Learning to Swim

by Clare Chambers

  ‘Oh, bye, have a lovely time. Lucky you,’ said Frances, beaming at this turn of events. But as Lawrence was helping me on with my coat she followed me into the hallway and said in a more contrite tone, ‘I’ll give you a ring tomorrow, yes?’ and seemed relieved when I nodded.

  ‘I’m afraid I made all that up about the Chinese restaurant,’ said Lawrence as we reversed up the drive. ‘I just got the impression that those two wanted to be alone, so I thought we’d better push off.’

  ‘But Frances has been chasing Nicky for ages and he’s never shown the slightest interest,’ I protested, mortified at having my status as gooseberry articulated so baldly.

  ‘Well, he’s interested now, take my word for it,’ said Lawrence. ‘Now do you want me to drive you home or shall we get a takeaway and eat it at my place?’

  ‘Don’t feel you have to entertain me,’ I said, failing to keep the martyred tone out of my voice. ‘Home will be fine.’

  Lawrence gave me a pitying look and made straight for the Chinese restaurant.

  ‘If Frances and Nicky do start going out,’ Lawrence said later, forking noodles on to my plate, ‘you and Rad could make up a foursome.’ I looked up warily and caught the sly expression on his face.

  ‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ I said, as neutrally as possible. We were kneeling either side of the coffee table in his house in Dulwich. The sitting room was on the first floor – an arrangement which struck me as highly sophisticated. The table was strewn with steaming foil containers and discarded lids. Lawrence had ordered far too much; his generosity would give us both indigestion before the evening was out. ‘Rad’s not really interested in girls – or boys,’ I added, my jaws working mechanically at a piece of battered pork. I had long since stopped feeling hungry but didn’t dare admit it in the presence of such prodigious leftovers.

  ‘It certainly seems that way,’ agreed Lawrence, inverting a dish of king prawns on to his plate.

  ‘I don’t honestly think Rad’s noticed I exist,’ I said.

  ‘Ah, well. Patience.’ He speared a prawn. ‘That’s something I know all about.’ Then seeing my uncomprehending smile he changed the subject swiftly and started grilling me about my cello-playing – what grade had I reached; how often did I practice; who were my favourite composers, until the phone rang in the study next door and he left me alone.

  ‘Hello … Sorry… There was no sign of you, and Abigail needed rescuing … No, we’ve already eaten … All right. I’ll have to drop Abigail home on the way …’ I could hear Lawrence’s conversation through the wall and, feeling uncomfortable at overhearing myself discussed, I took the opportunity to go to the loo. ‘Downstairs on the right,’ Lawrence called, with his hand over the receiver, as I passed the study door.

  The first on the right proved to be the dining room; the second door looked more promising, but as I groped for the light switch I lost my balance and stumbled into a large flat box propped against one wall. It came crashing on to my shin and I let out a yell which brought Lawrence leaping down the stairs. He switched on the light and I found myself in a generous-sized broom cupboard. My leg had a deep inch-long graze which would take about two hours to start bleeding. On the floor at my feet was a plywood packing crate of the sort used to protect paintings. It was about six by four and bore a label from the Bloomsbury gallery where Lazarus Ohene had enjoyed his recent triumph. Lawrence picked it up and, seeing my expression, gave a sheepish smile. ‘I’d be grateful if you wouldn’t mention this to anyone,’ he said.

  ‘Doesn’t anyone know it was you?’

  ‘Lexi does of course. It was her idea – to boost Michael’s morale. And make sure the painting didn’t come back and end up on the wall. So he absolutely mustn’t find out. I keep meaning to get rid of the damn thing – give it away to someone, but I can’t think of anyone I dislike that much. I’ll probably end up giving it to a junk shop, or doing a Clementine Churchill. Anyway, don’t let on.’

  All of a sudden I was the keeper of secrets. Having extorted a promise from me Lawrence offered to drive me home. I felt a little cheated at the prospect of observing confidentiality. I had after all come upon the subterfuge through my own efforts – and had a wound to show for it – and if he hadn’t happened to hear the crash the discovery would have been mine to do with as I chose. There was no fun in a secret that could never be told: the enjoyment came from stashing it away and watching it appreciate until it could be cashed in.

