by Sarah Moss
I sent Rose into the women’s changing room with her bag and clear instructions to find Bella’s mum and follow Bella’s mum’s instructions to the letter, and then I waited in the lobby by the windows overlooking the pool, as if gazing into an enclosure at the zoo. Swimming pools, I thought, may be the only place in England where you can look at a person for several minutes without recognising his or her social class. I remembered a professor of English in Berlin telling me about an experiment in socio-linguistics which suggested that a Dane needs to speak Danish for four minutes before another Dane can guess his social background, level of education and regional identity. It is two minutes in France and about five seconds in England, and in fact I don’t think we wait five seconds, I think we know before a word comes out and I dare say that someone more knowledgeable than I am would be able to make such a judgement by seeing a person in a pair of swimming trunks. But it is harder than when people are clothed. I saw Bella’s mum appear in a pale blue swimming costume spattered like a curtain with pink roses and ruched across the breasts, looking as if she’d been getting dressed when fire broke out in a country cottage owned by the National Trust and had wrapped herself in the nearest vintage tablecloth on the way out. All right, harder than when men are clothed.
‘Excuse me.’ One of the angry women from behind the desk. Rose – an incident—
‘Only we’ve had comments.’
I looked at her. Late middle age, older than me, wearing a green tracksuit with the leisure centre’s logo embroidered over the left breast. Worn plastic shoes.
‘Some of the mums don’t think it’s right, a man standing there watching the kiddies like that.’ She glanced towards two young women standing with pushchairs at the door, one speaking on her phone and the other gazing at the screen of hers. ‘Mentioned the police and all.’
I looked at them, at her, back at them. The one on the phone turned her back and the other looked away.
‘I was waiting for my daughter,’ I said. ‘Waiting to see that my daughter had come through the changing room and was in the water with her friends. Then I was going to go sit in the gallery and do some work, because the birthday girl’s mum wanted me to stick around in case any of the boys needed help with anything.’ In case there are bad people there. Well, bad men, men like me who look at children, menace them with our gaze behind which anything at all could be going on in our heads, acts of depravity, thoughts about swimwear and the class system or an anxiety about running out of milk (which we would do if I didn’t buy some on the way home).
‘Well, I wouldn’t hang about here if I was you. Giving the wrong impression, see.’
I looked at the women, who were probably calling on the body-building fathers of the children in the pushchairs to come and deal with the paedo hanging around the kiddies, who had perhaps already taken pictures of me to post on social networking sites.
‘I’m looking for my daughter,’ I said again.
‘You said that. Where’s her mum?’
Oh for— ‘Having an edgy Bohemian lunch with my other daughter, last time I checked.’
Do you want me to phone her, I wanted to say, but after all nothing in this depressing encounter was the woman’s fault. I saw Rose come out of the changing room, talking to Phoebe, whom she likes mostly for her long red hair, as if she might acquire it by association. Rose waved to me and I waved back.
‘There she is,’ I said. ‘And now, if it won’t upset anyone, I’m going to go sit in the gallery and read until I’m needed. Though I can’t promise not to look up every so often.’
‘I’d just be careful, if I was you. ’Cause most people would say you can’t be too careful around kids. Not these days.’
Not her fault, not her fault, badly paid and tired and badly educated, only doing her job. It’s men, I thought, men who can’t be too careful around kids. If you get lost, I’ve told the girls, find a mum with children and ask her to help.
I went up to the gallery, took one of the red plastic seats on the top row, from which I could see the chewing gum and graffiti on the seats below. Kim loves Mikey. Meena gives head. Ben 4 Kayla 4 evah. I opened a book about the new towns of post-war England, the dreams of a new country to be built in concrete on the ashes of élitism and hereditary privilege, and despite the screams and splashes below me I was, more or less, concentrating on it by the time Molly’s mum came running up the stairs, a towel wrapped around her like a strapless gown, wet footprints in her wake, to tell me that there had been an incident, that it was Rose.
