The J M Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society

by Barbara Zitwer

  “The water’s warmer than the air,” called Aggie.

  “Yeah, right,” Joey shot back.

  “It is!” screeched Gala. “Come see for yourself!”

  “No way!”

  “Chicken!”

  “Yup!” Joey was smiling now, as the women ploughed through the pond like polar bears and then, one by one, clambered up the ladder. They quickly wrapped themselves in towels and blankets and hurried up the hill and into the hut. Joey trooped in behind them.

  A large pan of milk had been left on low heat, and beside it, Joey saw a plate of chocolate bars and a bottle of vodka. Aggie opened the stove door and fed the fire three squat logs from the woodpile. The logs began to hiss and crackle immediately, and Aggie slammed the door. In the corners of the cabin, the women were peeling off their wet swimsuits and bundling up in heavy tights, socks, trousers, sweaters, scarves. Joey pulled a stool up to the woodstove, noticing how cheerful she was suddenly feeling, after the gloom of her morning and early afternoon.

  Gala, the first to finish dressing, turned up the heat on the stove and stood over it watchfully until the milk began hissing.

  “Can I help?” asked Viv, turning to wink at Joey, but not moving from the chair closest to the woodstove.

  Gala looked over, grinning and shaking her head. “Viv can’t boil water,” Gala explained.

  “Of course I can… I can make tea.”

  “She can make tea,” Gala said. “And tea is all she can make.”

  “I can make toast,” Viv added.

  “And toast,” Gala conceded.

  “So, is that all you eat?” Joey asked. “Tea and toast.”

  “I could live very happily on tea and toast,” Viv announced, “but Cook won’t hear of it!”

  Aggie, now dressed, had fetched five stoneware mugs from a shallow cupboard affixed to the wall. She placed them on the table.

  “You’re lucky, Joey,” Aggie said. “Gala only makes her special cocoa, White Hot Russian Cocoa, when it snows, and we don’t have much of that in the Cotswolds.”

  “But I’m always prepared,” said Gala. She took a metal grater out of her bag and handed it to Meg with one of the chocolate bars. Meg balanced a dinner plate on her lap and began to grate the chocolate. When the bars had been reduced to a towering pile of shavings, Gala poured the steaming milk into the mugs, into each one of which Viv had already poured a generous stream of vodka. Meg handed Gala the plate of chocolate and Gala stirred it in. She handed each woman a steaming, fragrant mug of cocoa.

  Joey took a sip. “Oh, my God! This is so great!”

  “It packs a wallop, dearie,” said Meg, “so sip it slowly.”

  “I will!”

  “Did anyone talk to Lilia today?” Meg asked.

  “I rang her this morning, but she wasn’t at home.”

  Joey looked from Gala to Meg, then from Viv to Aggie. She wondered if she should say anything but quickly decided against it. She took a deep sip of her drink. Caution be damned; right now, she could use the ‘wallop” of the cocoa!

  “I stopped by her house at about ten,” said Meg, “but she wasn’t there.”

  “Was her car in the yard?” asked Aggie.

  Meg shook her head.

  “It’s odd. A little worrying, don’t you think?” Meg said. “She’s such a creature of habit.”

  “She might not swim, not today, but she always stops by,” Gala put in. “If she’s holed up at home, now, all by herself, then she must be awfully upset.”

  “She is,” Joey whispered, almost without thinking.

  The ladies turned to look at her.

  “She is?” Aggie asked.

  “Even more than usual?” Meg prodded.

  Joey nodded. She would have to tell them. Maybe that’s why she had come in the first place, even though she hadn’t been aware of it. She thought she had only wanted company, but maybe she had wanted – something more – to talk things out, try and make sense of burgeoning feelings.

  “How do you know?” asked Gala. “Did you see her?”

  Joey nodded miserably. “This morning. She came by early, to see Ian, and –”

  The ladies stared at her intently.

  “And –” Viv prodded.

