The J M Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society

by Barbara Zitwer

  Ian looked pensive and drawn. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and cook him massive meals, make him drowsy with wine, and watch over him while he slept, watch over Ian and Lily until spring came and welcomed them back, with her help, into the world of the living.

  “Another time?” Joey whispered. “Another place?”

  “We don’t have either of those things,” Ian said sadly.

  “We might.”

  Ian shook his head. “All anyone has, Joey, is what’s here, right now. I learned that the hard way, once. And I learned it again last week.”

  Joey knew he was right, of course, at least for him, at least for now.

  “But thank you,” he said kindly. “I’m not sad that – you and I –”

  “Me neither.” She didn’t want to cry. She was not going to cry. She took a deep breath and said, “I should go.”

  Ian nodded sadly. “This time of day, the traffic can be a nightmare.”

  He stood up and came around the table. Wordlessly, they came together. There was a moment when their closeness threatened to overturn all they had just said, but neither one of them let it happen. Ian pulled back, took Joey’s face tenderly between the palms of his hands and kissed her gently, softly.

  With a catch in her throat and tears beginning to gather at the back of her eyes, Joey gave him one last squeeze, turned and fled.

  Chapter 26

  The rocker was even more beautiful than it had looked in the antique store. It had a rich, golden walnut frame and pale green damask upholstery, reminiscent of the drapery fabric in Lady Margaret’s apartment. As soon as the deliverymen left, Joey carried it across the room and placed it between the windows in front of the blank rear wall.

  The wall wouldn’t be blank for long. She had used the first big cheque she’d received following her promotion to order a gas fireplace and this, too, was due to be installed in the next few weeks. It was sort of silly, putting in a fireplace now that spring was right around the corner, but Joey didn’t care. Just the idea of it had filled her with happiness, and now the thought of sitting before a fire in this beautiful old rocker brought a smile to her lips. She would get a cosy rug, maybe an antique oriental, and a table, and another comfortable chair or two. And on the mantel she planned to have built, she would place the framed photograph of herself with Aggie, Viv, Gala, Meg and Lilia.

  Today’s project was to frame a dozen other pictures she had chosen to put up on the wall leading to her kitchen: various photographs of her parents, of her and Sarah at twelve and thirteen, of her grandmother and grandfather at Coney Island, of family gatherings enlivened by cousins she rarely saw any more. She’d bought the frames weeks ago but had been so busy at work that she hadn’t had time to frame them. She could have been working today – she probably should have been working today – but the delivery of the chair had required her to be home between ten and four. So she was allowing herself the first proper day off she’d had in a while, a whole day to potter around doing house things she hadn’t had time for, washing the blue Spode teacups and saucers she’d bought at a street fair in Chelsea, polishing her mother’s old silver, which she had put in storage, thinking she wanted more modern flatware. And, of course, getting those photographs up on the wall.

  She tried not to think of all the things she given away in her zeal to modernise the flat and make it her own. Now, she could barely believe what she had taken to the charity store, not realising that the objects that made her sad were the very objects that had made this place feel like home. Joey was sure her mother would have appreciated the irony of Joey’s recent compulsion to “nest”. For every time she had contemplated putting yet another item in yet another charity box, she had heard in her head her mother’s voice saying “You not getting rid of that, are you?”

  Joey washed the kitchen table and dried it thoroughly, and then spread the photographs out over the surface. She loved mindless tasks like this, jobs which required just a little concentration yet allowed one’s thoughts to wander. She found herself thinking of how many things had changed since her weeks in the Cotswolds.

  She’d taken one week off when she first got back to New York and followed through on her promise to herself to get back in touch with old friends, especially Martina, Susan and Eva. It had been almost unbearably hard to pick up the phone and make those initial calls, but if she’d learned anything from the women at the pond, she’d learned how vital it was to love and be loved by friends. There was nothing saccharine about the bond these women had: they fought, they harboured simmering resentments, they competed with each other, but they were absolutely devoted and loyal, decade after decade. As Aggie had explained it, they decided to be friends and then they continually decided to stay friends, through hell and high water.

