The Swimming Pool

by Louise Candlish

  She looked ahead in the vacant way I knew meant she would rather walk on hot coals than talk about it.

  ‘It’s completely normal. I think it must be amplified because we’re in a small flat. I promise it will stop. After tonight. We’ll be back to school in a few days’ time and everything will be back to normal.’

  ‘Thanks for reminding me,’ she said.

  Beside me, her stride was short to the point of reluctant, and as we reached the lights on the high street I took her arm to stop her crossing. ‘Are you sure you want us to go to this party? Because we don’t have to. I mean it.’

  Did I – did I – give her adequate time to reply? Certainly there was enough time for me to notice that her face was flushed the most lovely pink, making a mockery of the unnatural hues of the make-up she wore, the clogging black fingers of mascara. The dress she’d chosen, fitted on top and full-skirted, accentuated her new curves.

  ‘No, I want to come,’ she said. She seemed nervous but determined, and I was proud of her. Then, more matter-of-fact than anxious: ‘Dad isn’t very happy, is he?’

  And I had a rush of memory, of saying those very words to my grandmother towards the end of my summer in Stoneborough. I hadn’t had any communication with my father during my stay and the new school year was about to start, my family status uncertain. Gran had replied, ‘If we didn’t feel unhappy some of the time, we wouldn’t know how to recognize happy’, a life philosophy I had not forgotten.

  ‘Maybe not today,’ I told Molly. ‘But things change.’

  I’d lost track of whom Lara had co-opted for the job of set designer, but whoever it was had done her proud. Strings of variously sized paper lanterns criss-crossed the café terrace in a solar system of blues; potted palms and sand-coloured beanbags were scattered in a chill-out zone to one side of the sundeck; on the whitewashed brick wall opposite the bar, classic pool scenes flickered (when we arrived, Dustin Hoffman was gliding under water in The Graduate, but it was only a matter of time before Alain Delon would saunter in and steal the show). Outside, a barbecue smoked; inside, frozen blue margaritas were served with pink straws and watermelon garnish.

  The band would be playing outdoors on the far side of the sundeck, their backs to the pool, which was, as promised, strictly decorative. Hundreds of pastel-hued helium balloons bobbed over the water, and I smiled to imagine Lara charming the lifeguards into tying string after string to the lane dividers.

  Noting the abundance of rope barriers and ‘No Access’ signs, I thought of how, as recently as two months ago – had I by some miracle been able to persuade Molly here – I wouldn’t have been standing sucking a blue margarita on arrival, but sweeping the site for hazards as one might for a daredevil toddler. I wouldn’t have let her out of my sight. I would have experienced the whole event as if the phobia were my own, tracking her like one of those surveillance cameras with a motion-sensitive lens.

  This was so different as to feel surreal, like being in someone else’s family, living someone else’s life. Watching her slip away in search of her friends, seeing her pop up in the queue for the barbecue, as if a deathly peril did not lurk a splash away: it was what I’d always wished for – and I was not about to complain of being abandoned.

  Besides, there were plenty of people to talk to. Of the throng at the bar, I recognized the mainstays of Lara’s set: Angie and Stephen, of course, as well as Andrew and Douglas, David, the neighbour who’d taken me for an inveterate loafer, and his wife Suki. No Gayle, Craig or Harriet, but Alice was there with a group of her friends and I made a point of catching up with her first.

  ‘How’s Harriet? She had quite a scare the other day.’

  Alice, already tipsy, was reassuringly friendly. ‘Hmm, still feeling a bit sheepish. She hasn’t been back here since.’

  ‘She shouldn’t be sheepish,’ I protested, and the girls, whose jug of cocktail was drained to the ice, joked that this was a tongue twister. As we chatted, all I could think was how very young and smooth their faces were; how big multi-generational gatherings only emphasized the exquisiteness of youth, the unintended reproach of it. Alice mentioned that her parents were at the Vineyard and I told her I would try to drop in on my way back, if it were not too late for Molly.

  Though Molly was in cahoots with Georgia and Josh, I could see no Eve.

  ‘She’s running a temperature,’ Angie told me, ‘so we made her stay at home with Milena.’

