The SECRET TO NOT DROWNING

by Colette Snowden

  It’s been a pretty uneventful week apart from the dog walks and the dog-related cleaning. I’ve hardly seen Him between work and dog-walking and his pub quiz and his Wednesday night out. And when He has been around He’s been nice. Not husband of the year material, no need for me to call the papers, but He’s chatted to me, He’s listened to me and He’s even done the washing up. Twice!

  The odd thing is, it’s the niceness and the normalness that’s making me miserable. That, and the lack of Mandy to chat to at work. That and the looming dinner with Julie, which could be lovely if He stays nice like, this but what are the chances of that? It’s his niceness and normalness that makes me think: this is as good as it’s ever going to get and frankly, it’s not that great. It’s not going to make me dash home from work because I can’t wait to see Him. It’s not going to make me leap out of bed in the morning because I want to put my face on before He sees me. It’s not going to buoy me up for when it inevitably goes to shit again. If this is the best it’s ever going to be, what the fuck am I doing here?

  And then I hear my mother’s voice. “Rome wasn’t built in a day you know. Marriage was never meant to be a bed of roses. You have to work at it. You’re in it for the long haul.”

  She was in it for the long haul. She was from a long line of make-your-bed-and-lie-in-it women who married young, got their lovely house in a nice area and cooked and cleaned and freshened up their make-up in time for their husbands coming home. She was part of a sisterhood of housewives who swapped handy household hints, swooned over Hollywood stars and only ever had good things to say about their husbands. So when her husband started shagging around she carried on washing his dirty socks and cooking his Sunday dinner and pretending that nothing was wrong. When I found an earring in the back of his car, she let him tell me that it must have been from when he gave some of the women from work a lift to the station. When he finally left, she told me that he just needed some space and would probably come back in a couple of weeks. And when he didn’t come back she said she’d made some mistakes, they both had. Marriage was never meant to be a bed of roses.

  She was delighted when I finally got married. She actually said to me on my wedding day that she’d begun to think that it would never happen and she’d had to avoid the subject with her friends. Not with Julie’s mum, presumably, because Julie wasn’t married, but they weren’t what you’d call friends by that time, not after the whole adoption gossip thing. She gave me a pep talk while I was doing my make-up. She told me that men want to think that their wife is vulnerable and needy and relies on them for everything, but they don’t want to deal with any vulnerability or neediness or responsibility in real life. “Be strong,” she said. “Carry the weight of the world on your shoulders if you have to and learn how to seem fine even if you’re not. But never be afraid to cry if he wants to see you upset and always be prepared to tell him how much you love him and rely on him, even if you don’t feel it.”

  At the time I remember thinking that my mum was the anti-feminist. She’d lived through the great era of women’s lib and come out the other side with Victorian sensibilities that would make even the Victorians dismiss her as a throwback. Meanwhile, my dad ended up moving to Australia and moving in with a woman who already had three kids. She had two more with him: Martin and Marina, the brother and sister I’ve never even met. The brother and sister I’m not ever allowed to mention in front of my mum. He is a chef and she is an architect. They send me Christmas cards. They have the same shaped face as me.

  That’s the trouble with a boring week like this week when you have no-one to talk to and too much time to think: you think. You think about all kinds of stuff and all that thinking never helps you find any answers, it just brings up more and more questions. Did I know He was like this when I married Him? If I knew, why did I marry Him? Why am I still married to Him? Why can’t I get away? What do I have to do to get away?

  I ask Chips: “What do I have to do to get away?” He doesn’t answer me. Of course he doesn’t, he’s a dog. He just looks at me and then wanders off and cocks his leg up a tree. I can’t believe it. I have been a dog owner for less than a week and I’m already one of those crazy people who talks to their dogs and expects a human response.

  By Friday morning I’m on the brink of total doggy nuttiness, but when I get to work Mandy is at her desk eating a bowl of Rice Krispies and giving me a huge grin as soon as I walk through the door. I see the grin and hope that it means that the baby is here for keeps. I think it must be.

  “The man from Del Monte, he say ‘Yes!’”, she says as I plonk my bag on the floor next to my chair.

  “That’s fantastic,” I say and burst into tears like a complete idiot.

  26

  Sometimes I have dreams that start off as dreams and end up as nightmares. I’m in the swimming pool. Same old pool, same old stone steps into the water and same grubby changing rooms down each wall. Same old tiles and flying saucer lights hanging from the ceiling. But it smells lovely. You can’t smell the chlorine at all, it smells more like a spa or some of that fancy handmade soap that you sometimes get as a present and put in your knicker drawer to make your smalls smell nice.

  I’m the only person in the pool and it’s lovely. No-one splashing me, no-one doing back stroke on a collision course, no-one jumping in, no-one chatting at the side of the pool and getting in everyone’s way. Not everyone’s, just mine. There’s only me and suddenly that’s not nice and quiet and peaceful any more. It’s spooky. It’s cold and much too quiet. And then I look up and the lorry driver is the pool attendant with his big fat belly squeezed into shorts that are way too tight. And my mum is there holding a life belt and I think she’s going to throw it into the pool but it’s tied to the wall. And then I can see all kinds of random people. Julie’s mum, Heidi, the guy from the corner shop who always calls me pumpkin and nearly always has a toffee in his mouth. He’s chewing; he has a toffee in his mouth, just like always.

