Swimming Lessons(36)

“Writing?”

“At night?”

“No, I didn’t use the night for writing, although I should have. It was Ingrid who wrote in the night, well, the early morning—she sat for hours on the veranda.”

“I didn’t know Ingrid was a writer. Did she have anything published?”

“No,” Gil said sharply. “She wrote letters.”

“To her family?”

Too many questions, Flora thought, and her father must have thought so too because he didn’t answer. Instead he said, “She would go swimming as well, although her doctor advised her against it.”

“Against swimming?” Richard said. “I thought it was meant to be good for you.”

“I followed her to Little Sea Pond once. It’s a pool behind the dunes, a beautiful place, secluded. I sat in the bird hide and spied on her while she shed her clothes. She was so slender and pale, almost transparent. She stepped into the pond and turned; she might have been looking straight at me, except I was hidden. She lay back and it was as if the pond cradled her; she didn’t have to move her arms or her legs to stay afloat, she just reclined in the dark water, her hair spread about her head. I watched as the sun rose—a naked Ophelia.”

“Like a creature native and indued unto that element,” Richard said.

“But long it could not be till that her garments, heavy with their drink, pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay to muddy death,” Gil finished and was quiet for a moment, remembering perhaps. “But I should have shown myself, should have waded in, a lumbering old fool, to tell her I loved her. Too late now.”

“Perhaps she knew, in her way.” Richard’s voice was soft. Flora held her breath, straining to listen.

“She had no fucking idea.”

“Perhaps you’ll have another chance to tell her, soon.”

Gil snorted. “Nan’s told you about that Catholic rubbish, has she? I very much doubt Ingrid will be in the same place as the one I’m going to.” Flora felt Gil’s position in the bed change. “Flora, are you awake?”

She stretched and opened her eyes as if she had only just woken up. And Flora knew it was because Gil thought she’d been listening that he said abruptly, “Don’t start with that religious shit, Richard.” And the younger man, shocked, withdrew into his chair.





Chapter 20


THE SWIMMING PAVILION, 11TH JUNE 1992, 4:25 PM


Dear Gil,

Yesterday afternoon as soon as the girls got home they started arguing. When I went into their room, Nan’s face was filled with horror and Flora was huddled on the bed, clutching your old cuff link box tight to her chest.

“Oh my God!” Nan cried. “She’s killed someone! She’s actually killed someone and kept their teeth.”

“They were on my side of the drawer,” Flora said, tears running. “You shouldn’t be looking. They’re mine.”

“You’re sick, Flora,” Nan said. “Something’s wrong in here.” She tapped the side of her head.

“They’re Annie’s. You know they’re Annie’s!”

Nan made a surprise attack, snatched the box and shook it in the air like a rattle. Flora jumped up at her sister’s arm, pulling on the sleeve of her school shirt and screaming for her to hand them over.

“Stop!” I shouted. “Both of you, stop it!”

The shirt ripped. Nan wailed, flung the box onto her bed, and ran out of the house, slamming the front door behind her. Flora grabbed the box of teeth and locked herself in the bathroom. I sat on Nan’s bed feeling useless and gazing out at the sea where ragged clouds tore themselves to shreds against a knife-sharp horizon.

Later, when Nan had gone to a friend’s house to do homework, Flora and I sat together on her bed. She rested her head against my chest and I stroked her hair, breathing in the sweet smell of my child. Without lifting her face she said, “Why are blackbirds called blackbirds and not brownbirds, when the ladies are brown? And dogs . . .” She pulled away to look up at me. “Why aren’t they all called bitches? And foxes should be vixens. That would make it fairer.”

I was starting to answer but she carried on.

“And why is it mothers have to stay at home to look after the children? Why can’t that be the father’s job? Because they are better at it, aren’t they?”


Louise stopped calling you by your first name when I told her I was pregnant and used “that man” instead. You and I were back in London; me living at the flat with Louise and you staying in your old lodgings.

“He’d better be there when you get rid of it,” had been the first thing she’d said.

“I’m not going to get rid of it.” I was sitting on the sofa, my handbag on my lap. “Gil and I are engaged; we’re going to be married. On Tuesday. I was hoping you’d be a witness.”

“What?” Louise banged a saucepan of beans on the stove. “Are you mad? Married? For God’s sake, why? What about everything we’re going to do?”

“I love him.”

She made a phh noise. “I thought we were going to see the world. I thought we weren’t going to end up like our mothers.” Her tone was as dismissive as I’d imagined it would be.