Learning to Swim Read online

  ‘Have your parents seen it?’

  ‘Mum and Rad came the first night. Dad was on an early shift so he couldn’t, but he might come tonight. It was really distracting with them in the audience, though. I could tell exactly where they were sitting because they came in late and the whole row had to stand up, and Mum’s got this sort of loud guffaw and I kept hearing it in really odd places which aren’t supposed to be funny.’

  ‘What did they think of it?’

  ‘Pretty good. Even Rad, and he’s got very high standards.’

  Mother poked her head around the door. ‘Er, Abigail, can I have a word?’ she said with determined casualness. Puzzled, I followed her out of the room, leaving Frances sitting on my bed wiping up the crumbs on the biscuit plate with a wet finger. Once in the corridor mother whispered, ‘Is she staying for dinner? Because I’ll have to put extra rice on if she is.’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said.

  ‘No, I can’t stay for anything to eat, thanks,’ came Frances’ voice from the bedroom. ‘I’ve got to get home and cook something for Rad.’

  ‘Oh,’ said mother, thoroughly abashed. ‘How are you getting home, dear?’ she asked at last, venturing to address Frances to her face.

  ‘Buses I expect.’

  ‘Oh, but it’s dark outside. Abigail’s father will run you home. Ste-phen!’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘Yes, she’ll be all right,’ I agreed. I was a little nervous at the prospect of unleashing Frances on my father whom she was quite likely to address as ‘Squire’.

  Mother shot me a cross look before going back downstairs to ferret him out.

  ‘Extraordinary girl,’ I overheard him say to mother on his return from this errand some half an hour later. ‘I rather like her. Never stopped talking. She kept saying, “Just drop me at the end of the road”, but I insisted on driving up to the door and when I said I’d wait to make sure there was someone in, she said, “Oh, there won’t be anyone in”, and then offered to make me a fried egg sandwich.’

  ‘Good heavens. Do you think she’s got a bit of gypsy in her?’

  I buried my laughter in the pillow.

  As we had said our goodbyes Frances had asked what I was doing for Christmas. ‘Nothing much,’ I said. ‘There’ll just be the three of us on Christmas Day, and maybe my granny.’ I failed to suppress a little groan. ‘And then on Boxing Day we usually go next door for drinks and peanuts. They haven’t got any children, but they’ve got some tropical fish so it’s not too bad. What about you?’

  ‘Oh God, millions of people descending. It’s our turn this year, although I’m sure I remember doing all the sprouts last Christmas. We’ll probably go out for a meal on Christmas Eve up in Highbury with Uncle Bill and Auntie Daphne. That’s Mum’s brother. Then there’ll be about eighteen of us for Christmas dinner. Last year on Boxing Day we took a picnic over to Hampstead Heath, but I suppose it’ll be Bromley Common this year.’

  My eyes were beginning to smart with envy. ‘Your Christmas sounds so much more exciting than mine.’ She didn’t make any attempt to deny this. I tried another tack. ‘I wonder if your family look anything like I imagine them,’ I hinted.

  ‘Oh, you’ll have to meet them,’ she finally conceded. ‘I would invite you over, only, only, I don’t want to introduce you to my family because they’ll try and take you over – they always do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘I can’t explain. They’ll start acting as if you’re their friend as much as mine. As if they discovered you.’

  I had never before considered myself an object of discovery, and I lay awake that night in a state of pleasant agitation, trying to envisage that moment in the foreseeable future when I would, in some mysterious and magical way, be taken over.

  On Christmas Eve, the first day I was well enough to go out, father and I paid a visit to the newsagent’s where all those years ago I had caught him buying that Easter egg. I was looking for a present for Frances; her red package, which, now that she had let it slip, felt and smelled overpoweringly candle-like, was sitting on top of a modest pile of presents under our artificial tree.

  The shop windows were spattered with spray-on snow and a line of loopy writing which proclaimed A HAPPY XMAS TO ALL OUR CUSTOMER’S.

