The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(33)

‘Hmm, maybe.’

Niall closed his eyes that night, knowing that the response from his father could go either way, but maybe that didn’t seem as terrible as it might have a week earlier, or even just before he’d run into Zoe Huang.





14


Elizabeth


The improving weather also brought more people down onto the beach. Youngsters had set up a barbecue the previous day. Jo had rung to tell her that she might need to think about buying a swimming costume. Elizabeth knew her friend was probably right, but at the same time, she surprised herself by not wanting to give in.

‘It’s too dark for anyone to see very much,’ she said as they made their way further down the beach than usual. ‘And, let’s face it, at my age, they’re not going to spend a lot of time gawping at me.’ She threw her head back and laughed at this.

‘Who is this brazen hussy and what have you done with dear old square Elizabeth?’ Jo looked at her and there was no mistaking the amusement in her eyes.

‘Yes, well, I haven’t completely lost the run of myself; we’re still the Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club. No mention of harlots there!’ Elizabeth said without thinking too deeply about it.

‘I like that,’ Lucy said simply. ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could get more of the village women down to join us? I bet it’d halve the number of aches and pains we see in the surgery if we did…’

‘That would be lovely,’ Elizabeth said.

The following night, they were racing down the darkening beach. Elizabeth couldn’t wait to get to their perfect spot and the delicious feel of the ocean cloaking her whole body and soul. Lying on her back, with the icy waters about her, looking up at the stars dotting the black sky was her release. For the ten minutes of capering about in the stinging cold, she felt altogether and utterly more alive than she’d ever imagined possible. Her whole existence had somehow transformed into a life with meaning far beyond what she could have ever expected. She talked to villagers every day that once she would have hardly known. She knew that as much as she liked Lucy and Alice, they were every bit as fond of her in return.

The icing on the cake was this: swimming with Jo and Lucy, here in the darkness, occasionally in silence, sometimes talking about nothing important but, more often sharing their deepest worries and always finding something to laugh about.

‘It’s nice having a writer living in Ballycove, isn’t it?’ Elizabeth had said as they ran out into the cold waves.

‘Is it?’ Lucy asked, diving in.

Elizabeth looked across at her friend. It was hard to know how far out they were swimming in the darkness, but the moon spilling across the water gave enough illumination to see each other. ‘It’s cultured, isn’t it? The idea that we have a man of letters in the village.’

‘Oh, dear, listen to you, still hankering after old Mr Abbott’s bookshop.’ Jo whooped. She held little store on what people did for a living and more on what they did for their neighbour.

‘I remember Mr Abbott’s bookshop,’ Lucy said fondly. ‘Did you love it too, Elizabeth?’

‘I worked there, as a girl before…’ Elizabeth sighed. She thought about old Mr Abbott often these days, more so now that Eric had died.

‘When she married old Eric, he didn’t want her to work anymore, so that was that, although you did visit regularly, didn’t you?’ Jo asked. ‘I often wondered if he and Eric had… you know?’

‘Stop it!’ Elizabeth squeaked. She caught her friend’s eye and they both howled with laughter.

‘What is it?’ Lucy turned about to tread water. She was watching the two women intently now, perhaps aware that some great secret had been shared between them.

‘Jo is wondering if Eric and old Mr Abbott were more than friends,’ Elizabeth said diplomatically. She waited a beat for the penny to drop and when it didn’t, said: ‘They were both gay.’

‘Oh my God, I never knew that your husband was gay,’ Lucy said after she recovered her balance again in the water. Elizabeth and Jo laughed at her reaction. Had she really no idea that Eric had been gay?

‘In the beginning, neither did I.’ Elizabeth found herself laughing at the absurdity of it. ‘Why am I laughing?’ She gasped then, but the other two women were laughing just as heartily. ‘It’s absolutely not funny.’

‘It sort of is, when you think about it now.’

‘I suppose he was very neat and precise and… Oh my God, I can’t believe I just said that – it’s such a stereotype. I’m so sorry. And that’s why you never had any more children?’ Lucy said softly as if some invisible piece of puzzle was slotting into place.

‘Yes. My marriage was completely empty. Eric saved me from Saint Nunciata’s, but he condemned me to an empty marriage so he could save face in the village. Back then people wouldn’t have come near a doctor who was gay – it was actually illegal at the time, as if the government could legislate against something so intrinsic in a person. Of course, there was no chance of ever having a family of my own after my little boy died.’

‘Was he stillborn?’ Lucy began.

Elizabeth nodded sadly. ‘It had been a terrible labour. The midwives were all nuns. The same order worked in the hospital that ran the convent and the babies’ home. One of them took him from me to clean him up and I never got to see him, never mind hold him. He died as she was wrapping him up in blankets.’ Elizabeth shuddered. Even now, thirty years later, she cried when she thought about her little boy passing so softly through this world. ‘I knew from the moment they took him from me that something was wrong with him. The matron actually gasped when she saw him.’ She felt the familiar sting of tears on her cheek as she remembered. ‘It was the longest ten minutes of my life, when they took him away and then came back with the news that…’