by Roma Tearne
So after that I left and moved towards Batticlore, to another view of the sea, to a different shoreline, taking my memories with me. Often I would think of you. Every time I watched a flock of birds gathering to begin their long migration across the seas I thought of your marshlands and sometimes I felt your presence walking beside me, comforting me in my loss. But still I was unable to contact you. Life had silted up my feelings. One day I was walking along the beach and I heard church bells. The wind must have been in the right direction, I suppose, but as I watched the waves I remember the story of the fifty-two bells under the sea in Dunwich. I had forgotten about that particular story.
Time passed. I learnt office skills. I learnt to use a computer. I was working for a counsellor who worked with various victims of the war. The service was government-funded. These days, everything is government-controlled, because of the government’s desperate need to be seen as decent and law-abiding. So we have organisations set up to heal our wounds and make us whole again. In this way we mastered the art of pretence.
After a year, foreign people began to trickle in, working as volunteers in these agencies. They were never allowed to be alone with the clients, but at least they were allowed in. One such person came looking for me with your letter. It had taken her months to find me. I had moved and moved again and the trail had grown cold, but in all this time she had not lost your letter, nor had she stopped looking for me. She was of course the journalist who wrote the piece about Ben after he died. I did not recognise her, nor she me. We had both changed. But then she began to tell me this story about a woman who had come to Suffolk to identify her dead son.
‘I have a letter for her,’ she said, ‘from someone who knew her. He’s desperately trying to get in touch with her.’
I felt myself grow cold as I listened.
‘I am she,’ was all I could manage to say before I began to weep.
Later, when she gave me your letter, I was stunned. She sat with me as I read and re-read it. It was almost impossible to comprehend. Joy was filling my heart, joy such as I had known only once, when Ben was born. This child? His child, you say? Are you quite certain? The letter is almost two years old. Could it be a mistake? Is it some cruel hoax to break me further?
Lydia! Little Lydia! My Lydia! The journalist had one last thing for me. It was in her suitcase at the rest house. She had kept it separate from the letter, she told me, for fear of it getting damaged.
‘Wait,’ she said, smiling at me. ‘I’ll be back this evening. I’ll bring you something else.’
I waited in an agony of suspense, unable to concentrate on anything. My supervisor was surprised and wondered if I was sickening with dengue fever, but it was a different sort of fever I felt. Later, after work, I went home to my small government flat. Outside, the sea moved restlessly. The monsoons were almost upon us. The world news was not good. America was on the brink of war with the Middle East yet again, Britain looks set to be drawn in, everyone says. There will be more deaths, more mutilations, more grief. Nothing would stand in the way of this systematic culling, but I no longer cared.
The journalist returned when it had got dark. The monsoons had broken and the air was wet and cool. She handed me the photograph of Lydia. She looked so small, so beautiful, standing there next to an older Ria. And in her face was my son.
The letter ended there. At the bottom was a postscript in which Anula Chinniah had hastily scribbled an address and a promise that she would now move heaven and earth to get a travel visa to come to the UK. She hoped to see him soon, for she would not rest, she told him, until she could set eyes on me.
20
JUNE 1ST. I AM STANDING BY the arrivals board at Heathrow’s Terminal One. It is late on a summer’s night. I am almost sixteen years old. It has taken me this long to get to this point. I stand impatiently waiting for a plane to arrive. The board flickers and somersaults, its many eyelashes flutter and flutter again, and the information I have been waiting for is displayed at last. Landed! I turn towards the automatic doors and move closer to the barrier. I am alone. Eric is waiting in the car park. We are going home to Eel House together afterwards. Both of us thought I should do this thing alone. But now I am here, I wish he was with me. It’s too late. My hands are clammy, I keep swallowing nervously. People push against me as they jostle to get a better view of the arrivals. There is an air of anticipation amongst the crowd, an intake of collective breath each time the automatic doors open. I would have liked to watch the plane as it landed, but it is forbidden to do so for fear of yet another terrorist attack. These attacks are regular occurrences now. People don’t even bother to call them ‘terrorist’ attacks, for they could be done by anybody who feels like causing a disturbance. Britain is no longer a law-abiding country and everything in the airport is designed to stop people hindering the safe passage of others in and out of the country. Uncle Jack told me that once long ago there used to be a viewing area, but security is too tight for that to be permitted now. We live in suspicious times. This new war we started is getting worse. The future is uncertain. At the end of my last session, Stephanie said all futures were uncertain. That was the nature of the future. But she also felt it was a time of optimism for me. It was the first time she volunteered anything other than a question. I no longer dislike her.
On my last session, I overstepped my allotted hour with her. It had become a habit and she made no move to end the session. It was my last consultation. I didn’t feel I needed any more, neither did she. We sat in silence. I felt exhausted and drained of energy. It was the first time that I had ever told this entire story to anyone. Even Eric had only got bits and pieces, odd bits of conversation, threads.
