Ninepins

by Rosy Thorton

  The pool was Saturday busy. She’d thrown away the leaflet Vince had given her: she wasn’t ready for classes. All around her in the shallow end people chatted and bobbed and splashed and laughed, none of them paying her any attention. It was mainly mums with toddlers or groups of younger children of nine or ten. Anyone her own age was down the other end, ignoring the warning notices about bombing and diving, or else not in the pool at all but sitting on the edge in gaggles, preening and chatting, with their feet and ankles in the water.

  Down again. This time she would open her eyes straight away and try to stay under longer, testing her lung capacity to its limit. She wanted to bob right down, but some weird reverse gravity pulled her back towards the surface. If she tucked her arms around her bended knees she might hold herself low in the water – but instead she found herself toppling forward, her feet leaving the floor so that she began to float and drift, upended and unanchored. In a flurry of panic she let go and splashed out into the air, her feet scrabbling for the tiles, arms flailing, shedding water in fat gobbets. A small boy of about eight glanced at her curiously for a moment, and then away again.

  On the next immersion she lowered herself more cautiously, a few inches at a time, into a broad squat. Curiously, she examined the way the liquid made her own body foreign: the skin tinged oddly greenish, the lines of her thighs foreshortened and pulled out of shape. She could see quite well now, as her eyes adjusted to the unaccustomed medium: she saw the tiny bubbles of air still trapped in the fine hairs of her wrists, and the piping on the swimsuit she had borrowed from Beth, the logo leaping and dancing in the underwater currents. It must have been expensive – the kind you buy from a sports shop rather than the supermarket – and it wasn’t her only one. Willow had chosen it in preference to the pink one when she’d brought them down to the pumphouse, as being the more businesslike. Two costumes meant Beth could have joined her, if she hadn’t been going to her father’s this weekend. But, on the whole, Willow was glad she hadn’t had to ask her. The kid was all right, but she’d probably been swimming like a porpoise since the age of four; besides, her mother would probably have come as well, all watchful and overprotective. Vince would have been here if Willow had suggested it, even though Saturday was his day off. That might almost have been OK, except he was a man, after all, and they’d be nearly naked; she didn’t want him looking at her in a swimsuit. Maybe another time she would bring Beth along. But for this – for now – she needed to be alone.

  One more trip up for air and, instead of ducking down, she bent her knees and then launched herself blindly forwards with her head beneath the surface, arms outstretched like a parachutist in free fall. She wished she could have kept her eyes open for this, to witness it, to maximise the exhilaration. Some reflex shut them tight, however, so that as she surged through the water, feet lifting of their own accord to kick against nothing, the sensation of detachment was complete. For those brief moments she was nowhere; she was loosed from her earthbound self; she was free and adrift. It was terrifying and wonderful all at once.

  I am swimming.

  They were lucky compared with many divorced couples, reflected Laura, as she screwed the car by jerking degrees into the last available residents’ parking space in Simon’s street. Though perhaps it wasn’t down to luck, or only partly so; they made the effort, for their daughter’s sake, and what had begun as conscious endeavour seemed to have fallen at some point into amicable habit on both sides. Whatever the reasons for it, picking up Beth from a weekend at her father’s house was no kind of hardship.

  She leaned across to reach in the glove box for a pen and the strip of guest permits, filling in today’s date in the next available box and propping it prominently inside the windscreen. Tessa helped matters, of course; outspoken, but warm and completely non-judgmental, Laura sometimes thought she would have been easier to be married to than Simon.

  Climbing out and clicking the lock, she walked along the terraced row to the tall, Edwardian townhouse which Simon had bought with the equity they’d managed to release from Ninepins – something, besides Beth, to show for eight years of married life. Property in Cambridge was far from cheap, and most of Tessa’s savings had been sunk into the purchase, too; the rest, she had no qualms about disclosing, was dwindling fast, being called upon at frequent intervals to bridge the gap between the mortgage and Simon’s unreliable earnings. Simon, who used to be private about such things when he and Laura were together – even sharply defensive, at times – just shrugged helplessly and grinned along.

