ Molly said.

  As I hung up, the sound of the intercom rang out, presumably Ed’s student arriving. It was one of his older ones, attending without a parent, and I decided to keep out of sight. Though I was out of my pyjamas, you’d be hard pushed to know it since I’d traded them for sloppy leggings and a T-shirt and hadn’t yet cleaned my teeth or brushed my hair.

  ‘It’s Lara,’ Ed called. ‘She’s on her way up.’

  ‘For you?’

  ‘No, you.’

  And before I could make any attempt to improve my appearance, he was opening the door and exchanging pleasantries with her. I smoothed my fringe over my birthmark from nervous memory as much as anything else: Lara had seen it before; she didn’t care.

  ‘So this is where the mysteries of quadratic equations are laid bare,’ she teased Ed, and I thought how incongruous that throaty speakeasy drawl sounded in this sober and orderly space.

  ‘Lara,’ I said, emerging, ‘what a lovely surprise. You must excuse my bag-lady scruffiness. I’m not exactly up yet.’

  ‘Bag-lady scruffiness is what I aspire to,’ she said gamely, though she wore on this insignificant weekday a beautiful burnt-orange crêpe maxi dress with a piped keyhole neckline, the type of garment I had little chance of carrying off at a wedding.

  I led her into the living room. It was the first time she’d been in our flat and, having mentally rehearsed the event several times, I succeeded in keeping at bay my natural feelings of shame. It was a perfectly nice place to live and there was nothing to be gained from comparisons with the palatial glamour of La Madrague.

  Of course, I’d not allowed for the fact that she conferred glamour on all that met her eye, all that bore her weight. The IKEA armchair with sheepskin throw became suddenly exotic, a reindeer skin worthy of the set of Doctor Zhivago; a bare foot rested on the corner of the coffee table announced to the world that this was the place for feet to rest. The filtered light caught the folds of her dress and made me think of celestial drapery in Renaissance painting.

  Crazy. Even so, when I brought in coffee I was pleased to be able to offer costly chocolates from the last of my EHP end-of-year gift stocks.

  In my absence, Lara had been casting her own eye about the room. ‘I had no idea you were such a neat freak,’ she said. ‘Look at your shelves – are those books colour co-ordinated?’

  ‘Better than in alphabetical order,’ I joked. I considered blaming Ed for the obsessive-compulsive vibe, even wondered if, had I been given warning of her visit, I might have faked dishevelment. At least she knew to attribute the tidiness to one of us and hadn’t assumed we had a cleaner. ‘You have to stay on top of things in a small flat. And Molly’s not here to create chaos.’

  ‘Mmm. Prestat, my favourite.’ Her attention turned to the chocolates, she chose the one wrapped in gold foil, unsheathing and eating it quickly, before announcing, ‘Please can we tackle the elephant in the room before it breathes all our oxygen.’

  ‘I don’t think an elephant would fit in here,’ I said, adding, ‘but I’m not sure what you mean?’

  ‘Seriously? Yesterday at my place?’

  ‘Oh, your sister.’

  Lara’s gaze grew filmy and tender. ‘She was a horrible old witch to you, wasn’t she?’

  I hesitated. ‘I thought she was very entertaining.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’

  Now it was she who paused. ‘So you didn’t hear what she said when we were on the terrace? When you came up from the bathroom?’

  If she meant that inappropriate inference about Lara’s underwear, I was not about to acknowledge it.

  ‘She was being a bit outspoken about Miles and me. She has firm opinions about our marriage, let’s put it that way.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, ‘we all know what they say about opinions, don’t we?’

  Lara beamed. ‘I’m so glad. I was worried we might have put you off.’

  ‘Put me off what?’

  ‘Off me.’

  Our eyes locked. A gaze of this length was an intimacy
I shared with few, if any, beyond Ed and Molly.

  ‘No,’ I said simply. ‘I haven’t been put off.’

  ‘Oh, good.’ She sighed, stretched, selected another chocolate. ‘I always feel slightly depressed after a visit by Iona. That’s probably why I’m eating all your chocs.’

  ‘Go ahead.’ I remembered Sarah and I had laughed about Lara liking to gorge on pralines, and considered making a thing of finding one for her, then thought it might seem like the behaviour of a stalker. ‘It must be difficult, your being so close and her living so far away.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind about that,’ Lara said. ‘I meant because she’s so young and pretty. She makes me feel like a has-been.’