  ‘I bet she was cross about missing this.’

  ‘Oh, livid, but if she’s got some virus we can’t let her infect the whole neighbourhood. She’s run down, needs to recharge before term starts.’

  ‘Don’t we all.’ I studied more closely her pink gingham dress and wide hairband. ‘Are you Brigitte Bardot, Ange?’

  ‘I am! I would have come barefoot but I thought I might get trampled on when the band starts. Stephen is, I don’t know, generically summery. He’s already rumpling, look.’

  In a white linen suit, Stephen’s solid physique looked cumbersome, unmanageable. It seemed impossible that he had torn off his clothes so recently and plunged naked into the water.

  All at once, fingers hooked my waist, compliments crooned in my ear: ‘What a sexy dress! Couldn’t have picked a nicer one myself.’

  ‘Lara!’ She looked extraordinary even by her standards, sheathed in a green-and-yellow maxi dress, her hair fixed smooth and high in that sixties way, eyes huge and spellbinding, mouth the exact pink of the watermelon garnish. ‘You look astonishing,’ I said.

  She pouted. ‘Miles says I hover between costume and homage. I’m not sure if it was meant as a compliment, but you know what? That’s how I’ve chosen to interpret it.’

  I couldn’t help but contrast this with Ed’s charmless comments – and my own ugly response.

  Lara lowered her voice, the syllables tickling the skin on my neck: ‘So, you came on your own, then?’

  ‘Yes. Well, with Molly.’

  ‘Good. I hoped you would. I’ll get Georgia to keep her occupied.’

  At that moment Georgia, in a sunflower-yellow crocheted beach dress, was locked in a kiss with a very conspicuously off-duty Matt, while Josh and Molly were fixated on their respective phone screens. At least poor Harriet wasn’t there to witness it.

  Lara’s voice became more public again: ‘Miles, look! Natalie’s here, and she’s on her own. We’ll need to look after her.’

  Miles stepped forward, tanned and dissolute-looking in a pale suit, so similar in style to Stephen’s I wondered if they might have co-ordinated in Rat Pack costumes or some Riviera equivalent.

  I kissed him hello, at once feeling the nervous energy but unable to tell whether it was mine or his – mine, most likely. It was the first time I’d seen him since our encounter there the previous weekend, but much had occurred in the intervening days, not least Lara’s shared – and retracted – concerns about Ed. Had he dispensed with the issue so easily? It certainly appeared so. The only problem was the one I’d caused by escalating it with Ed.

  ‘Isn’t the pool beautiful tonight?’ I said.

  Miles gave a half-nod. ‘Hmm, balloons.’ He spoke as if he’d never seen anything so absurd in his life.

  ‘La says you don’t like to swim. I hadn’t realized.’

  He narrowed his eyes, whether in acknowledgement or denial I couldn’t tell. It was another detail Lara had dismissed without a care but, expert that I was, I sensed something deeper than idiosyncrasy. ‘Did something happen when you were little? Like with Molly?’

  As compassion flooded me, his gaze lit with sudden interest. ‘All this summer and you only ask now? Why, I wonder?’

  His tone was good-natured, ponderous rather than critical, and I couldn’t begin to fathom what he meant by the question. It didn’t help that I now caught Stephen’s eye, had the impression he had been staring, and allowed myself to become flustered.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy. It’s none of my business. Lots of people don’t swim
.’

  ‘There doesn’t always have to be a reason,’ Miles said, as if in agreement, and it made me think of Gayle’s comment that not everything had to be a dramatic medical event.

  ‘You’re right.’ I considered telling him how grateful I was that, with the help of his daughter, mine was conquering a lifelong phobia, that with the help of his wife, I was conquering neuroses of my own, but I decided against it. The truth was, I did not know what to say to Miles and was not sure I ever would.

  As my gaze strayed over his shoulder, my smile froze on my face.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Would you just excuse me for a minute, Miles? I need to check on Molly …’

  To my horror, she was standing, quite alone, in the last place I would have expected to see her: in the prohibited zone, at the main-entrance end of the pool, barely a metre from the edge. Her back to the water, she began taking slow measured steps towards the emergency doors at the rear of Reception. The main entrance was closed this evening, a side door in use for the party, so at least she would not be seen and reprimanded, but that was hardly my first concern. Abandoning Miles, I hurried to the edge of the sundeck and leaned over the rail, waving wildly.

