by Karen Swan
‘The only way to warm up is to move,’ he called over. ‘Come on.’
He set off, his powerful arms like rotary blades cutting through the water. She swam in his slipstream and quickly realized she was easily able to keep up for once. It was years since she’d last swum, but she’d been in the swimming club at school and had a natural style that made the years fall away. She quickly found her rhythm, synchronizing her breathing with her arms, and crossed the water effortlessly, happily.
Within a few minutes, she couldn’t care about the temperature or the fact that she couldn’t see the bottom – a growing exhilaration built within her as she swam nearer to the banks, beneath the willow trees that dipped their tendrils into the water, and near the reeds. Then she turned and swam in the opposite direction, out of Henry’s wake now, lost in the moment and her own body’s rhythm. She liked the peace that came from controlling her breath, the heat that came from pushing herself, and she wondered why she hadn’t come back to swimming sooner. Possibly because Gil couldn’t swim, she supposed.
After a while, without particularly noticing where she was in the pool, she turned on to her back and just floated, forgetting everything – even Henry. She let the other bathers’ exertions in the water rock her gently, and she basked in the sunlight, unaware of the way it caught her costume as she bobbed along.
‘You never told me you were a mermaid,’ Henry said quietly, and she opened her eyes to find him floating next to her.
‘You don’t know everything about me,’ she replied enigmatically.
‘Clearly not,’ he said, staring at her, and she remembered how his eyes had scoured her when she’d been standing on the side. She stared up at the sky, watching the clouds drift, aware of a change in the atmospheric pressure between them. There was a subtext to their words, questions in their eyes. She was beginning to wonder whether he hadn’t forgotten Venice after all, whether what hadn’t happened had stayed with him as it had with her. And yet neither of them said anything. He was engaged to be married, and only a missed whisper testified to the ambiguity of their friendship.
‘You’re a natural. Some people really don’t take to wild swimming,’ he said after a while, and she could tell that he too was staring up at the clouds now.
‘I didn’t think I would. I’ll never forget the time I was swimming in a river when I was about nine and a snake skimmed past me.’
‘I can see how that could put you off,’ he conceded.
‘I’m loving this, though. I think I could definitely do this again.’
‘I know some great ponds further up the Thames in Berkshire that would blow your mind.’
‘Well, I’m game for that. We could take a picnic and see if Suzy and Arch want to come too. And Lacey too, of course,’ she added hurriedly.
‘Yes.’
An older woman in a sturdy turquoise costume and pink swimming hat with rubber flowers glided past doing a majestic breaststroke and gave Cassie a sniffy up-and-down with her eyes as she passed, and Cassie realized that, as she floated on her back, her golden breasts rose out of the water like queenly treasures. So much for hiding in the water.
She ducked her legs down so that she was treading water again. Henry looked across at her.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, his voice deep and relaxed.
‘Racing you to the bank,’ she replied, and set off in a sleek crawl.
‘Hey!’
He raced after her, but her refined technique meant he couldn’t close the gap between them and she kept her lead. She wanted to giggle with delight, but she kept her composure and sliced through the water. She was just about to put a hand to the steps when she felt his fingers close round her foot and drag her backwards through the water towards him so that she slammed against his chest.
She could feel his heart hammering behind her.
‘That’s not fair,’ he panted in her ear. His breath felt warm against her neck. ‘You had a head start.’
‘Maybe,’ she said breathlessly, ‘but you’ve got a height advantage.’
Stretching past her from behind, he had one hand on the handrail of the step, and one arm clasped round her stomach, which was practically bare. She suddenly grew very aware of her body’s movement against him. She felt his fingers spread against her skin slightly, and her muscles tensed beneath them. She was just wondering how it was possible to feel so hot under water when a yell alerted them to a teenage boy running down the platform, closely followed by four others, and then he made a flying leap and did a bomb entry into the water.
‘Time to get out,’ Henry muttered, releasing her.