  I was flabbergasted. Lara was not one to fish for compliments so this had to be a genuine perception of sororal rank. ‘I didn’t realize she was younger. She doesn’t look it. And, no disrespect, she seems like a lovely person, but you are far more attractive, Lara.’

  ‘Bless you, Natalie.’

  And I did feel blessed. Blessed to have her to myself for the rest of the week, Iona being off with an old friend for the day, I learned, and due to leave for her home on the Devon coast early the following morning.

  Angie would not be back from Italy until Friday.

  ‘Are we swimming today?’ I asked.

  ‘I certainly hope so,’ Lara said, adding, with an extravagant air, ‘To swim is to survive.’

  ‘Who said that?’ I thought it was another of her quotations.

  ‘I did.’ She chuckled. ‘Do you think people will quote me when I’m dead?’

  ‘Oh, without a doubt,’ I said.

  Stoneborough, August 1985

  It was Mel’s idea, of course, our moonlit swim. She released the idea into the wild one afternoon, like a baby shark into a mangrove, and by the time we headed home for tea it had chased down every life form in its path. One o’clock was deemed safe: even the night owls among the village’s parents would be in a deep sleep by then (my own grandparents turned in at ten; Mel’s parents, drinkers, were less reliable).

  About twenty of us assembled at the mouth of the footpath, including former victims of our strip-and-run prank. There’d be none of that tonight, however, for there was an unspoken agreement that we’d stick together, look out for each other, all return home in the same clothes we’d arrived in. Tonight, the joke was on the adults, not on each other.

  The trudge through the woods was creepier than anticipated, the light from our torches little more than pinholes in the claustrophobic blackness, our breathing louder than our footsteps. ‘Zombies,’ someone groaned, and ‘Werewolves’, which caused squeals among the girls. One of the boys mimicked the banjo music from Deliverance (it was a badge of honour to have seen the film, with its adult rating).

  But our legs knew the way, delivering us dependably to the clearing and the welcoming silver gleam of moonlight. There were relieved giggles as our eyes adjusted and we began undressing. The straps on my swimming costume had twisted and Mel straightened them for me, her fingers continuing to move on my skin after the adjustments were made.

  ‘Hang on a minute.’ Her ears picked out a voice she didn’t care for. ‘Who invited that cow?’

  ‘Not me,’ I said quickly.

  ‘She wasn’t supposed to know about it. Who told her?’

  Nessie pretended not to hear, but continued to slip out of her clothes. She was one of the first to slide into the water, slighter in the pale light, her blonde hair ghostly. As Mel and I waded in after her, the water colder and silkier at night, I watched as she disappeared from view, swallow-diving in that sudden nerveless way of hers. There was a sensation of dread like fingernails clawing inside me; you couldn’t see the bottom in daylight either, but somehow it bothered me far more now in the darkness.

  At last she resurfaced, an elegant eruption, hair flying in a liquid arc, her upper body heaving, the boys staring.

  Mel said loudly, ‘Shame she didn’t stay under. No one would have noticed. Then they’d find her body in a year’s time, all rancid and rotting. Like when crocs pull you under and store you till you’re soft enough to chew.’

  On the way back to the village, Nessie stuck close to the boys, which displeased us. Not that Mel and I were interested in boys, not in that way, but it didn’t mean we wanted them to ally with another girl against us.

  ‘If anyone breathes a word about this, the hillbilly inbreds will come and get you,’ Mel debriefed the group before we parted, and as that twanging sound effect started up once more, I knew she’d be giving Nessie the evil eye.

  And I turned away slightly for fear of her eye falling on me next. I knew just how it would look: soft and relenting at first, then a little more complex, seeking of me something more than loyalty.

  25

  Monday, 31 August, 8.20 a.m.

  The morning is empty and expectant, the traffic lanes bank-holiday clear. I park on yellow lines opposite the hospital’s emergency bays, where a lone police car idles, windows down, its driver smoking a cigarette.

  The hospital has opened a new wing since I was last here, a curved, glossy structure, the lines of which distort as you walk under a glass canopy to the entrance. Inside, the atrium foyer is empty, like an evacuated hotel, the reception desk unmanned, the check-in monitors unused. The only sign of life is at the Patient Transport desk, where a driver directs me to the third floor.

