Learning to Swim

by Clare Chambers

  It was the end of my final year at school, a year in which my star had risen as swiftly as Frances’ had declined, to the extent that the headmistress now knew my name and could write me a favourable report. My mother attributed this state of affairs to my deliverance from Frances’ malign influence and, indirectly, I suppose, she was right. I had worked harder than ever before, in class and at my cello, because there was nothing else to do. My audition had gone well: a place at the Royal College of Music was contingent upon easily manageable grades; my exams had not thrown up any horrors; all I had to do was wait.

  My invitation to the party came through Rad and Nicky. It was Wimbledon fortnight, and the two of them were on their way back from a day at the tournament when, passing some public courts on which a game was in progress, Nicky was struck and almost felled by a tennis ball which came sailing over the fence and hit him full on the back of the head. His assailant was a teenage girl. She must have been unable to believe her luck at having bagged two respectable blokes so effortlessly. In the course of the long conversation that followed her effusive apology it emerged that it was her eighteenth birthday the following weekend and she was having a little party. Would they like to come? If they gave her their addresses she’d send them a proper invitation.

  ‘How nauseating,’ said Frances, when Nicky related the incident. A practitioner of the Stand and Deliver school of flirtation, she was thoroughly contemptuous of feminine wiles of a more subtle shade. ‘And what did you say?’

  ‘I asked if we could bring anyone with us, and she said, “Fine – bring loads”.’

  ‘She was probably hoping you meant the rest of the rugby team. God, you’re dim sometimes, Nicky.’

  ‘I don’t suppose we’ll even hear from her,’ said Rad, who was stretched out on the couch reading Private Eye.

  ‘Pity,’ said Nicky, to needle Frances. ‘She was well sexy. Wasn’t she, Rad?’

  ‘Not bad,’ he admitted. ‘Nice teeth.’

  ‘Teeth,’ said Nicky scornfully.

  The invitations arrived the very next day. ‘She’s keen,’ said Frances. ‘She must have rushed out and posted them the minute you said goodbye.’ She looked from Nicky to Rad with narrowed eyes. ‘The question is, which one of you is she keen on?’

  Nicky pointed at Rad. ‘She was all over him. You needn’t worry about me anyway,’ he said. ‘She’s totally out of my league.’

  Frances grunted. She wasn’t sure the implication that she herself was in Nicky’s league was such a compliment.

  Rad was looking at the invitation. ‘That’s the road on the edge of Wimbledon Common,’ he said, pointing to the address.

  ‘They must be loaded,’ said Nicky. ‘Those houses are massive. You could tell she was rich just by looking at her.’

  ‘She won’t even remember a couple of proles like you,’ said Frances, who had conceived an earnest dislike of the girl for being rich and good-looking and beyond the reach of rational criticism. ‘She’ll probably set the dogs on us.’

  ‘You’re not actually going, are you?’ I said. ‘You won’t know anybody.’

  ‘Just the sort of party I like,’ said Frances. ‘At least there’s a chance something interesting might happen.’

  We weren’t seen off the premises by dogs, although two Irish wolfhounds did come shivering out of the garden door as we walked up the driveway, circled us twice and slunk back the way they’d come. Frances and Nicky had spent most of the journey quarrelling. Nicky had thought it would be bad form to arrive late; Frances insisted that no one turned up at parties until the pubs shut whatever it said on the invitation. Rad and I favoured a discreet entrance in the middle of the evening, and this compromise had been settled upon, though the argument about who was the more conversant with party protocol continued.

  I had the feeling Rad was annoyed with me because earlier that evening he had asked me to cut his hair and I had professed an expertise I didn’t possess, and then lost my nerve half-way through the job, so he’d had to finish it off himself.

  We were sitting in Frances’ room eating doughnuts when he walked in, a towel round his bare shoulders, wet hair flopping into his eyes. ‘Can you cut hair?’ he asked, pointing the handle of a pair of scissors at me.

  ‘I can,’ said Frances with unnerving enthusiasm, wiping sugary fingers on her pillow and holding her hand out.

  ‘I don’t trust you – you’ll probably hack off an ear. Can you do it, Blush?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, with great confidence, though the extent of my experience was snipping half an inch off my fringe every couple of months. ‘Where shall we do it?’

