The Lido

by Libby Page

  “I’m doing it!” she says, beaming.

  “Yes, you are!”

  They continue to dance on their own in the passageway, watched by the musicians, the customers, and Jay. They turn slowly and spin each other round and round.

  Kate focuses on the music and the movement and blocks out everything else. Warmth fills her whole body. She feels like a balloon full of air, about to float away. Her body feels full to the brim with light but she feels empty and free at the same time. At first she thinks it must be the wine, but then she remembers the feeling. It is joy. As she dances she can’t wait to phone Erin and tell her about this later.

  “I’m sorry, my knees,” says Rosemary, stopping. “Jay, come over here. I don’t think Kate is quite done dancing yet.”

  Jay stands up and Rosemary heads back to the table, placing a hand on his arm as they pass each other.

  “Take care of her,” she says quietly. Jay nods and walks over to Kate, thinking she has never looked as beautiful. Her cheeks are pink and her eyes are bright, as though a cloud has rolled away for a moment.

  “Let’s dance,” says Kate, holding out her arms and surprising herself with her own confidence. He takes her hand and pulls her closer to him with an arm around her waist. They dance out of rhythm with each other and the music. They bump into each other and step on each other’s feet. But they laugh. And as they dance Kate feels joy filling her whole body and she holds on to it tightly. Rosemary watches them and remembers.

  Tonight when they are in their beds alone both women will dream of dancing. Jay will too.

  CHAPTER 42

  The lido is full of rubber ducks. They float on the surface, a smiling sea of yellow. Some cluster in groups, nudging into one another as the breeze blows; others bob in twos, their orange beaks meeting as they float into each other. Two mallards swim among them, seeming confused.

  “Help me with the other end of the banner,” says Kate to Erin, passing her one end of a long sheet of fabric. They walk along the poolside in opposite directions, Frank and Jermaine helping them tie the banner.

  Kate had called Erin after her dinner with Rosemary and Jay.

  “We’re planning a protest to help save the lido,” said Kate. “And I thought that with you being a PR expert and all, you might be able to help.” Erin had agreed immediately, saying she would be happy to help. But as Kate looks across the pool at her sister, her red wavy hair jumping in the breeze as she bends to help Frank and Jermaine tie the banner, she thinks there is probably more to it as well. For both of them. They catch each other’s eyes for a moment and Kate remembers jumping from Erin’s shoulders into the water of their local pool when they were young. She looks at her sister now, trying to spot the differences between the woman by the pool and her younger self. Her eyes are the same green, her hair is still the shade of red that Kate envied when she was younger but that she knew Erin hated; Erin is still taller than Kate but has grown into her height, no longer embarrassed by it. The angry expression she often wore as a teenager has softened, but there are traces of dark circles under her eyes—and Kate is reminded of the stress Erin spoke about around her job. Today she is wearing a bright blue fitted dress and pristine makeup. Erin has always said that dressing well is important for her job, but Kate knows that the clothes and the makeup are part of Erin’s armor. Beautifully cut, colorful armor, but armor nonetheless.

  Once the banner is secured, they all step back to admire it.

  “Don’t Pull the Plug on Our Lido,” it reads.

  “It looks perfect,” says Frank, turning to Jermaine. They have left their part-time assistant in charge of the bookshop this weekend. As much as they love their shop and their home it is a relief to be away from it for a few days. They can’t stop smiling at each other.

  “It really does,” says Rosemary, who is directing proceedings from a chair by the water’s edge, an iced tea resting at her feet.

  Kate had been strangely nervous to introduce Erin and Rosemary. But Erin gave Rosemary a huge hug and said, “I hope you don’t mind, I just feel like I know you already. I’ve been so enjoying reading Kate’s articles about the lido—and about you.” Rosemary smiled at Erin first and then at Kate, who stood by Erin’s side, hugging her arms around her and smiling sideways at her sister. Erin had been calmer with Jay, shaking his hand but smiling warmly.