She climbed the stairs as quickly as possible, horribly aware that he was probably staring at her bottom, and that the teenage boys had stopped their charge down the ramp and were noticing her barely-there costume.
‘You have some not-so-secret admirers,’ Henry said, nodding towards them as she clutched her arms across her chest, as much to hide herself as to keep warm.
She got back to the rug as quickly as possible, almost diving under the cover of the towel again, whilst Henry just stretched out and air-dried in the sun. He closed his eyes and was asleep within moments, just like he had been that night in Venice.
She watched him for a bit, nervously, worried he’d suddenly open his eyes and catch her out, but he was properly asleep. She gazed at the slow rise and fall of his chest, remembering how it had felt pressed to her back in the water, at the way he slept with his palms up, his body language utterly open.
Life felt so easy and charmed and golden with him, somehow. To hell with it! She threw off her towel and lay down next to him in the ridiculous costume. She closed her eyes as the sun pounced on her like one of its golden maidens, and felt herself finally succumb to the other thing she’d been resisting all day – sleep.
Chapter Forty-Four
It was mid-afternoon when they woke, and she was immediately grateful for the sun lotion Henry had insisted upon slathering on. The pond was absolutely jam-packed now, with hardly a patch of grass free and scarcely a cubic inch of water either.
‘We’ll get going after we’ve had lunch,’ Henry said, opening the hamper and passing over one of the distinctive vintage china plates Suzy had been collecting for years and some mismatched silver cutlery. He handed her a small wine glass and poured some red wine from a half-bottle.
‘Aren’t you having any?’
‘Can’t. I’m driving,’ he said.
Then he opened a parcel wrapped in greaseproof paper and string and took out some rare fillet of beef, pre-sliced, a small waxed cardboard box of potato salad (wrapped in what appeared to be vintage wallpaper) and a cloth-covered jam jar filled with beautifully pink beetroot horseradish.
‘Are you serious?’ Cassie gasped as the chic little picnic was revealed. ‘Whatever happened to soggy sandwiches and a Twix?’
‘I’m afraid I can’t pretend to have made it myself,’ he admitted.
‘Don’t tell me – you’ve got a friend . . .’
‘Yeah, Zara. We were at university together.’
‘For which ology?’ Cassie teased.
Henry grinned. ‘She’s just set up a vintage catering company, so I asked her to do this hamper for us. She left it in the car at about five this morning, on her way to Wimbledon.’
‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured, taking in the lovingly prepared spread. She looked up at him. ‘It never ceases to amaze me what people can do with food. I mean . . .’ She held up the jar of horseradish . . . ‘This just makes me so happy. Crazy, right? To be made happy by a sauce.’
‘Not in the least,’ Henry replied, watching her. ‘Zara would be delighted to see your response. She could have just packed it all in Tupperware with paper plates and plastic cutlery, but she’s got a bit of style, a sense of ceremony about things. I think you’d like her.’
‘I know I would,’ Cassie said, cutting the beef. It was cooked to perfection.
They ate happily, ignoring the covet
ous glances of their neighbours stuck with packets of crisps, and then packed up to get ready for the ‘final leg of the list’, as Henry called it.
The Flying Tomato – his name for the car – stayed north, taking them past high stuccoed townhouses, through Regent’s Park and across the top of Hyde Park before finding a tiny parking space that only a classic Mini, motorbike or cat could have fitted into.
They were in Notting Hill now. She’d been here several times before, meeting prospective brides with Suzy, but had only ever passed through. They ambled lazily down the Portobello Road. The wine, sleep and sun (not to mention climbing all those stairs and the wild swimming) had left her deeply relaxed. She was in her element, talking first to one stallholder, then another. Henry tagged along, thoroughly bemused.
‘You’re not a department-store shopper, are you?’ he asked as she deliberated over a vintage flour sifter, even though she had no kitchen of her own.
‘Nope. I’ve not set foot in a supermarket since cooking with Claude. I think it’s really important to support independent enterprises. I’ll take it, thanks,’ she said to the stallholder, handing over the cash.
