Learning to Swim

by Clare Chambers

  We endured the booming without further comment until the entrance of the tenor singing ‘Anthem for Doomed Youth’ made it apparent even to Mr Radley that Bill’s fancy machine had been taping at half speed. He jabbed the eject button smartly. ‘Hmm, seems to be something wrong with the tape,’ he muttered, pocketing it. ‘I thought it sounded funny.’

  We stopped briefly to have a look at Ypres itself. In the cathedral a couple of elderly nuns were having trouble rigging up a new public address system. A length of electric flex was caught on the ledge at the top of a pillar and no amount of twitching would free it. I could see them eyeing their ladder with misgivings. It was propped unsteadily against the pillar, and wobbled when given an experimental push. I suddenly had an image of one of the nuns on top of the ladder like a pirate in a crow’s nest, and gave Rad a nudge to share the joke. ‘Look,’ I said, pointing in their direction. He must have mistaken my motive because he said ‘Oh,’ and immediately hurried over to help. A moment later he was scrambling up the ladder while the two nuns stood holding the base and looking up fearfully. I felt slightly humbled by this incident, though I wasn’t quite sure why.

  On the way out I stopped beneath the marble-white figure of Christ with his golden halo of thorns and lit a candle.

  ‘I didn’t know you were religious,’ said Rad, as I impaled the candle on one of the few unoccupied spikes on the rack which was spattered with molten wax like bird droppings.

  ‘Well, I believe in the crucifixion,’ I said.

  Rad looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, it’s just what would happen.’

  ‘You’re an atheist, aren’t you?’ I said – a daring word to utter given the surroundings.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t say that,’ he replied, holding the door open for me. ‘I’m just a Nice Person. Non-practising.’

  As we drove through the Menin Gate Mr Radley slowed down to point out the names carved over every surface. ‘See all those, Blush. Those are just the ones they couldn’t find to bury.’

  ‘Why couldn’t they find them? How could so many people go missing?’ I asked, bewildered.

  ‘Well, for instance, if you were hit by a shell the … er … pieces might not be all that large,’ he said.

  The museum at Hill 62 turned out to be a couple of damp and draughty rooms at the back of a bar. Glass cabinets containing German helmets, guns, swords, badges, and pocket watches, none of them labelled, ran along one wall. On the floor beneath were heaped rusty shell cases, field glasses, fragments of barbed wire, bottles and a collection of single boots, crushed, rotten and still caked in dried mud. A dressmaker’s dummy with a mannequin’s head on top stood in the middle of the room dressed in a green overcoat and gas mask and chipped helmet. On a trestle table was arranged a collection of wooden contraptions containing sepia transparencies. Rad immediately sat down at one of the boxes and started to crank the handle round. He beckoned me over and I took his place, peering through the lens and watching the pictures rise into focus and then into 3D. There was a group of soldiers leaning against the side of a trench, holding tin mugs and staring out at me with unsmiling faces and glazed, bulbous eyes; a partly decomposed corpse sitting propped in a dugout as if having a rest. The next picture was of a dead horse in a tree.

  Rad had wandered into the back room which contained still more unclassified militaria: guns, shell casings and more single boots. In the passage connecting the two rooms was, of all things, a plastic bubble-gum machine. Mr Radley appeared at my elbow, waiting until Rad was out of earshot before saying, ‘I might as well wait for you in the bar. No hurry – take your time.’

  In the woods just outside was an area of preserved trenches. These looked altogether less cosy than the grass and concrete recreations at Vimy. The soil was clay here, and was sticky and wet, even on a warm summer’s day. Sheets of rusty corrugated iron were propped against the walls, and there was a smell of damp earth and rotting vegetation in the air. Rad was walking along the trench, biting his nails with an air of concentration. He and Frances were inveterate nail-biters; Frances sometimes bit hers so severely that they bled and then she would appear at school with plasters on each stump like a victim of frostbite.

  At my feet was a perfect circle of large coffee-coloured mushrooms with skin like suede. I knelt down to feel one, and as I stroked the surface a tiny puff of spores exploded from the gills.

  ‘Abigail,’ said an urgent voice and as I looked up sharply there was a click and Rad lowered his camera, smiling. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  ‘I had my mouth open,’ I protested, flattered and pleased even so.

  ‘Ah, but you looked so natural. And the light was falling really nicely on those toadstools.’

