Swimming Lessons(35)

Do you remember the yard sale we stopped at on the road between Sebastopol and Guerneville after we’d driven north from San Francisco? And those three grown-up brothers selling the contents of their grandmother’s house, everything laid out by the side of the road for any passing tourist to rummage through? Heaps of tarnished cutlery, books, threadbare linen piled on decorating tables, and a leather three-piece suite set out in the front yard.

“Let’s buy it,” you said, bouncing on the cushions.

“Gil, get up,” I said, pulling on your hand. “Don’t be silly. It’s horrible, and how would we get it home?” You gave me a tug so I fell into your lap. You held me by the waist and kissed me, and we toppled sideways, you manoeuvring until you were lying on me in full view of the house.

“Tell me what you want me to do. We can do anything—anything at all,” you whispered.

“Gil! Someone will come. Someone will see,” I said. And then, as a final attempt to get you off, “The baby!”

“Who’ll come? The Three Brothers Grimm?” Your hand was under my skirt and your mouth pressed against my neck.

“Gil!” I struggled, but I was laughing, too, twisting my head to move your lips from my ear. I think you might even have got as far as unzipping your fly when a shadow fell across my face.

“What the fuck?” said the man looking down on us. From where I lay, I could see the bottom of his belly hanging over the cinched belt of his jeans.

Still on top of me, you reached for a box of books beside the sofa and picked up the top one. “How much for this?” You smiled your most handsome smile. I pushed hard against your chest with my hands and scrambled out from underneath you, pulling my skirt over my knees, sitting up straight and blushing like a teenager caught by a parent who’s come home earlier than expected. You sat up, too, and flicked through the book, stopped at a page and read. The margins were filled with notes and drawings. “In fact,” you said, “how much for the whole box?”

Later I learned the cost of that holiday. Everything, including the box of books, bought with money we didn’t have.


Yours,

Ingrid


[Placed in Hand Crocheted Creations for the Home: Bedspreads, Luncheon Sets, Scarfs, Chair Sets, by Bernhard Ullmann, 1933.]





Chapter 19



After breakfast, Flora brushed her teeth and got dressed, and when she returned to the kitchen, Gil said he thought he would go back to bed for a while.

“But you just got up,” Flora said. “I thought we could go to the beach. Or for a walk, show Richard the heath and the Agglestone since he doesn’t seem to have to go to work today. You’d like to see the Agglestone, wouldn’t you, Richard?”

“Perhaps later,” he said, helping Gil to his feet and leading him out of the kitchen. Flora went to follow, but Nan grabbed her arm and pulled her back.

“Dad has asked Richard to stay a bit longer,” Nan said.

“What?”

“He asked Richard if he can take some time off work.”

“Why?” Flora said.

“He does work full time, doesn’t he?”

“I mean, why would Daddy want Richard to stay?” She glanced towards the hall and hissed, “He’s just some guy I’m sleeping with.”

Nan rolled her eyes. “Well, I like him and Dad does too. He says he can talk to Richard.”

“But you both barely know him. And anyway, why can’t Daddy talk to us?”

Nan shrugged and went into the hall. Flora followed.


Gil lay against his pillows in the front bedroom. Richard had eased off the old man’s shoes and Nan was fussing, making sure he had a glass of fresh water. He appeared small in the bed, as if the mattress were growing around him so that in a few days or weeks he might be absorbed by it, in the way that trees will grow around iron railings. Nan opened the curtains and a window, and the smell of the sea came into the room—billows of Cambridge blue.

“What a magnificent bed,” Richard said.

“It belonged to my grandparents,” Nan said, smoothing the cover. “When they lived in the big house down the road. I was born in it, and Dad was, weren’t you, Dad?”

“It’s a fucking ridiculous bed.” Gil sank backwards and closed his eyes.

“Well, it’s the wrong height for nursing.”

“You’re not at work, Nan,” Flora said. She went around to her mother’s side and lay next to Gil.

“Do you want me to read to you?” Richard pulled up a chair to Gil’s bedside. All the thousands of books in the house, and Flora realised she’d never heard her father read any of them to her. It had always been her mother.


Flora opened her eyes to a stack of books on the bedside table and a cold cup of tea balanced on top. She shut them again when she heard Richard and her father talking behind her back.

“I used to follow Ingrid sometimes, in the dawn,” Gil said. There was a catch in his voice that surprised Flora. She tilted the side of her head that was against the pillow so she could hear better, and smelled the khaki whiff of unwashed hair again. “She was a poor sleeper,” Gil continued. “And I spent most nights in my room at the end of the garden.”

“And is that when you did your writing?” Richard said.