The Swimming Pool

by Louise Candlish

  ‘Nothing to tell,’ Molly said. ‘I’m going to my room.’

  ‘Don’t be so rude,’ Ed began, but I stopped him.

  ‘Leave her. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  ‘That poor girl,’ my mother said, tailing me into the kitchen. ‘What a way to see your parents after being away from them for a week.’

  I had an image then of the first time I’d seen her and my father after my summer in Stoneborough. She’d been in the kitchen getting lunch ready and he’d gone over and kissed her. The joy of seeing them affectionate and peaceful again, it had felt like all I needed in the world. There was no lunch waiting for Molly, but I would set about rectifying that right away. I would make one of her favourite snacks, hot sausage sandwiches with grilled tomatoes.

  ‘She won’t eat those,’ my mother said, watching me pluck the packet from the fridge. ‘She says she’s on a diet.’

  I stopped in my tracks. ‘She doesn’t need to diet. I hoped she didn’t know what a diet was.’

  ‘Well, she certainly does.’

  The heat of the row with Ed still visible on my skin, I warned myself not to create another family crisis out of a passing remark. As I put the sausages back into the fridge, I tried to recall the last meal I’d shared with Molly. She’d not eaten the corned-beef hotpot, but that was evidence of sanity not disorder, surely. In the New Forest, she’d eaten normally, but I hadn’t thought to pay special attention. Before that, I could hardly remember, mealtimes, domesticity in general, having been downgraded, only the more exciting times distinct in my mind.

  ‘I take it your week alone hasn’t gone too well?’ my mother asked, and when I looked at her I couldn’t reconcile her with the woman in the kitchen who’d kissed my father and welcomed me home. When had she stopped being on my side?

  ‘You sound as if you want it to have gone badly,’ I said, my voice tremulous.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Mum said.

  But after the day’s difficulties with Lara and Ed, I couldn’t face another argument. ‘It’s been great, actually. You just caught us at a tricky time. Let’s have a cup of tea.’

  ‘Before I forget, your friend Mel popped by before she went back to Southampton.’ She was not one to let ill feeling get in the way of gossip.

  ‘Did she?’ Molly hadn’t mentioned that when we’d spoken on the phone.

  ‘She said to give you a message about your old friend – Vanessa, is it?’

  ‘Nessie,’ I said cautiously.

  ‘That’s it. She said she asked her mum about her and Cheryl said the family’s not in the village any more. They moved away years ago.’

  ‘Oh. I wonder where to.’

  ‘According to Mel, London. They’re probably just around the corner.’ Mum raised the blind and peered from the kitchen window. Foxes had been at the bins and left an unsightly scattering of rubbish across the road. ‘If you ask me, they must be mad,’ she said.

  29

  Tuesday, 25 August

  The next few days were miserable. Lara phoned several times but, too wretched and uncertain to know what to say, I rejected each call.

  While refusing to utter another word on the subject, Ed simmered almost audibly. As for Molly, I couldn’t tell if she was still unsettled by the homecoming row or had simply developed a taste for greater independence, but either way she demanded she be allowed to go alone to her Tuesday hypnotherapy session, which had been rescheduled from evening to morning.

  ‘I’m thirteen. It’s not a big deal. I go to Oxford Circus with Izzy all the time, so what’s the difference?’

  ‘This is a medical appointment, not a shopping trip,’ I said. ‘I have to come with you in case there’s anything Bryony needs to discuss afterwards. Besides, this is a big week. You haven’t seen her since before we went to the New Forest and you’ve got a lot of brilliant progress to report.’

  ‘It’s not “brilliant”, Mum.’

  ‘I think it is.’

  Even without looking at me she was able to convey how little she rated my opinion. ‘I’m still a freak,’ she muttered.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ I protested. ‘You’re a fantastic, brave girl.’

  She allowed a brief touch of my hand on her arm, her eyes bright with the honesty of her response, but then she blinked and they’d clouded again. During the journey into the West End, she was mutinous, glaring as if she hated me.