the sense of doom
She had started to wheeze. She wasn’t turning blue. You could maybe see the dip in her throat sucking air the way Dr Chalcott had told us to look for in Miriam, and you could see her ribs rising and falling under the damp pink swimming costume. Call an ambulance, I wanted to say, call a fucking ambulance right now, get her some oxygen and charge the defibrillator, because you can’t be too careful with kids, not when they’re yours and they stop breathing. Call a fucking geneticist, because the doctors told me this wasn’t going to happen and they were wrong, weren’t they, they were wrong and I was right. She was sitting on the side of the pool and there were three mums around her, three mums and a first aider and me, and a whistle in her chest that I could hear from standing. She looked up at me with wide eyes and I thought she’s panicking, she’s hyperventilating, and then I remembered the sense of doom that is an early symptom of anaphylaxis, or, as Mimi would say, a normal and indeed desirable response to losing your airway—
‘Find someone with a blue inhaler,’ I said to the mums. ‘Rosie-pose, you’re OK, it’s just a bit of wheeze, people often get them when they go swimming.’
Get her to say a sentence, if she can’t finish a sentence we need an ambulance, although as Mimi says this rule does not allow for the length of some people’s—
‘It looked as if you were having a good time. Who were you playing with?’
She took a breath. ‘Phoebe.’
The out-breath whistled.
‘What were you playing at?’
‘Otters.’ Whistle.
‘Tell me about the game.’
‘I’m scared.’ Wheeze on the in-breath. ‘I can’t breathe.’
Whistle.
‘You are breathing, sweetie. We’re getting you some help. You’re OK. Tell me about the game.’
I put my arm around her and over her head mouthed ‘Ambulance’ to Bella’s mum.
It wasn’t much of an incident, not really, not by Miriam’s standards. Not once your definition of serious involves the use of a defibrillator and the deployment of the air ambulance to bring a doctor. Two of the other party guests had blue inhalers in their mums’ handbags, and by the time I heard the siren in the car park and the men in green jumpsuits came purposefully to the poolside, outdoor shoes leaving grimy footprints on the tiles, there was still a descant to Rose’s breathing but her sentences had more than one clause and she had expressed a desire not to miss the birthday tea. We’ll just monitor her for a bit, they said, won’t take her in unless we need to, we’ve got nebs in the back, but get her round to the GP first thing Monday, OK, Dad? Pop some clothes on for me now, love, and we’ll just go sit in the ambulance for a while, I bet you’ve never been in an ambulance before, have you?
She stood up in her damp towel. You could see that her muscles and bones weren’t working so hard, that breathing was coming almost naturally to her body. My sister has, she said, my sister stopped breathing and then her heart started fibrillating and— That’s not what’s happening to you, I said, you just had a little wheeze, now go with Phoebe’s mum and get your clothes on and with any luck you’ll be eating your chips with everyone else in half an hour. And then I went to wait in the lobby outside the women’s changing room again, careful this time not to look at the kiddies or indeed at anyone else, careful to keep my gaze on my phone like a normal person.
a fire alarm in your head
I didn’t call Emma. We were still afraid o
f our phones, still began every conversation with everything’s OK. Everything’s OK, I just forgot to put toothpaste on the list; everything’s OK, only Rose is going to play with Molly so could you collect her on the way home. What would I say, while Rose ate pizza and chips with her friends, balloons drifting under their feet and a plastic banner reading Happy Birthday Bella blu-tacked to the breeze-block wall above their heads? Everything’s OK but. But double jeopardy, we could lose them both. But whatever the research says, I was right, it’s genetic, sorry. But don’t leave your lunch, don’t turn pale and sick and walk out of the bookshop leaving your arcane Christmas selections on the bestseller table, don’t walk dazed through the crowded streets, Christmas music jangling like a fire alarm in your head, to the station where you will then have to await the next train home. Don’t – this isn’t it. One day, I would have to make that call, or receive it. But not now. I sat on a plastic chair in the corner of the room and watched the children. They were all breathing. Bella’s mum put a paper cup full of sweet milky tea in my hand. Try not to worry, Adam, they’d have taken her in if there was any concern, you do know that, you do know that lots of children wheeze a bit sometimes, she’s maybe coming down with a cold, they’re all exhausted, aren’t they, by this time of year, such a long term, nearly twice as long as the summer term sometimes, when Easter’s late, no wonder they get all these bugs, just in time for Christmas. Do try not to worry.
