Swimming Upstream

8

There are good days and there are bad days and then there are those days from hell that leap up out of nowhere and smack you right between the eyes. These are the days when you wish you’d stayed in bed, or in the womb. “Nobody told me there'd be days like these,” sang John Lennon once. Nobody told me either.

Not that any of it had been particularly easy of late. Even moving was scary at first. Apart from my first term at college and the few months since Larsen had left, I'd never really lived on my own and now, aside from the practical details like worrying alone (which is different from worrying with someone else) about the rent and the bills and the poll tax and TV licence, there were more fundamental and complicated problems to be faced - like what to do with moths, beetles and spiders in the bath, what to do when the water pipes froze and burst and flooded the kitchen, what to do when things went bump in the night, and, with no-one to direct me or to be my excuse for inactivity, how to decide what to do with the rest of my life.

I'd been lucky with the flat, I knew that. My mother’s friend Lynne was more than happy to let it to me. It was a modest but distinctly up-market two-bed upper floor flat conversion in a cobbled mews in Central London, just off Marylebone High Street. The house itself was pretty - white brick with timber sash windows, a cast iron downpipe, and a Juliet balcony leading off my living room at the front. A pair of authentic-looking stable doors opened onto the neighbour’s garage downstairs. At the rear, a black iron staircase provided a fire escape which led up past the living room window to the kitchen.

The living room had the original floorboards, cornices and picture rail and was decorated simply in white and lemon. Two small sofas with cream and tartan throws sat in front of a gas fire, and a large vase of dried flowers stood by the door that led onto the two small bedrooms. Two large Gaugin prints filled the walls in the hallway. The overall effect was light and bright, chic and feminine, and it would ordinarily have been completely out of my price bracket. But, to my immense surprise, Lynne had only wanted to recoup the cost of her considerably cheaper rented flat in Edinburgh on the basis that I was semi-house-sitting and therefore doing her a favour.

I moved in with two suitcases full of clothes, the cardboard box full of books, a bag of cassette tapes, Jeffrey, my beige woolly teddy bear and an Ikea bedside lamp that had seen better days. I couldn't believe that this sparse collection of chattels, small enough to load into my car and out at the other end all by myself, was the product of my seven years with Larsen, of my twenty-seven years of life. It occurred to me with some sadness how many people I'd also left behind over the years along with my belongings.

The flat seemed very empty, and it was cold for July. It had been overcast and wet for days and didn’t really feel like summer. I should be having a housewarming, I mused regretfully, but there was no-one to invite. After a quick spring clean I lit the gas fire, hung my clothes up in the wardrobe and went off to Europa for bread, cheese and olives and a bottle of red wine. Soon I was sitting on the living room carpet in front of the fire, drinking an ambivalent toast to my new home.

Being alone, I discovered, is a state of mind. At its best it brings serenity. It could recreate for me the sunshine days of my solitary youth, when all I needed as friends were my books and the fields at the back of the house where we lived. On my days off I'd go swimming, then lie on my bed wrapped up in my duvet and read for hours, or I'd catch a bus up to Finchley Road and take long brisk walks over Hampstead Heath. Sometimes as I plodded past the ponds and up to Kenwood through bracken and stretches of reedy grass, I'd pause to smoke a cigarette and watch the sun go down over the city below and, whether my mood was blissfully happy or reflective and melancholy, I’d achieve the state of inner harmony that I now realised I'd been missing for so long. My senses reawakened, I'd feel so completely and utterly at peace that it would almost bring tears to my eyes. At those moments I'd feel I'd achieved the perfect equilibrium between the security I needed so desperately on the one hand and the freedom I craved on the other. I'd see my future as bright and hopeful with an infinite number of choices open to me.

Other times, being alone was just plain lonely and hard work to boot. The effort of travelling well over a hundred miles to work and back each day, combined with shopping, cooking, cleaning and paying the bills, then climbing into bed at night with no-one to touch or to talk to about the way I was feeling often made me wonder what I was doing in London and whether I'd made some huge mistake. I'd plough on for days, even weeks, barely acknowledging to myself that anything was wrong until I'd wake one morning early and off balance after a dream about Larsen in which he'd been holding me and stroking my hair and whispering that everything was going to be all right. I'd stretch out my hand and feel the emptiness of the bed beside me and my heart would sink. I'd lie there apathetically for hours, staring into the dim and dusky bedroom, seeing nothing but one more empty day ahead and then more and more days exactly the same, stretching on and on into infinity. I'd see the crossroads of my future looming up ahead but instead of enthusing over the various paths I could take I'd feel lost and confused and long to run back the way I'd come, knowing deep down that I never could, and this would frighten me more.

