The Swimmer

by Roma Tearne

  ‘Why don’t you go,’ Ria said. There was a kind of weariness in her voice. ‘If Eric doesn’t mind, that is. I want to lie down. I’ve a headache. I don’t feel well.’

  I thought her voice complaining.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Eric said. ‘You could come now, if you liked. I’ll bring her back in a little while.’

  ‘Whenever,’ Ria said, tiredly.

  And she went upstairs.

  As soon as we were driving off in the car I turned to him.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked.

  He was silent for so long that I wondered if he had heard me. We drove up to the farm. He stopped the Land Rover and sat for a moment with the engine running. Then he put his head down on the steering wheel and did not move. I was shot through with a ridiculous and paralysing thought that he was never going to move. For more than a minute I sat staring at him, stunned and cold and without thought, then with a sinking feeling I realised he was crying.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.

  ‘I am sorry,’ he said at last. ‘I am so sorry for any pain I caused you. I have no idea why I behaved in this way. I have no excuse. Only that I saw in you…something of what it had been like for me…when Kevin died…It was unspeakable…but that’s no excuse.’

  I was silent, numb.

  ‘When I saw you, I was shocked. You didn’t even look old enough to be his mother. You were so…so raw, so dazed by what had been done to you. Everything shocked you; the cold shocked you, Ria’s silence shocked you. You looked like a child, lost, bewildered. I saw your son in you. As others must have seen Kevin in my face afterwards.’

  He shook his head.

  ‘It brought it all back…so vividly. And I thought…yes, she will understand.’

  Still I said nothing, hardly daring to move.

  ‘Thinking of myself, I was. And now I see I have confused you even more. You feel guilty. I know what you are thinking: that you have been disrespectful of the dead. You are so alone, so far away from home. And I have done this to you!’

  He shook his head helplessly. The dog in the back of the car began to bark in protest. I reached out and switched off the ignition. The car was becoming colder. I touched his arm.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ I said.

  Remembering those two hours before I left him, I think of them as the sweetest in those dark days. Now it was I who took charge. We had entered a pact together, I told him. It would last for the smallest moment in time.

  ‘What you have given me,’ I said, ‘is the means to get through these few days. It is I who should be thanking you.’

  He touched me then, and I saw how well he had hidden his frailness. Accustomed to giving all his life, taking had profoundly disturbed him. He was full of a kind of pain, hopeless and bleak, he said. All night he had tried and failed to deal with it, and when he could no longer bear it he had gone to Eel House in search of me. That afternoon we agreed would be spent without words of regrets. And then he took me back to the beginning, to the white room at the top of the house. And now it was I, for he was too distraught to move, who knelt and peeled away his clothes. Once long ago I had knelt this way for Percy, touching him, marvelling at his transformation. So this was how my life had gone, I thought. For a moment I glimpsed the young girl I had once been, there, in that room, alone with Eric. I looked at his bent head. Dark hair streaked with silver, skin less supple, eyes that had witnessed too much, gazing at me now. Ah! I thought. This, too, is a moment of joy. All that slow, bitter-sweet afternoon he held me in the pit in which I had sunk. And somewhere between the beginning and ending I understood at last it was a far better thing to travel, however briefly, amongst the shooting stars than never to see one.

  When I got back, Ria was up and wandering around in a dazed sort of way. She held a glass of some foul-smelling drink in her hand. I think she might have been crying. To be honest, I don’t remember. I was leaving the remembering until later.

  The journalist was sympathetic. We sat by the fire and drank tea. Ria began by telling of her visit to the Home Office.

  ‘He had sent his form off to the Border and Immigration Agency,’ she recalled, ‘but they had not replied.’

  She was holding a piece of paper in her hand.

  ‘That was the reason I went up there,’ she said. ‘But this was all I came away with.’

  The paper was folded in several places and I took it from her. It said, ‘Proof of Postage’. That was all. I tried to imagine it in his hands, sitting in his wallet. I imagined his hands as he looked at it, but I couldn’t.