  I pass signs for Breast Radiology, Rheumatology, Neurology, doors to a thousand nightmares past and future, before taking the lift towards the one that the Channings are living in the present. The school-age artworks, no different from those on the walls of my classroom at Elm Hill Prep, are a reminder that Georgia is, in law and in medicine, still a child.

  The doors to the unit are locked and I ring and wait, watch through a narrow glass panel as preoccupied staff move between further sets of secure doors. I can already hear Lara’s voice telling me everything’s fine; I can already hear her tone of relief, taste the sweet perspective it brings. ‘Nothing else matters,’ she’ll say, or I’ll say, or we’ll both say, our words bumping together. The most important words will be unspoken, but there’ll be smiles, tearful ones. Does Miles agree? I’ll ask her, as I asked before in better times.

  Does he?

  At last a nurse approaches, nudges open the door a fraction.

  ‘I’ve come to see how Georgia Channing is,’ I say.

  ‘I’m afraid it’s not possible to see her.’ She begins to tell me about bank-holiday visitor arrangements; they differ from those shown online, and only immediate family are permitted this morning.

  ‘I know I can’t go in,’ I say. ‘I just wanted to find out how she is.’

  ‘I’m not in a position to tell you that.’ Nor, evidently, is she willing to make eye contact and that is, in a way, more of a shock than the safeguarding of information. In recent weeks, a constant at Lara’s side, I’ve been visible, worthy of attention, and I’ve grown used to it. How quickly I’ve forgotten that people are not always friendly – or, at least, they’re selective in their friendliness.

  ‘I’m a good friend of Lara’s,’ I say softly, and there it is, the magic word, almost certainly the last time I’ll be able to use it; the nurse raises her eyes to mine, says she’ll go and check.

  I watch as she approaches the next set of doors, which open at the touch of her security pass, and just as they swing closed I catch a glimpse of something identified by my brain as precious: bold colour, viridian, the fabric of Lara’s dress. The lurch this causes is sharp, an organic tug back to last night, to when I thought I knew differently. I blink and the green has gone, but already the doors are reopening and I see a sliver of bedside equipment, enough to visualize the full picture of monitors and tubes and probes, the artificial supplies and suctions of a body that cannot run itself.

  The nurse is back, the crack through which she chooses to speak even narrower than before. ‘Mrs Channing asks that you leave.’ Eye contact has been withdrawn
once more.

  ‘I understand,’ I say, and inside me there is the sensation of collapse. ‘Please give the family my best wishes.’

  She hardly acknowledges this and as I say my goodbyes to a closed door I can’t blame her. Wishes have no place in here, only ECG machines and ventilators and the precise administration of intravenous fluids.

  Wishes are no better than superstition, or maybe witchcraft.

  26

  Friday, 21 August – ten days earlier

  Ed’s face wore an expression midway between appeal and glower. ‘More drinks with the Channings? Really, Nat? You’ve been with Lara every day this week. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ I said easily. ‘It’s just a glass of wine. And it’s not at the Channings’, it’s at Angie and Stephen’s. They’re just back from Liguria this afternoon.’

  ‘I’m delighted for them.’ He sighed. ‘I thought we might go to the Picture House with Craig and Gayle.’

  ‘But I’ve already said yes,’ I told him.

  Glower began to eclipse appeal. ‘You’ve always already said yes. How about getting my take on it before, not after? And who sees their friends constantly like this at our age? The same day they come back from holiday? Seriously, Nat, you know what I think about that group.’

  Here we go again, I thought. It was clear by now that my friendship with Lara and her circle was developing in spite of Ed’s wishes, if not at his expense. He had decided on his position after the night of La Piscine and it was one of polite closed-heartedness. It was as if, having tried a free sample of a new product, he’d strengthened his preference for the brand he already used. Why I was not flattered by this declaration of satisfaction with the status quo – more than flattered, moved to tears – Heaven only knows, but instead I was determined to challenge it.

  Sheer decency meant he would honour the commitment I had made, though not without staking a complicating claim of his own and arranging to meet Gayle and Craig at the Vineyard after their film had finished. ‘Gayle says she hasn’t seen you since before our holiday,’ he reported. ‘I thought you said you ran into her the other day.’