Swimming Pool Sunday (8 page)

‘Daisy!’ A voice came from the other side of the pool, and at once the girl retrieved her toe, looking round in sudden apparent guilt. Alexis looked for the source of the voice. Waving from a garden chair, attired in a jolly scarlet bathing-suit, was a woman whom he recognized as the vicar’s wife. She was now gesturing reassuringly at Daisy.

‘It’s absolutely lovely in the pool!’ she was calling. ‘Have a good swim, and then come over and have a chat with us!’

Alexis looked back towards the girl. Daisy. Suddenly, unexpectedly, she smiled at the vicar’s wife; a shy, uncertain smile. Alexis felt a strange pang under his ribs. He watched her dive into the pool, dark hair streaming out behind her, white feet pointed. And as he did so, he suddenly wanted to see her smiling shyly again; this time, at him.

‘So, Louise,’ Sylvia Seddon-Wilson smiled charmingly, and drew on her cigarette, ‘where’s that sexy man of yours?’ Louise shrugged hesitantly.

‘Who do you mean?’

‘Oh, Louise! You don’t think I mean Barnaby!’ Sylvia’s playful voice rang out with a calculated resonance, and Louise shrank slightly into her chair. She had not meant to be drawn into Sylvia’s coterie today, but after snubbing Ursula there had been nowhere else for her to go and sit. And Sylvia was, to be fair, a long-term acquaintance – if not exactly friend – of Louise’s. Some years older than Louise, and with her teenage sons away at school, she lived a leisured life in the old vicarage, redecorating herself and the house at frequent intervals and observing the affairs of the village
through sharp, if slightly jaundiced eyes.

As her voice rose provocatively over the sounds of the swimming-pool, Louise glanced hesitantly over towards Barnaby, but he was too far away to hear Sylvia’s remarks.

‘No, I mean your delicious toyboy,’ said Sylvia. Louise blushed scarlet, but Sylvia appeared not to notice. ‘Cassian. Gorgeous Cass. Is that what you call him? Cass?’

‘No,’ said Louise discouragingly. It had been, she acknowledged to herself, a mistake to sit down with Sylvia.

‘Well, I must say’, said Sylvia, leaning comfortably back in her chair, ‘that I think he’s divine. So sexy. That hair … He’s Italian, is that right?’

‘Half Italian,’ mumbled Louise. She felt that she was being misrepresented; that she should somehow try to correct Sylvia’s assumptions. But then, what would she say? What exactly
was
going on between her and Cassian? She wasn’t, herself, entirely sure. And while she struggled in her mind to define, in simple terms, their relationship, she was also aware of a slight flowering pride at Sylvia’s admiring comments; a desire for the alluring picture of herself and Cassian as a glamorous couple to continue.

She turned her head slightly, so that the reproaching sight of Barnaby vanished from the corner of her vision, and gave Sylvia a secretive smile.

‘His grandparents were Italian,’ she elaborated, casually laying claim to Cassian’s family as well as him.

‘Italian men!’ exclaimed Sylvia, giving a theatrical shiver. ‘To die for!’

‘Oh no, you don’t mean it! They’re awful! Revolting!’ Louise looked up. It was Mary Tracey, a cheerful young woman who lived not far from Louise and had often acted as baby-sitter for Amelia and Katie. She was dripping wet from the pool, and holding an equally wet, fat
and happy baby. ‘We went on holiday to Pisa once, and my bottom got sore from all the pinching! I wouldn’t have minded if it had got any smaller,’ she added, sitting down, ‘but it didn’t.’ Louise giggled.

‘I wasn’t talking about peasants from Pisa,’ Sylvia said airily. ‘I was talking about gorgeous young lawyers.’

Mary glanced swiftly at Louise and her face closed up slightly. Louise looked away, with a small uncomfortable pang. Mary had been demonstrably upset when the Kembers had split up; it had happened just after she came home from the hospital with baby Luke, and Louise had always felt that she had let Mary down in some inexplicable way.

The baby began to grizzle and slither on Mary’s lap, and she sighed.

‘He’s hungry again,’ she said. ‘He’s always hungry.’ She jogged him up and down a little, and he affectionately grabbed a strand of her hair.

‘Ow!’ she yelped. ‘Get off!’ Sylvia raised her eyebrows at Louise.

‘Aren’t you glad yours are past that stage?’ she asked in mock-horror. Louise laughed, but she was mesmerized by Luke; by his determined, concentrated expression and his waving, grasping hands.