  ‘And this is the form we were going to fill in,’ Ria said.

  At the bottom of the document was a sentence written in capital letters. WORKING FOR A SAFE, JUST AND TOLERANT SOCIETY, it said. I burst into tears.

  ‘He had been sleeping rough at the farm,’ Ria said. ‘Working illegally. I wanted him to have some sort of stable situation before the winter came. That was when I went up to London.’

  He hadn’t said anything of this to me when he rang. I had a gathering sense that there had been many things he had not told me. I had imagined a thousand times that moment when he was no longer within my sightline and the horror of his journey had overwhelmed him. Now I caught a glimpse of what it must have been like for him.

  ‘Sometimes,’ the journalist told me, ‘when people travel these vast impossible routes, the trip itself is so incomprehensible that in order to survive and protect their sanity they re-invent themselves. And they think their real story is too terrible to be believed. I’ve seen this happen, over and over again.’

  Ria was nodding in agreement.

  ‘Imagine what it would be like to be living in a world without structure or geography or mercy,’ the journalist said.

  ‘Write this down,’ I told her, galvanised. ‘He left because there was nothing and found himself in another place with nothing for him, either. There was nowhere that he could call his home.’

  I shook my head in disgust. At home we thought that sending our children to England was the only solution.

  ‘I work part-time at a refugee centre,’ the journalist said. She sounded as sad as rain. ‘The people there say they are treated well by the public until they admit they are asylum seekers.’

  ‘Ben travelled seven thousand miles for a better life,’ Ria said. ‘But the essence of it hardly changed at all.’

  No one spoke.

  ‘When he phoned me, he said he wanted to come home.’

  Too late, the words had slipped out. I heard Ria breathe in sharply. The journalist looked as if she might cry. She had the kind of face that in another life I might have wanted to know better.

  In the darkened garden a bird gave a piercing cry and something shifted inside of me. I realised I had been calm throughout the whole afternoon.

  ‘If there is a justified fear of persecution, everyone has the right to apply for asylum,’ the journalist said. ‘This was set down in the 1951 UN Refugee Convention. No country has ever withdrawn from the Convention.’

  Ria stood up. There were razor blades in her laugh.

  ‘The government has been trying to define their obligations to refugees as narrowly as possible,’ she said. ‘I wanted to marry him. We were at that point when…’ Her voice faded away.

  Startled, I couldn’t look at her.

  ‘You didn’t know this?’ the journalist said, turning to me.

  I shook my head, trying to cover my distaste. The woman’s eyes were bright pools of green, younger than the rest of her face, alive to possibilities. There had been someone like her who had worked with the torture victims in Jaffna. After the army had done their worst and the Tigers had almost finished off the job of destruction, these women from London had worked with the victims and their families. I had even gone to see them, hoping stupidly they would help me find Percy. I had spoken to one of the women. Like leaves, those eyes had been, leaves in sunlight. This woman was of that type. Had she noticed that Ria and I were tearing c
hunks out of each other? As though we had started a war of our own?

  ‘No,’ I said, my eyes downcast too. ‘We only talked for a few minutes. Perhaps he thought it was best not to tell me.’

  ‘I had only just suggested it,’ Ria, conceded. ‘I’m not even sure he wanted it.’

  She too sounded subdued.

  ‘I’m sure he did,’ I said. ‘If he said so. Ben always meant what he said.’

  I was lying. For the first time I was realising I knew nothing about anyone, not even myself.

  ‘People can change very drastically under the circumstances your son had to deal with,’ the journalist said. ‘They need so badly to readjust to the new shiftless life they have been catapulted into.’

  Ria spoke directly to me.

  ‘He told me,’ she said, in a voice so sweet that I was silenced, ‘you said he must clean his teeth every night. It was the last thing you told him, he said. So he was determined to keep his promise. Throughout the whole of his time travelling, even when he lost everything, he managed not to lose his toothbrush.’

