The Forever Girl

7



David came home from the office at nine-thirty that night, which was two hours after Amanda had returned from the Grand Old House. She had collected the children from Margaret’s care and settled them in their rooms. They were full of pizza and popcorn washed down, she suspected, with coloured and sweetened liquids. But they were tired too: Clover had played basketball with Margaret’s niece and Billy had exhausted himself in various energetic games with the dogs. They took no time to drift off, and were both asleep by the time she went down the corridor to check up on them. She liked to stand in the doorway and watch her children as they slept, her gaze lingering on the faces she loved so much. That evening she stood for longer than usual, thinking of the stakes in the game she had started. One ill-thought-out, impulsive act could threaten so much: in flirting with adultery she had thrown her children’s futures onto the gaming table, but it was not too late. She would stop it right there, before anything else happened. All she had done was to sit and talk with another man, a doctor to whom she had delivered a patient, who had suggested a drink at the end of a difficult day. That was all. There had been no discreet assignation on the beach; no furtive meeting in a car; they had not so much as touched one another. And nobody had seen them anyway.

She turned out the children’s lights and made her way back into the kitchen. She would have to eat alone; David had left a message on the answering machine that they would be getting something sent in to eat at the meeting; there was a restaurant in town that dispatched Thai food in containers to the office when required, at any time of day or night. She would have something simple – scrambled eggs and toast, or spaghetti bolognese: the adult equivalent of nursery food. Then she would have an early night and be asleep by the time he came back.

She ate her simple meal quickly. The night was hot and in spite of the air conditioning her clothes seemed to be sticking to her. She got up from the table, not bothering to clear her plate away – Margaret could do that in the morning. She went outside, out of the chilled cocoon of the house into the hot embrace of the night. It was like stepping into a warming oven: the heat folded about her, penetrated her clothing, made the stone flags under her feet feel like smouldering coals. She stepped onto the lawn; the grass was cool underfoot, but prickly. She walked across it to the pool and looked into the water. A light came on automatically when it grew dark, and so the pool had already been lit for several hours, although there was nobody there to appreciate the cool dappling effect on the water.

She looked into the water, which was clear of leaves, as the pool-man had come earlier that day. He took an inordinate pride in his work, spending hours ensuring that every last leaf, every blade of grass or twig that blew into the water was carefully removed. “It must look like the empty sky,” he said. “Just blue. Nothing else.”

She sat down at the edge of the pool, immersing the calves of her legs in the water. With the day’s heat behind it, the water was barely cooler than the surrounding atmosphere, and provided little relief. Swimming now would be like bathing in the air itself.

She sat there for twenty minutes or so, before she arose and crossed to the far side of the garden. Beyond the hedge of purple bougainvillea, she could make out the window of Mr Arthur’s study. The lights were blazing out, and she saw Gerry Arthur himself standing with his back to the window. She stood still and watched. He was moving his arms around, as if conducting a piece of music.

She stepped forward. The sound of a choir drifted out into the night. Carmina Burana – she recognised it immediately. O Fortuna! Mr Arthur raised his hands and brought them down decisively, to bring them up again sharply. She smiled as she watched him, and then turned away.

She went back to the pool and took her clothes off, flinging them carelessly onto one of the poolside chairs. The air was soft on her, and now there was the faintest of breezes, touching her skin as a blown feather might, almost imperceptibly. She stepped into the pool and launched herself into the water. She thought again of the Hockney paintings of the boys in the swimming pool, brown under the blue water. She ducked her head below the surface and propelled herself towards the far side of the pool. She thought of George. She imagined that he was here with her, swimming beside her. She turned in the water, half-expecting to see him. He would be naked, as she was. He would be tanned brown, like Hockney’s California boys, and youthful. He would be beautiful.

She surfaced. She had shocked herself. I am swimming by myself. I’m married. I have children. I have a husband.


When David returned she was still in the pool. He saw her from the kitchen and he called out to her from the window before he came out to join her. He had a beer with him that he drank straight from the bottle. He raised it to her in greeting.