  It was Simon who opened the door tonight, stepping back on to a pair of Fireman Sam wellingtons to let her into the hall. The mess was very much as usual: the coats heaped on the floor beneath the overladen hooks, the siding of plastic railtrack extending from the sitting room door. It was the silence that was a surprise.

  ‘Are they out?’

  ‘Thank the Lord.’ He passed a hand across his brow in a gesture which, she suspected, was only partly theatrical. ‘Come and have a drink, while we’ve got the chance.’

  He took out two beers from the fridge; Laura, who would have preferred tea, took one with a sympathetic smile. At least he remembered to fetch her a glass; Tessa, she had no doubt, swigged hers straight from the bottle, as Simon now proceeded to do.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, belatedly, as he lowered his bottle.

  ‘Where have they gone? The park?’ It was where they went at all hours and in all weathers, whenever sanity required them to vacate the house. Tessa would disappear for a moment, then burst back in with armfuls of small anoraks and scarves and mittens and bundle them all up and usher them out and along the road, swinging Roly on to her shoulders and uttering exhortations about football and fresh air.

  ‘God knows. Probably. They took the dog.’

  ‘They took the – ?’ Laura sat down rather heavily on a kitchen chair.

  ‘I know, I know. It was Tessa’s idea – or rather it was Alfie’s idea to start with, and he and Jack and Roly have been on about it every waking moment, until Tessa gave way.’

  ‘But …’ Laura looked round at the collected debris of the kitchen: the table strewn with colouring books and lidless felt-tip pens and half of someone’s sandwich; the floor tiles sticky with nameless unwiped spillages – and, yes, she now saw, in the corner by the back door, the patch of spread newspapers and the bowl marked WOOF. Three sons under the age seven, a job which required Simon to attempt to work from home: were these not already enough?

  ‘Dougie’s very sweet.’ He took another draught of beer and then eyed her entreatingly, looking so much like a puppy himself that she couldn’t help but grin.

  ‘Dougie? Was that Alfie’s idea?’

  ‘No – he brought the name with him, poor sod. He’s a rescued dog, from the Blue Cross. Five years old, they said. Tessa thought it would be easier than having a puppy. With the house-training and so on.’

  Her glance strayed back to the newspapers. ‘And is it?’

  Simon’s bottle sketched a ragged arc. ‘It’s difficult for him. New place, new people. Doors in different places.’

  ‘I can imagine.’ The poor creature was probably deep in trauma, trying to find its feet in this chaotic household. ‘What kind of dog is Dougie?’

  ‘Hard to say, really. Small, greyish, alarmingly hairy. Some sort of terrier, I suppose.’

  Well, at least he wasn’t an Irish wolfhound. She wouldn’t have put it past them.

  ‘How about you?’ He swept some Lego off the chair beside her and sat down. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘This weekend? I’ve been painting. Re-doing Beth’s room.’

  ‘A light green colour?’

  ‘That’s right. Apple something-or-other. Beth chose it. Did she tell you about it?’

  ‘Actually, no. But there’s a paint sample in your hair.’

  When he grinned at her like that, she remembered why she’d loved him. But it was funny Beth hadn’t mentioned their decorating plans.r />
  ‘It’s all been about this lodger of yours. Willow this and Willow that. She’s talked about little else. In between Dougie, of course.’

  ‘Oh?’ Laura’s stomach muscles fluttered.

  ‘She seems really taken with her.’

  He phrased it almost as a question, watching her face, so that she found herself dropping her eyes. ‘Y-yes. I suppose she’s younger than the grad students we’ve had before. Nearer Beth’s age.’

  ‘Seventeen, and twelve on Thursday?’

  ‘They just seem to get on.’ Laura tried to sound confident, casual. ‘It’s nice for Beth to have someone to talk to.’

  ‘She’s been in care. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes. And?’ Defiance seemed easiest: certainly easier than honesty. But he’d been married to her, after all.

  ‘Laura. Are you really going to give me the big liberal lecture about prejudice and second chances? This isn’t some story I’m writing for the Sunday colour supplements. We’re talking about Beth.’