‘Amelia and Katie were never like this great lump,’ said Mary cheerfully. ‘They were little sweethearts.’ She sat Luke down on the grass. ‘Why can’t you be good, like they were?’ she chided him. He gazed at her for a few seconds, then screwed up his face, and began to howl.

‘I’ll have to feed him, I suppose,’ she sighed. ‘See you later.’

As she retreated, Sylvia took another drag on her cigarette. She pulled out a gold compact and checked her reflection unhurriedly. Then she put it away, smiled, and regarded Louise lazily again from under azure-painted lids.

‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you must come over to dinner sometime, Louise … you and, of course, Cassian.’

‘Yes, that would be nice,’ said Louise hesitantly. She lay back in her chair, closed her eyes, and tried unsuccessfully to imagine herself actually attending a dinner party with Cassian as her acknowledged partner. The Law Society dinner, a fortnight ago, had been different. That was in London; no-one there knew or cared what their background story was. She’d gone as Cassian’s guest, eaten four courses, listened intelligently to the speeches, joined in the discussion, even put one of Cassian’s colleagues right on some political point. It had been a wonderful evening. But that had been in London, not here in Melbrook, in front of Barnaby, in front of all of them. Village events – even private dinner parties – were not the same thing at all. To go anywhere publicly with Cassian would be at best uncomfortable, at worst a fiasco. Sylvia should realize that, thought Louise. Then, looking sidelong at Sylvia’s faint smirk, it occurred to her that Sylvia already did.

Meredith awoke to find the sun behind a cloud and an empty place beside her. Alexis must have gone for a stroll, she thought. She lifted herself up on her elbows and blinked sleepily. Cast in a sudden shade, the pool appeared chilly; the sleek wet heads of the swimmers bobbed darkly amid dull blue-grey waves, and the splashing and shrieks of the children seemed to have risen in volume.

She pushed her hair back, sat up cross-legged on her chair and stretched out languorously like a panther. Then, mid-stretch, she froze. There, in front of her, was Alexis, in the water. Alexis, who famously never swam. She stared at him. His hair was wet and he was inefficiently treading water, and he was smiling at someone.

Hating herself, Meredith casually lay back down on
her chair and reached for her sunglasses. The black-tinted lenses made everything around her seem even more gloomy, but at least with them on she could stare inconspicuously at Alexis and whoever it was he was talking to; still talking to – and still smiling at.

From the bathing-suit it appeared to be a woman, but her face was turned away from Meredith. Without really intending to, Meredith swiftly catalogued all the women of the village that it could be, dismissing each in turn with a snap judgement.
Too old. Too bossy. Too married
. Then, as the nameless woman began to turn in the water, a sudden realization hit her mind, flooding it with relief. It wasn’t a woman, it was the dippy girl; the klutzy teenager. Daisy … Daisy Phillips.

Filled with a sudden lightness, she stood up, approached the pool and dived in.

‘Hi, Alexis,’ she said, surfacing near the pair of them. ‘Hi, Daisy.’ Alexis gave Daisy a surprised look.

‘You know Meredith?’

‘Yes,’ said Daisy hesitantly. ‘At least, I didn’t know she was called Meredith; sorry,’ she stumbled, turning to Meredith, ‘I mean, I didn’t know
you
were called Meredith. Thank you very much,’ she added, ‘for letting me use your room.’

As Daisy came to the end of this halting little speech, Meredith raised her eyebrows sardonically and tried to catch Alexis’s eye. But he was still gazing at Daisy in apparent fascination.

‘Oh, that’s OK,’ said Meredith, in friendly playing-along tones. ‘Any time.’ She registered, in slight disbelief, that Alexis was turning and smiling at her, as though thanking her. What the hell for? Who was this kid to him? A surrogate daughter?

‘Feel free to use my room at the end of the day if you want to,’ she offered, adding a cheery grin for good measure. The girl, Daisy, smiled gratefully at her. And
then, like a fucking mirror image, so did Alexis. What’s going on here? Meredith wanted to shout. Next I’ll be asking this loopy girl if she wants to come bake cookies with me.

But instead she smiled at Alexis and Daisy, said, ‘I’ll catch you later,’ and swam swiftly, confusedly, away.

The sun sat determinedly behind a cloud for the next half an hour, and eventually the prone sunbathers around the pool gradually began to stand up, stretch, look at their watches and start to gather their belongings together.

Meanwhile, Amelia and Katie, utterly oblivious of the weather, had commandeered the diving-board. Amelia was doing back dives and Katie was doing front dives.

‘I’m going to be in the diving team when I go to senior school,’ Amelia was announcing proudly, standing with her back to the water. She bounced up into the air, arched her back, and entered the water cleanly, hands in a neat point.