  Joey had never thought of friendship that way. She had seen it as something dispensable, something to be enjoyed as long as everyone was getting along, something to let go of when difficulties in the relationships arose. She remembered her mother saying something once when Joey was young, something that had puzzled her at the time. Leah had argued with one of her oldest friends, Sylvia Webster, and they didn’t speak for weeks. Then, out of the blue, she was back in all their lives.

  “I thought you didn’t like her any more,” Joey had commented, bewildered.

  “You’re not really friends,” Leah had explained, “until you’ve had a big fight and come through it.”

  Now, for the first time in her life, she really understood and believed this.

  Joey had been in touch with Martina first, despite having a sense that of the three women, Martina was the likeliest to be chilly. And she was. Her tone was clipped, as she begged off on getting together, claiming to be too busy for the next few weeks, claiming she was travelling for work, which might well have been true. She promised to be back in touch with Joey when things calmed down, but Joey wondered if she would.

  Susan and Eva, on the other hand, had seemed really happy to hear from her. In the past couple of weeks, they had gradually begun to spend time together the way they had in college. They were meeting for drinks after work, catching movies on weekends and hanging out at each other’s apartments like old times. Susan had sworn herself off men for a while, having just broken up with a guy she’d been seeing for a year. And Eva had wandered into the waters of Match.com. They spent hours picking out people for her to “wink” at, arguing over whether she should be more or less specific in filling out her preferences for the sort of people she wanted to date, and helping her to write and rewrite her online profile.

  Joey told them all about Ian, of course. Eva had tried to talk Joey into creating her own profile on Match.com, arguing that there was safety in numbers. They could meet new guys on double dates. But Joey had no interest in meeting anyone, not yet. The memories of Ian were too fresh and too precious. There might come a time when she would be ready to dip her toe into the dating pool again, but she most certainly wasn’t there yet.

  She and Sarah were getting along well, thanks to a weekly Skype session. They hadn’t missed one Sunday. Sometimes they talked for ten or fifteen minutes, but once they talked for two hours. Joey had avoided the subjects of Ian and Lily, but Sarah managed to drop a few details. Lily was back in school.

  “I know,” Joey had said. “Ian told me.”

  “So you guys are in touch?” Sarah asked.

  “Quite a bit actually.”

  “Joey!” exclaimed Sarah, coming a little closer to the computer camera. “Do tell.”

  “Oh, it’s only about work. We never talk about – us – but I do ask him about Lily. How does she look?”

  “I don’t know,” said Sarah. “I haven’t seen her.”

  Joey always asked about the ladies, and Sarah always said that they sent their love. Whether or not this was true, Joey didn’t know, but it could well have been. Aggie and Sarah spoke often. And Sarah had sprung another surprise on Joey during their last phone call.

  “I’m thinking of
coming to New York,” she said tentatively.

  “You are? When?”

  “Whenever you can take some time off to hang out with me.”

  “That would be so great! Will you bring the kids?” Joey had struggled to keep smiling. It was important to appear to be excited, not to display any reservations whatsoever about having four rambunctious children staying in her apartment.

  “Lord, no! I’m leaving them all with Henry. We had one of those turn the page battle royals last weekend. And when we turned the page I said, ‘Oh, and one more thing, darling – I’m going to New York to see Joey.’”

  “What did he say to that?”

  “He said ‘Splendid!’ and then I added ‘by myself!’ I thought I detected a little panic on his face.”

  “Will he be able to handle the kids?”

  “Well, if he can’t, that’s his problem,” Sarah had said.

  Joey set the glass of the frames down on the photographs.