  ‘Home on a Saturday night. We are privileged,’ my mother said sarcastically as I limped into the hall. Lawrence’s Jaguar had pulled up outside to be greeted by a hail of security lights from the front of the house.

  ‘Like a Nuremberg rally,’ he muttered, shielding his eyes.

  Security was mother’s latest craze. I had been issued with a bunch of keys no pocket could hold and made to memorise the number for a burglar alarm that would in all probability never be set as my grandmother was always in the house. Father was sceptical about these measures. ‘If there’s a fire we’ll all be roasted alive,’ he would say. ‘But still, better dead than burgled, isn’t that right, dear?’ The nightly sound of rattling chains and deadbolts scraping home which accompanied mother’s locking-up routine set his teeth on edge. ‘I feel like old Mr Dorrit in the Marshalsea,’ he once said.

  ‘Hmm. What’s that smell?’ mother asked as she leaned towards me to kiss my cheek.

  ‘Er … sweet and sour pork? Peking duck?’

  She pulled a face. We never ate Chinese food. It was one of the things that triggered mother’s migraines. ‘No. Cigarette smoke. You haven’t been to the pub, have you?’

  ‘No. Lawrence smokes.’

  ‘Oh. Well, I’ll hang your coat in the porch overnight if you don’t mind, so it doesn’t fumigate the cloakroom. You’re not going up to your room, are you?’ she said as my foot touched the bottom stair. ‘I’m sure your dad and Granny would be pleased to see you. It’s not often we have you here at the weekend.’

  In the sitting room father was taking Granny through her accounts. On the table in front of them was a drift of share dividends, tax receipts and bank statements. Granny was not well off but, in terms of administration, she made her poverty go a long way.

  ‘Now where’s that cheque from Cable and Wireless?’ she said, riffling through the heap, scattering papers, until my father pushed it into her hand. ‘I can’t read. I’m blind. How much is it for?’

  ‘Three pounds seventy-one,’ said father. He tapped the ledger. ‘We’ve already done that one.’ His glasses were not quite horizontal – a sign of tension. They were evidently on their second or third run-through.

  Mother was right. ‘Abigail,’ he said, pouncing on the diversion joyfully, ‘let me get you a cup of coffee.’

  ‘Nice to see you, Abigail,’ said Granny, as he escaped into the kitchen. ‘Not that I can,’ she added.

  27

  Lawrence’s prophecy came true, but not in quite the way he had envisaged. Frances and Nicky did indeed become a couple, and when Rad came down for the Christmas holidays we would go out, or stay in, depending on whether we had any money, in a foursome. This was not, however, the fulfilment of all my hopes, as Rad appeared to be quite unmoved by the spectacle of grand romance enacted daily by Frances and Nicky, and showed no sign of following suit. He simply tagged along as Nicky’s friend and Frances’ brother and was not about to be pressurised by the demands of mere symmetry. This arrangement at least legitimised my presence. Without Rad we had made an uncomfortable threesome: I didn’t have the dignity to retire, and Nicky and Frances hadn’t the heart to tell me to clear off. We settled into a new routine. I would spend Friday night at the Radleys’ and leave on Saturday morning in time for orchestra. Frances would see Nicky on Saturdays and both of us were invited for Sunday lunch. This meant that all my Saturday evenings were now spent at home: I had no other friends. I had never needed to make the effort – there had always been Frances. My mother was soon as dismayed to h
ave me slouching around the house as she had ever been at my readiness to be gone. She took my predicament as a personal slight, and began to entertain uncharitable thoughts about Frances.

  ‘It’s not natural for a girl of your age to be in every Saturday night. Don’t you have some other friends you could ring up? You could invite someone to stay here – that would show Frances. What about the people at orchestra? Surely after all this time you must have got to know someone?’ It was pointless trying to explain that my aloofness was made of sterner stuff. I didn’t mind staying in for the evening. It was only a matter of getting through it, and then it would be Sunday and off I’d go again.