  “Kate has told me a lot about you,” Jay had said, which wasn’t technically true. But when Erin turned and flashed her smile at Kate she realized why Jay said it.

  Erin also had chatted easily with all the others—particularly with Ahmed, who was delighted to learn she had studied business at university too. He proceeded to ask her a long list of questions.

  Jay’s camera shutter clicks as he takes photos of the sign and the rubber ducks floating on the pool. People crowd the decking around the lido. A teenage boy ties balloons to the umbrellas in the café; Ahmed strings up another banner at the end of the pool underneath the clock; a mother holds her baby on her hip, pointing at the rubber ducks. The baby giggles. In the café Hope orders teas and coffees for everyone, which the barista brings to one of the outdoor tables on a tray.

  “It looks great, sis,” says Erin once she has crossed over to her side of the pool. She stands close to Kate, their bodies almost but not quite touching.

  “Thank you for coming,” says Kate. “And for all your help.”

  Despite her smart blue dress, Erin had chipped in to help as soon as she had arrived, resting boxes of ducks on her hips and carrying them across to the water, but her greatest contribution had been her idea for the rubber duck distribution.

  After the protest they will deliver a box of ducks to the local council and others will go to the offices of several local and national newspapers. Each rubber duck will have a tag around its neck reading, “Don’t pull the plug on our lido.” Sending the ducks had been Erin’s idea.

  On the tags will be a link to the petition Kate has started. So far it has a hundred signatures. The number amazes Rosemary; Kate is disappointed.

  “I don’t know anywhere near a hundred people!” says Rosemary. Kate tries to explain social media to Rosemary without success.

  There is a splash: the teenage boy has dived into the water and is swimming alongside the rubber ducks and the real ones that are flapping their feathers in one corner of the pool. Kate and Erin turn to watch him.

  As the boy swims underwater he twists onto his back and looks up through the yellow shapes at patches of blue sky. He blows bubbles out of his nose, watching them climb to the surface like the fizz in champagne. As he bursts up for air a group of rubber ducks wobbles to one side to make room for him. He laughs, a short but loud laugh that escapes him with the unexpected suddenness of an engine backfiring.

  Kate spots Jay kneeling by the poolside, taking a photograph of the boy with his head just above the surface, surrounded by yellow ducks.

  “Come on, group photo time,” he says to the boy, who swims to the shallow end and pulls himself out, ignoring the ladder. The two of them walk along the length of the pool.

  “I suppose we better head over,” says Kate, and Erin nods and follows her to the side of the pool where a crowd has started to gather beneath the clock and the banner. Erin joins the group and Kate starts directing them like a photographer at a wedding.

  “Rosemary, you go in the middle. Ellis and Hope, you go either side of her. Ahmed, can you go over there . . .”

  Jay joins her, standing at her side and watching the swimmers huddling into a group.

  “Do you think that looks okay?” she says to him. “Sorry, I know this is your job.”

  “Perfect,” he says. “Now you get in too.”

  She gives him a reluctant look and he gives her a gentle push.

  “I’ve already been on the front page,” says Rosemary. “And it wasn’t half bad. Now it’s your turn.”

  She reaches for Kate and puts an arm firmly around her shoulder. Kate stands in the very middle with Ros
emary on one side and Erin on the other, surrounded by the people she has met since the lido came into her life three months ago. As Jay takes the photos she smiles, not for the camera, but because of the warmth surging through her body.

  By the afternoon they have all the photos they need and the pool has been cleared of rubber ducks. The others have gone to the café for drinks and Rosemary has headed home to rest, but Kate and Erin stay on the poolside. They have kicked off their shoes and trail their feet in the water. It is cold, but after a day on their feet it is just what they need. Kate trails her feet gently back and forth and watches Erin doing the same. Her toenails are painted bright red.

  The sun is at its golden hour and it lights up the brick walls and Erin’s auburn hair. It shines brightly off the surface of the water, making it look bluer than blue.