  ‘What are you doing over there?’ I yelled. ‘Come away!’

  Turning by the fire doors, she caught sight of me and at once made her way towards me, walking close to the wall at the cautious pace of a cat entering unfamiliar territory. ‘Don’t shout,’ she admonished, and as she approached, her eyes radiated fury.

  ‘The pool area’s off limits,’ I said at normal volume. ‘You know that.’ I could hear the slight shake in my voice. ‘You mustn’t go out there again, understand? There’s no one on duty.’

  ‘Fine. Sorry.’

  We both caught our breath. ‘It’s OK,’ I said, instinct telling me to leave the matter there. ‘Come and hang out with me for a bit.’ She ducked under the railing and hovered expectantly beside me, as if waiting for me to pitch for her custom.

  ‘Look, isn’t it pretty inside from out here?’ I tried, and we looked through the window together, my hand on her waist. The whole interior was bathed in ultramarine from the film footage, the light striking off the guests’ drinks and phones, off their silver fingernails and studded ears and bared teeth. With Molly safely by my side, I was filled with sudden wonder that this glamorous, rarefied spectacle could be happening in Elm Hill and that we were a part of it.

  Turning to seek similar emotions in her response, I saw instead pure relief.

  ‘Here’s Dad!’ Her voice lifted and then she was darting past me into the bar.

  ‘Dad?’ I was slow to react, thinking initially that she’d just said the first thing that popped into her head in order to give me the slip. But, astonishingly, she was right: there was Ed, chatting to Liam, passing him some folded banknotes. A conflicting chain of thoughts ensued: he was here, he hadn’t given up on me, thank God! Or was he here not for me but to confront the Channings? And, whatever his reason, how was his attendance going to affect my access to Lara?

  I waited a few minutes before collecting a fresh margarita from the bar and sidling up, Molly having already greeted him and gone. ‘I’m so glad you decided to come,’ I said.

  He turned with the scarcest of smiles, as if we were not husband and wife, or even friends. ‘Nat, hello. I thought you’d be busy helping out?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve done my bit,’ I said vaguely.

  ‘In that case, can I have a quick word?’

  He ushered me to the quietest corner of the deck, not far from the spot where I’d just hailed Molly, next to an open window. On the far side, Angie and Stephen chatted with David, Suki and another couple, while Lara talked to two men whose civilian clothes placed them with the band. Miles was nearest us, having drifted indoors with a woman I half recognized from my lido afternoons with Lara; his grip on his drink was crushing, as if the glass might crack, and I had a queasy premonition of sliced flesh, of blood dripping to the floor. I was aware of nerves and that they were connected with him, with the danger of his looking up and spotting Ed, deciding to come over and face him down about Georgia.

  ‘I’ve been thinking,’ Ed said.

  ‘Oh, yes?’

  ‘I know this isn’t the best time, I know it’s your birthday and you just want to enjoy the party, but I have to say it.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘No more.’ As I reacted with a look of query, he snapped, ‘Stop pretending you don’t speak English, I’m serious about this.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘You said I can’t tell you who you should and shouldn’t spend your time with, and I’m not going to do that. But I’m making a request. And I’m saying that your choices will have consequences.’

  ‘What on earth do you mean, “consequences”?’ I demanded. ‘You’re speaking to me as if I’m a pupil you’re threatening with detention.’

  Ed’s expression was as severe as I’d ever seen it. ‘I’m saying what needs to be said. If you choose to carry on with this group, then I don’t know if I’ll be able to carry on with us.’

  ‘With us?’ I waited for my heart to skid, but it did not. It did not. For a moment I feared I might not experience any emotion at all, but then exasperation reared: ‘Have you gone completely mad? We’ve been married for sixteen years, we have a daughter! We’re a family.’

  ‘I know that, which is why it shouldn’t be hard for you to choose.’

