by Meg Mason
Abi began to laugh, accidentally taking in a mouthful of water. She spluttered and coughed until her eyes streamed.
‘Serves you right,’ Phil said. ‘All right, out we get.’
As they made for the ladder, Noel swam past, smiling at them every time he turned to breathe.
‘Look, I join in from time to time, but the conversation’s terribly uphill,’ Phil said as they wandered home. Jude had woken up but was making dove noises in the pram. ‘When a group of my age peers gets together, things are wont to become unpleasantly medical. I’m sure you’ll meet them soon enough and be brought up to speed on the state of Noel’s prostate.’
Abi gave Phil what she hoped was a knowing look, but privately the idea of sitting in on a coffee morning excited her, no matter how old the others were and how prostate-focused the conversation was likely to be.
‘Well, a good day’s graft, I think Abigail,’ Phil said as they parted at the gate. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll put that mouth of yours in on purpose.’
And every day after that, they met at the same time. And every day, another measure of progress was made. Stu began his semester, and for Abi and Phil too it seemed, the lessons became a chief occupation.
Abi forgot to be embarrassed when she splashed too hard while dog-paddling towards the edge, with Phil’s hand holding her lightly under her stomach. The feeling of it, being supported from below, sometimes made Abi forget to move her hands, and she would drift into a kind of meditation. Jude, increasingly alert, could be raised up in his pram seat, and would sit watching the movement of the water, while gnawing wetly on his hands that had unfurled from fists like poppy heads. And somehow, in the midst of it all, Abi was able to put away the fact that she should have cleared up the lingering misunderstanding about her mother already.
By now, summer was fading towards autumn. Leaves from the overhead trees began dropping into the water, collecting as dark triangles in each corner of the pool. Phil’s singular interest was finishing the job before the water got too cold.
Sometimes in the afternoons, Abi would return to the pool and try to practise what she had learned that morning, but without Phil there to stand beside her, dispensing instructions and praising good work, the sessions felt formless. Mornings were the thing, and Abi’s days found shape around their standing appointment.
When Phil decided the water was too fresh for her, she began instructing Abi from the side, plucking Jude out of the pram whenever he grizzled. He was instantly calmed by the proprietary way Phil had with him, laying him along her forearm, tummy down, and patting his nappied bottom firmly with her other hand. More than once, Abi looked up at them and let herself believe Phil was really his grandmother.
On the first day of April, a morning that dawned clear and fresh, Phil announced it was the day to join up everything Abi had learned.
‘Everything at once? Arms, kicking, and face totally in?’
‘Precisely. You’re amply ready and the only way to do it, is to do it. And best with eyes open so you don’t knock your head on the edge.’
‘Oh. I don’t think I can open my eyes,’ Abi pleaded. ‘I think it might be bad for my retinas. I’ve got really sensitive ones. What about if I do all the other things and we could do eyes another day? Or not. I could be more of a closed-eye swimmer. We could train Domenica to be my swimming-eye dog.’
‘Abigail, don’t be tiresome. I’d like this to be done before we’ve got to crack ice off the pool. Just open the ruddy things and we’ll all be relieved to find they don’t explode out of their sockets.’
Abi dithered until she sensed Phil becoming genuinely cross. Inhaling deeply, she pushed off on her stomach and let herself drop below the surface. Her eyes prickled when she opened them, but as they came into focus, she saw in front of her an endless green behind a mess of bubbles like liquid silver. The world was silent, except for the faint clicking of her breath reaching the surface. When there was no more air in her lungs Abi burst out of the water. ‘You can see everything down there!’
Phil only smiled as Abi wiped curtains of wet hair out of her eyes and dived under a second time, beginning the one long lap that had been their object for so many weeks. As she pushed herself through the dense green towards the deep end, she saw Phil’s hand reach into the water. Abi took it and let herself be helped out.
‘It doesn’t even hurt! Oh my gosh, Phil! Oh my gosh!’
‘Surprise, surprise,’ Phil said, but her pleasure was plain. ‘I think we’ve got a real swimmer on our hands, Abigail.’
28.
