Graham Swift - Learning to Swim - And Other Stories

It was some months after that that Ralph, who was now a regular guest at weekends, shouted over the table to Grandfather: “Why don’t you leave her alone?!”

I remember it because that same Saturday Grandfather recalled the wreck of my boat, and Ralph said to me, as if pouncing on something: “How about me buying you a new one? How would you like that?” And I said, just to see his face go crestfallen and blank, “No!” several times, fiercely. Then as we ate supper Ralph suddenly barked, as Grandfather was talking to Mother: “Why don’t you leave her alone?!”

Grandfather looked at him. “Leave her alone? What do you know about being left alone?” Then he glanced from Ralph to Mother. And Ralph didn’t answer, but his face went tight and his hands clenched on his knife and fork.

And all this was because Grandfather had said to Mother: “You don’t make curry any more, the way you did for Alex, the way Vera taught you.”

It was Grandfather’s house we lived in — with Ralph as an ever more permanent lodger. Grandfather and Grandmother had lived in it almost since the day of their marriage. My grandfather had worked for a firm which manufactured gold- and silver-plated articles. My grandmother died suddenly when I was only four; and all I know is that I must have had her looks. My mother said so and so did my father; and Grandfather, without saying anything, would often gaze curiously into my face.

At that time Mother, Father and I lived in a new house some distance from Grandfather’s. Grandfather took his wife’s death very badly. He needed the company of his daughter and my father; but he refused to leave the house in which my grandmother had lived, and my parents refused to leave theirs. There was bitterness all around, which I scarcely appreciated. Grandfather remained alone in his house, which he ceased to maintain, spending more and more time in his garden shed which he had fitted out for his hobbies of model making and amateur chemistry.

The situation was resolved in a dreadful way: by my own father’s death.

He was required now and then to fly to Dublin or Cork in the light aeroplane belonging to the company he worked for, which imported Irish goods. One day, in unexceptional weather conditions, the aircraft disappeared without trace into the Irish Sea. In a state which resembled a kind of trance — as if some outside force were all the time directing her — my Mother sold up our house, put away the money for our joint future, and moved in with Grandfather.

My father’s death was a far less remote event than my grandmother’s, but no more explicable. I was only seven. Mother said, amidst her adult grief: “He has gone to where Grandma’s gone.” I wondered how Grandmother could be at the bottom of the Irish Sea, and at the same time what Father was doing there. I wanted to know when he would return. Perhaps I knew, even as I asked this, that he never would, that my childish assumptions were only a way of allaying my own grief. But if I really believed Father was gone forever — I was wrong.

Perhaps too I was endowed with my father’s looks no less than my grandmother’s. Because when my mother looked at me she would often break into uncontrollable tears and she would clasp me for long periods without letting go, as if afraid I might turn to air.

I don’t know if Grandfather took a secret, vengeful delight in my father’s death, or if he was capable of it. But fate had made him and his daughter quits and reconciled them in mutual grief. Their situations were equivalent: she a widow and he a widower. And just as my mother could see in me a vestige of my father, so Grandfather could see in the two of us a vestige of my grandmother.

For about a year we lived quietly, calmly, even contentedly within the scope of this sad symmetry. We scarcely made any contact with the outside world. Grandfather still worked, though his retirement age had passed, and would not let Mother work. He kept Mother and me as he might have kept his own wife and son. Even when he did retire we lived quite comfortably on his pension, some savings and a widow’s pension my mother got. Grandfather’s health showed signs of weakening — he became rheumatic and sometimes short of breath — but he would still go out to the shed in the garden to conduct his chemical experiments, over which he hummed and chuckled gratefully to himself.

We forgot we were three generations. Grandfather bought Mother bracelets and ear-rings. Mother called me her “little man.” We lived for each other — and for those two unfaded memories — and for a whole year, a whole harmonious year, we were really quite happy. Until that day in the park when my boat, setting out across the pond toward Grandfather, sank.

Sometimes when Grandfather provoked Ralph I thought Ralph would be quite capable of jumping to his feet, reaching across the table, seizing Grandfather by the throat and choking him. He was a big man, who ate heartily, and I was often afraid he might hit me. But Mother somehow kept him in check. Since Ralph’s appearance she had grown neglectful of Grandfather. For example — as Grandfather had pointed out that evening — she would cook the things that Ralph liked (rich, thick stews, but not curry) and forget to produce the meals that Grandfather was fond of. But no matter how neglectful and even hurtful she might be to Grandfather herself, she wouldn’t have forgiven someone else’s hurting him. It would have been the end of her and Ralph. And no matter how much she might hurt Grandfather — to show her allegiance to Ralph — the truth was she really did want to stick by him. She still needed — she couldn’t break free of it — that delicate equilibrium that she, he and I had constructed over the months.

I suppose the question was how far Ralph could tolerate not letting go with Grandfather so as to keep Mother, or how far Mother was prepared to turn against Grandfather so as not to lose Ralph. I remember keeping a sort of equation in my head: If Ralph hurts Grandfather it means I’m right — he doesn’t really care about Mother at all; not if Mother is cruel to Grandfather (though she would only be cruel to him because she couldn’t forsake him) it means she really loves Ralph.

• • •

But Ralph only went pale and rigid and stared at Grandfather without moving.

Grandfather picked at his stew. We had already finished ours. He deliberately ate slowly to provoke Ralph.

Then Ralph turned to Mother and said: “For Christ’s sake we’re not waiting all night for him to finish!” Mother blinked and looked frightened. “Get the pudding!”

You see, he liked his food.

Mother rose slowly and gathered our plates. She looked at me and said, “Come and help.”

In the kitchen she put down the plates and leaned for several seconds, her back towards me, against the draining board. Then she turned. “What am I going to do?” She gripped my shoulders. I remembered these were just the words she’d used once before, very soon after father’s death, and then, too, her face had had the same quivery look of being about to spill over. She pulled me towards her. I had a feeling of being back in that old impregnable domain which Ralph had not yet penetrated. Through the window, half visible in the twilight, the evergreen shrubs which filled our garden were defying the onset of autumn. Only the cherry laurel bushes were partly denuded — for some reason Grandfather had been picking their leaves. I didn’t know what to do or say — I should have said something — but inside I was starting to form a plan.

Mother took her hands from me and straightened up. Her face was composed again. She took the apple-crumble from the oven. Burnt sugar and apple juice seethed for a moment on the edge of the dish. She handed me the bowl of custard. We strode, resolutely, back to the table. I thought: Now we are going to face Ralph, now we are going to show our solidarity. Then she put down the crumble, began spooning out helpings and said to Grandfather, who was still tackling his stew: “You’re ruining our meal — do you want to take yours out to your shed?!”