To Em, my condition is a medical fact, not a matter for shame. Many times in recent months she has urged me to ‘talk to someone', and maybe I will one day. But the thought of Ollie and Daisy knowing the truth, and laughing together in bed about my inadequacy, stirred memories of past suffering at their hands. As I lay there with my head under the pillow, I told myself to calm down: I mustn’t let my mind run away with me. But I couldn’t now unhear what I thought they’d said.
Storms are supposed to clear the air. Afterwards should be like the morning after a death — clean, formal, lucid, empty, fresh. Global warming seems to have changed all that. Or perhaps it was Badingley’s microclimate. At any rate, when I got up a second time that day, around nine, the air was slimy and rank, a cold sweat across the windowpanes, the sky a soiled grey sheet. Leaving Em to doze, I made myself tea and opened the French windows for Rufus. Outside was breathless and clammy. To judge from the beaded grass, the silvered rose bushes, the eucalyptus leaves like laundry dripping from clothes pegs, it had been raining all night. When Rufus returned from his tour of the orchard, he looked like the hull of a boat, tar-blackened halfway up. He shook himself out, hosing the terrace and my bare feet.
I brought a cane chair out and sat with my mug in the soupy light. The garden was spectral. I gazed at it through empty sockets. Bird calls echoed through my skull.
I remembered Ollie saying that the house had no foundations. The fissured earth would be awash now, and if the water pooled, then froze when winter came, surely the bricks would move, the flint crack, the walls give way, the whole ramshackle structure come down.
You build your life on a handful of principles — trust, reason, fairness, love and friendship — and when you find they’re an illusion you collapse.
‘Up already?’ Ollie said, behind me.
‘This is late for me,’ I said.
‘More tea?’
‘If you’re making it.’
‘Anyone else about?’
‘No.’
Perhaps Milo had made an early start and gone home. Two wooden tennis rackets lay twisted on the lawn, where his girls had left them. There’d be no tennis played with them again. By the look of the sky — bulging like a ceiling after a flood — there’d be no tennis for Ollie and me, either.
‘Sorry about the performance,’ Ollie said, handing me tea. I was surprised he could remember any of it, and was about to say so — till I realised he meant Archie’s, not his own. ‘He never cries like that. He was really shaken up.’
‘Useful lesson,’ I said. ‘A shock to the system will do him good.’
‘Do you think?’
‘We all need discipline, Ollie. Surely Sandhurst taught you that.’
‘Parenting’s not like the army. Daisy and I try to be flexible.’
‘There’s your mistake. Why do you think Archie stopped going to school? Because he knew he could get away with it. That there’d be no comeback.’
‘There were other factors. It’s complicated.’
‘You’re making excuses for him.’
‘Am I?’
‘I know it’s not easy,’ I said, backing down. ‘You’ve had a tough few months. I’m sure he’ll be fine in the end.’
Had Em been there, she’d have urged Ollie to be more loving and affirming as a father. Though I stopped short of such soppy nonsense, I tried not to make him feel criticised. We were leaving today. I wanted to depart on good terms.
Swallows chizzled overhead, like wires short-circuiting. Occasional swifts, too, on their long fuse. The air crackled, as if charged. It would rain again any minute.
‘It doesn’t look good for tennis,’ I said.
‘It’ll dry out later.’
‘Em and I ought to head off before lunch.’
‘And miss our decider?’
I expected him to protest at length but he shrugged and sipped his tea.
‘We’ll have to think of an alternative,’ I said, humouring him.
‘Anything to win the bet, eh?’
‘I couldn’t care less about the bet. I’m just trying to honour our deal.’
The leaves on the eucalyptus tree rattled in a sudden gust. Ollie’s indifference shocked me. Was he tired? Hung-over? Afraid of losing? Or after Daisy had told him about my fertility issues did he think me not man enough to be worth taking on? The fucker. I would show him. We’d shaken hands on it. I’d not let him weasel out.
If tennis was impossible, a board game would do. Even better, I had some cards in my suitcase — my own special deck. I was about to suggest I fetch them when a car pulled up in the driveway.
‘Who the hell’s that?’ Ollie said, marching off like a squire to evict the trespassers.