  I watched a lot of television at that time. I was abetted in this by father, who had recently acquired a remote control set and took such joy in his new gadget that it was possible to acquire a working knowledge of the material on all three sides at once. His continual grazing between channels exasperated my mother, who could often be caught out and find herself transported in and out of several programmes before realising what was happening. Any display of interest in what was on the screen would instantly provoke a burst of channel-switching from father. The only way to ensure your programme stayed put was to affect complete indifference – pick up a magazine for example. But mother would never learn. She would sit forward, or say, ‘Ooh good,’ as Gardeners’ World appeared, and click, we’d be in the middle of Coronation Street or Dad’s Army. He seemed to regard it all as a great game. ‘I’ve got the conch,’ he used to say, settling down in an armchair with one finger poised on the button like a contestant in a quiz show.

  Even this sacrifice on my part was not enough for Nicky. Having come to ardour rather late in his acquaintance with Frances he was now making up for lost time, and begrudged her every minute she spent away from him. Sometimes he would come down from college in the middle of the week and stay overnight. Rad’s room became his official second residence. They obviously sat up late on these occasions as the next day Frances would come to school wilting with tiredness. Her academic standing had never been lower. Her work was regularly returned with comments like 3/20 – Frankly, pathetic, or U – Is this a joke? The only subject at which she exerted herself was English, where she would produce pages of breathless scribble about Jane Eyre or The Eve of Saint Agnes with the maximum recourse to personal opinion and experience, and the minimum of textual analysis. These offerings were welcomed by the teacher as a sign of interest and her enthusiasm, however incoherent, was given every encouragement.

  ‘I wish Nicky was a bit more romantic,’ was Frances’ only criticism.

  ‘Romantic like what?’ I asked. ‘Do you want him to serenade you under your window by the light of the 194 bus?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, jumping at the idea. ‘Yes. Oh, you know, I thought he might write me poems and stuff.’

  ‘That’s a bit much to expect, isn’t it? He’s a trainee dentist not a poet. I bet you couldn’t even write a poem yourself.’ I knew she would take up the challenge, but by the end of double biology she had only produced one feeble couplet: ‘Nicky Rupp you make me frantic / Is your soul so unromantic?’ The following day, however, she slid a piece of folded paper into my lap during assembly. We were sitting in the front row of seats – those more junior had to sit cross-legged in the dust at our feet – and I was feeling rather exposed. I eased the note open under cover of my hymnbook as the headmistress and deputies processed down the aisle, and read:

  Nicky Rupp you make me frantic;

  Is your soul so unromantic

  That you couldn’t write a line

  Of verse to let me know you’re mine?

  Could you not describe a rose

  In something more intense than prose?

  Consider as you pull a tooth

  That Truth is Beauty; Beauty Truth;

  Ever let the fancy roam

  Far from halitosis’ home.

  Your gentle hand would suit a quill

  Much better than a dentist’s drill,

  For there must beat a heart beneath

  That thrills to something more than teeth.

  I glanced sideways at Frances and she bared her teeth at me. I looked away hurriedly and dug my fingernails into my palm as my eyes started to water. I could sense twitching next to me but didn’t dare look up again. Laughing in prayers was regarded as an insult to God.

  ‘Frances Radley and the girl next to you, get out,’ hissed the headmistress as soon as she gained the platform. ‘We take our worship seriously here!’ she added in a menacing tone.

  ‘You never wrote that,’ I said when we had slunk out of the hall.

  ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘I got stuck after two lines so Dad finished it off. I’m going to send it to Nicky anonymously.’

  Nicky was given the opportunity to prove himself a man of grand gestures before long. Rad was down for the weekend and the four of us were planning to spend the day in London. Nicky, who was coming straight from his hall of residence, was to meet us at the bus stop at Waterloo station and we would walk over to King’s to have lunch in the canteen before going to see a film at the Empire. I had only realised that morning that it was Valentine’s Day because an unsigned card had arrived for me – as it had every year since I had been a visitor at the Radleys’. I knew it was from Mr Radley as Frances also received one addressed in the same handwriting, which he had made no attempt to disguise. These cards were intended to console us in the face of being otherwise unloved: at sixteen I took this as an impertinence.

