by Sue Gee
At weekends, she and Oliver were on duty for Tom – every other Saturday in turn, and Sundays together. Dutifully they met other families from school; they took Tom, and assorted children, on outings. Walking across Hampstead Heath, watching the kites fly on Parliament Hill, wandering from snake-house to ape-house at the Zoo, Frances thought about Dora. She set scenes, she replayed conversations, she wrote and rewrote her eternal letter.
‘Wake up,’ said Oliver, as they reached the top of the queue in the Science Museum, or as he saw her, hands in her pockets, pacing about while the children gazed up at specks of blue and red amongst the clouds.
‘Sorry. I was miles away.’
‘You’re always miles away.’
‘Sorry. I’m here now.’
On Monday morning, as every morning, Frances was one of the first in the office, and Dora, with the much longer journey to make across London from Barnes, was one of the last.
Frances put the coffee on and sat at her desk beneath the skylight window. Up at her desk near the blue swing-doors Elaine was sorting the post, greeting Derek, who came in looking the worse for wear, and Jocelyn, who looked fresh and fit and ready for anything, beaming at Frances as he went past. Kate came in swearing, dumping a bulging briefcase of books on her desk, and Dora, a few minutes later, arrived looking like none of the others, neither flustered nor out of sorts nor needing to ingratiate herself, although she greeted everyone. She looked as if she had just been thinking something over and was now collecting herself, ready for what came next; she looked, taking off her navy jacket and hanging it by the doors, pouring a coffee, walking down the office with her easy, graceful stride, like someone perfectly approachable, receptive and warm, but whose life was already interesting enough for her to need few new approaches. And Frances, as always, watched her coming, returned her smile, and thought: you know how to be and you outshine all the rest. You’re the one. It’s as simple as that.
‘And how was your weekend?’ Dora asked her, putting down her shoulderbag, picking up her post.
‘Fine, thanks.’ Frances got up to get herself a coffee, and collect from Elaine her own post. She came back with a pile of letters and manuscripts in Jiffy bags, carefully balancing the mug in her other hand.
‘Can you manage?’ Dora asked, looking up, tugging open a packet of transparencies.
‘Yes, thanks.’ She put it all down on her desk. ‘What about your weekend?
‘Dreadful,’ said Dora calmly. She put the packet aside, and sipped at her coffee. ‘Oh, that’s better. Sophie is one long mood these days: I suppose we shall live to see the end of it, but sometimes I wonder. She has a New Boyfriend.’ She looked at Frances with comic meaningfulness, and Frances laughed.
‘What’s he like?’
‘Mute. Never mind, more of him another time, perhaps. Now, what have we here?’ She slit open a cardboard-backed envelope, plastered with Please Do Not Bend. ‘Aha, the Scottish islands. At last. They’re rather good …’ She put on her glasses and slipped glossy photographs one by one off the pile, spreading them on her desk, carefully moving the coffee. ‘They’re very good, in fact, come and have a look …’
Frances went over. She stood beside Dora looking at black and white islands drowning in mist, wild seas and storm clouds, a rowing boat left on an empty shore. Together they discarded one that was overdramatic, another which verged upon the sweet.
‘Brilliant,’ said Frances. ‘Do you want to show them to Jocelyn? And I’ll go and give Philip a ring, shall I, to say they’ve come? He’s supposed to be delivering final copy this week.’
‘Okay.’ Dora was putting the photographs carefully back in a pile. She turned and touched Frances on the shoulder with affection. ‘How about lunch? Are you free? Then I can tell you about the boyfriend.’
‘Lovely,’ said Frances steadily. ‘Yes, let’s,’ and went back across the room to her desk, walking on air.
‘Tom all right?’ Dora continued in passing, taking all the photos down to Jocelyn.
Frances sat down in her swivel chair and reached for a cigarette. ‘He’s fine,’ she said, lighting it. ‘He’s fine, thanks.’
‘Frances?’ said Claire, beside her. ‘Do you want to talk?’