  They’re all staring at me and I want to get away from them but I can’t get out of the pool. The steps have disappeared and the water is suddenly much, much deeper. So I try diving down under the water. If I can stay down there, just for a few minutes, they might think I’ve gone and just go and leave me to my swim. But the further down I go, the deeper the water gets and I can’t get back up again and I can’t breathe.

  It’s Friday night. Well, strictly speaking it’s Saturday morning but so early that some people probably won’t have gone to bed yet. Friday flew by in a bit of a blur. It was a great day. The dog didn’t pee on the carpet – not even once – and I even let him off the lead for a bit in the park and he didn’t run off. Mandy came back to work having apparently spent the last three days celebrating being pregnant with Guy who, after all her angst and soul searching, turned out to be thrilled at the news and has already moved in with her and opened a savings account for the baby. Julie texted me just after I’d got into work and asked if I could meet her for lunch.

  We met at a cafe about half way between where I work and where Julie works. Closer to my work really, but it was her suggestion and it was fine by me. I’ve never been in there before. It’s not the kind of place I’d go into on my own. I don’t really go into places and sit down on my own. Julie looked tired but she said she was OK and I told her about Chips and about Mandy’s baby and about the waitress crying in the toilets in the pub on the way to pick up the dog.

  “I have absolutely no idea what she was crying about. It could have been anything. I feel quite guilty about it actually. What’s the worst that could have happened? She could have told me to bugger off maybe. Big deal. But she might have really needed someone to talk to, or I might have been able to do something to help...”

  I can feel myself wittering on while Julie is rifling through her handbag for something.

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says, “I’m sure the woman was fine. The last thing most people want
when they’re upset is some complete stranger poking their nose in and making them talk about it.”

  And she finally finds the little packet of tissues buried at the bottom of her enormous handbag and pulls one out and starts blowing her nose.

  Then I realise that she’s crying quietly, like an old lady cries: no fuss, just tears.

  “Are you OK? What’s the matter? What is it?”

  How stupid, of course she’s not OK, otherwise she wouldn’t be crying. I think back over what I’ve said to try and figure out whether there was anything in it that might have upset her. I think back over what she’s said to see if there was something she mentioned that I should have asked her about.

  “I’m fine,’ she says.

  Clearly, she’s not fine.

  “Obviously, you’re not, are you?” I say, getting up and walking round to her side of the table and giving her a hug.

  She gives me a polite hug back but she’s uncomfortable. I can see her glancing to the side to see if anyone’s looking at us and they are, so I go back to my seat and give her hand a squeeze instead.

  “What’s up?”

  “I’m fine.”

  I wait.

  “So?”

  “My mum’s died,” she says. “Not my mum that you know: Linda, my mother. I found out this morning that she died two weeks ago and I didn’t even know. I only found out when I got a letter from a solicitor telling me that I’m a beneficiary in her will. They’re reading the will next week and I’m invited to attend. Her family don’t even know who I am. How can I go and sit there with them while they read out her will and not tell anyone that she was my mother? How could she go and die just like that when it took me so long to find her? How could she be dead all that time and I didn’t even know?”

  Julie is really crying now and I don’t know what to do. This feels completely back to front. I’m the one who cries and she’s the one that’s supposed to be sensible and know what to do every minute of the day.

  “Let’s have a drink,” I say.

  “Thanks, but I’ve got to be back at work in half an hour.”

  “So have I. Let’s have one anyway.”

  So when the waitress comes over with the food I order us a glass of wine each and we have a toast to Linda.

  “It’s a shame you didn’t get to meet her,” says Julie. “You would have liked her. She was really calm; really... what’s the word? I can’t think of the word. Serene. That sounds cheesy, but she was.”

  “Like you then.”

  “Not like me,” says Julie. “She looked like me, or I look like her, but we weren’t really alike, she was more like you.”

  “Like me? I’m not serene. Nothing like.”

  “I think you are,” she says. “I think Linda would have liked you.”

  It’s time to take the compliment and move on.

  We talk about the will reading and whether Julie will go. I think she should.

  “The thing is her husband will wonder who I am. What if he asks me?”

  “Tell him.”

  “But he doesn’t even know that I exist. If he finds out, it could ruin Linda’s memory for him.”

  “Or it could give him and you someone that was close to Linda to be close to now that she’s gone.”

  Julie starts to cry again. “You see,” she says “that’s exactly the sort of thing that Linda would say.”

  So she decides that she will go to the reading of the will and she won’t make a point of introducing herself but she will tell Linda’s husband the full story if he asks.

  “It’s a plan,” she says. And as if she’s just pressed the off switch on her crying function, she changes the subject.

  “So, what about the plan for tomorrow?”

  With the arrival of Chips and all the stuff about Mandy’s baby and then Julie’s mum I’d forgotten all about the dinner we’ve invited Julie to tomorrow night.

