The Lido

by Libby Page

  “I met Mrs. Peterson, Rosemary Peterson, the first time I came to the lido. That was a few years ago now. She complimented me on my swimming—she said I was strong.”

  His voice has only recently broken and he is still getting used to its sound. Standing on his own and with the pool stretching behind him he looks small, but his voice carries loudly.

  “I didn’t believe her at first, but she said it every time I saw her. ‘You’re so strong’, she’d say to me. Maybe I wasn’t at first, but I kept coming and I kept practicing and she kept saying it to me, and eventually I realized that she was right. I had become strong.”

  He looks up from the sheet of paper for the first time. The figures dressed in black and huddled on the lido decking look back at him.

  “That’s what she did for me—she showed me how to be strong. And I know she did the same for many of you. That’s why we are here.”

  The boy folds his piece of paper and puts it back in his pocket. He walks back over to his parents and his mother steps forward, pulling him into her. He lets himself sink into his mother’s arms, resting his head against her body. She holds his head in her hands. After a moment’s pause his father steps forward, too, and wraps his arms around both of them.

  Hope retells the story of Rosemary jumping in the lido with her school friends in their coats, making the group laugh. She talks about how Rosemary took her under her wing when she first moved to Brixton and started working with her at the library, how kind she was to the schoolchildren who came in to choose their reading books for the school holidays, and how respectful she had always been of everyone’s choices, never batting an eyelid at an unlikely romance title or “how to” book.

  They nod and smile. Even if they have only known her for a small part of their lives, they think, Yes, that’s my Rosemary. They feel as though they knew her then too. At the end Hope’s voice falters, remembering her oldest friend and wishing she was still here. She wonders who she will share a slice of cake and conversation with each week now and the thought makes her want to climb into bed and not come out. Instead she takes a deep breath and steps back into the group, where Jamila opens her arms and takes her mother into a strong hug.

  When it is Kate’s turn to speak she looks at Erin, then at Jay. They both nod at her, and it gives her strength. She walks alone to the edge of the lido, her back to the water, facing the group. She looks at the faces assembled on the decking. Her family stand with Jay and smile softly at her, encouraging her.

  Across the pool, Frank and Jermaine hold each other, both wiping their eyes with tissues. Ahmed stands with Ellis, Jake, and Geoff. And all around them are the other faces of Brixton who have come to say goodbye. The young mother holds her baby and remembers swimming in the water when she was heavily pregnant and passing Rosemary, who always used to stop to talk to her. The teenage boy stands with his parents and next to the charity shop staff and the owner of Rosemary’s and Hope’s favorite café. Many of the faces Kate doesn’t recognize. Kate looks at them all—Rosemary’s friends, her community, her home—and feels a surge of gratitude.

  A bird flies above them in the gray sky, stopping to rest in the trees. It makes a loud noise; she looks up and sees a flash of green and yellow in the dark branches. It is a parakeet. She watches it for a moment and then looks back at the group huddled under the café umbrellas. And then she starts to talk.

  “When I met Rosemary I felt alone in a world that was much too big for me. I felt afraid all the time—terrified really. I realize now that I was stuck. I needed someone to help me.”

  She takes a deep breath, remembering crying in her bedroom and feeling like the darkness might overtake her completely and drag her to a place from where she couldn’t climb back.

  “I first met Rosemary for work, but it never really felt like work. I was there to write her story but she asked me mine. She helped me find my way. Without Rosemary, I may not have discovered this lido. Without Rosemary, I may never have met all of you and found my place in this city. Without her, I would still be lost.”

  She says the words aloud for the first time, and as she does, it is like a final letting go.

  “Rosemary saved me. I know she will be remembered for how she fought and won to keep this lido open. But she saved me too. She took the loneliness out of being alone. She was my friend. And I miss her.”

  A breeze catches her black scarf and makes it dance. She feels the wind on her face. Everyone is silent.

  “We all miss her,” she says after a while, “which is why I’d like you to join me in remembering her in a special way, our Rosemary.”

  She turns and walks around the edge of the pool and signals for the others to join her. Kate and Jay look at each other across the water. He smiles. Erin, Mark, and Kate’s parents are on the opposite side, too, next to Jay. Brian is folding up his glasses and placing them on the ground behind him. Mark holds Erin’s hand. Ahmed stands next to Geoff, who has an arm over his shoulder. Kate looks down the line next to her: Hope and Jamila stand with Ellis and Jake on one side and Frank and Jermaine on the other. The teenage boy stands at the deep end, his parents on either side of him. The three of them are holding hands. Everyone else is there, too, spread around the lido, standing with their feet on the edge.

  Kate unbuttons her coat and places it on the decking next to her. She lifts her black dress off over her head until she is standing on the side in her swimsuit.

  Then they all start to peel off their dark funeral clothes, too, revealing colorful flashes of swimsuits and trunks, as Kate had requested on her invitation. It was exactly the right thing to do. As they undress and shed their funeral clothes they start to talk and laugh, jumping up and down to keep warm. Kate suddenly remembers Rosemary’s story—the one Hope has just repeated—and reaches for her coat on the floor. She picks it up and puts it back on, buttoning it up over her swimming costume. The others see her and laugh, reaching for their coats and jackets, too.

