Pat Barker - Life Class

Neville came running along the jetty. ‘Jump, man. S’torture doing it like that.’

A second later, he dived into the choppy water. Paul watched him resurface: eyes blind, slack mouth sucking air. Then he dived again. A gleaming back showed above the water and he was gone.

Challenged, Paul let himself fall backwards, through the warm skin of water into the murky depths. All around him now were white, struggling legs. Neville swam towards him, arms sheathed in silver bubbles, hair floating from side to side as he twisted and turned. They stared at each other. Absurdly, out of nowhere it became a contest. Who could stay down longest. Lungs bursting, Paul gave in and broke the surface on a screech of indrawn breath. He pushed the hair out of his eyes to see Neville, a few feet away, laughing into his face.

‘It’s bloody freezing,’ Paul said.

‘You need to keep moving.’

They swam off in opposite directions. Paul circled the boundary ropes twice, sometimes clinging to the rope to watch the other swimmers. The shock of the water on his skin had cleared his mind, that, or seeing Neville’s work. The strength of it. In some mysterious way Neville had become his marker. It wasn’t friendship, though a friendship might develop; it wasn’t rivalry either. Neville was too far ahead of him for that. He didn’t know what it was. Only that he’d had close friendships that were less important than this wary, sniffing-about-each-other acquaintanceship.

The banks were covered with the starfish shapes of men spread out to expose the maximum amount of skin. Deciding he’d had enough of the cold, Paul hauled himself out of the water, found a space and lay down, shrugging away the scratching of coarse grass between his shoulder blades. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the orange glare behind his lids. Purple blotches drifted across, fading to nothing. All his doubts about his painting, his envy of Neville’s talent, his constant anxiety over Teresa’s husband dissolved into the warm air. He was drifting off to sleep when the orange light behind his lids darkened to black and a shadow fell across his skin.

Paul opened his eyes, squinting between his spread fingers. Of course. Neville. Eyes gleaming bright and malicious beneath wet hanks of hair.

‘ You didn’t last long.’

‘Bloody freezing, man.’

‘You should try it in winter.’

Paul smiled. ‘You don’t mean to tell me you come here in winter?’

‘It’s been known.’

Extraordinary — when he seemed so fond of his comfort in every other respect. The man lying next to Paul stood up, scratched the grass marks on the backs of his thighs and wandered off. Neville took the vacant place.

Disliking the proximity of so much chilly wet flesh, Paul closed his eyes again. He could hear Neville’s breathing, feel him wanting to talk.

‘I’ve known Elinor a long time.’

‘Yes,’ Paul said, ‘I suppose you must have done.’

‘The thing is, I’m in love with her.’ He waited for a response. ‘And I think you are too.’

Reluctantly Paul turned to face him. There was such an intensity of suffering on Neville’s chubby features that Paul could hardly bear to meet his eyes. ‘ No. We see a lot of each other, obviously, because we’re in the same year, and I do like her. But I’m going out with Teresa.’

‘Teresa Halliday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Ah.’ He took a moment to think about it. ‘That’s all right, then.’

What an inept, bumbling approach. He was a strange man. Talented, yes, but malicious, too tormented himself to feel much kindness for other people, and bitter. What did he have to be bitter about? Choking on his golden spoon. But since he was here, he might as well get some information out of him. ‘Have you know Teresa long?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Neville said. ‘Way back. She used to model at the Slade when I was a student.’

‘Have you ever met her husband?’

‘No — and neither has anybody else. Why?’

Paul could feel Neville’s gaze on the side of his face. ‘I just wondered.’

‘You mean, you wonder if he really exists?’

Paul sat up. ‘You think she’s making it all up?’

Neville shrugged. ‘I don’t know. She likes drama. She likes to be at the centre of the stage with everybody else revolving round her. You saw her, the first night we met. She wouldn’t let Elinor talk to anybody else.’ He waited for Paul to say something. ‘You’ve got to admit it’s a bit odd he never actually shows up. Look, all I’m saying is, if he’s real, why has nobody ever seen him?’ He rolled on to his back. ‘In two years.’

‘She does seem to be genuinely frightened.’

‘She’s an actress. They all are.’

They? Who were ‘they’, for God’s sake? Women? Models? None of it made any sense. And why should other people have seen Halliday? He was hardly likely to stroll into the Café Royal and drag her out into the street.

Abruptly, Paul got to his feet.

‘It’s getting a bit chilly.’

He wanted to get away from Neville.

‘If you don’t mind, I think I’ll get dressed.’

He needed to be with Teresa, to reassure himself that none of this was true.

That conversation with Neville changed everything. He tried not to let it and, for a time, seemed to be succeeding, but the next time Teresa announced that she’d heard a noise and asked him to go outside and check, he refused. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’

They were lying in the bed after making love. For a moment there was silence. He felt the tension in the arm that lay alongside his.

‘I’ll go,’ she said, reaching for her wrap.

‘No —’

Too late. He heard her bare feet slapping on the lino and then the creak of the front door opening. A current of colder air rippled across his skin. He waited. When she didn’t return immediately he got up and followed her.

She was standing halfway up the basement stairs, peering out between the railings. ‘Look, do you see?’

He followed her pointing finger across the road to a house with a large porch. In the deep shadow he thought he could see a figure, but even as he watched, it split into two. A courting couple.

‘It’s nothing,’ he said, struggling to keep the impatience he felt out of his voice.

Teresa turned to look at him.

‘Come back inside.’

She followed him down the steps and back along the passage into the bedroom. ‘You don’t believe me.’

‘I do. But there’s never anybody there when I look.’

‘You think I’m making it up.’

‘No, I don’t think that. But I do think you might be getting it out of proportion.’

‘I had another letter.’

It was the first he’d heard of any letters.

‘Saying what?’

‘The usual.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘I burnt it.’

‘ Why ?’

She turned away from him. ‘Because I couldn’t bear to have it in the house.’

‘What did it say?’

‘That he’s going to kill me.’ She managed a smile. ‘They don’t vary much.’

‘And you don’t keep them?’

‘Would you want something like that in your flat?’

‘No, but I’d keep it. It’s evidence, for God’s sake.’ She shook her head.

‘If you took those letters to the police they’d have to take it seriously. Promise me you’ll keep the next one.’

‘All right.’

He sat down on the bed, his thoughts seething. He watched her carefully all evening. She didn’t seem particularly worried … Later, after they’d eaten, she got her dressmaking dummy out of the spare room, and went on with a jacket she was making. She was actually humming under her breath as she draped cloth along its curved side. He lay on the sofa pretending to read, but then got his sketch-book out and started drawing her, because this gave him the excuse to do what he was compelled to do anyway: search her face. Her eyes. Her mouth, thinned suddenly to a hard line, bristling with pins. He didn’t know what to think.