Dust in my flutes
All the way back from the pool, Abi kept up a stream of chatter. ‘Imagine!’ she said, steering the pram with one hand, trying to keep her towel around her with the other. ‘Me, a swimmer! I never even thought of trying to learn, if I’m honest. But that’s because I’d have to have done it at Waddon Lido, in Croydon? And I always felt like being in a public pool in London’s a bit the same as being on the Tube with a lot of grubby strangers, except you’re all floating around together with your kit off.’
Phil looked suitably revolted.
‘But down there,’ Abi went on, ‘it was like the Maldives or something! Thank you so much, Phil. Honestly, thank you.’
‘Really, you can stop saying thank you, Abigail. You’ve done all the work. I was simply the prodder.’
Soon they arrived at Phil’s house. She paused, her hand on the gate’s latch. ‘What about a spot of lunch, Abigail? I think we deserve a little celebration, don’t you?’
‘Really? Okay! Yes, thank you. Okay!’ Abi said, unable to hide her ecstasy at being invited inside.
She followed Phil through the gate and parked the pram in the courtyard, watching as Phil reached into the hanging planter and used a single key to unlock the door to her dim, cool kitchen. With Jude in her arms, Abi followed her in. As her eyes adjusted to the light, the scene developed like a photograph.
Here it was. Here was what she wanted. Here was everything that reading Malory Towers to yourself on a twin bed and eating Müller caramel rice with a bent fork was not. Here was life lived in thick layers. A scrubbed pine table, big enough for ten, stood in the middle of the flagstone floor. It was scattered with mail, New Yorkers, notes to self scribbled on backs of envelopes. A fruit bowl in the centre contained lemons, garlic and a pair of reading glasses.
Phil flicked on a small radio, which emitted the low purr of a classical music presenter, saying something about the third movement of something by the Polish philharmonic something, and began bustling about, opening cupboards and leaning into the fridge. Its surface was cluttered with handwritten lists and children’s drawings and newspaper cartoons that fluttered every time she closed or opened the door.
While Phil’s back was turned, Abi let her eyes range further, unable to fix on any one part of it. It was not a mess, of the kind Abi so hated. It was comforting, homely. From the threshold, Abi could see past the window seat, through to a large front room washed in sunlight pouring through French doors that looked out onto the harbour. The furniture was gently worn but plump and heavy-looking, not the sort that sank in the middle or slid across the floor as you went to sit down. Oriental rugs overlapped at their corners, occasional tables held dishes, bowls, large blue and white china vases, and tall potted orchids. Every wall was hung with framed pictures in oils so thick her fingers twitched to feel the ridges. She had never seen a house filled with so many things that were there only to be pretty. How, she wondered, could one person have all that beauty to themself?
Abi turned back to the kitchen as Phil took a bottle of champagne out of the fridge. ‘Frederick used to say if you don’t keep a bottle of fizz cold, it says a great deal about your outlook. You can’t be expecting good news, do you see? Well, come in, sit.’
Abi realised then that she wasn’t dressed or even dry, and hesitated beside one of the rush chairs. ‘I’m still quite drippy though.’
‘I’d be more worried about what the chair migh
t get on you. I’ve never been a scrubber, do you see? The Woolnough detritus, Fred used to call it. Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, I’m afraid I’m rarely braced for good news anymore but I suspected we might have cause for celebration today, so I put this in this morning. I’m gasping, I don’t know about you. Another great tragedy of widowhood – one doesn’t open anything one can’t finish on one’s own.’
Phil put the bottle of champagne down on the table, shoving aside a pile of mail and quartered newspapers, their half-done crosswords facing outwards. ‘Goodness, do excuse all this,’ Phil said, pushing it aside. ‘Frederick used to rib me dreadfully about my piles.’ The bottle began to bead in the still, warm air of the kitchen. ‘Why don’t you put the babe in the corner of the window seat there, make a little whelping box of it with a few of those pillows.’
Abi did as Phil said, digging her clothes out from underneath the pram and pulling them on as she returned inside. She sat down and watched Phil take two tall champagne glasses out of a cupboard and inspect them, displeased. ‘Oh marvellous, dust in my flutes. Doesn’t that say it all? I’m in the dusty flute stage of life.’