  In all we had talked for four solid hours when the journalist made a move. Ria asked her when the piece would come out in the paper.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, ‘but I’ll ring you when they tell me. It could be on Saturday.’

  Then she turned to me.

  ‘How long is your visa for?’

  ‘Two weeks. I’m going back after the funeral.’

  She handed me her card.

  ‘If you ever want to contact me, this is my address and e-mail.’

  The word e-mail was the trigger. I had thought my crying was over, but the word reminded me of Ben.

  Later we had had some food, more or less in silence. In the light of the open fire I saw the strange beauty of Ria’s face and wondered why I had not seen it so clearly until now.

  I was bone tired and didn’t want to refer to Ben again, so I asked her about her brother instead.

  ‘He’s called Jack,’ she said, and I heard a different hopelessness in her voice. ‘He never met Ben. He never knew anything until it was over.’

  I waited for her to go on.

  ‘I’m afraid his reaction would have been the same as all those people we were talking about just now. Fear of a disruption to his life.’ She shrugged. ‘He’s not a bad man; just not very highly developed. Complicated thought scares him. He likes to keep his life simple.’ She made a face. ‘Uncomplicated stories to go with the uncomplicated life he wishes to have. Only…’ She laughed without mirth, and left her sentence unfinished.

  We were not looking at each other, yet in a mysterious way, it was all, all right. A picture of a kite, sharply defined against a blue sky, crossed my mind. Someone was holding the string, pulling it taut until suddenly, with no warning, it went slack and collapsed.

  ‘I told him to be careful when he left,’ I said. ‘Look after yourself, was what I said.’

  Ria nodded.

  ‘He was moving in here the day he was shot,’ she answered.

  In the firelight I saw again the strange beauty of her face and wondered why I had not seen it so clearly until now.

  14

  NINE FIFTY-TWO. HATFIELD. COLLEGE LANE Bus Station. It took another day, but Ria got permission. I would be allowed to draw Ben. Cold air cut at my throat as we drove. There were crows patrolling the white fields, scavenging for small animals. The ground was covered with them and occasionally, through the sound of the engine, I heard the boom of a gun going off in the distance. We drove on, keeping the Martello tower and the sea on our left.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, unable to bear the sound.

  ‘The farmers,’ Ria said.

  This morning she was silent again and I was keeping sane by thinking of Eric. Half a mile later we turned off and headed towards the centre of Orford. The undertakers were on the outskirts of the town. At the back was a low garage of brightly polished black empty hearses. Ria brought the car to the front entrance.

  ‘I’ll come in with you,’ she said. ‘But I’ll leave as soon as I’ve introduced you. Shall I come back in an hour?’

  When I didn’t speak, she looked sharply at me.

  ‘Will you be okay? Are you sure you want to do this?’

  I nodded. The palms of my hands were sweating and my whole body was freezing.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, and we went inside.

  And that was it. The drawing is here in my bag now, on its way home. I shall frame it and put it up in the alcove that was his bedroom. I shall draw the green curtain over the doorway as he used to and close the last chapter of my life. I shall do these things very soon. But on that morning, with the snow lying frozen outside, as I sat in the room with its sickly flowers I drew him blindly and did not think of the future. Unhappiness is hard work and I was exhausted. My mind wandered along a path of its own making. The undertaker moved around quietly in his office next door while I drew. When it came to it, I drew my son with a skill I had forgotten I possessed. Time had both altered and halted his face. I tried to capture it with an unwavering line. Drawing is like poetry, my father used to say. It is possible to say everything in a line. I tried to keep this in mind; I tried to draw with my whole heart. Gazing at his face, I noted his hair had not lost its dark sheen, crow black and springing up. Remember, how you used to smooth it down? I told him. He and I carried on a conversation wordlessly. Of course, I can’t remember what we said. Goodbye, I expect. Perhaps it was here, as I drew him into my memory through my fingertips, while other people came and went through other doors, banging lids and whispering, that I understood Ben had left me long ago.