For what it’s worth — one last word on the subject — my sperm count is perfectly normal: four million spermatozoa per gram of testicle per day. The problem’s not numbers, but movement. Motility: the ability of sperm to move by flagellate swimming. Mobility, if you prefer. Where your average sperm goes off like an underwater missile, making straight for the target, mine amble around in circles. They’re clueless, work-shy, undirected — like teenagers who won’t stir from bed. The doctor at the clinic put it more kindly, describing my sperm as ‘hyperactive’ rather than idle: they thrash around, in wildly gyrating patterns, unaware of their purpose. Either way, it’s a judgement. My sperm are just like me.
I’d been wrong about Milo disappearing to London. He’d got up early and driven to Frissingfold with the girls, in search of goodies; his was the car we heard coming up the drive. ‘My contribution to breakfast,’ he said, carrying in croissants, Danish pastries, orange juice, eggs, bacon and marmalade, along with flowers for Daisy and a bottle of whisky for Ollie. The obsequiousness of the gesture — when his only contribution until then had been to ruin the weekend – was transparent. And his knee-crooking gratitude ‘for a wonderful break’ renewed my suspicions: if his relationship with Daisy was innocent, he should be confronting Ollie, not appeasing him. I was surprised Ollie couldn’t see this and appalled to hear him apologising ('Fear I drank too much last night. Hope I didn’t say anything out of order'). As for Daisy, the flowers made her coo and simper: ‘You shouldn’t have.’ Indeed he shouldn’t. It was high time he fucked off.
(It’s true that Em had also wanted to buy our hosts a thank-you present, till I dissuaded her. If Ollie and Daisy wanted flowers or whisky or suchlike, they would buy their own, I said; it wasn’t as if they were short of the wherewithal. Only an outsider like Milo would resort to empty tokens. Real friends knew better.)
Though the sky was black as a Pennine graveyard, Ollie insisted on everyone having breakfast outside, as if we’d suffocate if we stayed indoors. He wasn’t far wrong. When I went in, to help Daisy take the croissants from the oven, it was as though I were drowning in lava, hot slurry closing over my head. This wasn’t the moment to discuss our future so I stuck to small talk instead. I was just saying something about the weather forecast when we heard a high-soprano scream. Both of us rushed outside.
Em and Milo were already in attendance, Milo pulling Bethany onto his lap while Em asked her where it hurt. She was crying too hard to speak but pointed to her arm. We huddled round, as if for a baptism: a screaming infant with a wet head cradled by a solemn adult. The wasp sting looked minuscule — a pinprick — but Bethany was enjoying the drama too much to calm down: an audience of grown-ups, raptly attentive, and she centre stage. Ollie, in a panic, rushed off to fetch ointments, sticking plasters, antihistamines. The only sensible one there was Em, who tried to squeeze out the sting. What is it with kids and pain? You’d think, from Bethany’s screams, no human had ever been stung by a wasp before. Come on, boy, walkies, I said, to get Rufus away. Exposure to screaming brats is bad for dogs. They’re sensitive animals.
Ten minutes’ tantrum later, Bethany calmed down. After that, no one except me felt like croissants. But the episode had a happy outcome, persuading Milo it was time he headed home.
�
��Do you really have to?’ Daisy protested. But after last night she had more sense than to push it. The girls ran off to help their dad fetch the bags.
‘Making a run for it, is he?’ I said, sitting next to Ollie.
‘Yes, to beat the traffic,’ he said, missing the point.
‘Nasty bugger.’
‘Yes, it must have been a big wasp, the poor girl got quite a shock,’ he said, missing it again.
Ten minutes later, we gathered in the drive. There were kisses all round, but Milo, to avoid suspicion, gave Daisy just a peck on the cheek. As we stood waving them off, I watched her for signs of emotion. Was that a tear in her eye? It didn’t matter now. One less rival, I thought, as Milo’s Saab turned out of sight.
‘Game of cards?’ I asked.
Ollie shook his head and suggested a walk by the sea instead. I muttered about having to leave soon.
‘There’s time. I’ll have you back within the hour.’
