The Swimmer

by Roma Tearne

  Eric strode ahead quietly. The solitude of the horizon and the varying shapes of trees in the winter sky calmed me. Now that the snow was disappearing, everything was softened by a different set of colours. There were pale blues and brooding greens and a gentle rose-pink in the sky. A backdrop to the curlew’s call. Too late, I understood the subtle beauty of this waterlogged colour. Then, in a flash of insight, I saw what this land meant to him. How his love for it had survived all else. The understanding that had come through pain was being coloured by love and in spite of my grief I intuited it would stay with me forever.

  ‘This is the place,’ I said out loud. ‘This is where I want to scatter his ashes.’

  Eric nodded. He looked pleased.

  ‘You must tell Ria,’ was all he said.

  Yes, I thought, lulled by this unexpected calm, we were saying farewell. Since our last afternoon, lying naked—and, yes, I could say that word at last—I saw how we were taking leave of each other. Out brief light, I thought.

  We walked on. A fragrance of neglect lingered on the fallen grass. The horizon was wide and haunting, loss trembled at the edge of my sightline.

  ‘She’s a fine girl,’ Eric said, referring to Ria. ‘Don’t expect to see that at the moment. It’s no one’s fault. But that will change one day, I promise.’

  ‘I won’t be coming back,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Maybe not for a while,’ he agreed.

  Then he took my hand in his worn pale one and squeezed it. Neither of us spoke. Birdsong filled the air.

  ‘Let it go,’ Eric said.

  He began to speak so softly that I struggled to hear.

  ‘After Kevin died, I asked myself, why? Why had I bothered? The answer was simple but it took me a while to get to it. I saw that not to bother is not to live. Not to honour the dead.’

  He stopped walking. The house was clearly visible now from the banks. Ria had put the lights on in the sitting room. In the summer, I supposed, the rushes and the reeds would grow high and screen it from view. In the summer there would be eels swimming into Eric’s willow traps. In summer the light would go on and on forever. But neither Ben nor I would see any of it. Sadness settled on me like fine dust. The sadness of acceptance.

  ‘So keep going,’ he said. ‘Ben was part of your life’s experience. No one will take that away. Kevin is with me, still. That won’t change, either.’

  I thought of him, working the land through all weathers, head bowed, going through the motions of living. Grieving for the love that had been lost, letting the pain seep into the earth. We could promise each other nothing. The war at home would go on in some form or other, I would be denied a visa, I had no money. Eric was older than me; anything might happen. Best not to hope, we had said. Best to let it lie. Now I would have to put this into practice.

  ‘I’ll remember you,’ he said. ‘Every day, as I do the rounds. I’ll think of you. When I scan the skies.’

  I nodded.

  ‘And you must think of this place. From your tropical home, you must imagine us getting through the days. That is what we will do. All of us. It will be all right, you’ll see.’

  I wanted to say something back to him. I wanted to tell him that I would never forget him and that, if I could ever get beyond this long sorrowful moment, it would be his help that I would remember. Love had come and gone time after time. This was life, I saw.

  Later, as we drove back to the house, he told me a little more about Ria.

  ‘When she was a child she used to come from London every summer to help her uncle on the farm.’

  ‘Where is that farm now?’

  ‘Oh, it got sold off. I bought some of the land. Another farmer absorbed the rest and Jack got his money. Eel House went to Ria because she’d always loved it. Much to Jack’s disappointment. He wanted the lot sold and the money split. First time he didn’t get his own way.’

  He paused, looking angry.

  ‘Ria used to be very different, then. Before her father died, she was always chattering. And she was always in the water, swimming all summer long. My wife used to say she was a little fish! She hardly ever swam afterwards.’

  I tried to imagine Ria as a happy child and failed.

  ‘When her father died, her mouth simply closed up. She was never the same.’

  I waited but he had finished speaking.

  ‘Nothing worked for her for years.’

  Nothing worked for us, either, I thought.

  ‘Then she met Ben.’

