by Libby Page
Despite being on the other side of the road, Kate can still hear laughter from over the walls of the pool and the background noise of conversation coming from the queue that lines up outside the entrance.
Kate hears Rosemary sigh.
“I just can’t,” she says.
“Okay, then,” Kate says after a while. “But I still hope you change your mind.”
After one last look back up at Rosemary’s flat, Kate crosses the street toward home. As she walks, her hair dripping down her shoulder blades and the pavement hot beneath the thin soles of her pumps, she hears Rosemary’s voice in her head. I just can’t.
She knows that it must be hard for Rosemary but she worries that despite it all, Rosemary will regret not coming in these final weeks. And Kate misses her. Swimming at the lido in the final weeks has been better than not swimming. Realizing that she will never swim in the lido with Rosemary again makes a suffocating sadness rush through her. Kate walks more quickly down the street before the Panic can catch her, or the knowledge she is all alone again.
CHAPTER 52
The sound of splashing pierces the quiet of Rosemary’s flat. She shuts the balcony doors and the lido is silenced. The room is quiet again.
Rosemary pulls the curtains across the doors and the living room falls into a cool blue shadow. It is a mess: boxes are scattered on the floor, books are piled underneath the bookshelves, and black garbage bags bulge in the corner. It is the kind of mess that typically comes from a thorough housecleaning.
She had started with the bookshelves, removing each book and dusting it and wiping the shelf. It took so long though that she had to stop halfway through. Half the books sit on the floor waiting to be returned to their clean shelves. The furniture is in disarray. She managed to pull the sofa out so she could vacuum behind it, but then she couldn’t seem to push it back in place so it juts out into the room.
As she cleans she listens to today’s voice-mail messages, the voices of her friends filling the corners of her flat like perfume.
“I took Aiesha to the lido this morning,” says Hope as Rosemary reaches for the feather duster. “She is swimming so well now. She doesn’t even need to use water wings. I wish you could have seen her.”
Hope clears her voice and Rosemary turns from dusting the coffee table to look at the machine, waiting for her friend to continue talking.
“I will pop in and see you again tomorrow. I know you’ve said you can’t, but I hope I can persuade you to come and swim. I know it’s hard, but it’s not long now. I hate that you are missing it. Anyway, goodbye for now, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The machine clicks and Hope’s voice changes into a deeper voice, a man’s voice. The voice coughs.
“Mrs. P? It’s Ellis. Just calling to check on you. There’s a bag of tomatoes and this season’s strawberries with your name on it when you’re ready to come and see me next. Well, that’s all really.”
He coughs again.
“Goodbye, bye.”
“Goodbye,” Rosemary replies. Her friends had all been keeping an eye on her, she knew it. It was as though they were taking turns in either calling or coming to visit. Each time they tried a new tactic, trying to get her to leave the flat and go to the lido. But none of them had managed it.
She puts down the duster and looks around the room. With all the boxes and bags and disturbed furniture it looks as though she is moving out or going on holiday. But where would she go? She sits down on the floor and leans against the sofa, remembering Kate sitting there and typing on her laptop while Rosemary slept through the flu. It is quite comfortable there. Even though her flat is on the third floor, sitting on the carpet makes her feel close to the ground and it slows the spinning inside her head. She wants to lie down so she does, slipping down the side of the sofa and stretching out on the floor. Crossing her hands on her stomach she lies there and stares up at the ceiling.
There is a thin crack branching out from the lamp in the center of the room and a patch of peeling paint in one corner. She wonders if she could paint it but she can’t remember where the paintbrushes are. Perhaps she threw them out, along with the stepladder and the electric drill.
She suddenly feels exhausted. It must be the tidying, she thinks. She has done too much too quickly. She closes her eyes. Even with her eyes shut she can see the thin crack and the peeling paint; she tries to focus on it instead of the blue sky and rolling clouds that are trying to fill her mind. Perhaps her neighbors have some paint. She will ask them in a minute.