outlive
Rose seemed to have forgotten about it when Emma and Mimi got home. The party was fine, she said, did you buy all my Christmas presents, did you get everything on my list, what’s in that big bag? Look, there was another of those bouncy balls in the party bag and mine’s purple and glittery, look. Not in here, please, Emma said, we keep telling you, something will get broken, take it into the hall if you have to throw it around inside. Well obviously I have to throw it around inside, Rose said, because we don’t have any outside space, do we, it would just bounce straight over the garden wall, and you won’t ever let me play in the street although the cars move about as slowly as a slug and I’m not stupid, I can hear them coming, everyone else in my class is allowed to play out on their own. Enough, Rose, I said, put the cake in the fridge and take the rest of the party bag up to your room, give Mum and Mimi a chance to unpack their shopping, OK? And put your swimming things in the laundry, please. Hi, Mimi, good lunch? Yeah, she said, I’m going to put some things away.
I put the kettle on. Em, I said, Em, as you can see everything’s fine but Rose got a bit wheezy in the pool. No swelling or anything, no sense of doom, not that I could see, and it all settled with two puffs of Fatima’s inhaler, but it did happen and Em, I’m sorry but she couldn’t finish a sentence so I’m sorry but we called an ambulance but it was fine, everything’s OK. Everything’s OK, I did not say, because she already knew it, everything’s OK except that it seems that neither of your children can be trusted to keep on breathing.
I saw her pause. Saw her body stop.
I saw her begin again. She reached into one of the book bags and pulled out a paperback promising to explain the previously unappreciated centrality of candles to the development of Western civilisation.
‘For your dad.’ She put the book on the kitchen counter, as if bargaining or beginning a game of chess. ‘She was wheezing. Rose was wheezing.’
I rinsed the teapot. ‘It started in the water, apparently. I wasn’t there. I mean, I was there but I was watching from the gallery, Jo said no need for me to go in the water with them so I thought I’d do some reading, try to get back into— Anyway, Lucy came to find me. Ella’s mum. It sounded quite—’ Quite bad. As bad as Mimi’s breathing has ever been. ‘She was a bit scared. So we borrowed an inhaler but because she couldn’t really finish a sentence and I thought I could see that chest thing, the tugging thing with the throat, I said call an ambulance. I mean, I could probably just have put her in the car and they weren’t sure she really needed the nebs anyway, it seemed to be settling just with the inhaler but – well, they didn’t seem to mind, anyway, they said I was right to call. But she’s fine, Em. Ate lots of tea and did some running around, she’s OK.’
Emma fiddled with Dad’s book. ‘Yes, she’s OK now. Oh Christ, Adam.’
The kettle boiled and I filled the teapot. ‘Yeah. I know. The paramedic said take her to the GP on Monday.’
Emma shook her head. ‘They won’t refer her anyway, they’ll just give her an inhaler, it’s not even enough for a diagnosis, one episode.’
I found the biscuit tin. However much lunch Emma had eaten, she needed more food. ‘Em, how likely is it that she’ll have anaphylaxis too? I mean, Mimi and my mother – I know they keep saying it’s not that simple but it bloody looks it from here.’