‘Good name for your memoir though. Dust in My Flutes,’ Abi said, silently savouring the fact that here she was, at Phil’s table, having a lovely chat and a special drink. And the promise of lunch to come. She glanced over at Jude, who had fallen asleep in a patch of mild sunlight. His knees had dropped out to each side, and the soles of his feet were pressed together, plump legs making a perfect diamond.
‘Ha, indeed. Life, Loss and Grubby Christofle by Phyllida Woolnough.’
Phil rinsed and dried the glasses and set them down, opened the bottle expertly and poured.
‘Now, you did say you had time for lunch? Nowhere you need to be?’
A bubble caught in Abi’s throat and she coughed. ‘That could be the name of my memoir. Nowhere I Need to Be: The Life of Abi Egan.’
‘Well pip-pip, dear then,’ Phil said, raising her glass. ‘To new tricks.’
29.
Lettuce can tolerate a setback
Lunch turned out to be a lot of posh sandwich fillings without the bread. Chopped up tomatoes mixed with basil and oil, cheese out of waxy paper, olives, and lettuce from a pot by the back door that Abi was sent out to pick.
‘If you’ve got a leaf, you’ve got a meal,’ Phil said, pointing towards the back door with the vegetable knife held in her wet hand.
‘I feel like that about a Twix,’ Abi said and then smiled when Phil laughed, as though again she was joking.
Outside, Abi carefully plucked a few tips of buttery green lettuce from a planter, trying not to uproot the whole flimsy tangle.
Phil glanced down at the offering Abi brought in and put beside the sink.
‘No no, dear. You’ve got to give it a real seeing to. Lettuce can tolerate a setback. Rather like us, don’t you think? Have another go, would you?’
The second harvest was accepted, and while Phil whizzed up a dressing in a jar and chatted on, Abi stood sipping her champagne. How did Phil manage it without having to tip her head all the way back? Gradually, she edged nearer to the farmhouse dresser against one wall. Besides a lot of blue and white dishes, Domenica’s lead and a pile of prescriptions held together with a clothes peg, it held dozens of family photographs in heavy silver frames, beginning to tarnish. Abi edged closer and inspected them one by one.
‘Ah, yes.’ Phil said, turning to lay two lots of everything on the table. ‘That’s Polly there, at her graduation. She read law like her father, a surprise to no one. That’s Briggy on the pony.’
Abi gasped, and covered her mouth. Phil was still talking and did not seem to notice, even as Abi leaned in and stared aghast at the girl in the photograph. She could not have been more than thirteen when it was taken, but it was undoubtedly her, smiling out from beneath her riding helmet.
‘Briggy had the most endless-seeming horse phase,’ Phil continued. ‘And that’s dear James there. He really was the most charming boy. Kind, desperately amusing. Such an all-rounder at school.’
There were three photos of James to every one of the others, in rugby clothes, or rowing, on the side of a mountain with ski goggles pushed up his forehead. Always laughing at the camera, not knowing that his garish ski jacket would one day give him the extra measure of deadness Phil had heard about on the radio.
Sighing, Phil picked up the final photograph of a boy of about fourteen in school blazer and tie. He had smooth, olive skin unscathed by puberty, a head of thick russet-coloured hair, and the most brazen grin. ‘This, of course, is the wicked Freddie.’
Abi looked over at it and wondered what such a magnetic child would be like as a man.
‘I wouldn’t get too close,’ Phil said, as though reading her mind. ‘Brigitta tells me he’s apparently lethal to girls, although it’s not a mother’s business of course. Right, I think we’re about ready. Why don’t you put yourself there, and you’ll be able to see Jude, although he looks to be sleeping the sleep of the righteous.’
Abi sat down and, for a moment, panicked at the lack of a sliced white. The salmon did not looked cooked, but then she wasn’t sure it was definitely salmon. ‘This looks amazing.’
‘You do eat trout, I hope. It’s smoked. Lord, how nice it is to set two places, Abigail. There’s really nothing more drear than cooking for one. After the children moved out and it was just Fred and I, it took me an age to stop cooking for six, and now I’m reduced to these dire spinster teas.’