Rosemary is woken by the sound of a knocking on her door. She sits up quickly, feeling dizzy as the blood fills her head. Steadying herself against the side of the sofa, she stands up slowly and shuffles to the door.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.”
She opens it and is surprised to see Jay standing in the corridor.
“Rosemary,” he says.
“Jay.”
He almost fills the doorway, his scruffy hair glowing around his head as though he is standing in front of a bright lamp. He wears a kind smile, but Rosemary frowns at him.
“How did you get up here?” she says, peering around him down the corridor.
“Someone let me in downstairs—can I come in?”
“Well, I suppose you’re here now,” she says, turning back into the flat. He follows her, closing the door behind him. He looks around the room, taking in the mess, the rearranged furniture and the bags in the corner.
“I’m tidying,” says Rosemary, sitting down on the sofa.
“I can see that.”
She sits and watches him, not saying anything.
“Shall I make us a cup of tea?” says Jay after a while.
“I’ve just made one,” she says, picking up her cup and taking a sip. It is cold.
“Oh, I must have fallen asleep for longer than I thought,” she says, handing him the mug.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”
She waves her hand and shakes her head. She wishes she hadn’t said anything; she is embarrassed to have fallen asleep in the middle of the day. What time is it? She looks at her watch: one fifteen. Jay carries the mug into the kitchen. He returns a few minutes later with two steaming cups. He hands one to Rosemary and then sits down next to her. They sip their tea.
“How is Kate?” Rosemary asks after a few sips. “She has tried visiting. And phoning.”
“She’s quiet,” Jay replies. “Really quiet. She keeps her head down at work. I’ve been trying to cheer her up but it’s hard to know what to say. She doesn’t want to talk. I think she’s just so disappointed. I’m sure you both are.”
He turns to look at her. His fingers are wrapped together around his mug and Rosemary thinks he looks like a worried little boy. It makes her sad, but despite her reluctance to let him in, there is also something nice about having him there sitting next to her. Being with him makes her feel as though she is reaching out to Kate and holding her hand, but without having to look at her face and see the sadness there or the reflection of her own sadness in her eyes.
“She really misses you, Rosemary. And I know it’s not my place to say it, but I really think you should go and visit the lido. There are only a few days left—you should be there, not stuck up here. I know it’s hard but I worry that you will regret it if you don’t go. You need to say goodbye.”
He lets out a deep breath, as though he’d been practicing the speech in his head on the walk there (he had).
“Are you on your lunch break?” Rosemary asks.
He looks at his watch. “Yes, but I’ve got a bit more time.”
“Thank you for coming, I do appreciate you using your lunch break to come and see me. But as you can see, I’m very busy. I should have started my spring cleaning a long time ago. There is really a lot to do. I just don’t have time to go swimming.”
She stands up but then sits back down again as though someone has pushed her heavily into the sofa. She sighs and looks at him. His green eyes watch her, wait
ing for the truth.
“I just can’t say goodbye,” she says eventually, quietly. She looks from Jay down to her hand and twists her wedding ring around her finger. It is looser now than it used to be—her body may have filled out but her hands have become thinner. She twists it around and around.
When George died two years ago she went to the lido after his funeral. The ceremony was in the morning. The mourners were a small group: local people and a few of their childhood friends, the ones who were still alive, and their families.
“Thank you for coming. He would have been so pleased,” she kept saying to people. In her head she wondered what she was saying. He’d be pleased that they’d come to his funeral? How could he be pleased when he was dead? But she still kept saying it; she didn’t know what else to say.
She wore a black skirt suit that she had borrowed from Hope. It was too big and the material kept giving her static shocks. She didn’t care that it wasn’t right, though: the only person she wanted to look nice for was in a wooden box.
