The Swimmer

Nothing, there was nothing. An unmistakable sense of disappointment flooded over me. The penknife was still in my hand. I closed it, turned the key in the back door, (yes, it was unlatched) and pulled down the blinds. Then, getting myself a drink of water from the jug in the fridge, I went upstairs and fell into an exhausted sleep, not realising I was still clutching the telephone.

The following day was Friday and I awoke late. Sarah the cleaner had let herself in and was just finishing downstairs.

‘You’re tired,’ she said when she saw me emerge. ‘Late night?’

‘Yes.’

I went over to make some tea. My weekly organic box was on the work surface. There were the last of the broad beans, field mushrooms and asparagus. There was no fruit. I had asked for cherries, some raspberries, but there was nothing. Not even apples. Sarah was vacuuming the stairs. I could hear her banging the nozzle against the banisters with more vigour than seemed necessary. I knew she had stolen the fruit. Every time she came she stole something, however small. It was a token of…I’m not sure what. Some suppressed rage. I knew she didn’t like me. Once I had confronted her with some CDs I’d found in her bag and she had pretended to be dumbfounded.

‘I’ve no idea how they got there,’ she had said.

As if it was my fault. I know she stole money, too, but I had no way of proving it. Since it wasn’t possible to get another cleaner to come this far out of town, I continued to keep her on, but I didn’t leave anything of value lying around. I was on the point of looking in her bag for the missing fruit when she walked back into the kitchen and glared at me. Sighing, I picked up the paper and went into the dining room. Jack, Miranda and their children would have left London by now. I could hear Sarah going back upstairs to put clean sheets on all the beds. Then she would wash the kitchen floor and then, thank goodness, she would leave. It was almost ten. I sipped my tea and suddenly, without any warning, I remembered the swimmer. My God! How could I have forgotten him?

Solitude creates a peculiar inner life. Unbroken silence, frightening to begin with, soon becomes a way of life. At mealtimes there is only the clatter of one set of crockery, the crunch of your own teeth on food, the sound of yourself swallowing. When Ant was no longer there to bounce my thoughts off those things that had been suppressed for years began to turn endlessly in my head. There was no one to shout, Stop, stop, you’re going crazy. If you are unloved, as I was, husbandless, childless, you develop a way of thinking and being that is haphazard. Life pares down, sex becomes something other people engage in, like dancing. However much you longed for it, all you had was yourself. This was how I was at forty-three. Years before, when Jack first brought Miranda home (Ant had not yet made his brief appearance in my life) I could tell he thought of me as a born spinster.

‘My sister is frigid,’ I imagined him saying, making her giggle.

Hard to think of her giggling now, but in the early days, I used to be able to tell simply by the way Miranda looked at me, she was thinking, Oh yes, frigid. Definitely! I was not frigid. Someone had to suggest sex before they could call you frigid. There was no one to do that then or now.

In some sense life closed down for me after the shock of my father’s death. Until then, I’ve been told I was a chatty, friendly child. Happy, too, I believe. Now and then glimpses of that girlhood flit across my dreams; sunlight on an otherwise shadowed life, insubstantial like light, vanishing as I wake. The woman I am today is still possessed by that invisible child.

Last night’s appearance of the swimmer had the quality of those dreams. I remembered a mosaic I had once seen in the archaeological museum in Naples. That too had been of a swimmer. Thin arms, rising slightly, slim hips, head poised as he bent to retrieve his clothes. What nonsense the night throws up, I thought. In the daylight it was unimaginable that I had been frightened. Stirring myself, I decided to tidy the garden before Jack arrived.

‘I’m off then,’ Sarah said, coming in, making me jump.

She stared at me, her face resentful as she waited for her pay.

What the hell was she angry about? I’m the one whose fruit had been stolen. I hesitated.

‘Sarah,’ I said, handing over her money, ‘I’m afraid…I’m sorry, but I’m not going to need any cleaning for a while. The house is going to be full for a month. It’s a bit pointless trying to tidy up.’

She had a bullish look. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll contact you after the summer, shall I?’

‘Are you giving me the sack?’ she asked.

‘No, no, Sarah…’

God! The woman made my flesh creep.

‘I’m just suggesting we have a bit of a break.’

‘You’ll lose me,’ she said threateningly.

‘Yes, I see that.’

‘I’m not going to wait around. There are others who’ll want me.’