‘So am I,’ said Katie, as soon as Amelia’s head popped up above the water again. ‘Look at my star jump!’ She leaped high into the air, with legs outstretched and toes pointed, then brought them together sharply before plunging into the water.

‘That’s not a dive,’ said Amelia scornfully.

‘Well, nor is a back dive,’ said Katie, paddling breathlessly to the side of the pool.

‘Yes it is,’ retorted Amelia. ‘Why do you think it’s called a back
dive
if it’s not a dive?’

‘Dives are facing
forward
,’ said Katie. ‘Look!’ She rushed recklessly past Amelia onto the diving-board, and essayed a cautious forward dive from the end, one hand clutching her nose.

‘That was rubbish!’ yelled Amelia, as soon as Katie’s head was clear. ‘I’m going to do another back dive. Get out of the way!’

‘So am I!’ retorted Katie desperately. ‘So am I going to do a back dive! You just wait, Amelia.’

Louise was gathering up her things, preparing to leave, when Barnaby came striding over.

‘I thought I’d take the girls out to supper,’ he said, with no preamble. ‘For a pizza, maybe. They’d like that.’

‘They’ve got school tomorrow,’ objected Louise, ‘and it’s already getting late. Maybe another time.’

‘We won’t be long,’ insisted Barnaby. ‘I’ve hardly seen them today.’

‘Yes, you have,’ retorted Louise. She paused. ‘And anyway, they’ll be too exhausted to go out after all this swimming.’

‘No they won’t,’ said Barnaby obstinately. ‘It’s only five. We’ll go straight from here, eat at six, be home by seven. Easy.’

‘It’s not easy,’ said Louise, her voice rising. ‘I then have to get them bathed and ready for bed, and check their homework, and make sure they’re in a fit state for school tomorrow.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ exclaimed Barnaby. ‘What does school matter?’

‘Yes, well, I might have expected you to take that attitude,’ said Louise. She folded up a towel with abrupt angry movements.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Barnaby glared at her.

‘Mummy! Watch!’ A piercing voice came from the diving-board.

‘In a minute, Katie,’ Louise called. She glared back at Barnaby. ‘It means whatever you want it to mean.’ There was a moment’s silence. Then Amelia came bounding up, dripping wet and shivering.

‘Where’s my towel?’ she demanded. Barnaby ignored Louise’s gaze.

‘Amelia!’ he exclaimed. ‘Feel like going out for pizza tonight?’

‘Yeah! Pizza!’ Amelia beamed up at Barnaby.

‘Mummy! Amelia! Watch me!’ Louise ignored Katie’s cry. Her nostrils were white with anger.

‘Barnaby!’ she hissed. ‘If you don’t stop doing this, I’ll …’

‘You’ll what?’ Barnaby whipped round, and stared at her with a deep angry hurt in his eyes. ‘What exactly will you do, Louise?’

‘Am–ee–lia! Watch me do a back dive!’ Katie’s final appeal was so shrill that they all turned to watch.

Standing with her back to the water, Katie was bouncing on the end of the diving-board. She bounced and bounced until the board was vibrating vigorously, then, shooting a triumphant look at Amelia, hurled herself backwards into the air.

The last voice Louise heard was Amelia’s, saying, ‘Katie’s never done a back dive before.’

And then there was just the sight of Katie’s small body arching inexpertly in the air, looping round too far, until her head was directly above the corner of the diving-board. And then there was the sickening crack as the board smacked upwards, hitting her head with a terrible malevolent force. And then there was the silence, as her apparently lifeless little body slithered quietly down into the water.

Cassian Brown was driving back to Melbrook from London, in self-congratulatory mood. He had spent most of the weekend in meetings with one of his law firm’s most important Middle Eastern clients, striking a complicated out of court settlement worth, in the end, just short of £800,000. Which, he had to admit to himself, was of no great significance, financially, for the client. But still, it had been a triumph of negotiation. And even though he himself had played only a relatively small role in the dealings, his contribution would, he was sure, have been recognized by those that mattered.

Now he wondered to himself whether it would be worth telephoning Desmond Pickering, head of litigation at the London office. A casual friendly call, just to ensure that Desmond was aware of Cassian’s part in the proceedings; just to make certain that no-one else was claiming too much of the credit. He could, Cassian thought, perhaps suggest an informal lunch meeting. Or even invite Desmond down to Melbrook for the weekend. Londoners, he’d noticed, were all too eager to come down to the country if it was only an hour or so away on the motorway.