Swimming Lessons(34)

Gil was slow to answer, looking down at his uneaten bacon.

“Daddy?” Flora said.

“Perhaps,” Gil said. “But I’m beginning to think it’s better to know, one way or the other. It’s taken me a long time to realise, but I don’t think it’s good to have an imagination that is more vivid, wilder, than real life.”

“But you’ve always said we should hope and imagine. You can’t just suddenly change your mind.” Flora sounded petulant.

“I agree with Nan,” Richard said. “Better to live with the facts even if they are mundane.”

Gil closed the book, put it on the table, and Nan turned back to the sink. Richard, oblivious to the atmosphere, picked up Queer Fish and flicked through it, stopping at a different page and holding it open. “What about this doodle? Black biro, obscenity rating unclear. A man, would you say?”

Gil took the book again and inspected the drawing of a cloud with fish falling from it. Frowning, he said, “You’re catching on quickly. Yes, definitely a man.”

Flora folded her arms, said nothing.





Chapter 18


THE SWIMMING PAVILION, 10TH JUNE 1992, 4:30 AM


Dear Gil,

Annie died yesterday. It was unclear whether Nan or Flora was responsible, but there was a terrific noise from their bedroom (wailing and shouting) and, when I ran in, the skeleton was on the floor, most of its ribs in bits, the skull in several pieces like a broken teacup, and the teeth scattered. Nan said she’d hung Annie on the back of the door and that Flora, knowing the skeleton was there, had thrust the door open against the side of the wardrobe and then stamped on the bones. It sounds too vicious an attack even for Flora, but she was wearing your greatcoat and heavy boots, seven sizes too big for her. Whatever happened, Flora was in there kicking and shouting while Nan wrung her hands and asked if we could glue Annie back together. I knew she was past repairing. Flora stopped her noise and said, “Daddy will be able to mend her.”

She ran outside to your writing room and we watched her standing on the top step, beating on the stable door with her fists.

“Daddy! Daddy! Annie’s bust!” (Bust—where did she learn that word?)

She knew you weren’t in there, that you haven’t been here for months (I’ve just worked it out, and you’ve been gone for three-quarters of a year), but perhaps Flora liked to imagine your door opening, you sweeping her up, striding over to the house, and fixing everything. Nan tried to catch my eye, to share an expression with me. I turned away, but not before I saw those raised eyebrows, that adult understanding of where her father might be—too many things guessed at without any real knowledge, even for a girl of fifteen. Of course, you aren’t here to fix Annie; you aren’t here to fix anything anymore.

“Daddy’s in London doing things with books,” Nan called out to her sister, and Flora stopped her hammering and gave the door a kick instead. Later, when I kissed her good night, she asked whether you’d be home in time for her swimming gala, and I didn’t know what to say. What shall I tell her, Gil? And what do I say to Nan when she raises her eyebrows again with that knowing look? That I’m tired of forgiving you? That I’m not sure I want you back this time?

So, Annie. I couldn’t bear to just sweep her up and tip the pieces into the dustbin (jaw against ankle, hip touching skull), so late yesterday we piled all the bones we could find (Flora crawling in the dust under the beds—I’m sure several teeth have vanished) into the old Silver Cross pram I found under the house, and bumped it down the chine to the sea. Every time a wheel hit a stone, Annie’s remains jumped and rattled.

We carried the old Silver Cross over the sand, up to the far end of the beach where it tapers away under the cliff. As the sun set behind the village, the children helped me dig a hole—the three of us excavating rocks for half an hour—then we laid Annie to rest and toasted her with flat lemonade. We put the picnic rug over the top of her grave and ate jam sandwiches.

“I think we should say a prayer,” Nan said.

“Don’t be stupid,” Flora said. “You don’t believe in God; none of us do.”

“But a prayer is still a nice thing to say and sometimes it makes you feel better,” Nan said patiently. She bowed her head. “To dear Annie. We will miss you. May your bones be washed by the salt water, your spirit return to the sand, and the love we had for you be forever around us.” (Nan can be quite poetic when she puts her mind to it.)

“Amen to that,” Flora said.

“Amen,” I said.

Later, after the children were in bed, I went again to the beach. I lay on the grave with the stars shining above in the huge arc of the sky and wondered where you were lying, and I thought about all the things that have gone wrong and whether we will ever be able to put them right.


It was Jonathan I told first about the pregnancy. Not you, not Louise, and actually for a while I denied it to myself—the frightening idea that something alien had set seed inside me. I wanted Jonathan to make it go away. I wanted it to never have happened. But perhaps there were other things Jonathan didn’t want to face, because he said I had to tell you.

“You should make the decision together,” he said.

I tried to tell you that I didn’t want it, wasn’t ready, might never be ready, but you put your finger on my lips and said, “Marry me,” and all those plans of creating my own category and giving you up after the summer disappeared like a wisp of sea mist under the relentless energy of your sun. You stroked my stomach. “One down, five to go,” you said, and took me to America to celebrate.