I looked at her helplessly.

‘I’ll take a chance,’ I said.

I should have sacked her months ago.

‘Please yourself then,’ she said.

And she left, taking my fruit and who knows what else with her.

It was eleven by now. Jack would be here by four. The house smelt of the eucalyptus polish that Sarah insisted on using. Sunlight poured in through the kitchen window. Relieved to be rid of her, I went upstairs.

In the shower I thought once more of the swimmer. Warm water flowed over me. I felt a spurt of energy, the first in months, and the stirring of a possible poem. The emptiness I carried around within me receded slightly. I felt moulded in wetness and light. When I was younger, during that awkward adolescent stage, Uncle Clifford used to say I had the look of Kate in the novel The Go-Between. What he meant was, I think, I looked a bit like the actress who played the part of Kate in the film version. I can’t remember her name but she had blue eyes (as I do), and fair, wavy hair, like mine. Why am I saying this? What difference can it possibly make, except perhaps to present the picture of what I once was, what I might have been, had the circumstances been right? Tall and willowy, Ant had said, in our moments of passion. With a sensuous mouth. For some reason I thought of this now.

It is important that I describe the fabric of that day and the days that followed. After I dressed, I went outside into the garden and picked some white Japanese anemones. The sky was cloudless. That summer, the heat had built up in layers, slowly, beautifully, like daily washes of transparent colour, hinting at how it would be remembered in years to come. The greengages were luminescent in the light, heavy with juice, golden like the sun. I walked towards the place where my swimmer had stood, beside the willow, just where the bank sloped into the water. Dragonflies skimmed the surface of the water, iridescent beetles looking like prehistoric creatures moved along the riverbank. I stared. I’m not sure what I had expected. There was no trace of any presence. The air buzzed with invisible activity. Some of the long grass looked slightly flattened, although that was probably my imagination. I walked back towards the house thinking, I ought to cut it today.

By lunchtime the garden was beginning to look better. I had cut the lawn closest to the house. Perhaps Jack’s children could be persuaded to help me with the furthest bits where neglect had cultivated weeds. The fish I ordered from the local fishmonger arrived and I made some soup. Then I took my lunch out on to the terrace where the sun lay trapped in its own bubble of heat. From here I could see the inlet glistening and snaking towards the river. And in the distance, if I squinted, I could make out the barbed-wire fence and the tomb-like structure that was all that was left of the military base of Orford Ness. The best view of it was from my first-floor study window, where I would often gaze mesmerised at its melancholy, desert-like bleakness. The sun retreated momentarily behind the Scotch pines, sending sharp pinpoints of lights on to the trellis of roses. I sat finishing off the wine from last night and once again I felt the beginnings of a poem bubble up. I must relax, I decided, closing my eyes. I must not get too anxious, or think of the disruption of the impending visit. Perhaps, I thought hopefully, they would go to the sea every day, leaving me free to work for a few hours. Although the sea was within striking distance, hardly two miles away, there was no view of it from the house. It might just as well not have existed. Eel House had no connection with it. Out of sight, out of mind. Even our gardens had a lushness not usually associated with the coast.

The afternoon moved slowly on. Guiltily, I wanted their car to break down, or the children to fall ill. I resisted an urge to drive out towards the fens and not return, to walk with the wind in my face and the reeds rustling beside the water’s edge. But the soup was almost ready and I had a loaf of bread in the oven. At three I glanced at my watch; they would be here in three-quarters of an hour. Going back out into the garden I cut handfuls of flowers; roses and some tendrils of honeysuckle. Then I filled a vase and went into the sitting room. It was a room I rarely used, except when I had visitors. Because of this the door was nearly always closed and as I approached from the kitchen with my huge jug of flowers, I registered, though with no special significance, that it was now ajar. I placed the jug on the top of the small Bechstein piano I had inherited. As I did so, a piece of sheet music drifted to the floor. I picked it up, stuffing it back into the seat of the piano stool. Then I plumped up the cushions and hurried out, for a car had driven up towards the front door. Jack, Miranda and the children had arrived early.

‘When are you going to have this kitchen refitted?’ were my brother’s first words as he walked in. ‘I can’t understand how you can live like this.’

I took a deep breath.

‘Very easily,’ I said. ‘It’s a nice kitchen. It’s got character!’

Jack snorted. He placed two boxes full of groceries on the table.