  ‘Willow seems – ’ she began, and then stopped. Why be defensive? Why not find out? ‘What has Beth said?’

  ‘That Willow was in a children’s home. And that she set fire to a building.’

  ‘An empty one. It was an empty garage.’

  This time he didn’t say anything, merely surveyed her steadily, until she sighed and relented.

  ‘OK. What else has she said about her?’

  Now it was Simon’s turn to be evasive. The beer bottle rolled slowly back and forth between his palms. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, really. Just a silly thing.’

  She leaned forwards. ‘Go on.’

  ‘They’ve been playing this game.’

  ‘Who has? Beth and the boys?’

  ‘Well, yes, she was showing them. But it’s a thing she says she does with Willow. They’ve been holding their breath.’

  Laura almost laughed. ‘What do you mean? Just breathing in and counting?’

  ‘More or less. Except that Beth can hold hers for a really long time. She can simply stop breathing, or so it seems. You should see her. It’s a little bit alarming.’

  ‘Right.’ She frowned. ‘And then she had the boys copying her, I suppose?’

  ‘Naturally. Anything Beth does, Alfie has to do, as you know.’

  ‘Oh, dear. I’m sorry.’ Though quite why she was apologising, she wasn’t sure. Beth was Simon’s daughter, too.

  ‘Tessa heard him coughing, up in his room last night after he was meant to be asleep. She went in and he’d made himself purple, trying not to breathe.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ She’d heard things about children who did this: children who held their breath in distress or stubborn resistance, until they went blue and passed out. But wasn’t it usually toddlers? Alfie was six. ‘And the little ones, Jack and Roly?’

  ‘Oh, they were joining in, too, but they seemed less taken with it, thankfully.’

  ‘Well, it sounds like …’ What? Harmless experimentation? A normal thing for kids to try? Beth was only eleven.

  ‘Beth says Willow has been coaching her. They’ve practised and practised, she says.’

  Just a phase. Beth was only eleven. But Willow was seventeen.

  ‘And it’s what she says about why, as well – about why Willow likes to hold her breath. She told Beth that she taught herself when she was young. And she keeps insisting it’s not a game, Beth says; she keeps insisting that it’s important.’

  Laura felt strangely conscious of her own breathing, of keeping it shallow and regular.

  ‘She says Willow used to have to do it all the time when she was a kid. Apparently, she used to hold her breath when bad things were happening, to make them go away.’ Simon pushed his beer aside and leaned towards her. ‘What’s she like, Laura? That’s what I’m wondering. I mean, of course, I trust your judgment. I know you wouldn’t let Beth hang out with someone you weren’t certain was all right. But, well, she does sound rather odd.’

  She groped for an answer that she could give him. ‘Willow is … She’s – ’

  With a crash, the front door slammed open against the hall wall, and the sound of feet and paws and high, chattering voices seized the house. First into the kitchen was Alfie, dragged on a red nylon lead by a small but determined-looking dog, which pulled him straight to its water bowl and began to slurp noisily. Then came Tessa with two-year-old Roly on her hip and finally Beth, hand in hand with an extremely muddy four-year-old.

  ‘Jack fell over, Dad,’ she said. ‘In that bit by the pond where the ducks all stand and there’s no grass left. He had Dougie’s lead, and Dougie tried to chase the ducks, and Jack got pulled over. Tessa told him not to let go, and he didn’t. He was really good not to let go, wasn’t he? But now he’s got mud and duck poo all over him.’

  ‘Duck poo,’ repeated Roly gleefully, as Tessa desposited him on a chair and began to prise off his wellingtons.

  ‘Laundry room,’ said Simon, with a cock of the thumb. ‘Straight in there, please. Clothes off and in the machine.’

  Beth obediently led away her charge while Simon rose to rescue Alfie’s glove, which he had taken off and dropped and which was now in Dougie’s mouth, being shaken like a rat.

  ‘Dog towel,’ said Tessa, pointing to a ragged cloth on the radiator. ‘Would you mind?’