‘Tomorrow,’ I said out loud, ‘I’m going to Heathrow to meet the woman who is my grandmother. She will be returning after an absence of nearly seventeen years!’
‘How old is she now?’ Stephanie asked and I shrugged.
‘I don’t know. In her seventies, I guess.’
‘Are you nervous?’
No, I wasn’t nervous, I was…I paused, unable to define the feeling of lightness I felt at the thought of the woman I planned to meet. All those elusive feelings that had never made sense, my withdrawn mother, the way it used to seem that she was simply waiting to die, all of this was beginning to make sense. I had lived under an opaque sky for most of my life.
‘What do you think it was like for her?’ Stephanie had asked.
I looked at her. Poor old Stephanie. Why had I hated her so much? The rage that had swept over me throughout my childhood had abated. Perhaps, I thought, spelling it out was part of what we must do.
‘I think she was frightened by more or less everything. She knew my father had had someone else he had left behind at home, perhaps she never knew for certain who he really loved. Also she must have felt guilty about his death. After all, she was the one who asked him to bring his stuff over to Eel House. She must have gone over everything a million times and wondered, “What if…?”’
Stephanie nodded. In all our sessions, she had not smiled once. But she smiled yesterday.
‘What will you do now?’ she asked.
‘Well,’ I said slowly, ‘tomorrow when the sun has almost set I will be at Heathrow. There I will search the arrivals board for the last flight in from Colombo.’
I grinned. I’ve never had a gran before! I tried to imagine her boarding the plane, waiting patiently for the long flight to end, wondering what it was going to be like at the other end. She would remember how she had arrived. It would be impossible to think of anything else, of course.
After reading Eric’s letter, I had written to her. Then, fearful that the letter would not get through, I got the name of the place where she worked. It took a while to trace her, but eventually I did. And then I rang her. It was late afternoon in Batticlore, barely midday here. I had not long woken up. To tell you the truth, there had been an end-of-exams party the night before and I was a bit hung over. I heard her voice for the
first time with a backdrop of other sounds. I have never been to the tropics and somewhere faintly behind her voice I could hear the sound of a bird cawing.
‘Lydia?’ she asked, in a way I had not heard my name said before.
I laughed and asked her if that was a crow I heard.
‘Anay, darling,’ she said, and she began to cry.
Before we finished our conversation she had one last question for me.
‘Why do such terrible things happen?’ she asked.
It was the last thing I told Stephanie. Then I stood up and she shook my hand.
‘Good luck,’ she said. ‘I hope it works out.’
When I got down the stairs and made my way outside it was still light and there was a light breeze. Birds were calling to each other in the tradition of this time of year and the air was damp and full of spring promise. Why do such terrible things happen?
I have a boyfriend. We get on very well, we don’t have any secrets. Our problems are different; our problems are this war and what this will mean to us. There’s talk of conscription being brought back. Lately the world has shrunk and speeded up at the same time. It is possible to annihilate a nation very quickly, but making another one is fast becoming an impossibility. Viruses multiplying in one part of the globe can travel in hours to another place and kill vast numbers of people. These are some of the things we worry about most. Our fears are no longer the war on terror but the war the planet is raging against humanity. It is too late and we are the ones left with the mess of others. And as to foreigners, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, they are a thing of the past. It’s very simple. Anyone entering the country, any Western country, without the proper documentation is simply caught and shot. It’s Home Office policy, you know. Each nation looks after a small proportion of its own. The politicians tell us it’s easier this way. Collective conscience is a thing of the past. A laughable matter. The way we live makes for a much cleaner war, so they say.
While I have been lost in thought, a small crowd has gathered around the barrier. They are probably waiting for different planes. There is one from Dubai and another from Sydney. A youngish man, slightly older than me, smiles.
‘You waiting for the Qantas flight?’ he asks.
I look at him and already I know he is not Indian, not Pakistani, not from Bangladesh. I know, from my research, that he is a Sri Lankan.
‘No,’ I say, also smiling. ‘I’m waiting for the plane from Colombo.’
‘Oh, Colombo!’ He seems delighted. ‘So am I. My wife is on this flight. You know it has taken me a long time to get her a visa.’
I feel a small thrill of triumph at my detective work. So I was right, he is Sri Lankan.
‘You have a friend on the flight?’
I marvel at his friendliness.
‘Yes,’ I say, carefully, ‘a Tamil.’
He doesn’t bat an eyelid.
‘Ah, the Tamils. It’s terrible what has happened to them. I am a Singhalese but I’m ashamed at what we did to the Tamils.’
I nod. The man looks and sounds genuinely sorry. How does a nation appear so charming individually yet behave so monstrously collectively?
‘Have you been to Sri Lanka?’
‘Not yet,’ I say, and realise that on some level I have been considering the possibility. The man is very friendly. He tells me about his wife who has been working as a nurse in a trauma centre but now that he has got a job here in London as a doctor in a teaching hospital he’s been able to bring her over.
