Swimming Lessons(12)

“No,” I said, folding my arms.

“No,” you said.

“No,” I said again.

You flicked through the pages on your lap. “I take it this is set in Norway?”

“The Oslo archipelago.”

“Is that where you’re from?”

“My father’s family.” I crossed my legs.

“Right,” you said, glancing up and flicking through the pages again. I could see red writing on the white sheets. “The sense of place is very well developed.”

“I’ve never lived there.”

“Well, I liked it very much, but I was confused about where you were going with the ending.”

“It isn’t finished.”

“No,” you said, “I could see that.” You looked at me with a half smile and your head cocked while I stared, willing myself not to smile back. In my head I repeated “Eight pounds forty pence,” over and over so that I could hate you, dislike you; not like you quite as much as I already did.

“Maybe we should have a coffee,” you said, swivelling round and standing up to pour. “Black?”

“Fine.”

You handed me a cup with a saucer and sat in your armchair beside mine. “Ingrid,” you said patiently, “you might get more out of this tutorial if you say something other than ‘fine’ and ‘no.’”

I took a swig of coffee. It was scalding, and I had to force it down.

“Are you all right? You’re not looking very well,” you said. “Pale.”

“And you’re looking very well-fed and tanned.” It was the sort of thing Louise would have said.

You laughed, that big bold laugh, and swept your hand through your hair. “How about that proper drink I promised you last time?” I was surprised you’d remembered. “We can discuss this.” You patted the assignment on your lap. I must have appeared undecided. “A working drink?” You glanced at your watch. “We’d better be quick.” You stood up and took my cup. “Come on, come on.” You hurried me out of your office and to your car. If you’d held the door open for me like my father used to insist on doing, I wouldn’t have gone with you, but you got into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition before I’d even closed my door. The interior of your car was the smell of leather and your office, concentrated, as if it had been reduced to your essence.

You drove east along narrow London streets, overtaking black taxis and appearing to know your way as well as any of their drivers. You pulled up outside a scruffy pub that looked more like a butcher’s—brown tiles on the outside. There were no lights showing, and when you pushed on the door it didn’t open.

“Shit!” you said and slapped the tiles with the flat of your hand. “Seems we can’t have that drink after all.”

“Cup of tea?” I said.

“What?” You were like a sulky child who pretends not to hear the offer of an apple after the ice-cream van didn’t stop.

“Let’s go and get a cup of tea,” I said.

We sat opposite each other at a tiny table in the window of a café that smelled of the overripe bananas from the fruit-and-veg shop next door. You had coffee and I ordered tea from a surly waitress, which she brought to us in a metal pot. You chose an iced bun. Neither of us ate it. The café was full of yellowing spider plants, some lined up along a ledge running the length of the room, and others hanging from macramé baskets above our heads. I had the excited feeling that I was on the cusp of something and that at any moment my life could spin off in a direction I’d never intended or anticipated. We examined each other’s faces but didn’t speak, and I was giddy with vertigo. We were the only customers. A fly buzzed against the front window, and the waitress tuned in and out of stations on a portable radio—a burst of dance music followed by static and something orchestral, then a return to white noise. You leaned towards me as if to tuck a length of my hair behind my ear but it was to put your hand around the back of my head and pull me to you until your mouth was at the side of my face. It was the smell of you that kept me there, stretching over the cups and plate. The bristles on your chin were against my cheek. “I’m sorry about the library fine,” you whispered. You moved your face so your lips touched the corner of my mouth and I panicked, suddenly not clear what I wanted after all. I pulled away from you and stood up in one motion, so you pitched forwards across the table, upsetting your coffee onto the bun, the brown liquid spilling. The waitress, now paying us attention, stopped the radio at a station that was playing “Big Bad John” and stared at me as I reversed out of the door and onto the street.

“Ingrid, stop, I’m sorry,” you said, following me out, but I fled. You were called back by the waitress, and as I glanced over my shoulder you were standing in the doorway, both hands resting on the frame as if you alone were keeping the building from collapsing.


Your loving wife,

Ingrid


[Placed in Swiss Bakery and Confectionery, by Walter Bachmann, 1949.]





Chapter 7



By the time Flora reached the bottom of the chine—the narrow track up to the village—her shoulders and arms ached no matter how she held the suitcase and satchel. There had once been a path that zigzagged from the beach up to the Swimming Pavilion’s garden, but now the only way to reach the house was via the chine that ended at the bottom of Spanish Green. Even in the hottest summer the overhanging trees made the path shady, and the ferns and grasses dripped moisture that oozed out of the rocky sides.