I’d no great enthusiasm for the idea, but with a long journey ahead of us, it made sense to give Rufus some exercise.
‘Let’s take swimming trunks, in case,’ one or other of us said.
Em, upstairs packing and not best pleased, declined to come, as did Daisy, who was already making us sandwiches for the journey. With Archie asleep after his night wanderings, that left just the two of us, as Ollie doubtless intended.
The weather wasn’t MGB weather. But Ollie, resurgent, had the hood down before I could protest, and Rufus, his head hanging out the side of the car, appreciated the open ride. Hills and hedges went by while Ollie rattled on. It could have been university again and him driving us to a golf course or country pub. Mostly he talked about his father: that last holiday and the fun they’d had before the drowning. I kept my eyes closed till we reached the sea and he cut the engine. I wanted to love him, as I’d always loved him. But he had made himself a stranger with his lies.
The beach was the same one we had cycled to. But under cloud, in the seeping light, the place looked unfamiliar. Those tar-black wooden huts housing oily winches — had they been there the previous day? And the fishing boats tilted to one side? And the concrete blocks thrown like giant dice in the dunes, the gaps between them too narrow for German tanks to pass through — shouldn’t such fortifications have been removed by now, seven decades on? A roar came from the tideline, where the water was kicking up a storm. Rufus scuttered off into the marram grass, puppily excited by the scent of other dogs, though there were none to be seen, no humans either. The light was weary and the beach smelled of decay, but I marvelled at the emptiness. On this overcrowded island, on the last weekend of summer, we had the coastline to ourselves.
I knelt down to unlace my trainers, while a barefoot Ollie headed off towards the dunes. The mist keeping us under wraps was partly fog and partly sea spray. To the north, just visible through the haze, were a stripy lighthouse and red-brick houses tumbling into the sea; to the south, a grisly power station and a comical water tower; in between, unpeopled dunes and shingle. Even the gulls had deserted the place, off for richer pickings out at sea.
We followed Rufus along the ridge of the dunes. There was nothing to stop us descending to the beach — no wartime barbed wire or vertical drops. And a walk by the shoreline, over flat white stones with clumps of sea cabbage, would have been easier than slogging through sand. But we kept to higher ground, as if a view of the sea put us in command. Not that the sea looked dangerous, not exactly. But its animation was surprising, each fresh collapse shuffling the stones. Last night’s storm had died from the wind but was living in the water — in the waves, grinding the shingle, and the black, capricious depths beyond.
‘I love this place,’ Ollie said. ‘If I’d time, I’d look for a house here.’
‘Make time,’ I said. ‘Ring some estate agents.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’
We were sitting in a sandy hollow looking out to sea. I couldn’t let it pass again.
‘You don’t have cancer, Ollie. I’ve talked to Daisy. I know.’
There was a clump of marram grass beside him. He yanked at it till a blade came free, which he brandished like a sword.
‘I’ve tried telling Daisy. She won’t listen.’
‘You told me you hadn’t told her.’
‘I asked you not to bring it up, that’s all.’
‘She says there’s probably nothing wrong with you.’
‘That’s what she wants me to think.’
‘It’s what the consultant says. It’s the truth, Ollie.’
He stood up, looming over me.
‘Whose side are you on?’ he shouted.
We were alone in a peaceful hollow at the edge of a long beach, not a soul for miles, the sea stretching blackly to the fogged horizon. And there was Ollie, shouting, a spear of marram grass in his hand.
‘It’s not about sides,’ I said, grabbing the spear from him, aware how absurd we must look, though there was no one to see.
‘You just accused me of lying!’
‘A man close to death can’t ride a bike like you did yesterday.’
He paused a moment, then reached down to touch my shoulder and said, in a softer voice: ‘It’s because you’re my friend that you don’t want to believe the worst, Ian, and I appreciate that. Come on. Let’s hit the beach.’