“Please, take some sandwiches, they are only going to go to waste,” she kept saying as people left the wake. She wrapped sandwiches and sausage rolls in tinfoil and handed them to people like children’s party bags. The flash of tinfoil parcels could be seen carried awkwardly against black suits as families headed back to their cars or the bus or walked home.
Once everyone had left she sat and ate a few stale egg and cress sandwiches, realizing that she hadn’t eaten all day. Then she moved onto the coronation chicken and the sausage rolls. When she had ordered the food from the caterers she had no idea how much to order. She couldn’t imagine people really eating at the wake. But she learned that it wasn’t true what they told you: death didn’t really make you lose your appetite. People ate and they drank—she was glad that she had decided at the last minute to get some wine as well as tea and coffee.
Rosemary sat and worked her way through the stale buffet. One of the catering staff came into the room to collect the trays and caught her with pastry crumbs on her fingers and on the collar of Hope’s black suit. She brushed them off, ashamed, and gave him a particularly large tip.
“Can I help you clear up?” she asked, scooping crumbs off the tablecloth and into a paper napkin, which she folded neatly.
“No, we have everything under control. You should go home, Mrs. Peterson.”
She brushed a few more crumbs into napkins, slowly collected her handbag, and said goodbye to the staff, accepting their condolences with a nod and a “thank you.”
But she didn’t go home, at least not for long. Instead she picked up her swimming things and went to the lido. By the time she arrived it was late afternoon and the sky looked like a bruised peach. The pool was busy with children and the sound of the lifeguard’s whistle blowing in an endless loop as the children bombed into the water, splashing everyone, were told off, and then bombed in again.
In the changing room she peeled off her clothes, letting them fall into a black puddle at her feet. In her purse she found a fifty-pence coin in the pocket next to George’s picture. She folded her funeral suit into the locker, locked it, and pushed open the changing room door.
The noise hit her first, then the cold. Splashing, children laughing, the lifeguard’s whistle, the wind. She walked slowly to the ladder.
As the water took her in its arms she realized the strength of the effort and concentration she had been giving to just staying standing all day. She leaned back and let herself be carried. The cold water felt like hands on her body and fingers in her hair.
Water washed into her ears and over her face and for the first time all day she let herself cry. As she floated she watched the sky and a ball being thrown above her as children played around her. She caught sight of the big clock that had watched her for most of her life.
Turning onto her front she kicked off in a slow breaststroke and she thought about George. George as a young man diving from the high diving board, stretching his arms like a bird shaking its wings. George swimming through her legs underwater. George kissing her by the pool in the dark. George lying in the sun like a lizard and her watching him and loving him. She couldn’t swim enough lengths to remember him completely, to remember their life completely.
Around her the children continued jumping onto floats and jumping off each other’s shoulders, ignoring the old woman who cried as she swam. They didn’t even see her: she was invisible. The one person who always saw her was buried in the cold ground.
She stayed until the lido closed. Cleaners mopped the floor around her as she changed. When she walked out through the reception area she watched the lifeguards pulling the cover over the pool. Her fingertips were puckered and her chest hurt from having stayed in the cold water too long. The bruise had spread across the sky and it was now nearly dark. There was nowhere else to go except back to her empty flat.
When she arrived home she didn’t turn the lights on. She put her wet swimsuit in the kitchen sink and walked through to the living room, where she sat in his armchair. There was a blanket on one of its arms and she pulled it across herself, tugging it tightly over her lap and up to her neck. She sat in his chair in the dark all night, staring into the empty living room. As the sun rose she fell asleep.
Now Rosemary looks up at Jay, trying to think of pulling herself up, up and out of the tears that sit at the bottom of her throat. She thinks of a string lifting her from her shoulders and she shuffles and sits up straighter on the sofa.
“I’ve said goodbye to him once before, I can’t do it again.”
“Okay,” Jay says. They sit together for a little while longer. Before he leaves he helps her put the books back onto the bookshelves and straightens the sofa back into its place. He picks up the bags from the corner and hangs them over his shoulder as he heads out of the door.
