Roma Tearne - The Swimmer

Slowly I inched my way along the hall, barefoot, skimpily dressed, clutching that ridiculous penknife. What if he was a rapist? Don’t be stupid, Ria, I told myself, you’re too old to interest a rapist! I tried not to think about the incident that had occurred a few days ago in Aldeburgh when a woman had been held at knife-point. The woman had been a circus hand, but still, the police had urged people in the area to lock their doors. I reached the telephone just as the church clock struck the quarter. The only number I could ring at this hour was the police, but I was reluctant to do so. This was a small community; word would get out. People knew my brother Jack. He was bound to hear of it. He would tell me triumphantly, finally, I was losing my nerve! I would play into his hands at last, and the insidious process of ousting me from the house and putting it up for sale would begin. I hesitated. I swear the only reason I didn’t punch in the number was the thought of Jack’s smug face and in that moment, while I stood uncertainly, without warning, the outside light flickered on. I flattened myself against the wall and held my breath. There was the unmistakable sound of gravel and then, footsteps, fading away. I don’t know how long I stood there, rooted to the spot, but eventually the light switched off again. The moon reappeared showing its damaged side, barely above dream level. I blinked and found the switch in the hall.

Nothing, there was nothing. An unmistakable sense of disappointment flooded over me. The penknife was still in my hand. I closed it, turned the key in the back door, (yes, it was unlatched) and pulled down the blinds. Then, getting myself a drink of water from the jug in the fridge, I went upstairs and fell into an exhausted sleep, not realising I was still clutching the telephone.

The following day was Friday and I awoke late. Sarah the cleaner had let herself in and was just finishing downstairs.

‘You’re tired,’ she said when she saw me emerge. ‘Late night?’

‘Yes.’

I went over to make some tea. My weekly organic box was on the work surface. There were the last of the broad beans, field mushrooms and asparagus. There was no fruit. I had asked for cherries, some raspberries, but there was nothing. Not even apples. Sarah was vacuuming the stairs. I could hear her banging the nozzle against the banisters with more vigour than seemed necessary. I knew she had stolen the fruit. Every time she came she stole something, however small. It was a token of…I’m not sure what. Some suppressed rage. I knew she didn’t like me. Once I had confronted her with some CDs I’d found in her bag and she had pretended to be dumbfounded.

‘I’ve no idea how they got there,’ she had said.

As if it was my fault. I know she stole money, too, but I had no way of proving it. Since it wasn’t possible to get another cleaner to come this far out of town, I continued to keep her on, but I didn’t leave anything of value lying around. I was on the point of looking in her bag for the missing fruit when she walked back into the kitchen and glared at me. Sighing, I picked up the paper and went into the dining room. Jack, Miranda and their children would have left London by now. I could hear Sarah going back upstairs to put clean sheets on all the beds. Then she would wash the kitchen floor and then, thank goodness, she would leave. It was almost ten. I sipped my tea and suddenly, without any warning, I remembered the swimmer. My God! How could I have forgotten him?

Solitude creates a peculiar inner life. Unbroken silence, frightening to begin with, soon becomes a way of life. At mealtimes there is only the clatter of one set of crockery, the crunch of your own teeth on food, the sound of yourself swallowing. When Ant was no longer there to bounce my thoughts off those things that had been suppressed for years began to turn endlessly in my head. There was no one to shout, Stop, stop, you’re going crazy. If you are unloved, as I was, husbandless, childless, you develop a way of thinking and being that is haphazard. Life pares down, sex becomes something other people engage in, like dancing. However much you longed for it, all you had was yourself. This was how I was at forty-three. Years before, when Jack first brought Miranda home (Ant had not yet made his brief appearance in my life) I could tell he thought of me as a born spinster.

‘My sister is frigid,’ I imagined him saying, making her giggle.

Hard to think of her giggling now, but in the early days, I used to be able to tell simply by the way Miranda looked at me, she was thinking, Oh yes, frigid. Definitely! I was not frigid. Someone had to suggest sex before they could call you frigid. There was no one to do that then or now.

In some sense life closed down for me after the shock of my father’s death. Until then, I’ve been told I was a chatty, friendly child. Happy, too, I believe. Now and then glimpses of that girlhood flit across my dreams; sunlight on an otherwise shadowed life, insubstantial like light, vanishing as I wake. The woman I am today is still possessed by that invisible child.

Last night’s appearance of the swimmer had the quality of those dreams. I remembered a mosaic I had once seen in the archaeological museum in Naples. That too had been of a swimmer. Thin arms, rising slightly, slim hips, head poised as he bent to retrieve his clothes. What nonsense the night throws up, I thought. In the daylight it was unimaginable that I had been frightened. Stirring myself, I decided to tidy the garden before Jack arrived.

‘I’m off then,’ Sarah said, coming in, making me jump.

She stared at me, her face resentful as she waited for her pay.

What the hell was she angry about? I’m the one whose fruit had been stolen. I hesitated.

‘Sarah,’ I said, handing over her money, ‘I’m afraid…I’m sorry, but I’m not going to need any cleaning for a while. The house is going to be full for a month. It’s a bit pointless trying to tidy up.’

She had a bullish look. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me.

‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll contact you after the summer, shall I?’

‘Are you giving me the sack?’ she asked.

‘No, no, Sarah…’

God! The woman made my flesh creep.

‘I’m just suggesting we have a bit of a break.’

‘You’ll lose me,’ she said threateningly.

‘Yes, I see that.’

‘I’m not going to wait around. There are others who’ll want me.’

I looked at her helplessly.

‘I’ll take a chance,’ I said.

I should have sacked her months ago.

‘Please yourself then,’ she said.

And she left, taking my fruit and who knows what else with her.

It was eleven by now. Jack would be here by four. The house smelt of the eucalyptus polish that Sarah insisted on using. Sunlight poured in through the kitchen window. Relieved to be rid of her, I went upstairs.

In the shower I thought once more of the swimmer. Warm water flowed over me. I felt a spurt of energy, the first in months, and the stirring of a possible poem. The emptiness I carried around within me receded slightly. I felt moulded in wetness and light. When I was younger, during that awkward adolescent stage, Uncle Clifford used to say I had the look of Kate in the novel The Go-Between. What he meant was, I think, I looked a bit like the actress who played the part of Kate in the film version. I can’t remember her name but she had blue eyes (as I do), and fair, wavy hair, like mine. Why am I saying this? What difference can it possibly make, except perhaps to present the picture of what I once was, what I might have been, had the circumstances been right? Tall and willowy, Ant had said, in our moments of passion. With a sensuous mouth. For some reason I thought of this now.