‘I don’t want to live there,’ he said tentatively, looking over his shoulder nervously. ‘I am ashamed at the way a succession of governments have behaved. I don’t want to be part of it.’
I nod. I want to tell him that the woman I am meeting is my grandmother. That I am the legacy my father left for her. That knowing my parentage has at last made me feel whole, that I already love the country and want to do what I can there. But at that moment the automatic doors open and passengers pour out. Most of them have mountains of luggage perched precariously on trolleys. I watch them move towards us, searching the crowds, smiling recognition. There is a flurry of voices in greeting, rising above the public address system and the canned music. I stand anxiously watching and waiting while the man beside me goes forward to embrace his wife. He turns and sees me still standing there, still waiting.
‘No luck?’ he asks, and then he introduces his wife.
I am hardly listening, there is a constriction in my throat. I must not cry. What if she is not on this flight? What if they prevented her boarding? What if something has happened and she has died of a heart attack? She is old; I don’t know how old, but she is my grandmother, for God’s sake, she cannot be that young any more. I feel the palms of my hands sweaty with fear. She is my only link with the past. What if we never meet? The kind Singhalese man is talking to me.
‘Don’t worry, she’s probably having to stand in a queue to have her visa checked. I’m sure she’ll be along soon.’
‘There was a long queue,’ his wife says, moving her head from side to side, smiling a wide smile that fills her face.
Her voice reminds me of Anula’s and I feel tears gather in my eyes. I am certain something has happened. The Singhalese man means well, but I wish he would go away. I want to be alone to deal with yet another blow. I feel desperate. This meeting must happen. Go away, I think, please, leave me alone. I glance up at the arrivals board and in that moment as my eyes move from it the automatic doors open abruptly and a lone woman comes out. She is dressed in white and has no luggage other than a small holdall. She is very small. And thin. Stopping, she searches the crowd in front of her. I see the future is in her beautiful face. I see her lips moving as she forms my name, and suddenly I push through the waiting people.
‘Grandma!’ I cry. ‘It’s me! Lydia!’
Acknowledgements
There are two people that I need to thank above all others: my agent Felicity Bryan for her unwavering support, (as always) and my editor Clare Smith, whose extraordinary understanding has been instrumental in my continued development as a writer.
I would also like to thank the entire team at Harper Press who work invisibly behind the scenes on my behalf, in particular, Essie Cousins and Sophie Goulden.
Similarly all those at the Felicity Bryan Agency. Thank you.
And finally, thanks to my friend Dave King who gave me many hours of his time discussing the methods of forensic science.
BEHIND THE SCENES
‘Only in a novel are all things given full play.’
D. H. LAWRENCE
A BANDIT OR A REBEL
‘I can’t bear art that you can walk round and admire. A book should be either a bandit or a rebel or a man in the crowd.’ So wrote D. H. Lawrence, expressing his understanding of what a book ought to be. And yet the precise nature of writing a book remains a mysterious one. What is it that inspires authors to put pen to paper: curiosity, sympathy, passion, obsession? In her own words, Roma Tearne reveals what inspired her to write The Swimmer…
As a painter I collect images. Many of them are found photographs, some are drawings that I have done myself and now and again I cut something out of a newspaper for use at some later date. What that use will be is often obscure at the time of finding it. I have many hundreds of these, pasted into a scrapbook, stuck on my study-cum-studio wall and stuffed into boxes. Occasionally I have a clearout or rearrange things when something falls off the wall. It was during one of these clearouts that I came across two images cut out of a newspaper. One was of a little boy gazing up at the camera as he rescued his white rabbit from the ruins of a bombed out area of an unknown city. The other was of a beautiful Ethiopian woman, her face set in some private grief. The crosses in the picture beside her suggested a possible story. I pinned the images back up on my wall musing over the way such extraordinary photographs could be so transient. There in the paper when you open it, gone the next day.
Not long after this I was in Suffolk, i
n a location I know well. It was a cold day and I was out walking on the beach with my camera. Ahead of me, silhouetted against the setting wintery sun, were three figures. They were walking close to each other, huddled against the cold. Struck by the brooding picture they presented I photographed them. Later, back in my studio I added them to all the others. I had had a vague idea of using the figures in a painting. I might still do so. Meanwhile a story threaded through my head. My first duty was to this.
ROMA TEARNE
TRUST THE TALE
‘Never trust the artist. Trust the tale. The proper function of the critic is to save the tale from the artist who created it.’
D. H. LAWRENCE
From Socrates to the salons of pre-Revolutionary France, the great minds of every age have debated the merits of literary offerings alongside questions of politics, social order and morality. Whether you love a book or loathe it, one of the pleasures of reading is the discussion books regularly inspire. Below are a few suggestions for topics of discussion about The Swimmer…