  ‘Oh, well, I’m glad the fungus was showing its best side,’ I said, standing up and brushing mud from the hem of my dress.

  Rad wound the film back and flipped the roll out of the back of the camera. ‘It was the last shot anyway,’ he said. ‘It probably won’t come out.’

  So he had just taken it to use up the last exposure; not as a memento to take up to Durham and pine over: well, that would teach me to be vain. ‘Are you looking forward to university?’ I said, idly decapitating one of the mushrooms with the toe of one shoe.

  ‘Yes and no. The course looks good, and the hall of residence is a sort of castle, but it’s the thought of Fresher’s Week and having to be sociable that’s a bit intimidating.’ He paused. ‘And there’s things about home I’ll miss. I mean people, not things. In a way I wish I’d chosen London, like Nicky. But I suppose it will be good to get away from Mum and Dad. Dad especially.’ He looked around in some alarm. ‘That’s a point – where is Dad?’ I pointed towards the bar and was surprised to see his face fall. ‘Oh God. How long has he been in there?’ he asked.

  ‘Since we arrived,’ I said. Through the doorway I could see Mr Radley sitting at one of the furthermost tables, three empty beer bottles in front of him, in an attitude of deep contentment. He caught my eye and beckoned us over.

  ‘Oh shit,’ I heard Rad say under his breath. He looked furious.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, but he just shook his head.

  ‘Hello, all finished in there? Have a drink – I’m paying,’ said Mr Radley waving my two-hundred franc note.

  ‘I’ll just have a coffee as I’ll be driving back,’ said Rad venomously.

  ‘Oh, yes, good idea. That means I can have another beer. This Belgian stuff’s marvellous,’ his father said, summoning the waiter.

  When the bill arrived and Mr Radley settled up there was only a couple of francs change which he left on the table. ‘Terrible exchange rate,’ he said, catching Rad’s expression. ‘They’ve got you over a barrel.’

  ‘Inside a barrel in your case,’ said Rad, and stalked out to the car.

  Mr Radley smiled at me sheepishly. ‘I think I’ll stretch out in the back on the way home if that’s all right with you. All this bright sunlight makes me drowsy.’

  So Rad and I sat in the front, and he drove and I read the map and got us lost at a diversion near Armentières, and Rad got impatient – just like a proper married couple. Finally, when gentle snores from the back seat indicated that Mr Radley was asleep, Rad said, ‘Sorry I got annoyed back there. It wasn’t you. I’m all wound up because of Dad. I promised Mum I wouldn’t let him drink, and the minute my back’s turned …’

  My God, I thought. So that’s it. He’s an alcoholic.

  ‘He’s not an alcoholic,’ said Rad, and I blushed to have such a legible mind. ‘He doesn’t often drink, but when he starts he just keeps on until …’ he trailed off. ‘Mum’s going to be furious. The thing is, I don’t know where he got the money: I’ve been looking after all the cash.’ I blushed again and looked down at my knees.

  ‘He borrowed it from me,’ I confessed. ‘I didn’t know …’

  ‘Oh, he’s such a furtive little bastard,’ said Rad, a trifle loudly, for the figure in the back grunted and stirred in his sleep. ‘Here,’ he continue
d in a lower voice, easing his wallet from the pocket of his jeans and tossing it across to me. ‘You’d better take it out of there. He’ll never remember to pay you back, and I know you’ll be too polite to remind him.’

  Mr Radley woke up just outside Béthune, greatly refreshed and thoroughly pleased with our afternoon’s jaunt. Once awake, though, he found he didn’t like sitting in the back as it made him feel excluded, but insisted on leaning as far forward as possible, with his arms draped around the backs of our seats and his head jammed between us.

  ‘Have I missed anything while I’ve been asleep?’ he asked. ‘What have you been talking about?’

  ‘You,’ said Rad.

  Mr Radley gave me a beery smile. ‘You don’t want to take too much notice of Rad,’ he said in a confidential tone. ‘He’s all right at abstract things, like trigonometry, but when it comes to finer feelings he’s a bit deficient.’

  ‘You sad old man,’ said Rad mildly.

  Lexi and Frances were already dressed for dinner, painted and scented and sitting in the bar when we arrived back at the hotel. Frances was writing her journal and Lexi was reading her buttered biography of Jackie Onassis. They had been shopping for shoes but had returned disappointed. Determined not to come back empty-handed Lexi had bought Rad a shirt.