  “I haven’t got much of a plan. Don’t even know what I’m cooking. Are you going to bring someone?”

  “Like who? Like a date you mean?”

  “It might make things easier?”

  “D’you think?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I tell her about dinner at Mandy’s.

  “Well, from the sound of it, whether I bring someone or not won’t make much difference. I think I’ll come by myself and I’ll bring some nice wine and my best solicitor’s poker face.”

  “OK, it’s a plan. And I’ll make Moroccan lamb and Tiramisu.”

  “And if he misbehaves we’ll just get in a taxi and go for a night out on the tiles.”

  “Cheers!”

  “Cheers!”

  I love the plan. I love the bravado. I love Julie. I’m still dreading Saturday night.

  Julie barely touches her food but we both finish our wine and she insists on paying.

  “I invited you,” she says. “My treat.”

  “When my granddad died, my mum and dad took me out for lunch as a treat,” I say. “I always remember that. I was only little, only about six, but I can still remember what I had. Chicken in a basket with chips, and a knickerbocker glory for afters. I remember feeling excited that I could have whatever I liked off the menu and then feeling guilty for enjoying myself. I felt like I’d traded him in for a knickerbocker glory.”

  “But you hadn’t. He was already dead. Refusing dessert wasn’t going to bring him back.”

  “No. It’d be good if things worked like that wouldn’t it?”

  I’m smiling but Julie suddenly gets all serious. Not upset, just serious.

  “The connections might not be as obvious as all that,” she says. “But they’re still there. It might not be that A happens because of B but sometimes, because A plus B happens and then C, D and E happen, then at some point Z can happen.”

  I start to remember why we used to call her the Weirdy Girl. I have absolutely no idea what she’s going on about but it obviously makes perfect sense to her. Maybe I just don’t get it. Maybe she’s in a worse state than she’s letting on.

  I must look pretty perplexed because she stops trying to explain with the alphabet and she takes my hand and I can feel her bracelet tickling my wrist.

  “Don’t you ever think that things are interconnected and that one will only happen if something or some things have happened first? I feel like Linda could only die because I was fine and she had the opportunity to see that I was OK. I feel as though if I’d kept away, she wouldn’t have been able to go just yet.”

  “That’s more crazy than my knickerbocker glory and I was only six,” I say.

  She laughs. But she’s not really laughing.

  “I know it sounds nuts,” she says.

  “Yep. But that’s fine. It’s your turn to be the bonkers one. If she died knowing that you were OK and everything was fine between you, that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” She still doesn’t sound convinced.

  “Yeah... but what?”

  “Yeah but what’s it supposed to mean for me? What’s the message in it? What am I supposed to do next?”

  “God, Julie, you really are weird sometimes. In a good way. Take your time to miss her and be glad that you got to spend some time with her first.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Of course I am.”

  She looks at her watch.

  “Bloody hell, I’m late! I’ve got a meeting that starts about five minutes ago.” She starts walking backwards. “What time d’you want me tomorrow?”

  “About seven.”

  “OK. See you then!” And she disappears round the corner and goes off to her sensible job in her sensible office with her not very sensible haircut.

  I’m late back to work and as I step through the door I have a text from Julie. ‘Client late tha
nk God. Thanks for listening.’

  I text back. ‘No probs. My turn 2 b the shoulder!”

  Heidi appears behind me.

  “When you’ve finished arranging your social life, d’you think you could make it back to your desk? Poor Mandy is trying to manage your phone and hers.”

  Mandy gives me the look and then I have to apologise to Heidi without letting Mandy make me laugh.

  “Where’ve you been?” asks Mandy.

  “I had lunch with a friend. Her mum’s just died so we took a bit longer than planned and had a little glass of wine.”

  “Don’t mention wine,” says Mandy. “I’m officially not allowed now and Guy’s got me drinking these horrible green milkshakes with celery and parsley in them. He says parsley is the universal cure-all. This poor baby’s going to come out all green.”

  Heidi looks daggers at us laughing and I feel like I’ve finally made it into the ranks of the cool girls. Suddenly, I am the kind of girl who bunks off school and sits on the back seat of the bus and has boyfriends and writes graffiti on toilet walls.

  When Heidi backs off and there’s a gap in the phone calls, Mandy turns to me and says: “You do think it will be all right don’t you, Marion? Everything will turn out for the best?”

  I wonder if she realises that I am probably the least qualified person in her world to give assurances that things will be all right.

  “Honestly, I don’t know. No-one knows that.” Her face falls. “But you have everything to look forward to. I think it will all be fine,” I say. “I’m sure it will be.”

  26

  Slicing up the lamb makes me think about that episode of Tales of the Unexpected. I was just a kid when I saw it and I don’t know how I came to see it, I wasn’t usually allowed to watch that sort of thing. ITV was generally frowned upon in our house and my mum used to turn Tales of the Unexpected off as soon as the naked lady silhouettes started dancing because it was unsuitable. The lamb makes me think of the episode I saw when the woman kills her husband using a frozen leg of lamb and then cooks it and feeds it to the police that come to investigate.