  Not entirely sure whether she minded or not, Laura took it and grabbed for the terrier, rubbing rather ineffectually at his pads while he engaged in a fight to the death with the towel, growling furiously and twisting like an eel. It was a bit late, anyway: the grime of the kitchen floor was already criss-crossed with an overlay of dirty footmarks, human and canine. How could anyone live this way?

  ‘Dougie ate my football,’ announced Alfie. ‘He was chasing it and he caught it and bit it and it went hiss and then it was all flat and soggy. Can I finish this sandwich, Mum?’

  ‘No, you can’t, sweetie,’ said his mother, removing it from his reach and tipping it in the bin. ‘I’ll make you a fresh one in a minute.’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ Beth had re-emerged from the laundry room, followed by a stripped but still grubby-looking Jack.

  ‘Can I have one?’ Jack climbed, still stark naked, on to the chair next to Alfie.

  ‘Me, me,’ added Roly.

  ‘Go on, then, Beth. Thanks,’ said Tessa. ‘But I think the bread’s still frozen.’

  The boys, now flocked around the table like hungry gulls, appeared to Laura enormous. They had all inherited their father’s large frame and broad jaw and brow; they all shared, already at this tender age, his tendency to jowliness. Tessa, by contrast, was five feet two and had always been slightly built; now, despite three pregnancies in quick succession, she seemed thinner than ever, as if somehow her sons were fattening parasitically at her expense.

  ‘Can we have cheese?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Nutella,’ said Alfie. ‘We always have cheese. I want Nutella.’

  ‘Why not both?’ Simon swung a sliced loaf from freezer to microwave, still in its plastic bag. ‘Cheese and chocolate. Might be really good.’

  ‘Yes!’ shouted all three boys at once. ‘Cheese and chocolate!’

  Beth laughed and went to the fridge, but not before casting an anxious eye at Laura. It would never be allowed at home. She didn’t even ask if she could have one herself – though Laura would have let her, if she had.

  ‘Don’t give any to Dougie, though,’ said Tessa, on her way to the hall with the coats and boots. ‘They mustn’t have chocolate. Something to do with their livers.’

  ‘Speaking of which,’ said Simon, when she’d gone, ‘how about another beer?’

  ‘No, thanks. Really. I think when Beth has made the boys their sandwiches, we’d better be heading off.’

  He nodded, and grinned at Beth, who pulled a face of cartoon misery. ‘Oh, all right,’ she said. ‘But can Willow come for supper? Please, Mum. I need to tell her about Dougie.’

  Chapter 7

  Twelve was too old for strawberry milk
shake mix. That’s what Laura had decided when she crept into her kitchen late on Friday night, after Beth had gone to bed, to make her daughter’s birthday cake. Beth had insisted on the same cake every year since she was seven or eight. A famous family recipe, hit upon at first more or less by accident but established thereafter as a fixture in the calendar for high days and holidays, it had strawberry Nesquik in the mixture and strawberry jam between the layers, topped off with butter icing made with more of the milkshake powder. But this year she knew it wouldn’t do; the extravagant pink confection would have struck entirely the wrong note. For Beth’s new friends, it had to be some- thing different.

  A rich chocolate torte is what she’d fixed upon, made with whole bars of real, dark chocolate, the kind with 72 per cent cocoa solids. It had whipped egg whites in it, too, and hardly any flour, and came out flat-topped and weighty-looking, the same deep colour as when it went in. She’d hidden it overnight in the back of the corner cupboard which, when she opened it just now, released the mingled, smoky scents of cardamon and roasted cacao. The cake was firm and dense and cool to the touch.

  There was plenty of time to decorate it before they came back. Beth had left at eleven o’clock this morning, to call for Willow and walk to the bus-stop. Beneath her old, black duffle jacket she had put on the new birthday jumper: her extra, surprise present in addition to the new bike. Laura was pleased, because she hadn’t been sure about it when Beth opened it, at breakfast on Thursday. They were in all the shops like that, with the Fair Isle pattern round the neck, but were the snowflakes too childish? And should she have gone for the one with a hood?