  His words hovered between us. I knew he was pleading with me to see what it had been like for Ria. I was aware of my lack of generosity, but there was nothing I could do about it and I knew he wasn’t judging me.

  In this twilight world in which I had been existing for the last few weeks, there had been other moments like this. I had lived my life in small glimmers of light, brief illumination, like the fireflies at home; things shone briefly before fading from view. As to Ria, I saw no future there, either. We would never connect. The place I was in was so far below the surface it could not be called living.

  ‘It’s time for me to leave,’ I told him. ‘We have said all we can.’

  ‘Perhaps, for the moment,’ he agreed. ‘Where you are just now has the appearance of being stationary, but it isn’t. Not really, things will change. You will change and so will Ria. You will both see things differently.’

  His voice was unbearable in its sad acceptance. I could not agree with him. Whatever changed, it would not bring back my son.

  ‘You will survive this winter, I promise you,’ was all he said.

  He told me that he saw himself as living proof of this. But I wasn’t him. And the thought of all the lonely years of existence was more than I could cope with. I wanted to tell him that where I came from there was no spring, but he had been extraordinarily loving to me and I could not hurt him.

  ‘There were men sent to Siberia,’ he said suddenly and for no apparent reason as he stared out at the frozen world. ‘They built the Russian railways that exist even today. This weather makes me think of that.’

  In a few days I would be flying over Siberia.

  On the morning of the day we were to collect the ashes I woke to the sound of rain. Outside my window the scene had changed dramatically and the river, frozen for so many days, was flowing freely again. I could see grass, sodden and yellowed by days of snow, appearing here and there. A thin, watery sun had risen. I stared out, shocked by the change. I showered and dressed wearily. Everything was such an effort; I was interminably tired. All I wanted was to be back in Jaffna. I wanted to lie on my own bed in the stifling heat. I imagined curling up in a corner of it, in the tropical darkness, being left to die.

  It is all I want, I told myself. At home I would be able to die in peace.

  That morning Ria must have gone out very early. She came in as I wandered downstairs and the first thing I noticed was that she was wearing a bright red coat.

  ‘Would you like some breakfast?’ she asked. ‘I’m driving into Ipswich at nine.’

  I swallowed. The ground rose slightly and I could feel myself break out in a cold sweat. The thought of food was horrendous.

  ‘I will come with you,’ was all I said.

  Memory fails me once again. I remember nothing of the drive to Ipswich except that the rain was melting the snow. We sat in several traffic jams; I was passive, like an animal waiting for the next blow, she hunched over the steering wheel, frowning. Once or twice she made reference to the solicitor. She had received letters; there was an application for a hearing, but before that some interviews had to take place.

  ‘Do whatever you think best,’ I said. ‘I won’t be here.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Are you happy with that? I could phone you and send e-mails to anyone you know who has access to the Internet.’

  We were sitting at another set of traffic lights and she waited, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

  ‘Do what you think best. I trust you.’r />
  She nodded and pressed her lips together. I thought that perhaps she was angry again, that she felt I was not behaving as a mother should. I sighed. The outside of the windscreen was filling up with large droplets of rain, but still she did not turn the wipers on. The lights changed and she woke from her daydream and cleared the windscreen. Someone beeped a horn politely and we moved off. The car was hot and comforting.

  We collected the ashes and drove to the estuary where Eric’s car was parked already. On the way, we stopped at the florist and I bought two red roses. Then we walked across the field. I carried the small box. Ria was still wearing her red coat. I had decided not to wear the white sari I had worn at the funeral. There was no point to be made, no one to impress with the fact that I was in mourning. We climbed the stile and immediately saw Eric in the distance. My heart flexed. He was wearing the same suit he had worn at the church. In the slight breeze the air held the faintest promise of warmth. What was lost was unrecoverable. A line of poetry ran through my head like music and, as I walked towards it, I saw the river was fast-flowing and high.

  ‘The tide has come in,’ Eric said by way of greeting.