‘I don’t cook either,’ Abi said, accepting whatever Phil put onto her plate. ‘We had more of your ready-meals and whatnot, growing up.’ She felt herself lurch onto hazardous ground, a reference to childhood that could invite further question. She fell silent and focused on knifing the translucent layers of trout into smaller and smaller flakes that she hoped would be easier to swallow.
Phil did not take Abi up on her recollection. In the quiet of her own kitchen, where it seemed as though the world outside the back door had ceased all doings, Phil became reflective. ‘Fred used to call my particular school of cooking “survival fare”. He’d often ask how I could turn out another lot of leftovers, without ever seeming to produce the meal they must have come from. But you lose any gourmet pretensions when you’ve got boys roaring in from training. Your only aim is to fill. It could be terribly snug in here, Frederick was rarely home at that time, but they would all sit up, even as teenagers they would eat at the table. I’d come around behind, you know, serving whatever it was. That’s it, Mum, slop it out.’ Phil glanced around the room, as though watching a different self go around the table with pot and spoon. ‘Freddie was such a tease, of course. Come on Mum! James will take a second blob.’
Phil looked down at her plate. ‘Good Lord, I seem to have fallen into a brown study.’ She pressed a linen napkin briefly to her nose. ‘It’s simply, Abigail, that I’ve known this house at its fullest, do you see, and this luncheon is the first time since they all left after the funeral, that it isn’t me and my dreaded tray. I feel as though I’m living out an ending,’ she said morosely. ‘The fag-end to be sure. Lately, I’ve come to think it’s entirely my fault. I wonder, did I force them all away?’
‘I’m sure you didn’t.’ Abi could not believe anyone would ever want to get away from Phil. ‘I’m sure you were a lovely mum. Are, I should say.’ Abi blushed and tried to spear an olive with her fork.
‘I was lovely – when they were out. Truthfully, they exhausted me. I spent years wishing they’d go and slam someone else’s doors.’
She paused, and then put an olive in her mouth with her fingers. Abi set down her fork. ‘Well,’ Phil said, ‘I seem to have got my wish. Do you know, Abigail, I’ve never told a soul this but I insisted they all went to school in town for a proper education but if you pressed me, it was so they wouldn’t be home until half five. Ha! What I’d give for a slamming door now.’
Phil stood and made her way slowly to the kettle. ‘Shall we share a p
ot? Lapsang’s all I’ve got loose, I’m afraid.’
When the tea had brewed, Phil set the pot and two teacups on the table. ‘Will I be mother?’
Abi looked at her, bewildered.
‘It means, will I pour, dear,’ Phil said. ‘Now, I’ve been meaning to ask, tomorrow I thought I’d do a recce into David Jones and if you and Jude have no plans you might like to accompany me. I’m in the market for a whizzier heater for in here, before the weather really turns, but once we’ve done that, I thought we’d have a bite of something in the food hall.’
Phil was half asking and half telling. Abi shifted in her seat, being for once unavailable.
‘Oh. It’s only that Stu has a whole day off tomorrow and I thought I would show him my swimming. I haven’t told him about the lessons so it could be a surprise.’
‘Of course. Tomorrow’s Saturday. I forget.’ Phil covered a small yawn with the tips of her fingers. ‘Well, I’ve certainly had my last swim of the season so I suppose there’ll be no more mornings at the pool for me.’ She smiled impassively and picked up a teaspoon.
Abi put a ragged cuticle between her teeth. It felt as though a small punishment had been meted out. Until that moment, she had never considered summer would end.
‘Well, thank you for the lovely lunch.’ She did not want to cry in front of Phil and hurried to collect Jude, asleep on the window seat, and take him home.
‘You don’t need me to see you out,’ Phil said, rising. ‘But very well done today, Abigail. Goodbye, dear.’
When Abi got upstairs, the flat seemed emptier than it had before. The stark white of the walls, the windows staring at her like gormless, unlidded eyes. The pull-out with its worn fabric and shredding armrests mortified her. She felt overpowered by the familiar homesickness that, after so many years attached to nothing, had suddenly found its object. She laid Jude carefully in his cot, and realised then that the only thing was to kick the wall until her stupid toe bled all over the fucking carpet.