Sometimes loneliness would creep up and catch me unawares. I'd spend an entire weekend holed up in my living room, content and happy. I'd read and cook and listen to music, watch a film on TV or sit with a cup of coffee and stare out of the window at the pretty cobbled streets and houses. Then suddenly the silence would become oppressive and I'd hear a humming noise in my head and start to feel a bit weird. I'd start to worry that I was going slightly mad, and I’d realize by Sunday afternoon that maybe it was because I hadn't spoken to a solitary person in forty-eight hours. So I'd put on my coat and walk down to Oxford Street, just to be near people. Now I began to see why old people spent so much time talking to shopkeepers, or to me on buses.

There was the telephone of course. I phoned Catherine in Cambridge and, less often, she phoned me back, but I could always sense Martin hanging around in the background and our conversation was stilted and distracted.

“We must get together, really soon,” Catherine would say every time we spoke.

“Whenever you like,” I'd answer, flicking through the blank pages in my diary.

“I'll call you then.” Catherine would sound panicky, as if she didn't know quite how she was going to manage this.

“Fine. Whatever.” I didn't want her having any guilt trips on my account.

Occasionally I'd take the train into Cambridge and go out for a drink after my shift with people from work but mostly they were either driving, or married and couldn't stay for long. Those who did seemed bored, or fed up with being stuck where they were and the conversation would become negative and ultimately depressing. I knew it wasn't really where I wanted to be either, out there in no man's land.

By mid August I was getting frustrated. Everyone knew that there was no chance of Greg coming back to the station but there had been no mention of his long-term replacement. All kinds of speculation had been made about his future but nothing official had filtered down.

On the Friday before the Bank Holiday, I woke up with toothache. I realised I must have been grinding my teeth in the night. I swallowed a codeine tablet and stood by the kitchen sink in my pyjamas, drinking coffee and emptying the last few slices of bread out of the packet onto the work surface. I realised that it was time to confront Phil about the job. While I buttered and peanut-buttered sandwiches for my lunch I started to compose my opening dialogue. As I dressed for work I practised in front of the mirror.

At ten o'clock that morning I tapped on Phil's door.

“Ah Lizzie,” he smiled vaguely, looking up from a pile of rosters. He was a short, stocky man, in his early forties, although he looked older and his receding sandy hairline revealed a complicated configuration of lines that looked as though they had been etched in with a stencil. He looked like someone does when they're irritated but trying hard to be polite. I stood in the doorway until he put down his pencil.

“What can I do for you?”

“I need to talk to you,” I said.

“Sounds serious,” Phil laughed, a little condescendingly. “I'm incredibly busy. Can it wait?”

I paused for a moment, then decided it couldn't. I'd lose my nerve by this time tomorrow and he'd still be just as busy.

I took a deep breath. “I'm sorry, it can't.”

Phil waved me good-naturedly into a chair in front of him and gave me his full attention, levelling his eyes at my chest.

“Fire away,” he smiled at my breasts. I crossed my arms and his eyes flickered upwards and met mine. I abandoned my pre-meditated preamble and decided to be direct.

“I've been acting up for Greg for three months this week,” I began.

“- You're doing very well, Lizzie,” Phil interrupted. “Very well indeed.”

“I like to think so,” I agreed. “What I want to know is, is Greg coming back and, if not, what's going to happen about replacing him?”

Phil's surprise at my forwardness was stoically masked, almost to perfection. He shifted and leaned forward towards me, placing his elbows on top of his rosters and pressing his stubby fingers together. He spoke slowly, as if he were talking to a child. “Greg's attachment at IRN was for eight weeks initially -”

“I know that,” I interrupted, impatiently. “But it's been three months now. That's my point.”

“- and we expected him back before now. However,” Phil continued, just as slowly, “it appears that they've decided to extend the contract.”

“How long for?” It was beyond me how someone who was allegedly so busy could spend such an inordinate amount of time playing with his words.

“Initially a further ten weeks.” Phillip was losing interest in the conversation. He began shifting the papers about on his desk. He held a letter up to the glare of his desk lamp, scrutinized it closely, tore it into strips and dropped it in the bin.

“And then?” I persisted.

“There's every chance that his position there will be given long-term consideration.”

“Long-term consideration,” I echoed, frustrated anger welling up inside me. I knew my voice was wobbling. “It's at least four weeks into the extension of his contract. You must know what's going to happen. When were you going to tell me?”

Phil sat back defensively, picked up his pencil and wagged it at me.

“Now just calm down a minute, Lizzie.”

“I am calm.”