She sighed. ‘It’s really not. The tendency to allergies is obviously hereditary but expression varies enormously. I mean, you’ve never had a reaction to anything, have you? And not everyone with asthma has obvious allergies and not everyone with allergies gets asthma, and fatal or near-fatal anaphylaxis is rare, and fatal or near-fatal exercise-induced anaphylaxis is pretty much unheard of so—’
I poured her a cup of tea. ‘Yeah. I know. But I’m not really interested in the national mortality rate for exercise-induced anaphylaxis, I just want to know if Rose – I just want—’
She knows what I want. What we want. And being a doctor, she also knows that we can’t have it. Your daughters are always going to be all right. They are going to have long and happy lives in safe places and enjoy good health far into old age; they are going to see your grandchildren and your grandchildren’s grandchildren grow and live in wholeness and prosperity, and everyone will live happily ever after. That’s what we want. Although try this: if you could know what is going to happen, if you could know the lives and deaths of your partner and your kids and yourself, if you could know their loves and losses, triumphs and failures, sicknesses and last moments, would you? No. You think you want a story, you think you want an ending, but you don’t. You want life. You want disorder and ignorance and uncertainty.
‘I’m going to put these presents away,’ she said.
Mimi came down and sat on the sofa knitting while I cooked dinner. A hat for grandpa, she said, and look, she’d worked out how to do cables. He’ll like that, I said, something hand-made. I chopped onions. Rose sat on the floor with my laptop and watched cats on the internet; don’t worry, Dad, said Mimi, I’m keeping an eye on her. After a while, too long for her to have been on the loo or putting away presents, Emma came down and started to tidy up, rounding up Rose’s floorplans for her dream home (an entire floor for the cats, just under the rooftop swimming pool) and letters from schools. Dear Parents and Carers, as part of our Curriculum Enrichment Programme we are taking Year 3 on a trip to the Canal Museum – volunteers and helpers welcome please! I stirred the onions, chopped garlic. Emma was moving around the room but there was a stiffness in her shoulders, something closed in her face, that reminded me of the early days in hospital.
We ate. Even less than usual, in Emma’s case, and Rose already full of chips. Eat some salad, Rose, Emma said, never mind more carbs. Have an apple. Miriam talked about the new city library, and was amusing about their quest for the right place to have lunch. I passed on the gossip from the party: Holly’s mum is starting a business up-cycling vintage clothes (yeah, said Mim, put a bird on it, or maybe a yappy dog in gingham), apparently Jack’s dad’s given up his job, sick of commuting to London and never seeing the kids, but Jo’s going spare because he hasn’t got anything to go to and you know they just moved house. Emma doesn’t care, she never sees any of these people. Rose is sick too, she did not say, no-one is safe, breathe for me now both of you. Behind Miriam’s and my inconsequential talk, I heard the wash of fear against the walls.
Emma washed up and tidied the kitchen to her own standards, which are different from mine, while I persuaded Rose to get into the shower, helped her to wash her hair and, with some difficulty, persuaded
her to come out and dry herself: it’s too cold, she said, you should turn the heating up, and for a moment I wondered if it was my fault she had asthma, if greater generosity in the matter of fossil fuels and the gas bill would have saved her lungs. No, if anything, less use of fossil fuels, less air pollution, would have saved her lungs. We suffocate our children with our cars. Although not as fast as our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents were suffocated with smog and coal fires and steam trains, it’s worth bearing in mind. We are capable of improvement.
I dried Rose’s hair and required her to stop capering about naked and complaining of the cold, put on her pyjamas and get into bed. I read her the next chapter of The Railway Children, about which she is lukewarm and I enthusiastic, more because I know the bedtime-reading alternatives are worse than because I whole-heartedly endorse its oddly bourgeois socialism: it is instructive to experience poverty and wrong to despise porters, but even so the happy ending consists of the reinscription of the middle-class norm with Daddy’s return. I left her reading her preferred works about little girls and their ponies and went down to divide the Saturday newspaper and a box of mint chocolates with Mimi while Emma communed with her iPad, and then in the middle of reading about rising sea levels and melting ice, I found my mind composing a eulogy for Mimi, standing at the front of a crematorium’s chapel trying to find words for her wit that were neither maudlin nor mocking, trying to find the sentences that would let her go. No. There she was, licking mint fondant from her fingers while she read the travel section. I swallowed, blinked and tried to finish the article, but after a few more sentences I went up to see how Rose was doing.