  ‘I don’t want whiskers all over my room, thank you,’ said Frances, as if the room didn’t already resemble a jumble sale after the good stuff has gone.

  ‘The kitchen’s the best place,’ said Rad. ‘You can sweep that floor afterwards. One can. I will,’ he corrected himself, seeing my expression.

  Downstairs Rad tugged the comb through his hair a few times, breaking several teeth in the process, before handing it and the scissors over and settling down in a hard-backed wooden chair. Frances perched on the kitchen table, swinging her legs and leafing through Lexi’s Vogue.

  ‘What sort of look are we after?’ I said in a simpering voice.

  ‘Er, I’d like to be able to see. But I don’t want to look like a squaddie. If you can manage that.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said, wondering where to start. I made a few experimental snips round the back before catching his eye in the reflection in the oven door. I gave a nervous smile. He didn’t smile back. Growth wandered in, did a few circuits of our ankles in the hope of titbits and finally came to rest between my feet. I snipped on with greater resolve. A little drift of black curls formed at my feet, turning to fluff as they dried. It was wavy, I reasoned. Slight imperfections wouldn’t show. There wasn’t much room to manoeuvre in the kitchen between the table, the chair, the units and the dog, and I found myself apologising again and again for squeezing past or catching Rad on the back of the head with my elbow. Frances was entertaining us by reading out beauty tips. ‘Avoid the formation of unsightly frown lines by putting a piece of sticky tape between your eyebrows overnight.’

  ‘Or try not frowning,’ I said.

  ‘Sticky tape can also be used to construct a cleavage.’

  ‘Christ almighty. Women are so trivial,’ said Rad.

  ‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Mr Radley, appearing in the doorway. ‘I’d advise you to have nothing to do with them.’

  ‘Careful what you say,’ said Frances to Rad. ‘Abigail once cut off a girl’s pigtail because she got on her nerves.’

  Rad glanced at the scissors.

  ‘Really?’ said Mr Radley, looking at me with new respect. ‘I’d like to have seen that.’

  ‘I was only nine,’ I said.

  ‘And look at you now. What happened to that fighting spirit?’

  ‘It was crushed out of me by my suburban upbringing,’ I replied, knowing that this would delight him.

  ‘Well, that’s probably true,’ he said, easing past me to get to the fridge. ‘Empty as usual,’ he said in disgust. ‘Oh no, wait – what the hell’s this doing in here?’ He retrieved a bottle of blood-red nail varnish from the egg tray.

  ‘It stops it going sticky in the heat,’ explained Frances.

  ‘Typical. Nail varnish in the fridge, but no food. Is anyone planning to do any shopping in the near future? Are we actually going to eat tonight?’

  ‘Well, we are,’ said Frances. ‘We’re going to a party.’

  ‘Oh, fine, as long as you’re all right,’ said her father. ‘It looks as though I’ll be dining at my club tonight.’ This was how he always referred to the Greek restaurant in the high street. He produced a ten-pound note from his back pocket. ‘This is the money I owe you,’ he said to Rad.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ said Rad, holding out his hand.

  ‘Only I’m going to have to borrow it back again to get a kebab,�
�� he said, replacing it. ‘Enjoy your party,’ he added. And he left, humming.

  I was still combing and chopping, but with less and less conviction. Every few minutes I had to wet the comb – Rad’s hair was drying faster than I could cut it.

  ‘Are you sure you know what you’re doing?’ he ventured to enquire, as the sides got shorter and shorter in my quest for evenness. I stood in front of him, wedged against the oven, biting my lip with concentration.

  ‘Of course I do,’ I said faintly, tugging at the clump of hair over one ear as if attempting to straighten a wig that had slipped.

  ‘Ow. Pulling isn’t going to make it longer.’

  I put the scissors down. I felt like a mountaineer seized with vertigo half-way up a rock face. Can’t go on. Can’t go back. ‘I’m stuck,’ I said.

  Rad opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it and instead gave a sigh expressive of patience tested to the infinite before picking up the scissors and going off in search of a mirror.

  ‘I won’t charge you for the bit I’ve already done,’ I called after him.

  ‘You know something,’ Frances said to me as we were getting changed. ‘I think Rad’s got his eye on this Anne Trevillion. Why else would he be so keen to go tonight? Normally he hates parties. He’s even washed his hair.’