  ‘Customer’s what?’ said father. Coloured fringes of metal foil and fairy lights flashed along the edges of the shelves. Behind the counter an assistant was stickering packs of Christmas cards and Advent calendars with half-price labels. A thick bunch of mistletoe was hanging over the door and the newsagent was frisking around pretending to kiss any girls that came through. The doorstep was covered with trodden berries. Giftware was somewhat scanty, and after dithering over an address book – the sort of thing I was often given, though I had no addresses to put inside, except my own which I was unlikely to need to look up – I settled on a keyring in the shape of a fried egg. This seemed appropriate. Frances at least had her own door key. Father bought a large jar of peanuts and some chocolates ‘for the tree’.

  After tea we left mother in the kitchen peeling chestnuts for the stuffing, and drove round to Frances’ house to drop the present off. She lived a good fifteen minutes away in a slightly less salubrious part of the borough, although Balmoral Road, the busy main road on which she lived, looked smart enough, with rows of three-storey Victorian semis.

  Although a light was on in the front room and there was a car in the driveway – a dirty yellow Triumph Spitfire with a torn black hood – the doorbell’s metallic rattle was answered only by distant barking, followed by the clatter of paws on floor tiles and much louder barking. When I pushed open the letter box, which was at knee height, a white muzzle with a black nose and two rows of sharp teeth rammed itself into the slot. Growth. I withdrew my hand swiftly. Peering into the living room I could see a real Christmas tree festooned with lights and thick, snaky tinsel. High though the ceiling was, it could not quite accommodate the tree, whose topmost branch was bent over, pinioning a plastic fairy to the plaster moulding. On the floor beneath was a landslide of brightly wrapped presents reaching half-way across the room. The mantelpiece and window sills were crowded with cards. In the centre of the floor was a coffee table on which were at least a dozen used mugs, a large bowl of nuts and an even larger heap of nutshells. The gas fire was roaring away as bright as neon. I could almost feel the heat coming through the window: I didn’t fancy the chances of that other candle.

  Growth wandered in from the hall and picked his way through a litter of fallen nutshells to the hearthrug where, impossibly close to the fire, he flopped down. A gentle hooting from the road reminded me that father was waiting on a yellow line. I pushed the keyring in its green and gold wrapping through the letter box which sprang shut like a trap, bringing Growth scampering back to the door. And to the sound of growling and ripping paper I returned to the car and our own quiet Christmas.

  10

  The invitation did not come until the following spring. Frances had by that time been over to my house on several occasions and had thoroughly charmed my father, who pronounced her ‘spirited’.

  ‘She’s a very confident young lady,’ was mother’s verdict, delivered in a tone of voice to leave me in no doubt that confidence was not necessarily something to aspire to.

  Frances made her offer at the end of the last lesson on a Friday afternoon as we were sorting out our books for the weekend’s homework.

  ‘Are you doing anything tomorrow?’

  ‘No,’ I said, hope fluttering.

  ‘Do you want to come over, then? We could go to the woods with Growth, or just hang around at home.’

  ‘Will your family be there?’

  ‘Probably, worse luck. Still, you’ll have to meet them sooner or later. Don’t take any notice of my dad. He’ll try and be funny all the time – don’t laugh at his jokes. Rad is bound to be out, but he wouldn’t bother us anyway. Auntie Mim’s deaf so you won’t be able to
talk to her; she stays up in her room mostly. Mum’s the only one who matters really – and she’s completely normal, so that’s okay.’

  So it was that on Saturday afternoon father drove me for only the second time to the house in Balmoral Road. He had instructed me to telephone him when I was ready to be picked up and had given me 10p to leave in payment for the call.

  ‘Don’t wait,’ I said ungraciously as I slammed the car door, and then I stood on the doorstep making shooing gestures until he finally took the hint and the car crawled off at a snail’s pace until the front door opened to admit me.

  ‘Hello, come in, GET DOWN GROWTH.’ Frances turned on the brown and white Jack Russell who was yapping and dancing around her ankles and springing up at me, his teeth bared. I kept my hands in my pockets. On his left side was a lump the size of a golf ball. ‘He’s in a vile temper today. I think he’s getting a cauliflower ear.’