“Tell her . . .” says Rosemary, and then stops.
“I’ll tell her,” says Jay. She closes the door on him, listening to the sound of the garbage bags rustling as he walks down the corridor toward the lift. She hears the ping of the lift and then the clatter as the doors open and close and then she is alone.
CHAPTER 53
Today is the lido’s last day. In the evening Geoff will be closing the doors for the last time. In a few days, Paradise Living will exchange contracts.
The Brixton Chronicle office is quiet—Kate is the first one here. Phil arrives shortly afterward but heads straight to his desk without saying hello. Ever since the argument he has been avoiding speaking to Kate or looking her directly in the eye. Kate has taken to wearing her headphones all day. Sometimes she listens to music but a lot of the time she doesn’t.
Phil has sent her an email with some admin work to do and she starts silently, trying not to think too much as she types. Jay arrives and they look at each other and nod but Kate isn’t in the mood to talk. Their kiss seems a long time ago. She focuses on her screen.
As she types, she wonders if Phil will ever give her serious articles to write again. She should look for freelance work on the side. It will mean some late nights, but now she doesn’t have the campaign to occupy her and will be stopping swimming, too, she has more free time.
And that’s when she starts to cry. At first the tears come quietly; they drip down her face and onto her keyboard and she doesn’t bother to wipe them away. She keeps staring at the screen but all the words swim into one another. She can’t keep quiet anymore and a sob rips out of her chest, making her whole body shake.
Jay is out of his seat and standing next to her, his arms on her shoulders.
“Kate, Kate,” he says, his voice muffled through her headphones. She doesn’t move or take the headphones off so he pulls them gently off her ears and turns her chair around to face him.
Phil sneaks glances over the top of his computer screen as Jay crouches down and takes Kate firmly in his arms. She lets herself be held and he holds her tightly. She leans her head against his chest and listens to the thumping of his heart throu
gh the soft cotton of his T-shirt that smells of coffee and newspaper print.
She wants to say something, to explain what is pouring out of her, but she can’t. She feels exhausted, twisted and squeezed like a wet towel wrung out to dry. Eventually her sobs quiet enough for her to speak.
“I feel like such a failure,” she says, “and I can’t believe I’m crying again. You must think I’m crazy. Maybe I am crazy. But I’m just so tired. I wanted to get this right. I can’t believe it’s really going to close—that today is really the final day.”
Kate thinks about Rosemary, realizing for the first time that her closest friend is an eighty-seven-year-old woman whom she only met because of a story about a lido that needed saving. She thinks about Rosemary’s swimsuit and how it used to hang defiantly from her balcony like a flag.
“It will be okay,” says Jay, his arms still tightly around her body. She waits for him to say something else but he doesn’t, and she realizes he probably doesn’t know what to say, just like she doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to make herself or Rosemary happy, doesn’t know how to fix things, doesn’t know what she is doing with her life. Maybe the truth is that nobody really knows anything, they just do a good job at pretending. Most of the time.
“It will be okay,” says Jay again into her hair.
By now Phil is standing, hovering next to Kate’s desk. She looks up at him over Jay’s shoulder and is surprised to see that his face is twisted in concern. He reaches down and pats her shoulder. It is an awkward, shaky pat. She flinches at his touch; she is so surprised by it.
Kate imagines herself floating above this scene right now and looking down on herself: crying, tightly embracing her colleague in the middle of the office, her boss’s hand on her shoulder. They are alone, surrounded by messy piles of files and papers. There is a photo of Rosemary by the lido pinned to the board behind her computer. How did she end up here? Outside the office the city spins around them. Libraries close and coffee shops open, stones are thrown through the windows of estate agents, people stand on buses to let pregnant women sit, another lorry hits another cyclist, a wedding party piles onto a vintage double-decker bus, and people swim for the final time in a lido under the sky.