‘We didn’t think you’d have anything civilised in your larder, so we’ve brought a contribution,’ he said.

I raised an eyebrow and Miranda frowned.

‘Jack!’ she mumbled.

I thought she might kick him. The children came rushing in, full of some talk of a grass snake. They looked around the kitchen as though I was invisible.

‘I’m starving,’ Zach said.

‘Hello, you two!’

I was determined to keep all irony out of my voice.

‘For goodness’ sake,’ Miranda said, ‘at least give Aunty Ria a kiss.’

She was already sounding harassed; probably she and Jack had been quarrelling on the way here.

‘We should have stopped off for something to eat,’ Jack said. ‘I told you she’d have nothing.’

‘Welcome to Eel House,’ I said.

Two weeks seemed like a long time.

Later we had supper on the terrace overlooking the water. There had been some talk of driving into Snape or even Aldeburgh, but in the end I cooked a mushroom risotto followed by sea bass and fennel. Needless to say, they ate the lot. Afterwards, Jack pushed his plate away and looked speculatively at me. My heart sank as he helped himself to more wine.

‘Well? Have you had any more thoughts on the house?’

I groaned inwardly. I had thought the subject had been dropped.

‘Look, Jack,’ I said, ‘we’ve been round this so many times. I don’t care if this is a good time to sell, I don’t care if the kitchen is antiquated, I don’t care about the money. Please, let’s not start it all up again. I’m simply not going to sell.’

There was a small silence.

‘So you want me to service your boiler,’ my brother said.

‘No, I don’t. That isn’t what I said!’

He looked at me. Perfectly calm, indolent, ready for another argument, loving it. Yes, I thought, here we go. It was what he used to do when we were growing up and he’d return from boarding school wanting something that belonged to me. Later, he used to get money out of me in this way, slowly, draining away my savings, wearing me down, weakening my resolve. Well, he wasn’t going to do that any more. Love might never have existed between us for all the show there was of it now. We were children from the same womb, fathered by the same man, but separated by a shared past.

‘It will probably blow up and kill you,’ he said.

I stared into the distance of the darkening garden, my face tightening. His nastiness always took me by surprise.

‘Sell the house, Ria,’ he said again, softly.

In the twilight I could see his teeth as he spoke. They were small and even, and very white. The children were watching us, fascinated.

‘Who would like some raspberry tart and cream?’ I asked.

‘Yes, please,’ Sophie, my niece, cried. ‘Can we have it while we watch television?’

‘You should cut the grass by the river,’ Zach said. ‘It’s not a good idea to allow it to grow so long. Anyone trying to get out of the water in a hurry might have trouble.’

‘Why would you want to get out in a hurry?’ Sophie asked.

‘Because of the current, stupid!’

‘Stupid yourself.’

‘Zach,’ Miranda said.

‘If you’re planning on swimming,’ I said, ‘perhaps you could clear it for me?’

‘Nah!’ he said.

I wanted to say that a bit of exercise might help him lose some weight. But I’m not his mother. As far as I could see, all they appeared to do in their spare time was watch endless television and play computer games. But this, too, wasn’t my business.

‘Why don’t you fence the river off?’ Miranda asked, slicing up the tart. ‘After all, you don’t swim in it, do you?’

I shrugged. I could have told her that I liked having the river at the bottom of my land. I liked the way it moved, as though it were a sleek animal, lean in high summer, flushed and heavy in spring and autumn, cold and uninviting in winter. If I fenced it off, I would not see the extraordinary birdlife that lived around it, nor would I be able to wave to Eric on his trips upstream, on warm, moist nights, his low battery light encircled by moths as he hunted for pebbleblack eels. I could have told her this, but I didn’t.

‘You’d get a flat in London for half the price of this place,’ my brother reminded me.

Still I said nothing. He wanted a share of the money to fund his political activities.

‘Why are you such a loser?’ he asked. ‘Think what you could make—enough to buy two houses.’

‘Jack!’ Miranda protested. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, turning to me.

‘Look,’ I said, as pleasantly as I could, ‘shall we stop baiting Ria for the duration of this holiday? I’m just not selling, Jack. Get this into your head. I’m not interested in the monetary value of this house, nor am I interested in funding your fascist politics, okay? Now, who wants coffee and who wants tea?’