We scrambled down the sand cliff to the shingle, where Rufus had found a dead cuttlefish, which he brought over and dropped at my feet like a bone. I threw it in the sea for him to swim for and stood at the tideline, letting the waves slide froth-tipped to my feet. Ollie’s stubbornness didn’t surprise me. He hated losing arguments or being caught out. I felt better for confronting him, nevertheless, purged and refreshed. The closer to the waves I stood, the wetter the waft of sea spray on my face. There was a breeze, too — the energy of pounded water — where the dunes had been windless. A good blow, my mother would have called it. I felt sorry for Ollie, exposed as a fantasist and denied the finale of our bet. But I was pleased I’d had my say.
One plunge into the water was enough for Rufus: he dropped the cuttlebone, shook himself out and ambled off. The froth swirling round my feet was feathery and brownish white, like the dead owl I’d found. The waves looked taller than they had from the cliff — but choppy, irregular, not surfers’ waves. Above them, through the mist, a fishing trawler was heading in, gulls flying from it like pennants. The sea must have been rough when the crew set sail at dawn, but here they were, safely returning.
‘Fishing boat,’ I shouted, but Ollie, twenty yards off, couldn’t hear because of the waves, so I pointed and gestured instead. Behind him, over the dunes, the sky was splitting up, a blue-black crack — the colour of agapanthus — breaking the monotonous grey.
‘What?’ he shouted, at my side.
‘There’s a fishing boat. See?’
‘I thought you meant the buoys.’
He pointed left and right offshore. Beyond the breakers, a hundred yards apart, two white heads were bobbing, like the buoys we’d seen on the other beach.
‘Who’d moor a boat here?’ I said. ‘Unless the buoys are to warn against rocks.’
‘There are no rocks.’
‘Why are they there, then?’
‘To denote safe bathing.’
‘It doesn’t look safe,’ I said.
‘Of course it’s safe. I remember swimming here with my father. They’re probably the same buoys as then — white, see. All the modern buoys are orange.’
The story seemed a typical Ollie story. I held my tongue.
Rufus scurried between us, in the water. I looked at my watch: 12.13 it said, which should have told me.
‘So, did you bring your trunks?’
‘Shit. I left them in the car. Did you?’
‘Who needs them? There’s nobody around.’
‘You’re not serious?’
‘I will if you will.’
‘Go on, then.’
We began stripping off.
> ‘We must be mad,’ I said, trying not to look at Ollie’s cock. I was still undressing when he stepped into the violet water.
‘Anyway,’ he shouted, wading in past his knees.
‘Anyway what?’ I shouted, dropping my boxers on the cairn of clothes.
By the time I looked up, I’d already lost him in the breakers. It seemed amazing he had got out so far in such a short time, all the more so when I tried to follow. The shallows were knotty as a mangrove swamp, with rips and swirls I had to hack through. The shingle sharpened as it fell away, slashing my feet, till my soles found a shelf of sand. Cold swirled round my balls and chest. My body wasn’t up to this. I thought of retreating. But the tide was dragging me out, and surrender seemed the easiest course.
I let go and pushed off, through the foothills towards the peaks. It was impossible to swim straight out — the rip tide pulled diagonally — but by gripping the water and hurling it behind me I crawled to where I’d last seen Ollie.
After the struggle to reach them, the breakers, when they came, were quickly surmounted: a few slaps round the head and mouthfuls of water, and I was through.
Behind the break point I found Ollie, in a trough of calm.
‘It’ll be easier now,’ he said.
‘Liar,’ I gasped, but it was true: the first buoy was only twenty yards away, and the swell looked steady and benign.
We were bobbing alongside and looking in each other’s eyes. I can’t remember who spoke first.
‘Let’s settle it then.’
‘What?’
‘We’ll start from one buoy and race to the other. Winner takes all.’
‘Swimming’s not my forte.’
‘Nor mine. We’ve an equal chance.’
‘Which stroke?’
‘Any. Freestyle. Are you on?’
‘Sure.’
We shook hands as we bobbed there.
The waves swept across us from behind. Floating on our backs to conserve strength, we drifted towards the first buoy, the start line. I felt calm, energised by the cold, ready for action. But then, just as we reached the buoy, Rufus appeared. It was stupid to have assumed he wouldn’t follow us. If I’d said ‘Sit, wait’ back on the beach, he’d have sulked and whined but obeyed. But I’d forgotten the magic words.
The Last Weekend Page 23