  Eventually they are all standing on the edge in their coats and swimsuits.

  Kate looks down into the water. She thinks about Rosemary and George, swimming through their lives together here in the lido.

  “One, two, three . . .” she says.

  And then they jump.

  Chapter 68

  The wildflowers come back to Brockwell Park in the spring. For a while it seems like they will never return; the earth is frozen and cracks and the grass snaps beneath your feet in the frost. But the flowers always come back. When the frost is on the grass and the trees are bare it is easy to forget that they were ever there. But as the new season yawns and stretches to life the green shoots begin to prick through the earth. Tight buds start to unfurl like fists unclenching. And suddenly the flowers are there. Bright yellow marigolds, creeping buttercups, and daffodils graze the banks. Beyond the park is Brixton and the noise of the city, but here it is peaceful and green.

  The park comes to life, filled with families stretched out in the first of the sun. Couples fall asleep on the grass, one resting their head on the other’s stomach. Joggers make their way slowly up the hill. A man stops walking down the slope to say, “You can do it,” to the woman running up.

  At the top of the hill is a bench. It looks down over the park, watching the people enjoying this new sunshine. At the bottom of the hill people walk along the path to the lido, carrying their swimming bags and towels, ready to stretch out and claim their own corner of this beach in the city.

  In the fresh wood of the bench is written a message: “For George, who loved this view. And for Rosemary, who saved it.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  This book is a fictional story, inspired in part by my time living in Brixton in South London while I was a student. I was struck by the sense of community in the area, but also noticed the many changes taking place—changes that are mirrored across many neighborhoods in London and other cities across the world.

  While this story is made up, Brockwell Lido is a real place. The outd
oor pool in South London opened in 1937. The real lido has a long and complex history and really did close for a period in the 1990s. It was partly the campaigning of local swimmers that helped to reopen it. For my story, though, I chose fiction: imagining what would happen if the lido was threatened with closure now.

  I have also been creative with the truth about other places in Brixton—I was inspired by the real place but used my imagination to embellish for the purpose of this story.

  As a Londoner, I am very fortunate to have several beautiful lidos in my city: Tooting Bec, Parliament Hill, London Fields, and the Serpentine Lido are some of my favorites. But outdoor swimming pools, or lidos, are also spread right across the United Kingdom, and abroad. Many have been shut down over recent years, but some have also been reopened—often due to the determined campaigning of locals. If you have never swum in a lido, I urge you to seek one out and take the plunge. If you do, perhaps keep an eye out for a Kate or a Rosemary in the water with you. I may well be there too. Happy swimming.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This book may have my name on the cover, but there are so many people who have helped to make it possible and who I would like to thank from the bottom to the top of my heart.

  Thank you firstly to my family for your lifelong support and encouragement of my writing. From taking me to writing camps and literary festivals, to simply reading everything I presented you. Particularly to my sister Alex for being the first reader of the first draft of this book, but also for teaching me to swim. Your patience and inspiration have changed my life. To Bruno, for the wine, tea, dinners, and generally for loving me the way you do. Also to my dear friends (too many to name individually) for always being on Team Libby—I’m so lucky to have your support.

  A big thank-you to my wonderful agent, Robert Caskie, for believing in me and The Lido and for guiding me through this process with such kindness. I couldn’t think of anyone better to have on my side. Also to Nathalie Hallam, for all your help taking The Lido around the world, as well as Sasha Raskin at United Talent for bringing this book to the United States.

  To my brilliant editor Marysue Rucci at Simon & Schuster: I have learnt so much from you, thank you. Also a big thank-you to everyone else at Simon & Schuster, in particular Zack Knoll, Dana Trocker, Amanda Lang, Carly Loman, Jackie Seow, Lauren Tamaki, Martha Schwartz, and Laurie McGee.

  Finally, I would like to thank the swimmers past and present who have inspired this book. Over the past few years I have observed and met swimmers from all walks of life who love their lidos as well as their pools, lakes, rivers, and seas. A common trait among them is a zest for life and a great capacity for joy. This book is for you all too, with my admiration.

  A Simon & Schuster Reading Group Guide

  The Lido

  Libby Page

  This reading group guide for The Lido includes an introduction, discussion questions, ideas for enhancing your book club, and a Q&A with author Libby Page. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.

  Introduction

  Kate is a twenty-six-year-old who works for a local paper in Brixton, London, covering forgettable small stories. When she’s assigned to write about the closing of the local lido (an outdoor pool and recreation center), she meets Rosemary, an eighty-six-year-old widow who has swum at the lido daily since it opened when she was a child. The lido has been a cornerstone of nearly every part of Rosemary’s life.

  But when a local developer attempts to buy the lido and replace it with a posh new apartment complex, Rosemary’s fond memories and sense of community are under threat.

