Swimming Lessons(48)

“Because you never say what you mean!” Flora moved towards Nan, her head thrust like a bull about to charge.

“Our father is dying. He has pancreatic cancer!” Nan shouted, and gripped Flora by the shoulders. And with a reaction that was instinctive, animal, Flora lifted her hand, which had formed into a fist without her knowing it, and punched her sister in the chest. Nan cried out, buckled, and fell back at the same time as Richard leaped forwards. “Flora, Flora,” he said, trying to contain her, but she flailed her arms and hands, slapping and hitting until he ducked and moved away, out of her reach.

“No,” she said, sitting. Through strands of hair stuck to her face by tears and snot, she saw Richard with one hand over his mouth. On all fours Flora crawled over the books, their covers torn where they had been trodden on, her feet catching on the skirt of the dress, to Nan, who opened her arms and held her like a baby. And then she was aware of Richard, crouching beside them. He smelled of fabric conditioner and deodorant, colours too light to identify.

“Please can the bed stay?” she said into Nan’s chest. Nan didn’t answer, but against her ear Flora heard and felt her sister’s speeding heart slow and grow steady.





Chapter 26


THE SWIMMING PAVILION, 14TH JUNE 1992, 4:10 AM


Dear Gil,

On Friday, Flora’s teacher phoned. She asked if I would “come in for a quick chat on Monday.”

“What’s it about?” I said, but thinking, What now? (Why is it I never imagine it will be good news?)

“I’d rather you and your husband came into school. It won’t take long.”

I wanted to tell her that you won’t be coming with me because you’re not here and I don’t know where you are, although I can imagine. But instead I said in my cheeriest voice, “Of course. I’ll catch the school bus with Flora on Monday.”

I’m no good at motherhood.


After I saw it wasn’t writing you were doing at the end of the garden, after the crying, and the packing and the begging, you wrote me another letter. I didn’t keep this one, but it was short and I remember it.


Ingrid,

I know I’ve blown it. I know that nothing will undo what I have done. I am a stupid fucker. A stupid fucker who loves you.

Please don’t leave me.

Gil


You left it, the letter, on top of a large flat cardboard box which you’d placed on the bed. Inside the box was a dress: layers of long pink chiffon below a sleeveless bodice sewn with silver beads and sequins—antique, expensive. Without thinking, I took it out and held it up to me, running my fingers against the fabric and then, suddenly remembering, shoved it back in the box. I’ve never worn the dress, but I did hang it in the wardrobe because I couldn’t ever quite bear to throw it away.

Despite the letter and the dress, I wouldn’t let you sleep in the house. Every evening you said good night to Nan and you looked at me with your sad eyes, and I made you leave for your writing room. I wanted you to lie in the bed where (literally) you ate the cake you wanted. At night the house belonged to me and our daughter. At night it would go like this (it still goes like this): I try to stay up as late as possible, but by 10:15 PM my eyes are aching in their sockets and it’s impossible to resist laying my head on the kitchen table or falling asleep where I sit, so I get ready for bed. I stretch out under the bedcovers and sink into sleep. At 2:35 AM by the numbers on the digital alarm clock, I am awake. There isn’t a period of waking; I am just awake. I hope that if I lie motionless with my eyes shut, sleep will find me again. At 2:56 AM my eyes are dry and scratchy and my butterfly mind is flitting from one monstrous problem to the next, unable to settle or resolve anything. At 3:12 AM I am angry with myself, with sleep, with the girls, with you. I kick the mattress and push my fingers into my closed eyes until they might burst. I sit up, drop my chin forwards onto my chest and stay like that until 3:21 AM, when I pull the cover from the bed and stand at the window to look at your writing room. There is never a light on, of course. If it’s very cold, I pace from the sitting room to the kitchen, or, more recently, I wrap myself up, sit at the veranda table, and write to you.

At 4:33 AM the fear that there won’t be any more sleep until the evening kicks in. I feel sick at the thought that soon the day will start and I will have to get Nan and Flora up, make them breakfast and packed lunches, search for stray gym shoes and money for a school trip, and for the whole day I’ll have to stay awake to stand the smallest chance of sleeping through the night. At 5:00 AM I give up and go for a swim.


There were months of me moving about the house like a nervous horse ready to bolt and you being too nice—falsely bright, like a stable hand with a bridle and bit held ready behind your back. Our conversations were inconsequential, about what to have for dinner and when you could drive me into Hadleigh to buy food if I missed the bus. We didn’t touch each other, we didn’t kiss—I wouldn’t let you. I thought about leaving, often. Once or twice I got as far as dialling Louise’s number but replaced the receiver before she answered. Another time, I packed that blue suitcase but couldn’t work out how to carry it together with all the things Nan needed as well as push the Silver Cross. So I unpacked it and put the clothes away.

And I thought about leaving without her.

Several times that summer, people turned up uninvited (even by Jonathan) for the sunshine and the beach, to camp in the grass like the year before. You avoided them but I was grateful for their company, and if I’m honest, I was grateful because those girls in long skirts and bare feet loved Nan. One day, I came across a girl—a woman (she must have been ten years older than me)—breastfeeding her. The woman was topless, sitting on a mat with her friends, smiling down as our daughter fastened to her nipple. At the time I couldn’t work out how she was able to do it, how she had the milk, but later I understood. When she saw me, the woman’s face and chest flushed, she slipped a finger into the side of Nan’s mouth, unlatched her, and held the bawling baby out to me, but I shook my head and sat beside her. She smiled again and guided Nan’s gummy mouth back to her nipple.