  ‘I’ve lost control of her,’ I told Sarah that evening. Though Molly and I had visited together after Inky’s walk, she’d left within minutes to fetch her phone. ‘God forbid she be separated from that thing for half an hour. I’m convinced it’s why she’s withdrawn from us – it supplies all her needs. Perhaps it might cook her meals for her too. Actually, she’s saying she wants to cook for herself from now on. Where will it end, Sarah? A legal bid for emancipation?’

  Sarah laughed. ‘I think that’s an overreaction. Don’t forget, she’s just been away from you for a week. Trust me, I’m sure it’s all perfectly natural.’

  Trust me: they all said it. They all meant it, too. Seeing Sarah was like catching up with common sense, bracing and soothing in one. Like Gayle, she’d been neglected in recent weeks.

  ‘So long as she’s confiding in someone,’ Sarah added.

  ‘I’m not sure she is.’

  ‘What about the friend who’s here all the time?’

  ‘Izzy?’

  ‘No, the other one. Blonde, very pretty. Comes on her bike.’

  ‘Oh, you mean Georgia, Lara’s daughter. You must have seen her when she comes for her tutoring with Ed.’ I wondered if Georgia would turn up to her session the next day, the first since the ‘delicate’ matter had been raised. For Molly’s sake, I hoped she would. To my knowledge, the two had made no plans to meet since Molly’s return from Stoneborough – but what did I know?

  Nothing.

  ‘Have you seen the glamorous Lara lately?’ Sarah asked, and the question produced an ache of grief I wasn’t prepared for.

  ‘Not in the last couple of days. I haven’t been swimming,’ I said. ‘That’s where I usually see her, but I’ve been a bit busy.’

  ‘Well, her daughter’s certainly inherited her looks, hasn’t she? And she’s so elegant, the way she moves. Quite balletic.’

  ‘I know. I always think she’s like a pixie compared to Molls and the other girls. Though Molls does have the misfortune of having a walrus for a mother,’ I added, eyebrows raised.

  Sarah smiled. ‘Hardly. You’re the picture of health these days, Nat.’

  Just then Molly reappeared with her precious phone.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to hear me call myself a walrus,’ I told her drily, taking no offence when she failed to protest at the comparison as Sarah had done. I left the two of them to chat while I put together something for Sarah’s dinner.

  Bless her. Whatever she said to Molly must have penetrated the teenage self-absorption more effectively than any of my own efforts because when we returned downstairs she followed me into the kitchen and asked if she could help make the vegetable lasagne for supper.

  ‘Everything all right, sweetie?’ I said, as we stood at the chopping board together.

  ‘Fine.’ And she looked not so much abashed as grateful.

  ‘Think of everything your mother does for you,’ I imagined Sarah saying to her, but, no, Sarah was not as overt as that.

  Perhaps Molly simply wanted to check how much fat I was putting into the lasagne.

  Wednesday, 26 August

  Inevitably, there was apprehension before Georgia’s session the next day, apprehension that had to be concealed from Molly, which meant an additional tension.

  ‘Do not say a word,’ Ed warned me. ‘I have no intention of dignifying Lara’s ridiculous paranoia with a response.’

  Georgia arrived on time, looking and behaving exactly as she always did; either her parents had not shared their concerns with her or she was an even better actress than Lara. Afterwards, she chatted w
ith Molly and me in the usual way, saying she’d arranged to meet Eve and Josh at the lido and did Molly want to come too.

  ‘Sure,’ Molly said. ‘That’d be cool.’

  It seemed to me there was something artificial about Molly’s manner and I couldn’t help recalling that comment she’d made about being a freak. This would be her first outing near water since before the holiday and it would be quite understandable if she were especially nervous. Divining my fretting, Molly shot me a warning look.

  ‘Ed?’ I said. ‘Are you okay with this?’

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘Yup, fine by me,’ Ed said. Either he remained genuinely convinced of Georgia’s good influence – and quality of guardianship – or he had a point to make to me. I had a horrible feeling we might have entered a marital war of attrition.

  It was like sitting with leeches on me after the girls had gone. No doubt exacerbated by the new misunderstanding with the Channings, my anxiety exceeded all previous levels and I managed little more than an hour before mobilizing, not specifying to Ed my destination, though admittedly the grabbing of a recyclable shopping bag might have given the (mistaken) impression it was the local Sainsbury’s.