‘Mmmm,’ Henry hummed thoughtfully, as they started walking again.
‘What?’ she asked, her curiosity piqued by his tone.
‘Well, I just wonder whether it would be worth you meeting up with Zara.’
‘Your vintage catering friend? Sure, I’d love to.’
‘No, I don’t just mean as a social thing.’ He stopped walking and looked down at her. ‘She needs someone to come in on the business with her. It’s too much for her to cope with on her own, and you’d be perfect.’
Cassie’s eyes widened. It would be a dream opportunity! And a lot more realistic than the one Claude had proposed for her. Catering for picnics – albeit fine ones – was much more within her capabilities. At least to begin with.
‘Oh, but I don’t . . . well, I can’t bring any financial investment. At least, not yet. And she’d need that, wouldn’t she?’
Henry shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. She only mentioned it to me the day before yesterday when I placed the order.’ He narrowed his eyes slightly. ‘What about the divorce settlement?’
Cassie looked away. ‘Oh . . . it’s not finalized yet.’
‘What? Ten months later? I thought you weren’t contesting anything?’
‘Not the estate, no. I had to sign a pre-nup, and I’m very happy to receive what it states. It’ll be more than enough for me to start up somewhere.’
‘So what’s the problem then?’
‘Gil won’t back down on the reasons. He doesn’t want it to cite his “unreasonable behaviour”. He wants it to be “irreconcilable differences”.’
‘What! Are you bloody kidding? He does what he did to you and then refuses to admit what he’s done?’ Henry had gone red in the cheeks and his jaw twitched angrily.
‘It’s fine – really, Henry. I’ll sort it out. My lawyer’s on the case.’
‘Oh, I’m sure! And meanwhile it’s costing you three times what it should, all because he doesn’t want it written down in black and white for the world to see.’
Cassie sighed and looked down at the sifter in the brown paper bag. She understood why her friends got so agitated about this. Kelly, Suzy and Anouk had all reacted in the same way. But they didn’t seem to see that their reactions upset her even more.
‘Unless . . .’
She looked back at him. ‘Unless what?’
‘Unless he’s just using that as an excuse.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Maybe it’s the ideal stalling tactic. He knows you’re not driven by money, but that you do have a strong sense of justice. Maybe he’s using it as an excuse to stop the divorce going through.’
‘He wouldn’t do that.’
‘Why not? Have you spoken to him? Have you seen him since that night?’
‘Well, no. I . . . There’s nothing to say.’
‘Not for you, maybe. But what if you read it wrong? What if he never wanted to leave you?’
Cassie fell silent. There was a strange logic to his words. She’d assumed Gil’s bullishness on this point stemmed from pride, from not wanting to sully the family’s good standing. Was Henry right? Had she left before Gil could explain? Could there be another explanation?
She swallowed hard, determined not to relent now, not after everything she’d done to get over him. And it didn’t seem likely, anyway. He and Wiz had a child together. There was nothing ambiguous about that. ‘I’ll get my lawyer to step up the pressure,’ she said finally.
Henry look unconvinced.
‘Are we going in here?’ she asked. They had stopped outside a building with a vertical blue sign and ‘Electric’ written on it in dot matrices.
‘Yes.’
‘It’s a cinema?’
‘The oldest in London. And unlike any other.’
He picked up the tickets he’d reserved earlier and, having bought another bottle of wine – ‘I can have two glasses now,’ he said – they went through to the auditorium. She saw what he meant as soon as they walked in. The white walls with blood-red plaster panels and velvet curtains were familiar enough, but she hadn’t expected the wide leather armchairs with footstool and tables instead of the velour flip-up seats that made your head itch.
‘Where are we sitting?’
‘Over here.’
He led her towards the back of the theatre, beyond the back row to a nook where a couple of small sofas were nestling.
‘Cosy,’ she said approvingly.
They sat down, the lights still up. The film wasn’t due to start for another few minutes and he poured the wine. ‘If I start to snore, just jog me awake,’ she smiled, looking at her large glass before taking a sip.