  His eyes were dark. He kissed both of us. Then he walked to the point where we could see Eel House clearly. It was the highest ground. I opened the box and we each took out a handful of the soft downy ashes of my son. Here was my world; here, in this box.

  ‘Let’s each go to whatever spot we want,’ Ria said, and I nodded.

  She walked away in the direction of the house and as I watched the pale light caught her hair. It seemed shot through with gold. I turned away and scattered what I held of Ben across the waters he had once swum. The river made a rushing noise as the breeze lifted the fine particles out of my hands. I watched them dissolve in the bright winter air. He is gone, I thought bleakly. Here, on this sodden grass, flattened by constant wetness, tomorrow there will be no mark of what was lost. I do not have enough life left to me in which to forget this, even if I wanted to. Overhead, a flock of birds moved slowly and steadily across the wide expanse of Suffolk skies; witness to all we did.

  16

  TEN TWENTY. NEARING HEATHROW. SO HERE I am, on this bus nearing the airport. The snow has melted; the fields have a blanket of soft grey light thrown on them. I cannot but marvel at how many shades of grey this country has. I will never pass this way again. Beside me, the Italian woman sits up, waking. I have been half talking to her, but she must have dozed off, uncomprehending. Who can blame her? Mine is a story that beggars belief. For the hundredth time, I think, although I am leaving, some part of me will remain. We are almost at the drop-off point and the passengers move restlessly. When he said his goodbye, Eric had held me while I cried. His lips on mine were warm and full of an aftermath of love. Yes, love. I can say the word without flinching, for it is true. We had shared a kind of loving that belongs to us alone. In spite of everything, it had been possible.

  ‘I am honoured,’ he had said, with old-fashioned courtesy, ‘to have shared it with you. There is only one last thing I want to say. Maybe it will be of use…’

  I waited, wiping my eyes.

  ‘Don’t try to run away from the grief. It will only follow you. The boy is at rest; now rest a little, yourself. Tell others how it was. And, if you can, when you return, write to Ria. I think it will help both of you.’

  He asked nothing for himself. I saw his eyes swim in unshed tears. Until now, I had not thought of anything beyond the airport. Now I saw: leaving would be as bad as arriving. And there’s Tara, I think. I have not spoken to Tara once since arriving here. I hadn’t been able to ask Ria if I could phone her. By now, Tara will be in despair, waiting for news. I have a duty in that direction too. The Italian says something to me.

  ‘What is your name?’ I ask at last, arousing myself.

  ‘I am Lucia,’ she says. She sits staring ahead, her thick heavy face, in profile, strange and sad as cattle in a field.

  A watery sun is struggling to appear. The coach speeds swiftly on. In all, with the traffic hold-ups, we have been travelling for nearly five hours. While I have been thinking, the landscape has changed. Now the flat fields that I have grown to love have gone and we are in the midst of silent grey towns, one no different from another. How did people live with such thick cloud? I think how life is, as fragile as the snow that has melted, and just as elusive. Ben had left me long ago. At the moment of his birth, leaving my body, slipping out, establishing himself in the world. Alone. We are always that, I think. I see my own lonely years ahead. What is in store for me? A lifetime of endless tropical sunlight. Nothing else, I think.

  We are almost there. Now I see airport signs.

  ‘What time is your flight?’ Lucia asks.

  ‘I have a three-hour wait,’ I say. ‘Terminal One.’

  My legs feel hollow, now that the time has come to leave I do not want to go. I do not want to leave both of them. Despair clutches my heart. Now that the moment of reality is drawing close, I feel sanity slip slightly. I have suffered two deaths of the heart. Lucia is watching me from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Come,’ she says. ‘I will accompany you. My flight leaves from Terminal Five, but it isn’t until early evening. I will come with you and check in your bags.’

  It is very nearly my undoing, this random kindness from a stranger. See, I wanted to say out loud, what a wonderful thing you have done for me, son. You have opened up the world. You have made it possible for me to see other places, meet other people, understand the world a little better. That counts for something, too, however terrible has been the way it was achieved. I want to believe it. But I cannot.

