Swimming Lessons(28)

We didn’t stay in for long. We lay on the rug and ate the apples, but you had forgotten a knife so we took the cheese from its waxed paper and bit chunks off with our teeth. You told me that when you were a child, sometimes whole summers would go by and you’d realise you hadn’t been in the sea, and I told you about the summers spent next to the icy waters of the Norwegian island where my father had lived.

I waited for you to kiss me again or suggest we take the rug into the dunes after everyone had left, but instead you put your hand on my skin and said, “Let’s get dressed and go back.” We dragged our clothes on over our sandy arms and legs and walked home through the dunes and along the road.

Late that evening when we were sitting out on the veranda, you said, “I don’t think we’ll ever have to shout to make ourselves heard over the noise of the rain drumming on the roof. I don’t think it’ll ever rain again.” You kneeled in front of me, took my face in your hands, and kissed me again. Then you stood and led me to your bedroom.


Yours, always,

Ingrid


[Placed in I Am the Cheese, by Robert Cormier, 1977.]





Chapter 15



The woman in the library was Flora’s age, perhaps younger, and from the front, her hair had that look of having been artificially straightened in the way it poured from her centre parting. Her eyes narrowed. “Can I help you?”

Flora stuttered an apology and backed away, stepping into someone standing behind her.

“Flora?” The person held her by the elbow to stop her from falling, and when she turned it took her a moment to recognise the man out of context, clothed and vertical: Richard. She pulled away from him and ran down the stairs to the ground floor, her face burning. Out on the pavement he caught up with her.

“Who was that?” he said. “What were you doing?”

“Nothing. It was nothing.” She marched past the café, up the high street, Richard jogging to keep up. “Anyway, shouldn’t it be me asking you questions? Like what the hell are you doing here?”

“I came to find you. You weren’t answering your phone.”

“It’s broken.”

“I had to get a train and then the bus—no idea where to get off. I went into the library to ask directions.”

“So you were stalking me.”

“I was worried about you.”

“There’s no need. I’m fine.”

“Flora,” he said, touching her arm. “Slow down. Who was that woman?”

Flora stopped walking, flung her arms up in the air, and let them flap to her sides. For a moment her voice wouldn’t come, but she swallowed the lump inside her. “I thought she was my mother. OK? But she wasn’t. Happy now?”

“I’m sorry,” Richard said.

“For following me or because she wasn’t my mother?”

“For both.”

“Well, you don’t need to be sorry. As you can see, I’m fine.” Flora was aware she was shouting and that people walking past were staring. “You can go home now.” She opened her satchel and groped in it for Richard’s car key, then remembered that the Morris Minor was in the garage. “I had an accident, last night. In your car.”

Richard’s eyes widened. “Were you hurt? Are you all right?” He dropped the small rucksack he’d been carrying and put his arm around her; she let it stay.

“I’m fine. But your car . . .”

His arm fell away.

“It’s the fan belt. I got it to the garage. They’re mending it now. It should be ready in a couple of hours.”

“As long as you’re OK,” he said. “Come on, let me buy you a cup of tea.”

“I’d bloody well rather have a proper drink,” she said.


Richard and Flora sat on the veranda drinking Gil’s whiskey as the sun went down. Richard had found it under the kitchen sink behind a box of tools after she had sent him into the house without her. She’d also got him to drag the cover off the bed so they could wrap it around them. The tide was in and the deep water crashing against the cliffs boomed where it hit hollows in the rock, the sound like distant thunder.

“This used to be a swimming pavilion?” Richard said.

“Changing rooms to you and me,” Flora said. “When Daddy sold the big house up the road, this was all that was left. I think there were debts and death duties when my grandfather died. Daddy doesn’t talk about it.”

Headlights swung around into the drive, illuminating the gorse flowers, yellow jewels in the black. Nan’s car pulled up.

“Where have you been?” Nan said as soon as she got out and saw Flora standing at the top of the steps.

“Where have you been, you mean,” Flora said. “You were meant to be home hours ago. How’s Daddy?” She went towards the car.

“He’s sleeping. Leave him.” Nan blocked Flora’s route to the passenger door. “I’ve been calling the house phone and your mobile all afternoon. There was some stupid delay with the doctor wanting to see him again. Why didn’t you pick up?”

“I thought I saw Mum in Hadleigh,” Flora said. “But it wasn’t her.”

“Oh, Flora,” Nan said, her puff gone in an instant. She stepped forwards as if to take her sister in her arms.