  As Kate dives deeper into the lido’s history she pieces together portraits of the pool and of a singular woman, Rosemary. What begins as a simple local interest story for Kate soon blossoms into a beautiful friendship that provides sustenance to both women as they galvanize the community to fight the lido’s closure. Meanwhile, Rosemary slowly begins to open up to Kate, transforming them both in ways they never knew possible.

  Topics & Questions for Discussion

  1. Describe the opening of The Lido. How does it establish Brixton as a character? Do the interludes throughout the novel of life there help you to understand the community better? What do you think of Brixton? Is it somewhere you could see yourself living?

  2. When Kate is first introduced to the reader, she is described as anxious, “living under a cloud. It follows her wherever she goes, and however hard she tries she can’t seem to outrun it” (2). What was your first impression of her? What do you think of the life she creates for herself in Brixton? Does she seem happy to you? Why or why not?

  3. Describe your first impression of Rosemary? Do you like her? Rosemary is acutely aware of the results of aging, from the aches in her knees to the free bus card that she is now eligible to receive. Both are “a part of her life now that she resents. She still always pays for her bus ticket, on principle” (14). What does this detail tell you about Rosemary? In what other ways does she attempt to exert control over the aging process?

  4. Rosemary agrees to allow Kate to interview her about the lido on the condition that Kate goes for a swim. What prompts Rosemary to require this? How does swimming in the lido expand Kate’s view of it? Would you have agreed to Rosemary’s request?

  5. Describe Kate’s relationship with her sister. Is Erin a good older sister to Kate? Why or why not? Why do you think Kate is nervous about introducing Erin to Rosemary? What do the two women think of each other?

  6. Rosemary and George are described as “a couple, like the quotation marks around a sentence” (73). Is this an apt description? How would you characterize Rosemary and George’s relationship? Do you think it was a solid one? Why or why not? How did they compliment each other?

  7. The early articles that Kate writes for the Brixton Chronicle are “not stories that she would show the tutors who taught her journalism master’s classes” and the fact that her mother collects them in a scrapbook “makes it even worse” (9). Describe the Kate’s articles. Why is she ashamed of them? Why do you think her mother’s saving them compounds Kate’s feelings? Do you think she is a good journalist? Explain your answer. What skills does her job require?

  8. When Kate was studying to be a journalist, she struggled to take the words of her classmates “as a comment on something she had created outside of herself, rather than a personal attack” (210). Is this still true of Kate? One of her colleagues tells her that she is too personally invested in her stories. Do you agree? How does this affect Kate’s stories?

  9. When Kate thinks of Erin and her life “she feels left behind, as though Erin has run off into the distance and Kate is left frozen on the starting line terrified by the sound of the gun marking the start of the race” (55). Compare Kate’s view of Erin’s life with its reality. Are there any issues that Erin struggles with? What does Erin think of Kate? What causes the two to open up to each other? Were you surprised by any of their disclosures?

  10. Rosemary tells Kate, “When you’re my age you’ll understand. . . . You begin to miss yourself” (62). What does Rosemary mean? What parts of herself does she miss most?

  11. Why is Rosemary initially reluctant to reach out for help in saving the lido? What changes her mind? Describe the people who join or aid the protests to save the lido. Do any of them surprise you? Which ones and why? What reasons do the others have for helping?

  12. While Kate doesn’t know Jay particularly well “his strawberry blond hair and kind face are part of the fabric of her days at the paper and somehow soothing” (119). How is Jay able to calm Kate? What role does he play in the protests? Why is the lido important to him?

  13. When asked about why the lido is important to her, Rosemary “can’t begin to say everything so instead she says the start of the truth” (64). Discuss some of the reasons the lido is so i
mportant to Rosemary and to the community of Brixton. If Kate were asked the same question, what do you think her answer would be? Are there any places in your life that are as important to you as the lido is to Rosemary and Kate? Tell your book club about them.

  14. What are some of the ways that the residents of Brixton attempt to save the lido? How do Kate’s and Jay’s professional roles influence their methods of protest? Were there any that you thought were particularly successful? Which ones and why? How would you have protested to save the lido if you were in Kate’s position?

  Enhance Your Book Club

  1. If possible, go swimming with your book club. What was this like? Did you find it as refreshing as Rosemary does or as calming as Kate does? Why do you think being in the water helps both women?

  2. When Rosemary and George begin living together, she asks him “how shall we organize the books? . . . Shall we have a shelf each?” (103). Do you organize your books in any special way? If so, tell your book club about your method.

  3. The Lido has been optioned for a film. Who would you cast as Kate? As Rosemary? How would you structure the film?

  4. The Lido has been compared to A Man Called Ove. Read both books with your book club and discuss them, comparing and contrasting the themes of each. In what ways were they similar? Do you think that Rosemary and Ove were alike? If so, how?

  A Conversation with Libby Page

  Congratulations on the publication of The Lido! What was the most rewarding part of publishing your debut novel? Was there any aspect that surprised you?