Phil sat and stared at me, tapping his pencil. Under the pretence of waiting for me to recover from my loss of control, I could tell that he was playing for time; he was barely managing to conceal his own annoyance at my refusal to play out the role of demure child to his kindly parent. He'd hardly passed the time of day with me since he’d sent me the letter offering me the opportunity to cover for a senior member of staff on half the pay and a quarter of the respect, for which I was supposed to remain eternally in his debt.

“An announcement will be made once the vacancy becomes official.” Phil’s tone had become detached and professional.

“An announcement?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You mean you were going to stick up a notice on the staff board?”

“The job has to be advertised,” Phil said. “You will be welcome to apply, naturally.”

I stood up. “I’ll do that,” I said. “Naturally.”

I spent the rest of the morning preparing the twelve and one o’clock bulletins for someone else to read and news wraps for the programme that someone else would present and cues for interviews that someone else would conduct. By the time the programme finished at two o’clock, I’d had enough. I had been up since five and had been too worked up to eat all day. Now I was tired and starving and awaiting the moment when I could sit down with a coffee, eat my sandwiches and read a chapter of my book before I faced the long drive back to London.

I pushed open the door to the staff room. There sat Phil, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine. I couldn’t believe it - he almost never mingled with the minions, and there he was, feet up, occupying two and a half seats and leafing through a copy of Cosmopolitan, chortling affectedly, in the nearest thing to a retreat that could be found in the building and in my first free ten minutes all day. I stormed into the toilets and poured my coffee down the sink. I glared at my reflection in the mirror. Pink spots of anger were forming on my cheeks. Time to get out of here.

One advantage of the lunchtime shift was missing the evening rush hour. I cruised down the M11 at a steady seventy, pushed Ella Fitzgerald into the cassette deck, and fished around in my handbag for my sandwiches. However, as I passed the Bishops Stortford turnoff, I noticed the traffic had slowed down considerably. Within a mile of the M25 the dual carriageway was down to one lane, the road was strewn with police warning beacons and I became another reluctant statistic in a tailback a mile long.

I sighed and leaned back in my seat. I ripped open the packet on the passenger seat beside me; my stomach growled in anticipation. Inside, I discovered that my peanut butter sandwiches now exhibited small rings of blue and white mould.

It was gone five by the time I pulled up outside the flat. The street was jam-packed with cars and I had to drive round the block three times before I could find a space. Finally, as I rounded the corner onto the road parallel to mine, a Volvo pulled out sharply in front of me and I edged nervously into the gap behind a gleaming bottle-green Mercedes.

As I crossed the street to my flat, I felt my jaw aching with tension. I closed the front door behind me, dropped my bag onto the floor and poured myself a large glass of red wine. I checked the answer phone: no messages. I lit a cigarette and sank to the floor, leaning my head against the telephone table.

The wine went straight to my head. I knew I should eat something really, although by this point, the idea of drinking myself into a stupor was infinitely more appealing. Eventually, after half an hour of staring inanely into space I managed to motivate myself into taking a final journey round the corner for a Chinese takeaway and another bottle of wine. Dragging myself wearily up with the aid of the table legs, I went to fetch my purse. After an agitated rummage through my bag, I realised that it must have fallen out of my bag in the car. I found my car keys, grabbed my jacket and stepped out into the warm night air.

As I rounded the corner I stopped suddenly and stood rooted to the pavement. My car was gone; a black cab sat purring in its place. At first I wondered if I'd got the wrong street, but with a sick lurch of the stomach I saw, beyond the taxi, the shiny silver bumper of the bottle-green Merc, still gleaming under the streetlight.

The cab driver drew back the glass and popped his head out.

“Need a cab, love?”

“My car's gone,” I said, bewildered.

“Gone?”

“Stolen.” The word seemed to echo around me. “It's only an Astra,” I added, pointing at the Merc. “Why didn't they take that instead?”

“Doubt it's been nicked, love, not round 'ere,” said the cabbie. “How much did you put in the meter?”

“What? No, no ... I've got a permit,” I explained.

“Not along here you haven't,” said the cabbie. He pointed at the pavement. “Meters only.”

I turned round; a few yards away stood a parking meter.

“You've been towed,” said the cabbie, smugly.

“Thank you,” I said. “You've been very helpful.”

“Need a cab?” he repeated.

“No thank you.” I sighed, my vision of a night by the fire with a Chinese take-away and a bottle of wine flickering before me and fading out of sight. “I've got no money. And anyway, I don't know where I have to go to get it back.”

“West Kensington police pound,” said the man from the Met.

“Thank you.” Thank you for towing my car away and then telling me how to get it back again.

“Make sure you're there by seven,” he added. “Otherwise you'll have to pay for an extra day.”