  ‘You didn’t need to buy me any clothes, Mum. I’ve got plenty,’ he said, looking at the new acquisition with dismay. It was orange.

  ‘Yes, and look at the state of them,’ she said, pointing to his leached grey T-shirt which had been washed so often it was now impossible to guess what colour it might once have been.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with this. I can’t just chuck things out because they’re old.’

  ‘Don’t try and make a virtue of your slovenliness,’ said his father. ‘Your lack of vanity is a form of vanity. We’re not fooled.’

  While I was changing for dinner there was a knock at the door and Mr Radley walked in. ‘Sorry,’ he said, putting one hand over his eyes as I dived for a towel. ‘Here’s that book I promised to lend you,’ and he slung an old Penguin copy of Goodbye to All That on the bed. Closer inspection confirmed my misgivings – an elastic band held it together, and when I tried to open it the pages sprang out and the whole thing collapsed like a deck of cards.

  The atmosphere at dinner was strained. Lexi shot her husband a surprised look as he beckoned the wine waiter over, then raised her eyebrows to Rad, who shrugged back. Frances broke the silence as two bottles of red wine were brought to the table, the waiter uncorking them briskly as though wringing chickens’ necks.

  ‘Who are these for?’ she demanded, glaring at her father.

  ‘Last night of the holiday. I thought we should celebrate,’ he wheedled, splashing wine into Lexi’s glass before turning the bottle on me like a loaded gun. I wavered. Rad and Frances both had their hands palms down over their glasses. ‘Don’t take any notice of those two wowsers,’ he said. After what Rad had told me I didn’t want to give Mr Radley any encouragement, but then I reasoned that if I said yes there would be less left for him. So I let him pour me a glassful, but resolved not to drink it.

  Lexi was dithering over the menu. During the holiday I had noticed that she was incapable of ordering a meal without interrogating the waiter as to its likely condition. ‘Does that come with a sauce? Is it a coarse pâté? Is it very rich/ sweet/salty?’ Likewise hardly a dish was ordered that was not sent back to the kitchen for some emendation: it was too rare, or overdone; too cold, or not cold enough. It wasn’t that Lexi was a fussy eater: it was simply a demonstration of self-confidence – a refusal to be meek and accommodating and British. My upbringing had taught me to view this behaviour as anti-social: on the rare occasions my parents went out for a meal they would sooner choke back raw liver than resort to such an extremity. Finally her decision was made. She had opted for the cheapest menu, perhaps as a rebuke to her husband who had not only chosen the menu gastronomique, but had selected only those dishes which carried supplements.

  Mr Radley was a great believer in shared eating and would shamelessly lean over and spear interesting morsels from everyone else’s plates, and force us in turn to sample his own dinner.

  ‘Get off,’ said Frances irritably, flicking a snail back on to his plate with a clatter. ‘Lawrence has already tried to make me eat those disgusting things once this holiday.’ There was a moment’s pause.

  ‘Oh, he turned up again, did he?’ said Mr Radley. He laughed indulgently. ‘Faithful old Lawrence.’ For a minute or two there was nothing but the sound of cutlery on china. Oh ho, I thought. Tension. Eventually Mr Radley broke the silence.

  ‘And how did you like Paris, Blush? Your first time, wasn’t it?’ And before I had a chance to reply he had already started telling me how he liked it instead. ‘It’s a wonderful city. Second only to Rome, in my view. I’ll show you Rome one day,’ he promised. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘It’s taken you fifteen years to get to Paris. Let’s say it takes another fifteen to get to Rome.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’ll meet you at eight o’clock on 23 August 1996 on the Spanish Steps, under Keats’s window.’

  This seemed unlikely. ‘All right,’ I said.

  ‘She doesn’t believe me!’ he exclaimed to the rest of the table.

  ‘Well, she’s not stupid,’ said Lexi.

  As Mr Radley was having more courses than the rest of us we had to sit and watch him tackling his moules, which he did noisily and with great enthusiasm, as though he would have liked to cram in the whole lot, shells and all.

