Greenwich Park(16)
The boys had snuck the college punt out of the boathouse – we weren’t supposed to use it, for some reason I can’t remember. A surprise, they said. After weeks in the silence and stale air of libraries and examination halls, it had been intoxicating to be drifting underneath a luminous blue sky. The smell of the grass on the banks, the sock, sock, sock of the punt hitting the riverbed, the reflections in the water. The boys had taken turns punting while Helen and I swigged from a bottle of cheap fizz they’d bought at the college bar. For Serena and me, finals were over, and Rory and Daniel had a long summer ahead before their MA year began. Life after university felt like a distant speck on the horizon, with all the time in between just a vast, delicious expanse of summertime.
Sun-soaked and tipsy, we’d laughed at Daniel’s skinny legs, at Rory getting so distracted posing with his shirt off that he forgot to duck at the bridge and nearly fell in. Then he did fall in, and got back on the punt, and pushed Daniel in, and then Rory had taken his clothes off – he was always taking his clothes off. Finally, we all got in, clothes abandoned. Even Helen. Giddy and drunk, we’d raced each other down the river. Rory had swum underneath Helen, picked her up on his shoulders, her mouth a little wet O of surprise. Rory! Put me down! I thought you were Daniel, she had screamed. We’d watched her from the other side. The water had been dark and cool. You couldn’t always tell.
When we got back to the halls that day, it had been later than we’d realised. My skin was still clammy and cold from the river water. My hair had been bleached by the sun; even Helen had coloured. We hadn’t bothered changing. Little constellations of freckles had appeared on Helen’s cheeks and I remember seeing Daniel kissing them, in the queue for the club. It had seemed intimate, so much so that it made me look away, gave me a strange feeling. I remember how I couldn’t wait a minute longer for Rory that night, that we’d collapsed into his single bed, a hot tangle of limbs. His sweat had tasted sharp and sweet, his body different then, hardened by hockey and squash. I still remember the feel of his arms, the weight of him. When we finally fell asleep, his arm underneath my neck, light had been leaking in through the sides of the curtains, the beginnings of birdsong stirring.
‘You must remember, Daniel.’ Helen seems upset. She searches Daniel’s face for signs of recognition. But he looks at her for a moment as if she is someone he has never met before. He shrugs, looks down. The flames from the fire pit dance on his face, sharpening the shadows under his eyes, the ridge of his brow.
‘I’m sorry we bailed on the antenatal classes, Helen,’ I say. ‘I hope you don’t mind me switching to those other ones. They’re a bit nearer to here.’
Helen smiles weakly. ‘Oh, no, don’t worry about it.’
I suspect a better explanation is demanded. Not having one to hand, I decide to change the subject. ‘Shall we eat?’
Rory sits down at the table, starts filling glasses. It is our practised routine: he does drinks, I do food. Helen reaches out two hands for Daniel to haul her out of the swing seat. Daniel does it, effortlessly, with the wiry strength he has, a strength that his slim body hides. Daniel won medals for gymnastics when he was at school. He showed us once how he can support his entire body aloft with just his wrists, the sinews in his forearms straining. He held himself like that for over a minute on the pommel horse in the university gym, his torso as flat as a pencil, his face a blank oval of control. When he takes his glasses off, Daniel looks like a completely different person.
‘So,’ I ask, ‘how have they been, anyway? The classes? Are you finding them useful?’
It’s true that I had agreed to come on this course with her, that I’d let her book it and get all excited, when, in all honesty, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. Sitting in a hot room with her, Daniel and Rory. All that talk of stretching, bleeding, pushing, cutting. I had also completely forgotten about it until the day itself. Helen seemed to think we’d had a letter or something, but I don’t remember it. By the time I saw the reminder on my calendar, I’d made other plans.
‘They haven’t been that great, really.’ Helen is watching me carefully. She has registered my lack of enthusiasm and tempered her own accordingly. ‘Actually, they’re pretty boring. And it’s been boiling hot in the room where they hold them. Awful! So stuffy. You haven’t missed anything.’ She takes a sip of her water. ‘Daniel hasn’t managed to make it to any of them yet, either.’ She looks accusingly at Rory. ‘But I suppose someone has to hold the fort at work, with all this uncertainty over the project.’
Neither Daniel nor Rory reacts to Helen’s remark. Sometimes I think they simply don’t listen when she talks. I sense danger, reach over to pour more wine. I watch it wash around the sides of the fishbowl wine glasses. I can almost taste it, feel it whizzing into my bloodstream, sending the baby somersaulting dizzily in utero. But I glance at Helen, and decide to refrain.
I often find myself wishing Helen wouldn’t be such a stickler for the rules. At least, I wish she wouldn’t make such a song and dance about it, leaning over in restaurants to make sure the waiter can hear her tell him she’s pregnant, as if the poor bloke doesn’t have eyes in his head. It’s not her fault, of course. She has reason not to trust her own body. It has let her down before. This time, she is taking no chances. I think she believes that if she follows the rules, she can make a bargain that way. With God, the universe. Whoever. If she follows the rules, the rules will keep her baby safe.