‘No.’ She opened her eyes. The dinghy was out of sight, and the water smooth and unbroken again.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’ She wrapped her arms round her knees, letting the cigarette burn on itself, and a thin tendril of smoke rose from between her fingers. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have told you anything, it isn’t fair to involve you – and anyway I don’t want to. Please let’s just forget about it.’
‘Can you forget about it?’ Claire said, after a pause.
Frances was silent; she started to smoke again. ‘No, of course not. But I’ve lived with it for a long time, I’ve come to terms with it.’
That is clearly a lie, thought Claire, but she said only, ‘Well, if you change your mind, I’m here.’ She looked round. ‘I wonder where Jessica and Oliver have got to.’
‘Yes.’
They had left them up in the village: at the point where the two roads met, Frances, remembering she was almost out of cigarettes, had asked where the shop was. Claire and Robert hesitated, wanting to get down to the river and leave the shop for later, when it was cool.
‘I’ll show you,’ said Jessica. She stood on the cobbled slope with her hands in the pockets of orange shorts, which suited her deepening tan. Long thick hair beneath her straw hat fell on to her shoulders, bare arms honey-coloured against white top. She’s beautiful, Frances realised, watching her smile. ‘It’s just down there, you follow the road round to the right. I’ll take you, if you want.’
‘All right, thank you,’ said Frances, but Tom, holding an end of the dinghy, said impatiently:
‘I want to go to the river!‘
‘I know, Tom, it’s all right, we’re going. I just need some cigarettes, that’s all. Wouldn’t you like to come and see the shop?’
‘No.’
‘Well, he can come with us,’ said Claire, but Frances, aware that there had already been enough of this kind of thing, wanting to make a fresh start today, refused.
They all stood for a moment, undecided in the heat, a detectable irritation beginning to rise.
‘Oh, I’ll go,’ said Oliver. ‘Come on, Jess, you can show me, all right?’
And they set off down the hill.
‘Don’t expect Rothmans,’ said Robert to Frances, as they made their way down the other street, past staring children. ‘Who knows what Portuguese fags are like?’
‘They’ll do,’ said Frances. ‘Anything’ll do, so long as it’s tobacco.’
‘Thank God I’ve given up.’
And now, waiting for Oliver and Jess to reappear, she stubbed out her cigarette in the sand, and said to Claire: ‘I’m sure they’ll be here soon. Shall we go for a swim?’
They got to their feet and waded out into the water, which despite the morning’s heat was still cool, a shock to the skin.
‘I think,’ said Frances, as they stood together, preparing for the plunge, ‘it’s time you talked to me about your life.’
‘There’s not much to tell,’ said Claire, feeling, indeed, that there wasn’t. I have everything I ever wanted, she said to herself, remembering the last time she’d thought that, looking out on the garden in London, waiting for Frances, rediscovered, to ring at the door. She had thought then: is it right for anyone to have so much? Isn’t something bound to be taken away?
‘I’ve done it!’ Frances, lithe in the water, lay on her back, looking at her. ‘It’s wonderful – come on.’
Claire took a deep breath and followed, gasping. And striking out, gradually growing accustomed to the chill, she wondered: well, what should I say about my life? Behold, here it is. When I was young – in the days when I knew Frances – I tried to imagine what the future would be, and I tried to shape it: moving to London, teaching, getting abo
ut, getting my heart broken. Then I met Robert, and forgot about shaping – everything fell into place, and I was too busy just being alive. And here I am, and here is everything: work, family, friends.
Then why, she asked herself, swimming steadily upriver, should I feel now, when Frances asks me to tell her about myself, as if there is still something missing? Why should I feel as if there is still something waiting to happen, waiting for me?
She was passing the hayfield on the left, bordered by trees: stooks like witches’ hats stood drying in the sun. Frances, a stronger swimmer, was far ahead of her now. I suppose, Claire thought, pushing unhurriedly through the cool brown water, that if I did not think that, I might feel that my life was over.
‘Actually, there are two shops,’ said Jessica, as they came out of the dark interior of the first. She stood at the doorway, a pile of plastic washing-up bowls on one side, soft rush brooms propped up on the other, trying to remember. ‘The other one’s a post office as well.’