  ‘Don’t dismiss it,’ Eric had said. ‘It is his gift to you!’

  Ah, Eric! Overhead there is the thunder of a plane and I see its under-carriage as it flies past. There are small dots in the windows. Humanity looking down on us.

  ‘Come,’ Lucia says, helping me off the bus when we finally stop. ‘Andiamo, let’s go.’

  Inside are officials. I freeze at the sight of them. All my life has been controlled by the power of the uniform, but Lucia is indifferent to them. My passport is checked.

  ‘Your luggage, madam?’

  ‘Only this bag,’ I say, showing him.

  He looks surprised.

  ‘Travelling light,’ he says, unexpectedly, his voice friendly.

  I am taken aback.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  ‘Not many travel so lightly on long-haul flights. You must be a good packer!’

  He smiles and hands me my boarding pass.

  ‘Watch the board for the gate number, madam,’ he says, cheerful now. ‘Have a good flight.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I say faintly.

  He is young enough to be my son.

  I say goodbye to Lucia.

  ‘Here is my address,’ she says. ‘Next year, who knows, I will visit you in Sri Lanka.’

  I smile. I am crying once again. She will not be allowed into Jaffna and I will never be allowed into Colombo, but it seems pointless to tell her this. So I agree that perhaps the war will stop next year. Perhaps, I say. Who knows?

  And then, in the briefest space of time, moving as if in a bubble, unaware of the shops and the places to eat, the car in the centre of the mall being offered as a prize in a raffle, I am through to the departure gate. My plane is ready for boarding. From then on it is exactly as it was before and I am herded from departure lounge through to departure gate. The plane stands on the tarmac. I had been stunned when I arrived. I had not seen the sheer size of the airport. Now I see there are hundreds of planes taking off, arriving, taxiing around. Lives being shuttled from one corner of the world to another. Mesmerised, I watch through the window, waiting for my passport to be checked. Ben is no longer part of this world and I am going home. Again I feel the soft touch of his ashes in my hand, like the down of his hair when he was born. Sadness, slow and beyond any kind of language, settles on me.

  In my bag is the drawing I made
. Ria had not mentioned it, and neither had I. When I left, she gave me the only two photographs she had of him. One was a picture of him, as she had known him, in that last, lost summer of his life. Smiling at the camera, staring at the sun, innocently searching for happiness. The other photograph was one I did not know he had stolen from me. It was of himself as a small boy, standing under the jak-fruit tree in the back yard of our post office. I was in it and so was Percy.

  ‘It’s yours,’ Ria had said at the last minute.

  We had arrived at the bus station and were sitting in the car. The heater was blowing warm air on my legs.

  ‘Soon you will have real heat,’ she said absent-mindedly.

  ‘Don’t you want to keep one of them?’ I asked, surprised.

  She shook her head, not looking at me.

  ‘No, I have other things. Different memories, you know.’

  She raised her head then and I saw the flash of her brilliant blue eyes. She was looking very pale, but then she smiled, slightly, and I saw that once, long ago, perhaps when she was happy, she would have been very beautiful.

  ‘You must have them,’ she said pressing my hand.

  The seat-belt sign is switched on, the pilot calls to the stewardess.

  ‘Cabin crew, check and cross-check doors,’ he says.

  The plane begins to taxi slowly towards the runway. We pass a hoarding that says BANKING FOR TOMORROW. The plane gathers speed, slipping easily into its position on the runway. Then, with hardly any hesitation, it is airborne, lifting and turning, flying. Briefly we see London sprawling below us, gun-metal grey and silvery. I take out the photographs from my handbag. At the time, I had thought she was unfeeling. But then, I thought, perhaps she had taken a copy. Now I am glad to have something that he had touched. Now I think her generous. Then we are climbing up, up through the dark rain clouds, banking and adjusting before we swing higher into the bright sunlight above.