My neighbour, when I knocked, was having a better evening. She was evidently somewhere in the middle of a working out session, as Larsen used to call it. She just managed to deposit a couple of pound coins into my hand before her other half appeared behind her and dragged her off squealing by the belt of her dressing gown, kicking the door shut in my face in the process.

I sighed and headed up the road to Baker Street. As I walked into the tube station my bad ankle gave way. I lost my footing, stumbled forward, and tumbled down the steps.

“Tell me, is it Friday the thirteenth today?” I asked the sister in charge. I was sitting in the A & E department at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, my left ankle once again elevated in front of me and wrapped in a bandage.

“No,” she replied confidently, after a moment's consideration. “That's next week”.

I looked up at the ceiling. “Oh Christ.”

A bony finger tapped my arm. “You watch your language, young lady,” croaked its owner, a spindly geriatric patient, who had stopped beside me in her wheelchair. I stared at her, dully, until she clicked her tongue and wheeled herself off again, glaring back at me as she went.

“There. You'll live,” said the Sister. She patted my shoulder reassuringly. “Nothing broken, just a sprain. Keep it up for a few days, and you'll be right as rain.”

I smiled; it sounded like a song.

It was all quite funny really, I reflected, a little hysterically. I'd gone out for a Chinese takeaway in Marylebone, I was supposed to be at the police compound in West Kensington, and now here I was in hospital in Islington. I glanced at my watch. It was too late to pick up the car, in any case. I might as well worry about that tomorrow.

I'd been lucky to get offered a lift to the nearest hospital by a kind couple who had been parked up on Marylebone Road. It was their nearest hospital in fact; they lived in ClerkenwelI. The sister had also very kindly given me a cup of tea and a biscuit, which was strictly beyond the call of duty, I was well aware, and probably beyond the budget of the National Health Service. You normally at least had to give them a pint of blood first. I wasn't complaining, not really. It was just that I was tired, hungry, and in pain and now I wasn't at all sure how I was going to get home again.

“Good lord!” said a loud voice, very close to my ear. I jumped in my seat and turned to see the starched corner of a nurse's cap and a familiar elfin face, its bright blue eyes peering amusedly at me from behind a stray lock of honey blonde hair.

“Zara? My God, what are you doing here?” I asked, redundantly, as she stood back to reveal her light blue uniform.

“What have you done?” she indicated my bandaged ankle.

“I fell. Down some steps.”

“Well I never,” said Zara, shaking her head and twisting back and forth on her heel, her hands behind her. “Fancy seeing you here.” Suddenly, she leapt forward, bent down towards me, and grabbed both my wrists. “Hey, where are you going now?” she asked.

I looked beyond her at my extended leg. “Well, I don't exactly have any plans.”

“Stay right where you are. I'm off duty in fifteen minutes.” Zara leapt to her feet and hurried off down the corridor.

“Don't go away!” she yelled back over her shoulder.

“Right,” I muttered, staring at my bandaged ankle.

A quarter of an hour later, Zara reappeared with the same old black raincoat on that I’d seen her in all those years ago. She had a woolly beret on her head that looked like a tea cosy. She was pushing a wheelchair.

“Hop in,” she ordered.

I shook my head. “You can't be serious.”

Zara regarded me for a moment, puzzled, and then, before I could protest any further, came round behind me, grabbed me under both arms and hoisted me up in one swift movement and deposited me into the canvas seat. I was amazed at her strength; her tiny and frail-looking appearance was belied by the muscularity of a brawny six-footer.

“Christ, I'm not going to argue with you,” I laughed as Zara wheeled me down the corridor, through the double doors of A & E and out into the car park. “You’re like Rambo. Or the Incredible Hulk.”

“Six years of lifting old codgers onto bedpans,” said Zara, pushing faster and skidding along behind me. “And old ladies into baths.”

A balmy breeze was whipping my hair round my face. I screamed with laughter and Zara giggled from behind me as she got faster and faster, negotiating her way deftly through the parked cars and ambulances and out through the gates onto the road.

“I hope you don't do this to your patients,” I yelled.

“ 'Course I do - they love it,” Zara shouted back.

“Where are we going, anyway?” I lifted my head towards her.

“King's Arms,” said Zara, slowing down as we headed out of the gates and across the square outside.

“The where? I haven't got any money…” I protested. “I’ve lost my car. And my purse.”

“You are so accident prone Lizzie,” said Zara. “Anyway, don't worry about that. I've got money.” She levered me up onto the kerb and parked me outside a small, noisy pub. “Boy, do I need a drink,” she said. “I've had the shittiest day you would not believe.”

From my wheelchair, I twisted my head back again, and surveyed her caustically.

“Really?” I said. “No kidding.”