  The passageway in which we were standing was long and narrow with a black and white tiled floor and an uncarpeted staircase leading up to a landing and more stairs above. The walls had been stripped to reveal patches of flaky paint and plaster and stubborn little flecks of wallpaper like cornflakes.

  ‘Are you in the middle of decorating?’ I asked.

  Frances, silencing Growth with a dog biscuit, looked puzzled. ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Oh nothing,’ I said, blushing, as she ushered me into the front room with the words ‘This is my mum.’

  My blush hadn’t even had time to recede when it flared right up again. Frances’ mother was in the middle of the room, ironing, surrounded by piles of neatly folded laundry. Shirts and blouses were draped over chair-backs and on hangers hooked over the mantelpiece. The windows and mirrors were fogged with steam. A pile of socks tucked into themselves in little balls lay like horse droppings on the carpet. Apart from the tiniest pair of lacy black knickers, the ‘completely normal’ Mrs Radley was naked. This was my first real encounter with bare breasts and I flinched as if from the glare of headlamps.

  ‘Oh Mum, you could have put some clothes on,’ Frances remonstrated. ‘I told you Abigail was coming any minute.’

  ‘Nonsense – we’re all girls. Abigail doesn’t mind, do you?’

  ‘No,’ I squeaked, my eyes watering with the effort of not staring.

  ‘There you are. I’m very pleased to meet you, Abigail. Please call me Lexi.’ She leaned across the ironing board and shook my hand, her breasts trembling at the movement. I had never realised they could be so mobile. Hugging my mother, who was in any case flat-chested, with her formidable armour of elastic and mesh girdles and nylon lace petticoats, was rather like clashing with a trussed fowl.

  ‘Come on,’ said Frances impatiently, ‘let’s go upstairs.’

  ‘Take this lot with you,’ Lexi ordered, pointing to the piles of laundry. Frances looked at me and raised her eyes to heaven. As if in reply there came a loud crash from above our heads followed by swearing and the sound of heavy furniture scraping against wood.

  ‘LIFT, DON’T DRAG!’ Lexi bellowed at the ceiling as we swung swags of shirts over our shoulders and gathered up folded sheets and towels, still warm and smelling of the garden.

  On the first landing two single beds were standing upended against the banisters, wedged firmly in place by a double bed which was on its side half in and half out of a doorway. A man’s head and shoulders appeared over the edge of the headboard. I was relieved to see that he was clothed. ‘Keep out of the way, you girls. On second thoughts, Frances, why don’t you two take hold of this end and try and lift it past that leg.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Frances demanded. ‘What are you doing with my bed?’

  ‘We’re swapping your single ones for our double, what does it look like?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because your mother keeps complaining that I wake her up when I come in from work.’

  ‘So I get the double all to myself?’ asked Frances suspiciously.

  ‘Yes. If we can get it out of this doorway.’

  ‘Where’s Rad?’

  ‘Up in his room, working.’

  ‘You’ve knocked a bit of the paint off here,’ came another man’s voice from the far side of the bed.

  ‘Oh, hello Uncle Bill,’ said Frances to the voice, relieving me of the ironing and dumping the lot, not very neatly, on the bathroom floor.

  After some more grunting and straining from the bedroom the double bed jerked back a couple of feet, taking with it a sizeable strip of wood from the doorframe. Frances squeezed through the gap and trotted up the next flight of stairs with me in pursuit. ‘That was my dad,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t bother to introduce us,’ he called out after us. ‘I’m just the odd-job man.’

  The second landing was lit by a skylight and was even smaller than the first. On the three sides not occupied by the stairs were closed doors. ‘That’s Auntie Mim’s room.’ Frances pointed at one, then gave a sharp rap at the second and flung it open without waiting for a reply. ‘And this,’ she said, as if showing off some interesting new acquisition at a zoo, ‘is Rad.’

