Swimming Lessons(22)

In the sitting room you’d introduced me to Martin and George, then left to get me another drink. Maybe you thought I’d be safe and occupied talking to those two. Every now and again I stood on tiptoes to check your whereabouts, only half listening to their conversation. A ring of people had drawn away from the dancers and I glimpsed you being pulled by one of them into the group. I saw your head dip towards hers, heard whistles and claps, and the gap through the people closed. I craned my head.

“They’ll be troublemakers, mark my words,” George was shouting over the noise. “Campfires on the beach, broken glass, used rubber johnnies . . .”

“New holiday homes mean more people. And that means more business,” Martin said.

“. . .troublemakers, all of them. . .” George said.

“More shandies, more pints pulled.”

“Village girls being pulled, more like.”

“Good for business,” Martin said. He rubbed his thumb and fingers together.

“Get them pregnant and then bugger off to Blackpool or wherever they’ve come from.”

“It won’t be people from Blackpool. They’ve got their own beach,” Martin said.

“It’ll be like the GIs all over again.”

“I don’t think the new holidaymakers are likely to leave used rubber johnnies on the beach,” I said, still looking through the crowd for you, “and get the village girls pregnant.” I left them to continue their argument and pushed my way through the packed room. The slower music had been replaced with something more rhythmic, the beat thrumming up through the wooden floor to my bones. I stood at the edge of the circle of men watching the dancing girls, just three now. One of them had taken her arms out of her jumpsuit and rolled it down around her waist. She wasn’t wearing a bra. She danced by rotating her hips; and her breasts, small and tipped upwards at the nipples, were surprisingly solid. I asked a man if he’d seen you, and without taking his eyes from the girl he said, “Who’s Gil?”

I edged out of the sitting room and put my head around the door across the hall (your bedroom). On the four-poster bed a man and a woman were jumping, shrieking and flinging themselves backwards like five-year-olds. The room next door had two single beds in it, both of which were occupied. I watched for a while but none of the five people in the room were you. I joined a queue of women waiting for the loo; I stayed long enough to see someone who wasn’t you come out of the bathroom.

In the kitchen, two spiders (one of them the fat, pendulous-bodied kind, the other thin and quick) were waiting to see what prey might come by to tease before they gobbled it up.

“And who have we here?” The man slurred his words as he ground out a cigar in the sink. Joe Warren was still fat then, the fattest man I had ever seen, with the belt of his trousers hoisted up over a protruding stomach larger than a pregnant woman’s.

“Have you seen Gil?” I said, reversing accidentally into Denis, standing behind me. I spun around.

“Gil?” Denis said, looking over my head. “Do you know anyone called Gil, Joe?”

Joe laughed, deep and throaty. “I don’t think I do,” he said. I turned back towards him. People pressed past us, some leaving the kitchen, others coming in looking for drinks. A girl in a maxi dress fell off a chair, lay on her side on the floor, tucked her hands under her head, and closed her eyes. A baby slept in a carry-cot on the table amongst the bottles.

“I don’t know why you would want Gil when you could have me,” Denis said. I looked at him over my shoulder. The tip of his tongue came out and licked his moustache; too red, obscene. “A bird in the hand and all that.” He reached down and pawed at my bum. I took a step away from him and towards Joe. Denis closed in behind me.

“A little uptight this one, I think,” he said.

“Are you Gil’s new secretary?” Joe asked, pushing himself away from the kitchen counter and swaying like a skittle.

“No, I am not,” I said. “I’m his . . .” But I didn’t know how to finish and the chatter in the kitchen was too loud anyway.

“Your glass is empty,” Denis said, pressing himself forwards. “Find the young lady a drink, Joe.”

Joe checked through the bottles and glasses on the kitchen table. “What’ll it be?” he said.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I don’t want another drink.”

“Cinzano Bianco?” Joe said, finding a bottle with something left in the bottom and pouring it into my glass.

“What’s that old philanderer Gil got that we haven’t?” Denis said. “Apart from looks, of course, and physique.” When Joe laughed, his stomach laughed with him.

“I think this one likes to take dictation,” Denis said.

“She can take my dictation,” Joe said.

“Bottoms up.” Denis drank from his glass and at the same time gave me another squeeze. I turned and took Denis’s balls tightly in my hand. He stopped laughing.

“Ingrid?” An Irish voice behind me. Jonathan.

“Have you seen Gil?” I let go of Denis and stood up straight. The spiders withdrew.

“He had to go out. Come on.” Jonathan took my arm, steered me from the kitchen, down the hallway, and outside. A small group was sitting at one end of the veranda, and I smelled marijuana. Some of the cars had gone from the drive, but I could still hear people indoors dancing and laughing as we sat side by side on the wooden steps. The sky in the east was deep blue above a black strip of water. Jonathan took a packet of cigarettes from his pocket; I accepted the one he offered. He fiddled with his box of matches and didn’t meet my eye as he held the flame up.