  “And – I was there.” Joey took a sip of her cocoa. She looked around. Aggie looked puzzled, Meg looked amused, Gala looked shocked and Viv – did she look a little afraid? Yes, Joey concluded, Viv did look a little afraid.

  “At Ian’s.” Gala said.

  “Ian McCormack’s,” Aggie clarified.

  “Early,” Meg put in. Joey nodded guiltily.

  “How early?” Viv asked.

  “Early early,” Joey responded quietly. As her words hung in the air and the ladies slowly began to grasp her meaning, she sprung to her feet and began to pace. The confession that followed surprised even Joey, but once her torrent of words had been unleashed, there was no turning back.

  “I know. I live three thousand miles away and the whole thing is crazy, completely crazy. I know I can’t replace Cait and I never will be able to replace her – and I don’t want to. But I’m think I’m falling in love with him! And even if he can’t let himself get really involved, if he’s not ready for that but was just ready for –”

  “ – a little hoochie-koochie?” Meg suggested.

  “Hoochie-koochie?” Gala shrieked in disbelief. “Hoochie-koochie? What is this, the forties?”

  Viv howled with laughter. “Let the poor girl finish!”

  Joey, having been stopped in her tracks, didn’t know where to begin again. “I was just saying, that no matter where this goes, or doesn’t, I’m glad it happened.”

  “So am I,” said Meg. “It’s about time!”

  “He’s a prince,” added Aggie. “He’s been alone long enough.”

  “You have excellent taste,” giggled Viv. “If I were thirty years younger…”

  “Thirty?” asked Gala. “How about fifty?!”

  Joey sat back down on her stool. “You aren’t shocked? You don’t all hate me?” The women shook their heads.

  “Hate you? Because you have fallen in love?” asked Viv.

  “Because – by falling in love with Ian, I may have hurt Lilia.”

  “Lilia’s problems have nothing to do with you,” added Aggie. “She’s never been able to come to terms with Cait’s death and I don’t know if she ever will. But Ian’s still a young man and Lily needs women in her life, happy women, strong women.”

  “Tell us,” said Meg.

  Joey nodded and over the next half hour, helped along by the fortifying brew of vodka, chocolate and hot milk, she told them everything: of Ian’s initial distrust and suspicion, of their time spent with Massimo, their lunch with him, of her trip to London with Lily… She spared no details except the most intimate, knowing that she could trust these women not only to support and advise her, but to use what she told them, if that were possible, to help Lilia, who was so alone in her misery.

  “When do you go back to New York?” Viv asked, when Joey came to the end of her story.

  “Two weeks,” she answered.

  “What will happen then?” Meg pressed.

  “How the hell does she know that?” snapped Gala. “How can anyone possibly know what’s going to happen in the future? Give the girl a break!”

  Meg looked chastened.

  “It’s okay,” said Joey. “I’ve been asking myself the same question. I know I don’t want it to end. I’d like to at least try…”

  “Does he want that, too?” Viv asked.

  “If you had asked me last night, I would have said – well, would have guessed – that the answer was yes. But after this morning, I really don’t know. He seemed pretty upset. Anyway, thank you for listening.”

  “Of course!” Viv said.

  “Darling!” Gala cried.

  “You poor baby! It will all work out. It always does,” Meg pronounced.

  Joey had to fight back tears. She had nearly forg
otten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of this sort of support. And when was the last time she had offered anything like this to any of her old friends? She was ashamed, once again, to realise how much time had gone by since she’d even picked up the phone to call them. She had meant to send flowers when she heard that Martina’s mother had died, but she had never got around to it. She had heard through friends that Susan and Nick, her longtime boyfriend, were going through a rocky patch, but again… How had she got so adrift? It was as if she had cut the moorings of her own life.

  Slowly, the conversation moved onto other topics – a knitting problem Viv was having with the sweater she was working on, the price of a crown roast of lamb at the local butcher’s, the dilemma of whether to join Facebook, which was presenting itself to Meg and Aggie, the only real computer users in the group.

  “Are you on Facebook, Joey?” Meg asked.

  Joey shook her head.