  An hour later, they were on the wall, arranged in a casual pattern just above eye level. Joey stepped back, pleased – barely pausing as her eye fixed on a rogue piece of fluff caught between one of the photographs and its glass. Too bad, she said to herself. And realised that something in her… yes, something had definitely changed.

  She glanced around the room at all the objects that were beginning to make this place feel like home: her mother’s water pitcher filled with the season’s first tulips, the rocker that would soon be her favourite place to sit, at her very own hearthside. She didn’t want a ton of clutter. This was a modern apartment, after all. She’d chosen a sleek granite fireplace that couldn’t have been more modern and understated. But still. It would be a hearth. It would signify home.

  Joey looked up from her drafting table, lost in reverie.

  Tink was fast asleep by the rocker. She had jumped up onto the seat before Joey could stop her, but then had been so freaked out by the fact that the chair rocked that she jumped right down again. Good, Joey had thought. Maybe that would keep her down. But as though Tink could already envision the fire that would soon be burning in the fireplace, she had lain right down in the middle of the area to be covered by a rug.

  Joey had been working on a rendering for one of the Barrie rooms, the “Wendy Room”, a place specially dedicated – in Joey’s mind, at least – to mothers, given that Wendy had been the mother figure for all the “lost boys” in Peter Pan.

  Joey got up, went into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of wine. The name Wendy had supposedly come from Barrie’s interaction with the daughter of his friend, a small child named Margaret Henley. Like so many of the children in his life, Margaret had adored Barrie and had called him “my friendy”. But because she had a lisp, she pronounced it “my fwendy” or just “fwendy”.

  Did Barrie feel like a parent, a “Wendy” to Margaret? Did he grieve when she died at the age of six, as he grieved for the rest of his life for his other lost children, George Llewelyn Davies, killed in World War I, and his younger brother Michael, drowned while at Oxford. There had been so much sadness in Barrie’s life, so many missed connections, so few intimate relationships that came to anything and lasted.

  Would Joey live a life like Barrie’s, she now wondered? What if she never found anyone to share her life with? She didn’t care about getting married, had never been one to dream of the white dress and the first dance. But to be alone for one’s whole life? She didn’t want that! Yet, it happened to a lot of people. The mere thought filled her with dread. She took a sip of wine and a deep breath. She would not go down this road. Being alone was not the worst thing in the world. It was far better than spending one’s entire life with a selfish narcissist like Alex.

  She went over and sat down in her new chair. She loved the way it felt, the way it rocked. She thought back to her time in England, as she often did when she wanted to feel a sense of belonging and of joy. No longer did images of the darker chapters of her time there flash before her eyes, as they had when she’d first returned to New York: of Lily’s accident, the hospital, Lilia having her meltdown at the bottom of Ian’s stairs. She thought of the rolling fields now, of drinking Gala’s cocoa, of the night Ian made them haggis and the afternoon he took her riding. She thought of Lily trying on her Fendi boots, of sitting in Aggie’s library, of drifting around the kitchen at Stanway House, not able quite to believe that its future was partially in her hands.

  Now she thought of the English sky at night, the pinpricks of stars that had made the silent countryside feel like her own private Neverland, full of mysteries and secrets, invisible and sacred, and yet alive with promise and purpose. She could go back of course, but she would never be able to return to those precious weeks in midwinter when everything changed. Suddenly Tink looked up and glanced at Joey.

  “What?” Joey asked.

  Tink was now on her feet, alert and expectant.

  “What? Do you have to go out?”

  Tink began to bark as Joey heard several knocks on her door, and then flew towards it, yelping wildly. Joey crossed the room and peered through her spyhole. She gasped. Her hand began to shake as she slid the chain and turned the two bolts on her locks. She slowly opened the door.

  He was wearing her favourite sweater, the grey Aran with the ravelled sleeves, and holding a bottle – some kind of wine or champagne. He looked at once hopeful and fearful.

  Tears of happiness sprang to Joey’s eyes as she struggled to find words.