  Frances started to explain to Rad the rules of a game called Ten Questions which we had devised on the journey down, to which he kept throwing up objections, while Mr Radley was swabbing out the bottom of his bowl with a piece of baguette. He made such a mess that the waiter, with his handheld table sweeper, proved quite unequal to the task of clearing up and had to retire, defeated. Mr Radley thanked him effusively for his efforts. He always grovelled to waiters, perhaps in the hope of bigger portions or better treatment. Lexi, on the other hand, treated functionaries of all kinds as though invisible – unless she was complaining about something, when she would become overpoweringly civil.

  ‘So you have to think of ten questions you would ask which would help you decide who to marry,’ Frances was saying. ‘My first one would be “Do you like dogs?” Blush’s was “Who is the greatest composer?” and yours might be something like “Who is the greatest philosopher?”’

  ‘But I don’t want to get married,’ Rad objected.

  ‘No,’ said Frances patiently, ‘you just have to imagine the sort of questions which might be helpful in discovering your ideal partner.’

  ‘I don’t believe in the concept of an ideal partner. It’s just a romantic myth.’

  ‘It’s just a game, Rad,’ said Frances. ‘Can’t you play along?’

  ‘You mean suspend my intelligence?’ asked Rad.

  Mr Radley choked on his wine. ‘So pompous!’ he spluttered, wiping his eyes. ‘Do you think that’s a Radley trait, or is that down to your side?’ he asked Lexi. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, wagging a finger at Rad, ‘I don’t see why you should be so cynical about marriage with our example before you.’ And he put an arm around Lexi’s shoulder and gave her a blokeish squeeze which she shrugged away irritably.

  ‘If Nicky doesn’t notice me soon,’ said Frances, oblivious to the deteriorating atmosphere at the table, ‘I’m going to give up and marry for money.’

  ‘You could do worse,’ said Lexi. ‘After all, one in three couples who marry for love discover their mistake.’

  ‘You make yourself too available, Frances,’ said her father. ‘Everyone likes the taste of chocolate, but you wouldn’t want to be force-fed boxes of the stuff.’

  ‘I would,’ said Frances. ‘I sometimes dream about it.’

  ‘That’s another thing – you eat too much chocolate. Nicky might prefer skinny girls like Blush – have you thought o
f that?’

  Frances and I were indignant and mortified in our turn. Lexi, champion of the female form in all its varieties, pitched in: ‘That sort of remark is extremely offensive,’ she said as if ticking off a naughty schoolboy.

  ‘I didn’t mean to be offensive,’ said Mr Radley in an injured tone. ‘A lot of men like a girl with a bit of meat on her. I was just saying Nicky might not.’

  The meal proceeded in uneasy silence, punctuated by the occasional breezy remark from Mr Radley. These attempts to restart conversation were met by a deathly hush from the rest of the table. I kept my head down and concentrated on the food, as far as my diminished appetite would allow: my parents did not do this sort of thing. Politeness was everything to them.

  When the dessert trolley rolled up Frances chose the richest, creamiest pudding available, a gesture whose defiance was easy to miss. Lexi and I followed suit with proper disregard for our figures. Mr Radley was languishing over his supplementary cheese course. He drained the dregs of the last wine bottle and then, seeing my still full glass, seized it and said, ‘You’re not going to drink this, are you?’ and tipped it into his own.

  ‘I think we should get an early night as we’ve a long journey tomorrow,’ said Lexi firmly, as the last plates were cleared away to reveal a stencilled pattern of crumbs and debris around Mr Radley’s plate.

  ‘Good idea,’ he said. ‘You go on up to bed. I think I’ll have a quick dégustif in one of those bars in the square.’ And, to Lexi’s fury, he sauntered out into the darkness, humming cheerfully.

  At midnight I was woken by a tap on the door. It opened a chink, sending a wand of light across my face, and Lexi’s voice whispered, ‘Rad, can you come here? I need help.’ I waited until he had slipped out before creeping after him. At the end of the passage he and Lexi were trying to push open the loo door far enough for Rad to be able to squeeze himself through the gap. Mr Radley had fallen off the seat and was now either asleep or unconscious, wedged between the pedestal and the door. After a few minutes Rad reappeared half supporting, half dragging his father. I shrank back into the doorway as they passed and found Frances at my shoulder. ‘Go back to bed,’ she said coldly. ‘They don’t need you.’ And I realised that what I had witnessed that evening was not an isolated incident, but had happened before, was perhaps as much a part of family ritual as the visit to the trenches.