“They settled their differences,” he said. “I thought it was going to be acrimonious, but it wasn’t. The lawyers were disappointed, of course. They were hoping that the whole thing would end up in litigation.” He paused. He had suddenly noticed she was naked. “Skinny dipping?”


She moved to the end of the pool, where she could sit, half lie, on one of the lower concrete steps.

“It was so hot.”

He fingered at the collar of his shirt. “Yes. Steaming.”

He took a swig of his beer.

She said, “The kids ate at Margaret’s tonight. She filled them up with pizza. Do you know how many calories there are in an eighteen-inch pizza?”

“A couple of thousand. Too many, anyway. And heaps of sodium. And what do you call those fats? Saturated?”

“I wish she’d give them something healthy,” she said. “Vegetables. Soup. That sort of thing.”

“Oh well,” he began, and then continued, “Why did they eat there?”

“Because I was late back. I took Mrs Rosales to have her leg looked at. I told you, didn’t I? Margaret spoke to me.” She had mentioned something to him, but could not recall exactly what she had said.

He took another swig of beer. “Took her to the hospital?”

“No.” She tried to sound casual. “I took her to see George Collins. He takes people like that. He takes anybody who hasn’t got insurance.”

“When?” he asked.

“When what?”

“When did you take her?”

“Late afternoon.”

He moved his chair forward and slipped out of his shoes and socks. He put his feet into the water, not far from her. “And then?” he asked.

She moved her hands through the water, like little underwater ailerons, playing. The movement made ripples, which in turn cast shadows on the bottom of the pool, little lines, like the contour lines on a chart. She was not sure whether his question was a casual one; whether he was merely expressing polite interest, or whether he really wanted to know. So she said nothing, concentrating on the movement of her hands, feeling the water flow through the separated fingers like a torrent through a sluice. Water could be used in massage; the French went in for that, she thought: they had themselves sprayed with powerful jets of seawater. It was meant to do something for you; provoked sluggish blood into movement, perhaps. Thalassotherapy.

He repeated the question. “And then?”

She looked up at him, and saw that he was not really looking at her, but was staring up at the moving leaves of the large sea-grape tree. The breeze, hardly noticeable below, seemed stronger among the highest branches of the tree.

“And then what?” She needed time to think.

He looked down and met her eyes. His expression was impassive. “And then what did you do? After you’d taken what’s-her-name …”

“Mrs Rosales,” she said quickly, seeing her opportunity. “Bella Rosales. I think she prefers Bella. She’s Honduran – the usual story – children over there being looked after by grandmother. Her leg …”

“Yes,” he said. “But your day – what happened afterwards?”

“I came home,” she said. It was not a lie, she told herself, as she had come home – eventually.

“But you didn’t go to fetch the kids?”

She frowned. Why would he ask that?

“I did. Later. I let them eat at Margaret’s.”

“I see.” He paused. His beer was almost finished now, and he tilted the bottle back to drain the last few drops. “You didn’t go anywhere else?”

She felt her heart beating wildly within her. She had been seen. Somebody had said something.

“No.” This time the lie was unequivocal.

He turned round. “I’m going in. I’m tired.”

There was nothing in his tone of voice to give away what he was thinking.

“David …”

“Yes?”

She looked at him. She would tell him. She would say that she had forgotten. She had been invited by George to have a drink because he had had a wretched day and needed to talk to somebody. But she could not. It was too late. He would never believe her if she said she had forgotten the events of a few hours before. And he did not look suspicious or offended; he did not look like a man who had just established that his wife was lying to him.

“Why don’t you join me in here? The water’s just right. And Tommy did the pool today. It’s perfect.”

He hesitated.

“Why not?” He always slept better if he had a swim just before going to bed. It was something to do with inner core temperature; if it was lowered, sleep came more easily.

He took off his clothes; she was aware of his familiar body. He joined her. He put his arm about her shoulder, wet flesh against wet flesh.