  We were a little late arriving as I had been obliged to set off from home with my cello as if on the way to orchestra, and then double back to Frances’ place. I didn’t want my parents to know I was playing truant: they had just spent £500 on a new bow for me after the old one started to moult, and it might have looked ungrateful. Rad, typically, was critical of these measures.

  ‘Are your parents very fierce? Do they beat you?’ he asked, watching me stow the cello in the cupboard under the stairs next to Lexi’s golf clubs. ‘Or do you just like complications?’

  Nicky was nowhere in sight when we got off the bus so we started walking and met up with him about half-way across the bridge. He was wearing an expensive-looking jacket of distressed leather and carrying a large irregular-shaped parcel, about the size of a fat pillow, wrapped in red foil.

  ‘Hello pooch,’ he said, closing on Frances. Rad and I gazed out over the Thames as they kissed passionately. The water was dark grey and rippled like beaten metal. A pleasure cruiser, half-empty, passed underneath us on its way to Greenwich. It wasn’t a good day for sightseeing: there was a stinging wind and a few raindrops were starting to fall. My hair was whipping itself into a tangle, so I twisted it into a coil and stuffed it down the back of my coat. The kiss continued. Rad tutted to himself. Passers-by were beginning to stare. The rain started to come down harder and all around us umbrellas burst into bloom. Frances and Nicky broke apart. ‘Is that new?’ she asked, emerging from within his jacket. Nicky’s expenditure on clothes was the subject of much leg-pulling in the Radley household. Only Lexi bought as many new clothes as him – and she invariably took them back after one wearing.

  Nicky fingered the lapel. ‘Yes. Do you like it?’

  ‘Is it meant to look like that?’

  ‘It’s the fashion, Frances. I know that’s an unfamiliar word to you people.’

  ‘You mean scruffy is In? Hey, Rad, you’d better watch out or someone might mistake you for a follower of fashion.’

  ‘I knew my time would come,’ he said.

  ‘What’s that, anyway?’ Frances pointed to the parcel, her curiosity getting the better of her.

  ‘Oh, sorry,’ said Nicky, collecting himself. He thrust it at her. ‘Happy Valentine’s Day.’

  Frances tore off the paper, which the wind promptly snapped out of her hand. We watched it cartwheel into the middle of the road where it was run over by a succession of cars. The contents of the parcel were revealed as a large fluffy white te
ddy bear holding a red satin heart. Her face fell.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, a second too late.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ Nicky asked.

  ‘Ye-e-es,’ said Frances, without much conviction.

  Nicky looked crushed. ‘I thought girls were supposed to like that sort of thing. Cute cuddly toys. The shops are absolutely full of them.’

  ‘That’s the whole point,’ said Frances. ‘Anyway, I haven’t said I don’t like it. I’d like anything that was from you.’ And then the death-blow: ‘Did you keep the receipt?’

  ‘What’s wrong with it?’ He appealed to me and Rad.

  We all stood around the bear, surveying it critically.

  ‘Well …’ Rad began, struggling to unite honesty with tact. ‘It’s a bit lacking in the good taste department.’

  ‘Oh God, I’ve really screwed up, haven’t I?’ said Nicky. ‘I knew I should have got flowers.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that bad,’ said Frances, giving the bear a forgiving squeeze which must have activated a switch somewhere deep in the fur, as it gave an electronic squeak indicative of a creature in great pain.

  ‘No, you’re right, it’s total crap,’ said Nicky decisively, and before any of us could respond he snatched the bear and tossed it over the parapet.

  ‘Oh Nicky!’ Frances let out a shriek worthy of a mother whose baby has just fallen into the Thames, as we watched it spin through the air. ‘What did you do that for? I didn’t hate it that much. Poor little thing.’ And she burst into tears. Indeed it did look rather forlorn, bowling along on its back in the oily river.

  ‘I’ll get it back for you if you want it,’ Nicky said heroically, struggling out of his jacket. ‘Look after that,’ he added, spoiling the effect somewhat.

  ‘Don’t be …’

  ‘You’re not …’ Rad and I said simultaneously.

  ‘I’ll be all right.’ And he swung his legs over the parapet.