Swimming Lessons(74)

I opened the door a crack. “Can I help you?” I said.

He looked about Nan’s age, maybe a little older, fifteen or sixteen. (Still a boy, not even yet a young man.) He had blond down on his chin and a mouth and nose too big for his bony face. He was familiar but I couldn’t place him. The boy paused, as if he’d forgotten his rehearsed lines or wasn’t sure they were the right ones.

“Is Gil Coleman in?” he said.

I hesitated but told the truth. “No.”

He gripped the book tighter, and I looked at it. Inverted, I saw the image of the unmade bed from above, pillows hollowed by the shape of three heads, the crumpled sheet suggestive of a woman’s body. A Man of Pleasure, I read. I’d seen the cover—the jacket, you called it—even though, as you’d promised, we didn’t keep the finished book in the house. You’d shown me the picture, proud of the fact that your name was larger than the book’s title.

“Do you mind if I wait?” His voice was tremulous, still breaking.

“What do you want him for?”

“I just . . .” He held the book up. An autograph hunter, I thought. “Can I wait?” he repeated, nodding towards the table. “I won’t get in your way.”

Normally I’d have said no, but something about him, how tired he looked, made me shrug and close the door.

When he moved towards the table I saw he had a guitar strapped to his back. The boy chose the chair facing the view over the lawns and the pebble path, lined with pots of geraniums, to the sea and your writing room. From inside the house I could hear him tuning the guitar, a repeated note curving upwards. When I walked past the bedroom, Flora was jumping up and down, hissing, “Mum! Why did you let him stay? Now I can’t go out and sunbathe.”

“There won’t be any sunbathing, Flora. You’re supposed to be ill,” I said. I went into the bedroom and, without looking out, whisked the curtains closed across the front window. “Back to bed, Flora, or if you’re feeling better you can get dressed and catch the bus into school.” She huffed and sat.

In the kitchen I continued preparing dinner, chopping and frying onions, browning beef, when I suddenly realised that Flora had been quiet for a long time—longer than she could normally manage. I hurried along the hall to the bedroom, drying my hands on my skirt. I could hear the guitar music, a tune being picked out.

Flora, still in her nightie, was peering through a gap in the curtains.

“Come away,” I whispered.

“Why? You let him sit there.”

“It’s rude to stare.”

“He’s staring, too. He looks like a hungry dog, a sad, hungry dog. Maybe we should give him some food.”


When we went outside, the boy was staring at the sea, his guitar silent across his lap. I put the tea tray on the table. “I guessed at one sugar,” I said, sitting. Flora leaned on the post beside the steps, watching.

“Thank you,” he said. He propped his guitar against the veranda railing, and when he picked up the cup his hand was shaking. I held out the plate of biscuits; he took one and he ate it in two bites.

“I don’t know how long Gil will be,” I said. “But I am expecting him home later today.” Of course I had no idea when you would get back.

“I don’t mind waiting if you don’t mind me sitting here.” He stared at the plate of biscuits, and Flora nudged it towards him with one finger, withdrawing her hand as if she were worried he might snap at her. He took another and ate it.

“Have you come far?” I said.

“Oxford.” His mouth showed churned crumbs.

Flora took one step, all the time watching.

“That’s a fair way for a signature,” I said. He’d put your book on the table and I placed my hand flat on top of it, covering the picture of the exposed bedsheet. Now, of course, I know that under the paper cover is a blue board and, inside, an endpaper—the left-hand side pasted down. Your book’s endpapers are pale—the colour of duck’s eggs in the morning. Next is the right-hand endpaper—the flyleaf—blue again. Then there’s the first white page with the title—A Man of Pleasure. Turn that over, and the name is repeated, and below it there’s your publisher’s logo. On the reverse side of that leaf is the copyright page. And opposite that? You know what’s opposite that. If you don’t, you should go and remind yourself.

“No, that’s . . .” the boy said, and then quickly, “Yes. A fair way.”

“Aren’t you a bit young for this sort of book?” I said, my fingers tapping the pillows on the cover.

“I’m fifteen,” he said, sounding aggrieved, but his blush gave him away.

Flora, beside the table now, snatched the book from under my hand.

“Flora,” I said sharply. “Give the young man his book, please.” She ignored me and flicked through the pages with her thumb, stopping where a corner had been folded down.

“It’s OK. I know it’s Daddy’s book.”

“Flora.” A warning in my voice.

“He’s been writing in the margins.” She looked at the boy. I held my hand out. “All right, all right,” Flora said, and snapped the book shut with both hands. To the boy she said, “Daddy would like that.” She put it in front of him. “He likes it when people write in books. That’s his thing.”