Swimming Lessons(59)

When I think back on those months of swelling and happiness, my recollection is that I was alone in the Swimming Pavilion, or, at least, it was just me, Nan, and the garden. But you were there writing, because that summer you submitted your third novel. And it was rejected.

We were living off the tiny trickle of twice-yearly royalties from your first two books and the money your mother had left in trust for you; it wasn’t enough. Margarine sandwiches for supper, tea leaves reused pot after pot, and hiding from the milkman when he came knocking. Martin gave you a job behind the bar but asked you not to return for a third shift after you drank more than you poured for the customers. You worked for a few weeks at the stables but the horses scared you. You lasted six months or so at the dairy, but getting up early was never going to work for long. (Funny, after you’d teased Jonathan about milking those cows in Ireland.)

The garden and the swimming were my release from the worries about money and the relentless grind of motherhood. The water was good for what was happening inside me. Without you knowing, I crept out of the house and down to the sea in the dark, my feet finding their way around the rocks at the top of the beach. I hid the damp towel from you, washed the sand from my hair and the salt from my lips before you kissed me. I was gentle with the baby, I didn’t swim hard or far, we were never in danger. There was something magical about those mornings, imagining the child suspended in its fluid while I was suspended in mine, both of us in our natural states.

I swam until the cold weather came, when instead of going in the water, I went to stare at the sea—flat and grey, or brilliant as the sun rose, or, best of all, with the wind raging and the water throwing itself at the rocks.

In the village shop one afternoon, Mrs. Bankes found me hiding behind the shelves, counting the money in my purse, trying to decide if I could afford a packet of butter. Nan was sitting up in the pram, pointing at everything and saying “jam” no matter whether it was window cleaner or gravy browning.

“She’s such a good girl, isn’t she? Never struggles or wants to get down,” Mrs. Bankes said to me. “You’re such a good girl,” she said to Nan in a singsong voice.

“Jam,” Nan said.

“Let’s hope the next one will be as easy,” Mrs. Bankes said. I looked at my daughter and then, because it seemed to be expected of me, I reached out to stroke a stray curl of her hair. “I expect you’re hoping for a boy. It’s always nice to have one of each.”

“George,” I said, my hand on my belly, the name coming out of nowhere.

“Lovely. After George the Fifth, I suppose. Such a nice man.”

“No,” I said. “Bernard Shaw, or maybe Orwell.”

Mrs. Bankes carried on as if she hadn’t heard me. “They say we’re in for a cold winter, even down here. I hope you’ve got plenty of warm clothes ready for that new baby.”

“I’ve kept Nan’s—in the loft, I think.”

The shopkeeper leaned towards Nan. “Your little brother is going to be wearing pink? That won’t do. That won’t do at all.” And one of Mrs. Bankes’ hands flew down from over her head, and her finger pressed the end of Nan’s nose. Another child would have cried, but Nan smiled, a kind of adult smile—tolerant, patronizing. Mrs. Bankes stood up straight again. “You’re going to have to get knitting. I think we have some blue wool in the back here, and I’m sure I’ll have some needles you can borrow.”

“I can’t knit,” I said. “I don’t know how.”

She tutted. “Come up tomorrow lunchtime and I’ll show you.” She bustled me out of the shop. At home I found a packet of butter and a pot of strawberry jam tucked under Nan’s blanket.

For the next month I spent every lunchtime in the shop, Nan stirring buttons in a saucepan, and Mrs. Bankes and me side by side in front of the meat counter as I learned to knit. The wool was baby blue and soft. I finished one little boot, lopsided and too large for a newborn, but still I kept it under my pillow so I could hold it at night.

On the 23rd of November, in the evening, I was sitting in the kitchen casting on like Mrs. Bankes had taught me, starting the next blue boot, wondering whether you were enjoying your birthday in London and trying not to worry about where you were exactly, when there was a familiar pop and my waters broke, two months prematurely. I put my hand between my legs as if I could stop the flow of liquid, but it ran off the chair and pooled on the lino. I must have cried out, because I heard Nan calling, “Mum mum mum mum” from her bedroom. I dropped a tea towel into the puddle.

I rarely used the telephone, too concerned about the bill, but that night I stood over it, thinking about what number to call. We still had that pop-up address book then, and for several minutes I slid the pointer up and down the alphabet trying to recall the name of your agent, but as I dialled the last digit of his number I realised how late it was, and when the phone rang in an empty London office I felt the first contraction, a mild, low ache, like the others. Jonathan was in London that weekend and I remembered the name of the hotel he was staying in. The operator gave me the number, but when I phoned they said he’d gone out. I knew he’d be drinking with you, putting the tab on expenses. I left an urgent message with the receptionist. The only other person I knew in London was Louise. I hadn’t seen her for more than a year; we exchanged Christmas and birthday cards with letters, mine becoming a round robin with bad news smoothed over like the wash of a tide across dry sand. Louise answered on the fifth ring.