  Kate feels strangely nervous in Erin’s presence. They know each other well enough for silences to be comfortable, but this time there is so much that Kate wants to say.

  “I’m sorry I can’t ask you to stay,” she says. “But I have work I need to do and I worry I wouldn’t be much fun.”

  It is partly true—she does have work to do—but the image of her dirty house and the housemates she has implied are good friends makes the thought of Erin visiting terrifying.

  “It’s okay,” Erin replies. “I have friends in Hackney I’ve been meaning to visit.”

  They are quiet again for a moment, the sound of laughter coming from the café and the gentle trickling of the water as they dangle their feet off the edge the only noises interrupting them.

  “I should have asked this a long time ago,” says Kate, “but is everything okay with you? A while ago you mentioned your job, and the fact that you’re struggling to get pregnant. I’m sorry, I didn’t really know what to say but I should have asked you about it. Are things any better?”

  Erin sighs gently, leaning back on her arms and stretching her legs out of the water before plunging her toes back under again.

  “I’m still not pregnant,” she says, “but we’ve decided to go to a fertility clinic. Just deciding it has made us both feel better, I think—just more in control of the situation.”

  Kate leans back and feels good to hear Erin talking, even if she still feels guilty for not having asked her these questions sooner.

  After she finishes, Erin looks at Kate, her green eyes shining in the sunlight.

  “And what about you?” she asks. “How are you? And don’t say you’re fine. I mean, really, how are you?”

  Kate knows she should have seen this question coming—seeing her sister looking at her like that, concerned but also open, ready to listen, makes her want to cry. She takes a deep breath.

  “It’s been hard,” she says. “These last couple of years have been really hard.”

  As she says it she realizes she should have said it a long time ago. But she couldn’t. The words had been locked up so tightly inside her that they were like a bolt holding her together. Admitting them to her sister or her parents would have broken her.

  “I hadn’t realized that moving to a new place would be so lonely,” she says.

  “You’re much braver than me.”

  “What do you mean?” Kate asks, frowning.

  “Don’t you remember?” Erin says. “I was supposed to move to London for university. I got a place at University College London. But I didn’t go—I was too scared about moving that far away to a city that big.”

  Kate shakes her head. She didn’t remember that.

  “I guess you were little then,” says Erin, shrugging slightly. “I was probably embarrassed to tell you. But I didn’t go. Since then I could have moved so many times. Lots of my friends are here now. But I never did it. I tell myself I’m happy in Bath—and honestly, I am. I wouldn’t want to move anymore, especially now that Mark and I have our flat there and he’s just set up his business. But I do know partly it’s been due to fear. In Bath I have a senior role at a top PR firm. But trying to do the same job in London? There’d be so much competition. What if I ended up a nobody?”

  Erin’s words rock Kate. Erin isn’t scared of anything. Erin knows all her times tables and shouts when she is angry, and flirts and gets her way when she’s not, and lives in a beautiful flat. Maybe that’s all still true, but it’s also not true either. Just like it’s true that Kate lives in London, has a job she enjoys, and has now found a group of people she would call her friends. But that’s not the whole truth.

  So, as they sit on the edge of the pool that Kate has come to think of as some sort of home, she finally tells her sister the rest of the story. She talks about her time at university and the crippling sense of inadequacy she felt around her classmates. She tells Erin about the housemates she doesn’t know, and how despite having a nice room and being on a pretty street, she hates coming home to that house every day. For the first time, she describes her Panic: how it started, what it feels like, and how swimming seems to have helped. Then she talks about the lido—how she first heard about it and how she met Rosemary and has become invested in it, much more so than any of the other stories she has written for the paper.

  And because there isn’t much to say, Erin does the even more generous thing. She just listens.

  After a while Kate has run out of words, and tears. Erin reaches into her handbag and pulls out a pack of tissues, which she hands silently to Kate. Once Kate has wiped her face and her breathing has calmed, she stops. She watches the light on the water and the reflection of the clouds. Erin turns to her, checking she is finished before taking her turn to talk.