  “What are you doing here?” she finally whispered.

  He smiled, his eyes as kind and warm as they always were in her dreams, his windswept cheeks flushed with emotion.

  “What do you think?” Ian said.

  Acknowledgments

  James M. Barrie donated the first trophy called the Peter Pan Cup over a hundred years ago to the winner of the outdoor Christmas Day swimming race held every year in the Serpentine in Hyde Park. Six years ago my London friend Stella Kane took me to the Ladies Swimming Pond in Hampstead Heath and told me the history of it. It was the day of my mother’s funeral in New York City and I was stuck across the ocean. I was sad, I cried and then I was given a bathing suit and invited to swim by one of several very elderly women who were there that day. I met May Allen, and her friends, who had been swimming every day for over fifty years in the outdoor pond. My swim on that heartbreaking but beautiful October afternoon was spiritually uplifting and unforgettable. When I decided to write about the Cotswolds it was because I remembered many years ago when I was taken there by Linda and Michelle Grant. I drove with them on a cold, foggy morning, sitting in the front seat of their car, listening to Gregorian chants on the CD player and occasionally I would see a sheep on the road or a lone rider galloping across a field. I returned to the Cotswolds over twenty years later to discover why I kept thinking about the trip all those years before. Chris Peake, a local tour guide, took me on an all day adventure and brought me to Stanway House, the magnificent estate where J. M. Barrie had been inspired to write Peter Pan. He regaled me with stories, local history and laughter and took me to Snowshill, Moreton-in Marsh, Chipping Campden, Stanton, Winchcombe, Naunton, Temple Guiting, Guiting Power, Broadway, Buckland, Laverton, and Upper and Lower Slaughter. After spending two days wandering around the Cotswolds, I re-discovered the magic and beauty of the place and every village, building and monument that still stands there today.

  This book took over five long years to write and there were many people who supported me, encouraged me and urged me to keep going during difficult times and when I thought I should just burn the pages and never think about this book again. I am indebted for ever to my international agents who simply do not let me give up; they are Anoukh Foerg in Germany, Maru du Montserrat in Spain, Gabriella Ambrosioni in Italy, Donatella D’Ormesson in France, Marianne Schonbach in Holland, Ana Milenkovic and Tamara Vukicevic in Serbia, Flavia Sala and Cristina Purchio in Brazil and Georgina Capel in the United Kingdom. A dream can appear on paper but until a book is ed
ited and published a writer can never really come to life. David Isaacs first discovered me and Aurea Carpenter edited me and Short Books turned me into the writer that I am today. They gave me my voice and my own name, literally. Esther Escoviar of Planeta gave me the entire Spanish speaking audience for my book and I am very thankful to my foreign publishers; Stefanie Heinen of Bastei Lubbe in Germany, Frederic Thibaud of City Editions in France, Elena Vinogradova of Azbooka-Atticus Publishers Group in Russia, Miranda Van Asch of Allen & Unwin in Australia.

  I am so lucky and grateful to “my own ladies of the pond”, my girlfriends in New York City who listened endlessly, always with interest and generosity, to my story for years and years and read each draft and offered critical evaluations that always made sense. Thank you for ever to Doris McGonigle, Bonnie Ruben, Toni Rigopolous, Ana-Lisa Gertner, Toby Sternlieb, Lisa Sternlieb, Anita Mandl, Cathy Grey, Marietta Bottero, Anastasia Portnoy and Eileen Johnson. Thank you so much to my friend, Marie Therese Wenger, who took time to photograph my official portrait even though we were on vacation in Barcelona and to Linda Henrich for managing my business so I can write. And last but never least, my deepest gratitude to my husband and life partner, Gil Alicea, who has an amazing ear and the truest compass for literature and life. His love and the home he has made for me allow me to wander to the farthest destinations on the globe and to those in my mind, to experiment, to create, to be free and to disappear sometimes, because he is always there waiting for me to return.