  ‘I can see what’s going to happen,’ I said, rummaging in her dressing-table drawer for the mascara, though there hardly seemed any point in making an effort now. ‘Rad will disappear off with the lovely Anne, you and Nicky will be nose to nose all evening, and I’ll be left in the kitchen eating Twiglets.’ From the bottom of the drawer a pair of eyelash curlers glinted back at me like instruments of torture. I wasn’t about to waste my time with anything trivial. I had been intimidated by Nicky’s predictions about the grandness of the event into wearing my one smart dress – a short black thing with thin straps and tiny jet beading which made a crunching noise when I sat down. Now standing in Frances’ bedroom, looking at myself in her streaky mirror, I suddenly felt overdressed. The only appropriate shoes I had were a pair of uncomfortable black slingbacks with pointed toes and a spike for a heel. I would be freezing cold and crippled by the end of the evening – that much was certain.

  ‘Why do women wear such stupid things on their feet?’ Rad said, as he watched me hobble out to the car.

  ‘Now, we’re going to find Abigail a man tonight,’ Frances announced when we were finally on our way. ‘Red light!’ she shrieked, as Rad hit the brake.

  ‘You needn’t make it sound such a challenge,’ I grumbled.

  ‘I’m glad we parked the rollerskate round the corner,’ Nicky said as we walked down the drive, which resembled the forecourt of a luxury car showroom. The house, overlooking Wimbledon Common, was a three-storey mansion protected by heavy iron security gates such as my mother might dream of, and a high brick wall over which wisteria and honeysuckle swarmed.

  We were headed off at the front door by a man in black tie who directed us around the side of the house into the garden. It was hard to tell whether he was a party-goer or a professional usher. I couldn’t help feeling like an impostor, on the verge of being publicly unmasked. Nervousness was forcing the muscles of my face into a fixed smile.

  ‘Stop looking so shifty,’ Frances hissed in my ear. ‘We’ve got a perfectly sound invitation.’

  Earlier there had been some uncertainty about what we should bring. ‘It’s not going to be the sort of party where you take a six-pack,’ said Nicky.

  ‘We ought to take her a present as it’s her eighteenth,’ said Frances. ‘But how are we supposed to know what she’s already got?’

  ‘Get something cheap,’ Lexi suggested. ‘It’s bound to be way off the mark whatever you choose. But wrap it lavishly.’

  In accordance with this advice Frances was now carrying a Basil Brush finger puppet, boxed, wrapped and trailing ribbons and bows. She would forget to hand it over on our first introduction to our hostess and would still be holding it at the end of the evening.

  In the garden the party was well under way. Tiny fairy lights twinkled in the trees, and on the croquet lawn an old-fashioned wind-up gramophone was playing some crackly Viennese waltzes while a few couples – mostly of my parents’ age – spun each other expertly around. In the middle of the lawn was a marquee from which people kept emerging carrying plates of food. Waitresses in uniform were circling with champagne and canapes. Most of the younger people were very dressed-up. Several of the girls were in full-length ballgowns and their partners were in dinner suits. Suddenly my black dress didn’t feel quite so smart.

  ‘I knew I should have worn black tie,’ Nicky grumbled.

  ‘I don’t think I’ve got a tie,’ mused Rad. ‘Not since Mum flogged off my old school uniform.’

  ‘Which one is she then?’ asked Frances.

  Rad and Nicky scanned the groups below us on the lawn. ‘She’s tallish, blonde, and quite good-looking,’ said Nicky. This didn’t help much.

  ‘They all look the same to me with their hair up,’ said Rad, shaking his head.

  ‘I was concussed, remember,’ said Nicky.

  We hadn’t advanced far before a girl in a green taffeta dress broke away from her group and came rustling over the grass towards us. Her blonde hair was swept up into a savagely lacquered pleat.