Jack laughed. How the hell was I going to get through the fort-night? Miranda was looking at me with something like kindness. Lately I had begun to feel a great deal of sympathy for my sister-inlaw. There have been moments, when she was pregnant with the children, for example, when we’d come close to seeing eye to eye.

I went back into the kitchen to fill the kettle.

‘We’re thinking of going to Cromer,’ Miranda announced, coming in after me with the pile of dirty plates. ‘Just for a few days—give the kids a bit of beach. Fancy coming with us?’

I held my breath. When were they thinking of going? We cleared the kitchen together.

‘You need a holiday, too, Ria,’ she said after a while. ‘You work far too much. In that way you’re like Jack.’

I laughed without humour and filled the dishwasher, scraping bits of food off the plates. I would not cry.

‘Actually,’ Miranda continued, lowering her voice, ‘I’m a little worried about him.’

I was surprised. My brother’s marriage had always seemed to me to be run along the lines of a business. Nothing emotional was ever aired. What was she worried about?

‘He’s getting far too involved in politics. We’re spending vast amounts of money and I’m worried. You know how stubborn he is. I was wondering if you might talk to him.’

‘Me! You must be joking!’

‘Yes, I know…’ her voice trailed off.

If Miranda was appealing to me, then things must be desperate.

‘I just want him to take it easy. There are a couple of people who have joined who are…well, a bit extremist, you know what I mean? We’ve had a few odd-looking types visiting. Anyway,’ she glanced around quickly, ‘what d’you think about Cromer?’

‘Ria, I need to use the Internet,’ Jack announced, walking in with the empty wine bottle.

He poured himself a whisky.

‘I presume you did get it installed after last year’s fiasco? Let’s forget Cromer, Miranda. I’m thinking of hiring a boat for a few days.’

The sound of the television drifted out through the open window, mingling with raised voices and the odd thump. The children were fighting.

‘Oh God!’ Miranda cried, wiping her hands, ‘I’d better go and see what they’re up to.’

‘Yes.’

A kind of hollow despair enveloped me. In just a few hours my house had been stripped of its privacy. Alone in the kitchen I poured myself another drink and walked outside, moving swiftly towards the wild part of the garden. Beyond the river, and before you reached Orford Ness, were the matchstick woods. They were hidden now by fingers of dusk. The air was much cooler here and the trees were outlined sharply against a darkening sky. Nothing stirred. I heard the faint sound of traffic from the road beyond the trees, but that was all. The renters next door seemed to have disappeared too and silence enveloped me. I breathed slowly, feeling the tightness in my chest slowly easing.

Every summer of my childhood had been spent in this house. It had belonged to Uncle Clifford, our father’s brother, and his wife Elsa. By the time he was six, Jack was allowed to come with me. Our parents put us on the train at Liverpool Street and Uncle Clifford met us at the other end. There followed a month of blissful neglect when we roamed the fields and helped on the farm. I was meant to look after Jack. I remember how once we had got lost in some field before finally finding our way back to Eric’s farm. I had been scared, but as the eldest it had been my responsibility to get us home. Peggy, Eric’s wife, had given us two fresh eggs each when we reached her kitchen. We had carried them triumphantly back to Eel House. It was the beginning of a ritual that marked all our summers after that. Towards the end of August, before the weather broke and we returned home, our parents would join us. I was delighted, knowing that at last I could have my father all to myself. Even in those days Jack was a bit of a mother’s boy, less interested in the outdoor life. As soon as Mum arrived he stopped trailing around with me and the pair of them would go to the cinema and afterwards to tea in Aldeburgh, or on a long drive to visit friends. Mum was always buying him toys, which he broke almost instantly, whereupon she would promise him more treats. Dad disapproved hugely of such spoiling, but Jack was a precocious, rather bright child, so I suppose he got away with it. Meanwhile, Dad and I would go rambling in the matchstick woods, looking for fossils. We would pack a picnic and leave in the morning, returning at dusk when the light fell differently and the woods took on an air of enchantment. On other days we two would go out in the boat with Eric. Eric was Dad’s great friend. Dad and Uncle Clifford and Eric had all grown up together. They used to call themselves the Three Musketeers. ‘One for all and all for one,’ they used to laugh. After our fishing trips we would return with eels for supper. Later, Jack and I would play board games with my parents and Clifford and Elsa, laughing and cheating, ganging up against each other; Dad, Jack and Uncle Clifford against Mum and me and Aunt Elsa.