  Walking through the park, I resisted the urge to tear across the grass like a lunatic but proceeded at a deliberately sedate pace, forcing myself to notice the mother and her toddler twins resting in the shade, the black Lab eating dandelions, the shorn grass that filled the air with the rich scent of sap. From the distance came the sound of a whistle, long, warbling, the kind you hear at carnivals, which reminded me that it would soon be the bank-holiday weekend, the Notting Hill Carnival and other summer’s end celebrations. In Elm Hill, there’d be not a carnival but a pool party. Would we still go? It seemed unlikely that Ed would want to; was it so abhorrent that I did? How would things stand by Sunday? Would I have seen Lara by then? Was she, and not Molly, the reason I was attracted to the lido this afternoon as iron is to lodestone?

  If nothing else, such soul-searching sustained me to the end of the main path. As I neared the building, I was struck by the absence of the shouts and squeals I was used to hearing on approach and, peeking through the turnstile at the eastern end, I was confronted by the unprecedented sight of virtually every bather on his or her feet, like crowds on a football terrace. Was some sort of an event taking place? I imagined Georgia and Josh in one of their head-to-heads, Lara having persuaded the mob to clear the pool and pick a side to cheer. But there was no cheering, no laughing, only the murmur of low voices, the uncertainty that comes of unscheduled interruption. Through a gap I glimpsed the pool itself: empty of swimmers, untouched even at its edges, the water was quite still, almost as if it were in disgrace. Now I could see that everyone had turned not to the pool itself but to a spot out of my sightline on the far side.

  Something had happened.

  I called through the bars, to anyone who would listen, ‘What’s going on?’, and was shocked by how my voice sounded, a trapped animal’s, frantic with fear.

  ‘They’ve just cleared the pool,’ said a woman, exiting through the turnstile.

  I scuttled aside to let her pass. ‘Why?’

  ‘The lifeguard had to go in and fish someone out. I think they’ve called an ambulance and –’

  An ambulance? She was still speaking as I turned rudely from her and broke into a sprint, reaching the main entrance short of breath and wild-eyed, pushing past the queue to gatecrash a conversation taking place at the front desk. Apparently the admission of newcomers had been suspended.

  ‘I need to go in,’ I cried. ‘It’s my daughter!’

  ‘Natalie, hello.’ One of the reception staff who knew me as Lara’s friend gestured for a colleague to let me pass. ‘But, wait a second, you –’

  I didn’t hear the rest as I barrelled through the barriers and into the pool area. Even among the forest of people, it wasn’t hard to identify the focus of attention, a gathering of crouched lifeguards around a prone female figure. As I neared, I glimpsed a portion of a navy swimsuit, a section of white leg. I felt vomit fill my mouth, swallowed painfully.

  Molly, I thought, Molly. It had happened just as I knew it would. Tired of being a ‘freak’, she must have followed Georgia into the water. The shock, the sheer unfamiliarity, of being immersed would have disorientated her, only for her to find that the floor had vanished beneath her feet. I knew I should have gone with her. I knew my instinct had been the right one, however retrograde. Ed had been wrong, wrong to think we could trust Georgia …

  A woman of my age was among those tending Molly, a woman I recognized, and my hijacked brain was slow to make the connections.

  ‘Gayle,’ I said, in that same wild tone, ‘is it her?’ And as my old friend’s head turned at the sound of my cry, a space opened and enabled me to see the girl fully. Her feet were raised on the lap of a lifeguard sitting beside her – Matt, soaked from head to toe – and he was arranging towels and a foil blanket over her legs. Her swimsuit was in fact dark purple and the style asymmetrical, with a single shoulder strap stitched with love-hearts. Her face, turned from the water and visible to me now, was not Molly’s but Harriet’s.

  Thank God.

  Gayle sprang to her feet, took a step towards me. ‘What did you say?’

  There was a moment of terror, a moment of knowledge that something horrendous had been committed and it would not be forgiven.