  ‘You’re here!’ she said with evident surprise and pleasure, showing very white, even teeth. ‘I’m so pleased. Let me get you a drink’ – she broke off to summon one of the tray-bearers with the merest tilt of her chin – ‘and then I’ll take you to meet some people. I’m Anne, by the way,’ she said to me and Frances in the face of Rad and Nicky’s failure to introduce us. ‘I’m a bit pissed actually,’ she confided, ‘so I’d better do this bit while I can still remember everyone’s names.’ Thoroughly disarmed, we allowed ourselves to be hawked from group to group until our assimilation was finally achieved. This was a slow and laborious process: conversations would be cut off mid-flow as introductions were made, and then after an awkward silence resume again as if nothing had happened. But our hostess was indefatigable and wouldn’t falter until she had parked Nicky and Frances with some of her schoolfriends, Rad with a few of her brother’s rowing eight, and me with her parents.

  Mr Trevillion was tall with grey hair and a pair of dramatic black eyebrows which looked as though they might once have formed part of a false-nose-and-glasses kit, but were in fact real. He seemed somewhat bewildered to find so many strange people enjoying themselves in his garden.

  ‘You’re a tennis-playing pal of Anne’s?’ he said, tugging my hand. He hadn’t really been concentrating during his daughter’s gabbled account of the slender chain of circumstance which bound us together. I didn’t fancy running through the story again: he was already looking over my shoulder in search of more promising company.

  ‘Sort of,’ I said.

  ‘Jolly good. Let me get you another drink.’ And he seized my empty glass and made his escape. That was the last I saw of him until the party’s unfortunate termination a couple of hours later.

  ‘You’re not one of Anne’s schoolfriends, then? No, no,’ said Mrs Trevillion, who had an unnerving habit of asking a question and then anticipating my answer and supplying it a fraction of a second before I could get there. ‘Have you had far to come? Not too far, no, good.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see Nicky enacting the moment of impact of the fateful tennis ball.

  ‘We’ve been terribly lucky with the weather,’ Anne’s mother was saying, glancing at my bare shoulders. ‘I don’t know what we’d have done if it had rained.’ This was followed by a pause as we both gazed at the cloudless sky. My cheeks were beginning to ache with smiling. Think, oh think of something to say, I urged myself. The art of framing simple sentences, taken for granted since early infancy, seemed to have eluded me. It wouldn’t do to compliment her on her outfit, elegant as it was.

  ‘It’s a beautiful garden,’ I finally managed, and was rewarded for t
his banality with a delighted smile.

  ‘Do you like it? Oh good. It’s my absolute passion. I’ve got a marvellous chap who does all the heavy stuff and leaves me to do the fun bits. Would you like a tour?’ My heart sank – my shoes were already pinching. I followed her around the marquee, aerating the lawn with my heels, while she pointed out the espaliered pear trees and the quince hedge, tolling the names of the shrubs as we passed, like a Latin mass. At the bottom of the garden was a large shed with a padlock on the door. ‘That’s my son’s workshop,’ she explained. ‘He tinkers around with these old bikes.’ Through the dusty windows I could make out the shapes of half a dozen vintage motorbikes in different stages of assembly. The one completed model was a masterpiece of restoration, every inch of chrome as bright as diamond. Clearly what went on in here was tinkering of an expert nature.

  ‘Anne used to sleep in the summer-house when she was a little girl.’ Mrs Trevillion pointed out an octagonal clapboard pavilion beside a row of poplars which marked the edge of the territory. ‘You couldn’t do that now, of course. It never even crossed our minds that anyone might get in.’

  There was still more garden on the far side of the house, less cultivated, with longer grass and wild flowers and apple trees just starting to fruit. It didn’t seem possible that someone living in London could have so much space. At the end of the orchard were three beehives. Leaning against one of them was a boy in a black T-shirt and jeans, smoking a roll-up. He ducked as we passed, and as Anne’s mother hadn’t noticed him I made no comment. As we left I looked back and saw him sitting in one of the trees swinging his legs. He made a lewd gesture with his tongue, and I turned away again, pretending not to have seen.

  ‘Do you do much gardening?’ asked Anne’s mother, pausing to dead-head a fat rose. ‘I don’t suppose you do. You’re too young. It’s an extremely middle-aged sort of thing.’

  I thought of our garden at home with the grass shorn into stripes and mother’s pom-pom marigolds and dahlias like poodles’ tails, and the bedding plants parked in great dollops of colour from June to September then ripped out again. Could you be extremely middle-aged? I wondered. Could you be extremely in the middle of anything? Probably not. In moments of self-doubt pedantry could be such a relief.