  ‘I had to lead my own life, Ma,’ he told me. ‘Now it’s your turn to lead yours.’

  Outside, snow began to fall lightly, magically, as the undertaker stirred his mug of tea.

  ‘What can I do now, Ben Putha?’ I asked out loud.

  I could see the slight glint of white teeth between his lips. Through my blurring eyes I imagined he was smiling at me.

  ‘Stop worrying, Ma. It’s all over now. You don’t have to worry.’

  In a tree, somewhere, a bird sang brightly. Yes, I could be less vigilant now. The Suffolk birds were melodious, I thought. The undertaker cleared his throat and stood watching me.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

  I could not answer, and out of respect he kept his distance from me.

  Concentrate, I told myself. Eyes, look your last. This moment is a bonus. But I could not concentrate. My mind behaved in the way it wanted to. I heard the sound of a helicopter overhead, a telephone ringing, another bird crying. Only the snow did not make a noise.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ I murmured, but he did not appear to mind. We were acting as though we had all the time in the world together instead of the few moments before the lid was closed.

  The undertaker made a fresh pot of tea. I tried to focus on all the significant things I should tell Ben, all the things I had been too broken to say when I first saw him lying like this, but my mind remained a blank.

  It was a miracle, but I finished the drawing. You know, I never even looked at it properly, not then. I suppose I knew instinctively, with the part of my brain still functioning, there would be the long years when I would do nothing else. So for now I put the pencil back in my bag. And the book. Then I stood up and whispered goodbye to my son. Just as I had on all those other times; holding back a little, smiling. Only this time I did not warn him to be careful. There was no need.

  The man in the black suit was standing in the doorway once again. He was as colourless as the sky outside, only the dark suit seemed alive.

  ‘Finished?’ he asked.

  I knew he was ready to close the lid. Reality trembled and waited to pounce.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Finished!’

  We might have been talking of a job well done. Ben did not move. I looked and looked and knew I would never look again.

  ‘Bye, Ma,’ he said. ‘Thank you for the money, and the
dinners were good.’

  ‘Darling, it was my pleasure. Give my love to your father when you see him.’

  And I went outside before the undertaker could stop me; out into the blurry landscape that had become whiter than when I arrived.

  The footsteps and the tyre marks petered out as soon as I left the driveway and headed towards open country. I wanted to find the field filled with the black birds. I had no idea of time. The cold bit into me with surprising viciousness. A pair of black-and-white wings flashed past with a hard, rattling cry, sounding a warning. I could hear the muffled vibration of a gun, but it was difficult to tell from which direction it came. I turned off the road on to a snow-drifted path so crisp and clean that it took my breath away with its alien loveliness. Home was not a place I would ever be able to pinpoint again. The boundary would always be uncertain.

  ‘You saw the possibilities, didn’t you, Ben?’ I said out loud.

  It was a relief to be able to talk aloud with no one listening. The constriction in my throat was easing. What had been missing was the opportunity to talk to my son without fear of being overheard.

  ‘You might have made a life here,’ I continued. ‘Although, in a way, you did, I suppose. It’s all right,’ I added hastily, before he could protest, ‘I understand, you had to do what you needed to in order to survive.’

  Poor Tara, I thought, but I couldn’t say this. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings while he was listening. Poor Percy, too.

  ‘I have betrayed your father, Ben,’ I said.

  In the distance I heard a shot and the sky darkened as a whole field of birds took to the air. From this distance the sound was like an aircraft taking off; unbelievably loud, a landslide of crashing sounds that engulfed the shooting. I stood still, not knowing which way I should go. My feet in their thin tropical shoes were soaked and a few flakes of snow dislodged from the sky and fell on my face. My ankles and the bottom of my sari were wet. The voice came towards me from a great distance. I heard it calling my name, urgently. It was Eric.