‘That’s useful,’ said Oliver. ‘Shall we try and find it? I need to get some stamps anyway.’
‘I think it’s on the other side of the village … on the other road, you know, the one that comes up past the house. But it’s not anywhere near the house, it’s sort of going the other way …’
‘I hope you never have to lead an expedition,’ he said drily, dropping the cigarettes into his pocket, and Jessica smiled.
‘I’m hopeless with directions.’
‘Come, come. Well, if it’s on the other side of the village, I think we just carry on along here, don’t we? This must cut through.’ An old man, leaning on a stick, was coming up to the shop, behind Jess; Oliver put out an arm and moved her away from the entrance, so that he could get past. ‘Let’s have a look,’ he said. ‘I’m sure we’ll find it. Or are you desperate to get in the water?’
‘No.’
They walked along the cobbled street, past grubby little girls in polyester frocks, sitting in doorways with broken dolls. Plastic strip curtains hung in the doorways; they could hear women’s voices behind them, and a radio coming from somewhere, fuzzily tuned to pop. Further down the street was a gap between two houses, roofed with vines: beneath it, two or three young mothers were washing clothes in a stone sink fed by a single cold tap in the wall. Like Guida, they used a thick yellow bar of soap; the water in the sink was grey and scummy. This was where the radio was playing, propped on a window-sill. Children with unbrushed hair ran sticks idly up and down the wall or sat with their heads bobbing to the beat; grey speckled hens with scarlet combs and luxuriant feather trousers, quite different from the scrawny birds up at the house, picked their way over the cobblestones. As Oliver and Jessica walked deeper into the village they passed more hens, penned behind chicken wire in tiny gardens or in rotting sheds, and hutches of brown rabbits, feeding on limp greens.
‘I remember all this now,’ said Jessica, as the street divided again, leading steeply ahead of them uphill and branching off to the right to pass a little barnyard. ‘It’s up there, the post office, up on the main road. And there’s a café-bar next door, I think. Dad and Geoffrey used to go there in the evenings, sometimes.’
‘Did they?’ The air was scorching; Oliver, though a strong walker, felt sweat drip down the back of his neck as they climbed. ‘Tell me about last year,’ he said, more to engage Jessica’s attention than out of real curiosity. Since they left the shop she had barely spoken, and he wondered if she was bored, if she would have much preferred to join the others at the river straight away. But after last night, he felt the need to explore, the need for distraction and a change of scene, and he wanted, in any case, to set the house in context, to begin to understand the village and the area more fully.
‘What were the other family like?’
Jessica shrugged. ‘Okay. We’ve known them for years – Jack and Neil are in the same class.’
‘And your parents are good friends of theirs?’
‘Linda and Mum are. Well, Mum’s got millions of friends.’
‘Yes,’ said Oliver. ‘I can imagine.’ A little brown bird in a wooden cage nailed to a wall was chirruping listlessly overhead, as if it, too, were finding the heat exhausting. But it wasn’t only the heat which was slowing him down; it was the aftermath of the broken night, a sleepless hour afterwards. That might account for Jessica’s silence, too, although at breakfast and ever since she had seemed quite recovered.
‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘Do you have millions of friends?’
She pondered. ‘I think I’m a bit fussy.’
He nodded. ‘The chosen few.’
Jessica didn’t answer; perhaps she didn’t quite understand. Not for the first time, he found himself wondering if Claire’s invitation to join the family holiday here had more to do with lack of discrimination than a genuine desire for their company in particular. Of course, their friends had had to cancel, but still. He could imagine neither Frances nor himself making that kind of move towards someone they hadn’t seen for so long. If anyone was discriminating, it was Frances.
They were nearing the top of the street, passing small detached houses with shady gardens. The mountain road ahead was, he realised, the road they had taken yesterday out of the village to the market town, and he could hear the steady clip-clop and tinkle of a bullock cart climbing the hill. Hearing that sound recalled their reasons for coming and drove away much of the night’s disturbance: here, in a foreign country, the growing silence between them in their ordered life in London might be broken. But he didn’t want to think about it now. Far more pleasant, after last night, to push away the sight of her, sitting wanly up against the pillows this morning, and focus on the pleasant company of Jessica, who interested him.