‘So, have you enjoyed your London list?’ he asked, stretching his long legs out, and she felt his thigh muscles relax and rest against hers.
‘Yet again, you managed to put a twist on everything. I don’t know how you do it.’ She put a hand on his arm. ‘Thank you. It’s meant the world to me.’
‘Glad to have been of assistance,’ he said.
‘But will you write it down for me?’ she asked. ‘Only I’ve kept the other ones. I reckon I’ll get them framed, ready for the day when I have a downstairs loo to call my own.’
‘Sure. I’ll do it now. You got any paper?’
‘Uh . . .’ She looked around her. ‘Oh, use that.’ She handed him a white napkin from the table.
He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re going to one day frame that?’
‘Well, it’s not as if the other lists were particularly illustrious. New York’s is on a piece of notepaper and Paris’s is a postcard.’
‘Okay,’ he said, sitting up. ‘Excuse me, have you got a pen?’ he asked an attendant who was showing people to their seats in the row in front. ‘Right . . . so, first one: “Whisper a secret in St Paul’s Cathedral”. It’s cheaper than seeing a shrink, and you can unburden yourself of any secrets that are making you unhappy.’ He looked up at her with a sardonic expression. ‘Such as your pressing and debilitating phobia about cats.’
Cassie gave an embarrassed shrug.
‘“Two, go wild swimming at Hampstead Heath”.’
‘Dressed in a gold swimsuit. Go on, add that,’ she ordered. ‘That was the worst bit of all.’
‘You looked like a goddess,’ he laughed. ‘They’ll be talking about you there for years – the golden mermaid in Hampstead’s sylvan glades.’ Cassie smacked his arm and he laughed even harder. ‘You did, though.’
‘“Three: buy something vintage at Portobello Market”.’
‘I love my sifter,’ she cooed. ‘I’ve been looking for one of those for years.’
‘“Four: catch a classic at the Electric, and five . . .” ’ He stopped speaking but carried on writing.
‘What are you writing? What else have I got to do? I thought this was it.’
She
leaned over to see what he was writing, but the lights went down and music blared from the speakers and she looked up to see the red curtain reveal the screen, which was flickering into life with the film board’s ratings certificate.
He handed her the napkin and she squinted to see what it said.
‘Stay in London, no matter what.’
It was close to midnight by the time Henry dropped her at the door, and the combination of a nineteen-hour day, too much sun and far too much wine had had a soporific effect on her. She yawned as Henry put his key in the door.
‘Henry, you are truly exhausting to be around – but also the most fun I know,’ she smiled, resting her head against the wall.
‘Fun?’ He looked down at her, his expression intense and as inscrutable as ever. ‘You make me sound like a Butlin’s rep.’
The thought of Henry in a coloured coat dancing on stage with foam dinosaurs made her giggle lazily, as if her body was too tired to find the energy to laugh.
‘Okay, okay then – you are the most . . . exciting,’ she giggled, leaning in towards him teasingly. But as she did so, she saw something flash in his eyes – determination, desire, recklessness. It was a look she’d seen before, in Venice, and a current charged between them, pulling them inexorably towards each other so that she suddenly found herself in his arms, their mouths open, their bodies desperate. He rolled her against the wall, pushing up against her, pinioning her with his arms, his leg pushed between hers as they tried to push their bodies into one.
It was nothing like their first kiss ten years previously. It was the kind of kiss that stripped away inhibition and fear, the kind of kiss they’d spent all day avoiding, the kind of kiss that had spent ten years on simmer and suddenly shot past boiling point, the kind of kiss that left her panting and wet and desperate for more.
But she wasn’t going to get more. Henry suddenly let her go, just as the door opened and Suzy flung it wide.
‘Oh, it’s you two!’ she said, not appearing to notice that Cassie was holding the wall for support, her breath rapid and her lips a crushed, wet pink. ‘I thought I heard the keys in the door. What are you doing standing out here?’