  ‘Did you say, “Thank God”?’ Gayle placed her face close to mine in tear-stained challenge, and I could smell the hot odour of anger on her skin. Behind her, uncomprehending glances were cast my way before attention returned to Harriet. One of the guards was checking her vital signs, while Matt, calm, grave, dripping, continued to adjust the coverings. ‘Thank God my daughter’s had an accident?’ Gayle pressed. ‘Might have drowned?’

  At last I took command of myself. ‘No, no, of course not. I meant thank God she’s fine. Because she is, isn’t she?’ Indeed, the way Harriet was murmuring to Matt and the others at her side, her distress appeared minimal, closer, in fact, to embarrassment.

  But Gayle was not to be mollified so easily. ‘That’s not what you meant at all.’ Her voice was a furious hiss.

  I reached to touch her. ‘Please, what happened? Is she hurt?’

  She swatted my fingers from her forearm and ignored my question. ‘You thought it was Molly, didn’t you?’ And she laughed, a nasty, abrasive laugh I’d never before heard her utter. ‘It’s not all about her, you know. There are other children in the world, other parents. Parents who care about their children just as much as you do about yours. An astonishing idea, eh?’

  All around us faces stared, ears strained, as it became evident there was a second scene to be witnessed. Matt and Harriet looked our way too, with the same slanting expressions of concern.

  ‘Gayle, please, just tell me what’s going on. Tell me if I can help.’ But, met only with hostility, I appealed to one of the staff, the young man about whom, just last week, I’d made lascivious remarks to impress Lara. ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘Would you mind stepping back, please,’ he said, ‘while we follow procedure? We’ll be reopening the pool shortly.’

  By now Gayle had turned from me and rejoined her daughter. I shuffled backwards before meeting the resistance of the crowd and stood quite frozen, not knowing what to do or say or think, not daring to do or say or think anything at all. My eyes began to leak: tears of anxiety for Harriet or of personal shame, I didn’t know. Other parents, other children: Gayle’s words burned.

  I said her name again and she didn’t react. I felt the withdrawal of others’ attention, a collective shift from me, a shunning. As I heard the pool manager explain to Gayle that an ambulance was not required after all but that she should take Harriet herself to Accident and Emergency ‘just in case’, I started to sob.

  Then I felt a hand on my arm, the caress of a thumb over my skin. Lara, I thought. She’ll make it all right. That weird conversation, that rift, w
ill be meaningless now. This will restore perspective.

  ‘Come with me,’ Angie said. ‘You look like you might need a drink.’

  I turned, mouth open, brain reactivating. Not Lara, Angie. ‘Have you seen Molly?’ I cried. ‘Do you know where the girls are?’

  She put an arm around my waist. ‘I’ve just sent them all to my place. Let’s go and find them. They’re just a couple of minutes ahead of us.’

  ‘Is Lara with them?’

  ‘No, she’s at a meeting in town.’

  I followed her through the throng – it parted only sluggishly, for Angie had not the same effect as Lara – to the queue for the turnstile.

  ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘You’ve had a shock, that’s all. No one was hurt.’

  ‘I feel terrible,’ I told her. ‘Gayle … Did you hear what she said to me?’

  Though I couldn’t see Angie’s eyes through her sunglasses, I caught the flicker of an averted gaze. ‘She’ll understand. Of course Molly would be your first thought. How could she not be?’

  I almost wailed. So she thought I’d meant ‘Thank God not Molly,’ too. ‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I insisted. ‘I didn’t know what I was saying. I love Harriet.’

  ‘I’m sure you do, darling. Don’t get upset.’ Her voice was both soothing and hollow, not solace enough and yet the only salvation on offer.

  As we passed through the turnstile, I felt like a different person from the one who’d stormed the barriers ten minutes ago. Even the scent of the cut grass had turned, tinged now with rot.

  Angie led me through the park gate and across The Rise to her house on Steadman Avenue. The swept path and immaculately pruned roses compounded my sense of unreality, as if I were being led into an illusion of a suburban house, a trick done with mirrors. In the hallway she called up to the floor above, ‘Girls? Are you there? Come down a moment, will you?’

  Reluctant footsteps on the stairs produced first Eve, then Georgia – both damp-haired – and next Molly, bone dry. All three appeared unperturbed.