  “I spoke to Rosemary earlier,” she says. Kate remembers seeing Erin pausing by Rosemary’s chair while they were unpacking boxes, bringing her a refill of iced tea from the café. “She says none of this would have happened without your help—the articles, the petition, the protest.”

  As Erin talks Kate spots something yellow floating in the far corner of the pool. It is a rubber duck—they must have missed one. It bobs up and down on the water, a glimmering speck of yellow in the expanse of blue.

  “You’re doing a great job,” says Erin. “It might not feel like it all the time, but that’s okay. You’re allowed to feel lonely, you’re allowed to feel panicked. It doesn’t make you any less of a person.”

  As Erin says it, Kate realizes that is how she has felt. In her darkest moment she has felt broken—like she is failing at just being.

  “But next time you talk to me, okay?” says Erin. “We’ll talk to each other.”

  When Erin reaches out her hand, Kate takes it. They sit like that for a while, holding hands and trailing their feet in the cold water of Brockwell Lido as the sun dips behind them and the lights inside the café shine like searchlights onto the water.

  When Rosemary is home that night she thinks about George and how much the ducks would have made him laugh. Sometimes she has dreams where he is sitting in the living room with her and they have a long conversation—all the things that she has been holding inside her coming out in endless dreamy chatter—what she cooked for dinner or the new restaurant that has opened where the old fishmonger was, or gossip from the lido changing room. Sometimes she just tells him about a particularly beautiful sunset over Brockwell Park.

  She hopes that she has a dream like that tonight—she will tell him about the protest and the ducks and how proud she felt standing with her friends underneath the banner and the lido clock. How she felt like she was a somebody.

  CHAPTER 43

  The lido is closed again the next day for a wedding. The park is quiet—it has been raining all morning, an unexpected summer shower that bursts the heat of the past week. White balloons are tied in the trees at the back of the building, droplets of water sliding down their round faces and dripping through the leaves. Outside the café entrance a member of staff drags a white umbrella outside the door, sheltering a chalkboard where the couple’s names are written in looping letters. Silver buckets are propped next to the chalkboard, fu
ll of plump white peonies that look like the layered skirts of ballerinas. The ramp up to the café entrance is lined with small potted trees: today they all wear wedding outfits of winking white lights.

  Rosemary and Kate walk toward the lido under the shelter of a large black umbrella that Kate holds over the two of them. Rosemary had resisted the umbrella.

  “It’s bad luck to have black at a wedding!” she had said as they prepared to leave her flat. Rosemary had put on her only remaining smart dress, in a lavender-and-white floral print fabric that fell halfway between her knees and her ankles. She wore matching lavender shoes—flat but with a pointed toe. She even put on lipstick and combed her hair into thin waves.

  “But it’s the only umbrella you have,” said Kate, adjusting the buckle on the ankles of her raspberry pink heels, “and I’m not going out in these shoes and this rain without an umbrella.”

  The dress is much more fitted and colorful than anything Kate would usually wear, but she fell in love with the vivid raspberry fabric as soon as she saw it. It has a high neck and capped sleeves but at the back falls just below her shoulder blades.

  She had taken a morning off work so she could go shopping while it was quiet—when she handed over her credit card at the counter she had grinned, feeling proud of herself for her planning and for finding exactly what she wanted without getting overwhelmed. As she paid she silently counted the weeks since her last panic attack—it had been three. She beamed at the thought. The shop assistant looked at her strangely but she didn’t care.

  So the black umbrella had stayed and had kept them mostly dry on the short walk from Rosemary’s flat to the Lido Café.

  As they arrive Jay opens the café door, his camera around his neck. He is wearing gray trousers, a white shirt, and a pale gray tie, a navy raincoat over the top. His hair even looks as though it has been brushed. Kate has never seen him look so smart.