  “I’m thinking of joining,” Meg announced.

  “I prefer the phone, or at least I thought I did. Truth is, I’m very bad at actually picking it up,” Joey said. “And I like to think I’m good at writing letters. There’s a beautiful paper store in my neighbourhood, and I bought all this gorgeous stationery. But I don’t have anyone to write to!”

  “Now you do!” Viv announced.

  Joey helped the women clean up, then said her goodbyes, hugged the ladies each in turn and headed out into the cold. She had just started up the path, when she heard Aggie’s voice.

  “Joey?”

  She paused and turned, then waited for Aggie to catch up to her.

  “Are you in a hurry?” Aggie asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Would you like to come back for a bite to eat?”

  “Back where?”

  “To my house.”

  “Why, sure, but –”

  Aggie seemed to sense Joey’s question. “I spoke with Sarah this morning,” Aggie explained. “I gather you two had –”

  “A fight?” Joey nodded.

  Aggie smiled warmly. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to, I just thought you might –”

  “I would,” Joey replied, interrupting.

  Chapter 21

  They were seated before a blazing fire in the drawing room, waiting for Anna to bring in the light supper Aggie had requested. Joey had longed to be offered a full tour of the house, which seemed like the sort of place a person might buy a ticket to snoop around in, but Aggie had led her straight in here. A cheerful, ruddy-faced man named Simon, who was apparently a sort of butler, had moved a card table nearer to the fire, so that Joey and Aggie could eat there.

  Anna appeared at the door.

  “Sorry to interrupt, but Mrs Williamson is on the phone. Shall I ask her to ring you back?”

  Aggie sighed. “No, no, thank you. I’ll take care of this now, if you’ll excuse me for a moment, Joey.”

  “Of course.”

  As Aggie followed Anna out into the hall, Joey rose to her feet and gazed around the room. The walls were upholstered in what looked like aged silk taffeta, in a shade of dark maroon, and above the fireplace was an elaborately carved mahogany mantelpiece. Gilded standing screens painted with bird and floral motifs enclosed the area by the fire.

  Joey crossed the room to have a closer look at some of the prints on the far wall, etchings of classical Roman buildings displayed in gold frames. She strained to read the artist’s signature: Giovanni Piranesi. The Piranesi? Joey thought. Probably, she concluded.

  She drifted around the room, admiring the hanging tapestries, the highly waxed tables bearing silver frames displaying family photos. Some of the people she recognised: Henry and Sarah at their wedding, Christopher and Matilda in riding outfits, Meg and Viv in elegant dresses. And there, in the centre, was a formal portrait of a handsome man who had to be Aggie’s late husband, Richard.

  Joey returned to her seat by the fire. She didn’t want Aggie to find her nosing around when she came back in. But in truth she felt a bit stunned. She knew plenty of rich people in New York, people who had made pots of money or whose parents had. She’d been to her share of flashy homes and apartments, had even designed a few, but not one of them sent the message communicated by this room: that the people who had passed through it over the centuries were not just wealthy but from a long family line of privilege and power.

  Joey suddenly felt a little sheepish about how chummy she had let herself become with Aggie. Had she been crossing social lines she shouldn’t have crossed? Had she been clueless and gauche, like the worst sort of stereotypical American, tone deaf to social cues that any European would have understood intuitively? Maybe inherited wealth and social class really did matter, and only a young American, even one raised in sophisticated New York, would be naïve enough to believe otherwise.

  Aggie reappeared at the door followed by Simon, who asked what they would like to drink.

  “How about some Sancerre?” Aggie asked Joey. “You do like fish?”

  “Love it.”

  Moments later Simon returned with the wine, and then withdrew and reappeared again, this time bearing two steaming plates – filets of Dover sole, buttery asparagus and wild rice. It smelled wonderful.

  “We should start,” Aggie said, unfurling her napkin and setting it on her lap.

  Joey smiled and picked up her fork. “It’s delicious,” she said, after savouring a bite of the delicate, lemony fish.

  Aggie lifted her glass, signalling Joey to raise hers. They clinked them gently.