Where had all that easy affection gone? I sipped my wine. Once, I had believed that the farm and the fields, and Eric’s eels, would last for ever. Sighing, I closed my eyes and the poem that had been fermenting in me all day turned restlessly. It was getting late. High above the land a harvest moon moved silently while all the stars appeared like germinating seeds in the wide East Anglian sky. As I went back to the house I could hear the television. Clearly no one was tired.

‘Oh, there you are,’ Jack observed. ‘I wondered where you’d got to.’

He sounded subdued. He and Miranda had pulled two chairs out on to the old flagstones and had opened a new bottle of wine.

‘I hope you don’t mind, Ria,’ Miranda said, ‘but we opened one of your whites.’

‘Where are the children?’ I asked.

‘Playing some computer game. They can’t stand being out because of the bugs.’

You’ve brought them up to be townie wimps, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I was more alarmed by the fact they were using my computer.

‘It’s okay,’ Miranda said quickly, seeing my face. ‘They’re using my laptop.’

Thank God, I thought. The poem inside me had begun calling, insistently.

‘What happened about your boat idea?’

‘Oh yes, I forgot. We’ve got one! Tuesday, for a week. Come, if you like. We’re going to sail across the Broads from Wroxham.’

He was looking at me intently.

‘Thanks,’ I mumbled. ‘But I have a poem in my head that I’ll have to attend to.’

I laughed nervously. Jack seemed to accept my excuse.

‘At least you’re working again!’

A momentary benign feeling descended on us.

‘We’ll leave about midday,’ Miranda said. She sounded a little upset. ‘If that’s okay? We’ll leave some of our stuff here, travel light, be back in a couple of days.’

It was a quarter to ten.

‘I’m knackered,’ Jack said at last. He yawned. ‘One thing I must say, the beds are wonderful here, even though the plumbing is antiquated.’

‘Who’s going to prise those two away from the laptop?’ Miranda asked.

‘Moan, moan.’

‘Oh, shut up, Jack. You’re the one who’s been complaining.’

Again the tension was back. We were doing what we always did. Taking small bites out of each other, never addressing anything with honesty. I wanted to scream.

‘I’d like my study back so I’ll tell them, if you like.’

I put on a fake smile.

‘You’re not going to work, are you?’ Miranda asked, amazed.

‘Of course she is. Can’t you see she’s dying to get rid of us? Go on, Ria, go back to your masterpiece!’

‘Well, I haven’t actually done anything today.’

If I wasn’t careful there would be a fight. Jack must have thought the same thing because he rose and took his chair in.

‘I’m off,’ he said. ‘What time’s breakfast?’

My study was a tip. Somehow they had managed to knock over a glass and scatter the cushions. There were books on the floor and paper from the printer was everywhere. My good intentions evaporated completely. Furious, I closed the door. Then I cleared the mess and turned the television off. I no longer felt like working, but I didn’t feel like going to bed either. Upstairs, on the third floor, in the room above my study, the children made thumping sounds as though they were fighting. Taking up the book I had been reading I settled down on the sofa. The poem that had peeped out had taken fright and vanished. I could hear Miranda’s voice followed by Sophie screaming. Then Jack joined in and there was a stampede towards the guest bathroom. Miranda began calling me. Oh God! I thought guiltily. I sat pretending not to hear, feeling trapped. To think I had ever wanted children! Towards midnight things quietened down. The floorboards stopped creaking, the house was settling at last. I sighed and switched off the light. Was it safe to go to my bedroom?

People have said to me that at least I have a brother, at least I have a nephew and niece. Long ago, soon after Sophie had been born, I had volunteered to look after her while Jack took an exhausted Miranda out. It had been a sort of peace-offering on my part. Sophie had been only a few weeks old and I had not long heard I would never have a child of my own. That evening, after they had left, I picked Sophie out of her cot and held her against my cotton T-shirt. Then I put her mouth against me. I had wanted someone to suck my breast. I went into the bathroom with her and locked the door, naked to the waist. I wanted to feel what it was like to nurse her. I wanted to feel the tug and demand of another life. But after a moment I heard a noise and Sophie began to cry. Scared, in case Jack and Miranda had returned, I rushed out. I blushed, recalling the long-forgotten incident. Loneliness expands wherever crowds gather, Eric used to say. Thinking of him, I wished I could have gone over there tonight, but it was too late now.