‘So what sort of things did you do last year?’ he asked her.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Swam and mucked about, I can’t remember. The dinghy was the best, it’s really nice.’
‘Can your row?’
‘Of course.’
‘Perhaps you can take me out in it later, then.’
‘All right.’
They were out on the road.
She nodded down towards a letter-box in a wall, a metal icecream sign on a stand. ‘That’s it. Do you want to get your stamps?’
‘First I want to buy you an icecream,’ said Oliver. The bullock cart, piled high with timber, swayed towards them, the animals yoked by a leather harness stained with sweat. Their eyes were gentle and dark and enormous; their mouths foamed.
He touched Jessica lightly on the shoulder. ‘Lead on.’ Inside the little post office, hung about with pots and pans and toys, a doorway on the left led straight into a tiny café-bar: a jukebox, three spindle-legged tables, a dozen cheap chairs and a counter. More chairs and tables stood outside, beneath an awning of vines. Using his phrase book Oliver purchased his stamps from a diminutive woman in a print overall and spectacles. He flicked through the book for ice cream, but Jessica knew it already. ‘Gelado,’ she said to the little woman, who smilingly lifted the counter and led them through the doorway to the café. They bought cylinders of strawberry and vanilla wrapped in paper.
‘We used to have ices a little like this when I was a child,’ he told Jessica as they came out into the sun.
‘Was that before the Flood?’ she asked innocently, licking round the top of hers.
He looked at her, and laughed. ‘What a nerve.’ A car was coming up the road behind them: he shepherded her on to the verge. ‘Now. To the river. Yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said, peeling away a little of the paper at the edge. The bullock cart was out of sight; they turned down the cobbled street, retracing their steps with less effort, though the sun had risen high.
‘Your father was saying it rained quite a bit last year.’
‘Yes,’ she said again, ‘but it was okay. We played lots of games.’
‘But not chess.’
‘No.’ They walked on. ‘Actually,’ she said, as they came to the fork in
the road again, ‘this year’s better than last.’
‘Is it really?’ He turned to her, surprised. ‘Why’s that?’
She looked down at her ice cream.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It just is.’
‘Here you are,’ said Claire, looking up from her book. ‘I was beginning to wonder. God, you look hot.’
‘It’s boiling,’ said Jessica. ‘Where’s the dinghy?’
‘Dad’s taken the boys out – don’t look so cross, I’m sure they’ll be back soon. Come and have a drink.’ She unscrewed the Thermos. ‘Oliver?’
‘Please.’ He lowered himself on to the sand. ‘Where’s Frances?’
‘Still swimming – she went on past the island. She’s good, isn’t she?’
He nodded, taking the cup. ‘Stronger than I am.’ He drank thirstily, brushing an insect off his bare arm. ‘That’s better. I think I’ll have a swim while we’re waiting. Jessica has kindly offered to take me out in the dinghy.’
‘Have you, Jess?’
‘Unless,’ he added quickly, ‘you and Robert –’
‘No, no, you go ahead, there’s plenty of time.’ But how interesting, she thought, pouring Jess more squash, that she should be the one to get through to Oliver, so formal, so withdrawn. So dangerous, she thought suddenly, recalling his explosion at Tom in the blinding heat of the maize fields, on their first walk down here – and then she dismissed it. Everyone had been a little on edge then, their first full day together, Tom overtired and overwrought, and everyone, after all, shouted at their children sometimes.
‘I’ll swim, too.’ Jess was pulling her shirt off over her head to reveal the shiny green swimsuit. She shook out her hair, in a gesture long habitual, but which was, Claire realised, beginning to look different: she was not just older, but more self-aware.
Beside her, Oliver, too, had peeled off to his swimming trunks; he and Jessica were treading the warm sand down to the water’s edge. And here was Frances, returning, swimming across from the hayfield on the far side towards them.