Swimming Lessons(2)

It seemed to Gil that he fell in slow motion into the void, so there was plenty of time to think about the fuss his eldest daughter, Nan, would make, and how worried Flora would be, and then he thought about whether, if he survived this fall, he should ask his children to promise to make a pyre of his books when he did die, and what a sight that would be. The fire, a beacon announcing his death, might be visible as far as the Isle of Wight. And Gil considered that if today was the 2nd of May 2004, which he thought it probably was, it meant Ingrid had been gone for eleven years and ten months exactly, and he also thought how he should have made it clearer that he had loved her. All this went through his mind while he fell between the rocks, and then there was pain in his arm and bursts of light in his head, but before the blackness swallowed him up he saw the book open beside him, its spine cracked in two.





Chapter 1



The ringing woke Flora from a deep sleep. Richard, lying next to her, had a pillow over his head, so she climbed across him and out into the cold and gloomy room. She stepped over the debris of clothes, empty bottles, and dirty plates on the floor, picked up an old tablecloth that she kept on the sofa to hide the greasy stains left by the previous tenants, and wrapped it around her like a cloak. The ringing stopped. Flora sighed, and at the end of her out-breath the ringing started again. She listened and then rummaged through the clothes until she found her jeans with her mobile phone in the pocket. Nan, the display said. Richard rolled over in the bed with a groan and Flora went through to the bathroom.

“Nan?” she said, pulling the light cord and wincing at the glare.

“Hello? Flora?”

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” Flora said. “I should have called. Happy birthday for yesterday.”

“Thanks,” Nan said, “but I’m not calling about that.” Her tone was urgent, worried, and a creature uncoiled itself inside Flora’s stomach.

“What is it?” Flora’s voice was a whisper. She sank onto the lino, slotting herself between the bath and the basin’s pedestal. Close up, the abstract swirls and eddies embroidered on the tablecloth transformed themselves into silvery-blue fish swimming over her knees.

“What?” Nan said. “I can’t hear you properly. The reception’s terrible. Flora? Hello?” Nan’s voice was too loud. “It’s about Dad,” she shouted.

“Daddy?” Flora said, her mind already spinning towards all the possible scenarios.

“There’s no need to worry immediately, but . . . ”

“What?”

“He’s had an accident.”

“An accident? What? When?”

“I can’t hear you,” Nan said.

Flora stood up, stepped into the bath, and opened the window onto the gap below ground level. It was dark outside, confusingly dark. A blast of wind blew in, and above her shapes of trees and shrubs thrashed back and forth. “Is that better?”

“That’s better,” Nan said, still shouting. “Dad fell off the promenade in Hadleigh. Cuts and bruises, concussion maybe, a sprained wrist. Nothing serious . . . ”

“Nothing serious—are you sure? Should I come now?”

“. . . or maybe he jumped,” Nan continued.

“Jumped?”

“No, don’t come now.”

“Off the promenade?”

“Flora, do you have to repeat everything I say?”

“Well, tell me then!”

“Are you drunk?”

“Of course not,” Flora said, although she may still have been.

“Or stoned? Are you stoned?”

An unexpected laugh bubbled out of Flora. “No one says stoned anymore, Nan. It’s high.”

“So you’re high.”

“I was asleep,” Flora said. “Tell me! What’s happened?”

“Have you just got up? It’s nine thirty in the evening, for goodness’ sake.” Nan sounded outraged.

“In the evening?” Flora said. “Isn’t it morning?”

Nan tutted and Flora could imagine her sister shaking her head.

“I was up all last night,” Flora said. She had no intention of telling Nan that she and Richard had stayed in bed for the past two days. That twice Flora had pulled on jeans and a jumper and run to the shop on the Stockbridge Road to buy another couple of bottles of wine, a lump of plastic cheddar, sliced white bread, baked beans, and chocolate. Richard had offered to go, but Flora had needed those ten minutes away from him. When she had returned and let herself in through the basement door, she had dropped the bags and her jeans, and climbed back under the covers.

“Doing what?” Nan said. “Oh, Flora, you’re not late with an essay, are you?”

“Are you in the hospital? Can I speak to him?”

“He’s sleeping. Flora, there are a couple of other things.” Her sister sniffed and rustled as if wiping her nose, and then took a deep breath. “He told me he saw Mum outside the bookshop in Hadleigh, wearing his old greatcoat—the one you used to dress up in—and that he followed her to the breakwater boulders.”

Adrenalin rushed through Flora, a wave surging out from her centre to her limbs, the ends of her fingers, and up to her head. “Mum? In Hadleigh?” The scent of coconut came to her, inextricably linked with the colour of golden honey, sweet and clean, from amongst the thorns and dying flowers of gorse.