  “To friendship,” Aggie said.

  “To friendship,” Joey echoed.

  “Which is why I asked you here,” Aggie added.

  Joey was sipping the cool crisp wine. She swallowed, set her glass down and looked up. “Really?”

  Aggie nodded.

  “Friendship in general?” Joey asked. “Or one in particular?”

  “One in particular…” Aggie continued. “Sarah told me about your conversation.”

  “I feel terrible,” Joey confided.

  “So does she,” Aggie replied, then waited for Joey to go on.

  “We were like sisters.”

  “I know. She’s always talked about you like that. My question is, what happened?”

  “Yesterday?”

  “No. What happened between you two, to bring you to this point?”

  “Nothing, really. We’ve just sort of drifted apart. Living so far away.”

  “It’s not so far any more. And it doesn’t sound to me as though physical distance is what this is about.”

  Joey sighed. “Our lives are so different. I don’t think they could be much more different.”

  “Oh yes they could. But I didn’t invite you here to lecture you, Joey. I just thought that maybe I could provide a little perspective.”

  “What kind of perspective?”

  “On my son. And, indirectly, I suppose, on Sarah.”

  Joey nodded and sat back, curious.

  “I’m very close to Henry now,” Aggie began, “and to Martin and Lucinda, his brother and sister. But when they were young, I’m not sure I was a very good mother.”

  “I find that hard to believe.”

  “It’s true. It was how Henry’s father and I were raised: children in the nursery with Nanny, brought in to kiss the parents good-night, sent away to school at a very young age, all of us. Our parents would be away for weeks at a time, even months, leaving us with governesses and the household staff. It was just how things were done, and how we were taught to do things. I realise now how much our children missed us, how much they suffered. They were packed off with their trunks by the age of seven, all three of them.”

  Aggie had a sip of her wine.

  “I’m not saying there weren’t many lovely things about their lives. But their childhood –” Aggie broke off and shook her head. “I’m telling you this because, well, Henry came to parenthood with certain very strong ideas.”

  “Wh
at sort of ideas?”

  “Put simply, to give his children the exact opposite of the childhood he and his brother and sister had.”

  “Ouch,” Joey said softly.

  “Oh, it’s all right. We did the best we could, Richard and I. But Henry wanted to be a different kind of father.”

  “And for Sarah to be a different kind of mother,” Joey added, suddenly understanding where this was going.

  ‘Yes. So this distance you speak of, between you and Sarah, some of it is my fault.”

  “You can’t blame yourself!”

  “I don’t, not really. But Sarah’s a smart girl, ambitious, a great businesswoman, very savvy. And if I had been a better mother to Henry when he was small, it might not have been so important to him to have the mother of his children dedicate herself so completely to their little darlings’ every need. But she’s done it, Sarah has, in spades, and as a result, they have four of the happiest children I’ve ever seen. But Sarah is the one who’s paid the price.”

  Joey suddenly felt sad and ashamed of herself for having been so judgmental. She had never thought of Sarah like this.

  “What I’m trying to say, dear,” Aggie continued, “is that, if you’re patient, I think you’ll have your old friend back one of these days. The children aren’t going to be small for ever. And Henry understands what she’s done for him, for them all. The day is going to come when she has a good measure of her time and freedom back. And I think she’ll want to spend some of it with you.”

  Joey was about to respond when they heard a tap at the door.

  “Yes?” Aggie called.

  The door opened to reveal Anna, looking flustered. “Madam, there’s someone here to see you.”

  She stepped aside to reveal Lily, her face tear-stained and her clothing all askew.

  “Lily! Darling!” Aggie said, pushing back her chair. “What are you doing here?”

  “I hate Granny!” Lily sobbed, rushing forward, kneeling beside Aggie’s chair and throwing her head on to Aggie’s lap.

  “Thank you, Anna,” Aggie said. “We’ll be fine.”

  The housekeeper nodded and withdrew.

  “And my father!” the girl continued. She looked up just long enough to greet Joey.