  A boy of about fourteen was sitting at a desk with his back to us. He turned round, scowling at Frances before turning back to his work. He had thick, dark hair which fell, unruly and unbrushed, into his eyes, which were so dark it was hard to tell where the iris ended and the pupil began.

  ‘Handsome, isn’t he?’ said Frances with some pride.

  He certainly was, though as an only child at an all-girls’ school I was no connoisseur of male beauty. I gave a nervous laugh which could have meant yes or no and concentrated on holding down another blush. Apart from bookshelves, the walls of his room were bare, in some places down to the brickwork. On the desk in a cone of light from an angle-poise lamp were a pile of books with intriguing titles: Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies, Memoirs of an Infantry Officer, The Myth of Sisyphus.

  ‘Rad’s an atheist,’ she whispered, confidentially, as we made our way downstairs. ‘We all are actually, except for Mum. She doesn’t believe in anything, but she’s very spiritual. Does your mum believe in God?’

  I thought for a moment. She believed in going to church: more than that I couldn’t say.

  To avoid being drafted into any more laundry work or furniture removals we took Growth for a walk in the woods. He went berserk at the sight of the lead, whirling around in tight circles at our feet and then slinging himself skywards, eyes rolling. Frances was trying to teach him to jump up and retrieve a Bonio from between her teeth, a trick which nearly cost her her nose, and left the lower half of her face dripping with slobber.

  ‘Yuk, nearly there,’ she said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, as Growth tossed back his third biscuit, crunching and gagging at the same time.

  He dragged us all the way to the entrance to the woods, a roll of fat bulging over his choke chain as he strained against the lead. No sooner was it unclipped than he shot off into the bushes and was out of sight in seconds.

  ‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep,’ Frances intoned, kicking through the bluebells. We had just read the poem in English comprehension. Imagine you are the poet. Write a story to explain how you came to be in the woods, and where you are going. In mine the poet was a lowly woodcutter returning to his family on Christmas Eve with a bundle of twigs for the fire. Frances’ version had a wandering minstrel, the only survivor of a happy band of actors who had been savaged by wolves; there were several subplots, and the story was accompanied by a family tree.

  It took hours to locate Growth. He had cantered right out of the woods to the playing fields beyond and disgraced himself by interrupting a football game, capering after the ball and finally lifting his leg against a pile of coats behind the goalpost. Frances retrieved him by whistling urgently from the edge of the pitch.

  ‘Oy, I hope you’re going to pay to get this coat cleaned,’ called one of the players furiously. ‘That’s suede that is.’

  Frances clipped the dog’s lead back on
and, having judged that the man was too far away to give chase, took off for the woods at a sprint with Growth flying along at her heels and me, terrified, puffing along behind. We didn’t stop until we reached the front door, gasping with laughter and the stitch, while the culprit began his tail-chasing and leaping routine at our feet. The exercise, far from tiring him out, seemed to have stirred him into a greater frenzy. Frances unleashed him in the hall and he skittered into the living room and wedged himself under the gas fire which was fortunately unlit. Mrs Radley, by this time decently clad in a floor-length housecoat, was lying on the couch watching a black and white film. Frances had told me once that she used to be a child actress and I could well believe it.

  ‘Fish popped in a moment ago and said he’d have the hose on later if you girls want to go round and be squirted,’ she called after us, as if this was the most normal suggestion in the world.

  Frances screwed her face up in disgust. ‘No way.’ Apparently frisking around next door’s garden under the sprinkler on sunny days was something she had used to enjoy at the age of four or so – a tradition Fish had heard about and was eager to uphold in spite of the passing years. Lexi could see no harm in it, but for Mr Radley it was another mark against the man.

  Upstairs the furniture removals had concluded successfully with only a few dents and scars to the doorframes and wallpaper. The double bed had been dropped like a raft in the middle of Frances’ room in a sea of clutter – books, singles, games, jigsaws, odd shoes, clothes, paper, pens. Her dressing table was similarly crowded with trinkets and china and letter racks bristling with more paper, and every drawer was open an inch or so more than the one above, like a flight of steps.