  I paused, allowed the clamour of other people’s conversation to separate us. I couldn’t deal with this, not tonight. I needed to find a response that would please both of us, that would act as a placeholder. ‘I would never put you in that position,’ I said finally.

  ‘I would never put you in the position of having to put me in this position,’ Ed said.

  ‘Of course not, because you never do anything wrong, do you?’

  You never stand in front of a mirror with a friend’s hands on your body, her lips at your neck.

  ‘We’re agreed then?’ he demanded. ‘After this party, it’s over?’

  I glared at him, reacting correctly at last. I was frightened and indignant and impotent. ‘It doesn’t seem like I have a choice, does it?’

  He stepped away from me, the subject closed. ‘I’m going in to get a drink. I don’t think you need one, do you?’ It was less an offer than a judgement: I was drinking too much. It was not appropriate, not for an educator.

  ‘Ed?’

  He turned, his expression not open, but not closed either.

  ‘Why were you giving Liam money just now?’

  Now it slammed shut. ‘What – you think I’m buying drugs now, as well?’

  I gasped. ‘I didn’t say that!’

  ‘You didn’t need to. It was for your cake, Nat. Your fucking surprise birthday cake.’

  Shamefaced, fuming, I sucked at my straw, felt a chute of icy liquid hurtle down my throat, suppressed the reflex to splutter. Through the window I noticed Molly at a nearby table, on her own again, fiddling with her phone. I hurried inside, crouched beside her. ‘What is it, darling? Why aren’t you with your friends?’

  She looked faintly hostile and I knew I had not been forgiven for calling her away from the water as I had. Only now did I understand she’d been testing herself, taking the kind of leap of faith that had to be taken alone, and I’d blundered in, crying out, like the overprotective mother I was.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Can we …?’ And she paused, eyes unsettled.

  ‘What? You want to leave already? The band hasn’t come on yet.’ And I heard it just as she did, perhaps a split second before, the unguarded impatience, the touch of petulance that said, I knew this would happen. I knew you would ruin it for me.

  ‘It’s OK,’ Molly said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Over her shoulder Josh was gesturing, trying to get her attention.

  ‘No, it does matter, sweetheart.’ My tone was on t
rack, and my instincts too. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I shouted like a fishwife earlier. I was just concerned. This is all new to me too. We’ll talk properly in the morning, all right? I’ll be all yours.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Do you want to come with me and chat to some of my friends?’

  She said something then, in a mumble, not meant for me to hear.

  ‘What did you say?’

  She looked at me, defiance in her eyes, chin high: ‘I said, none of your friends are here.’

  Though I was taken aback, I didn’t allow my smile to waver. ‘That’s a bit rude, darling. They’re new friends, same as yours. I think Josh wants to talk to you, by the way.’

  And Lara wanted to talk to me. No sooner had Molly joined Josh than she was by my side.

  ‘After the band, I’ll come and find you,’ she said.

  ‘Ed’s here,’ I told her. ‘And he’s very cross with me.’

  ‘Oh dear. Should I recruit someone to keep him occupied?’

  She probably meant Miles, or else Angie or Stephen, but putting Ed together with any of the group was not one of the better ideas I’d heard that evening.

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll make sure I’m alone.’

  ‘I look forward to it,’ she said.

  33

  Sunday, 30 August

  The jazz quintet was all that Lara had promised, a swinging and throbbing and keening musical brew, its hypnotic fixed point an almost motionless female singer with snaking raven hair and sultry, trembling vocals. As the evening darkened, the intimacy between her and her audience deepened.

  I watched with Ed. My feelings for the man by my side, the man with whom I’d fused genes to create a little family and with whom bodily contact continued to be made as the crowd on the terrace stirred and shifted with each change of tempo – well, those feelings underwent several stages. First, I consciously refused to give headspace to his ultimatum; next, having failed in the first, I was deluged by resentment of his self-righteousness (not helped by the evident ease with which he was now enjoying the music – at Lara’s invitation, at Lara’s expense); then came remorse, the veracious, irrevocable knowledge that he was the victim here and not I. I had forced him into a corner, not the other way around. Last, as a break in the crowd in front allowed a glimpse of green-and-yellow print, the sight of Lara swaying to the music, I forgot he was there at all.