The Swimmer. Roma Tearne
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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.