Later, when Gil had gone inside, Flora picked up her torn drawings and walked to the end of the garden with a box of matches and burned each page, letting the black flakes float into the nettles.
Chapter 28
THE SWIMMING PAVILION, 16TH JUNE 1992, 4:35 AM
Dear Gil,
Yesterday, before the morning bell, Flora’s teacher met me in her classroom. She showed me a letter and asked me whether I’d written it:
Dear Mrs. Layland,
It is with my deepest regrets that I write to tell you Flora was unable to come into school yesterday. Her father came home to spend some time with his daughter and that is the reason she didn’t come in. I also write to let you know that he is still home and so Flo might not be in in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Ingrid Coleman
I cried in front of Flora’s teacher, not because the letter was so clearly written by a desperate child, and not because Flora is missing school or lying—although that’s what Mrs. Layland thought—but because she doesn’t need me.
On the 9th of February 1978 you drove me to the check up appointment you’d made with my doctor. I didn’t want to go: what was there to learn? I’d been pregnant and now I wasn’t. You’d barely spoken after I’d woken you that morning. I thought I heard you crying in the bathroom, but the noise stopped when I rattled the door handle and called your name. When you came out you sat in the kitchen brooding over a cup of coffee.
Jonathan stayed a week longer, but in the end I don’t think he could stand the melancholic atmosphere that settled over the house. I was sad to see him go, although not having him around meant one less thing to think about.
At the surgery you remained in the waiting room until the examination was over and Dr. Burnett called you in.
“I’m pleased to say everything is where it should be.” The doctor addressed you. You didn’t laugh and he continued: “Miscarriage this early is much more common than you’d think. And Mrs. Coleman is only . . .” He looked at the envelope that contained everything he knew about me.
“Twenty-one,” I said.
He peered over his half-moon spectacles as if he were surprised I’d spoken. “Twenty-one, yes,” he said. “Still almost a child herself.”
“But what’s wrong?” you asked.
Dr. Burnett removed his glasses. “Mr. Coleman, there is nothing wrong with your wife. Go home and carry on doing the things you’ve been doing, and I can assure you she’ll be pregnant again in no time.” He put his glasses on again and wrote something about me in a spiky hand at the bottom of a piece of card, and slipped it into the envelope with the others. “Plenty of good food and rest.” He clicked the end of his pen. The appointment was over. I half rose, but you stayed in your seat.
“You’d advise then,” you said, “that she shouldn’t go swimming?” The question was unexpected.
“Swimming?” the doctor said.
“In the sea,” you said. “In the middle of the night, in the morning, in the evening—any chance she can get.”
Dr. Burnett glanced at his watch. “Dear me, no. Rest is what’s called for here. She should avoid all physical exercise.”
We argued in the car on the way home, your knuckles white around the steering wheel.
“Looking after Nan isn’t restful either,” I said. “But are you going to get up in the middle of the night when she’s teething, when she’s got a temperature? Are you going to clean up when she’s been sick, change her nappies? Are you going to stop writing so that you can push the pram up to the shop because there isn’t any food in the house?”
“It’s fucking swimming, Ingrid,” you said.
“Swimming isn’t strenuous, Gil. I happen to find it restful.”
“This isn’t about you, for God’s sake.” The hedgerows rushed past us.
“I know what it’s about. You don’t need to tell me.”
“This is our baby, and you’re happy to take a risk with its life because you’d rather go for a fucking swim.”
“Gil!” I shouted. “There isn’t a baby. I lost it, remember, while you were getting drunk.”
You became patronizingly calm, but your teeth were clenched. “I meant next time, Ingrid, of course.”
I stared out of the passenger window at the sea. In my head I was saying, If there is a next time. Neither of us spoke for the rest of the journey.