Swimming Pool Sunday

On a shimmeringly hot Sunday in May, the Delaneys open their pool to all the village for charity. Louise is there with her daughters Amelia and Katie – and glaring at her resentfully is her estranged husband Barnaby. This is supposed to be his day with the girls – but Louise ignores his angry glowers.

While the children splash and shriek in the cool, blue waters, she lies blissfully back in the sun and dreams of Cassian, the charismatic new lawyer in her life. The day seems perfect.

But suddenly the bliss is shattered, as tragedy strikes. And the consequences of a terrible accident develop into a drama of recriminations, jealousy and legal power-play, in which Louise finds herself pulled in three directions at once. Friendships crumble, the village is split, and the needs of a child become secondary to the dangerous contest in which the grown-ups are engaged.

Madeleine Wickham was born in London and published her first novel,
The Tennis Party
, while working as a financial journalist. Under the name of Sophie Kinsella she is the author of many number one bestselling novels including the
Shopaholic
series, now filmed as
Confessions of a Shopaholic
. She lives in London with her husband and children.

For more information on Sophie Kinsella and her books, visit her website at
www.sophiekinsella.co.uk

You can also join Sophie on her official Facebook fan page at
www.facebook.com/SophieKinsellaOfficial

Madeleine Wickham novels:

Sophie Kinsella novels: THE SECRET DREAMWORLD OF A SHOPAHOLIC (also published as CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC)

SHOPAHOLIC & SISTER

SHOPAHOLIC & BABY

CAN YOU KEEP A SECRET?

REMEMBER ME?

Madeleine Wickham

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Epub ISBN 9781446423998

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SWIMMING POOL SUNDAY
A BLACK SWAN BOOK : 9780552772259

First publication in Great Britain
Black Swan edition published 1997

Copyright © Madeleine Wickham 1997

Madeleine Wickham has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Cover

About the Book

Note from the Author

About the Author

Also by Madeleine Wickham

Title

Copyright

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

For Gemma and Abigail

I am grateful to Dr Stephane Duckett of The Children’s Trust, Tadworth, and to Anna Lordon, for their expert advice.

It was only May, and it was only ten o’clock in the morning. But already the sun was shining hotly, and the grass in the garden sprang warm and dry underfoot, and the breeze under Katie’s cotton dress felt friendly and caressing. Katie gave a little wriggle. She felt like doing some ballet jumps, or rolling down the slope of the lawn until she landed in a heap at the bottom. But instead she had to stand, still as a rock, with elastic round her legs stretched so tightly it was going to give her red marks. She bent down and shifted the elastic slightly.

‘Katie!’ Amelia, who had been about to jump, stopped, and regarded her crossly. ‘You mustn’t move!’

‘It hurts! It’s too tight!’ Katie bent her head round until she could catch a glimpse of the backs of her calves. She spotted a small pink line. ‘Look! It’s making marks on my skin!’

‘Well, stand nearer the chair, then. But keep the elastic tight.’ Katie gave a melodramatic sigh and shuffled nearer the chair.

They were playing with a chair because you needed three people for French skipping, and there were only two of them. Sometimes Mummy played with them, but today she was too busy, and had got cross when they asked. So they’d had to drag a chair out into the garden, and thread the elastic round its legs, just like human legs. Now it stretched, two white springy lines, a few inches above the grass. The very sight of it filled Katie
with an excited anticipation. She
loved
French skipping. They played it in every single break at school; during lessons she would often put her hand into her pocket and check that the tangled mass of elastic was still safely there.

‘Right.’ Amelia sounded businesslike. She began to jump efficiently over the taut elastic, biting her lip, and planting her feet carefully in exactly the right places. ‘Jingle, jangle, centre, spangle,’ she chanted. ‘Jingle, jangle, out.’ She jumped out without even touching the elastic.

‘My go,’ said Katie hopefully.

‘No it isn’t,’ retorted Amelia. ‘Don’t you know how to play French skipping?’

‘In my class,’ said Katie, raising her eyebrows expressively, ‘we play so that everybody has one go, and then it’s the next person. Mrs Tully said that’s the fairest way.’ Amelia wasn’t impressed.

‘That’s just for little ones,’ she said. ‘We play until the person makes a mistake.’

‘But you’ll never make a mistake!’ cried Katie. She scratched the place on her leg where the elastic had been too tight.

‘Yes I will, I expect,’ said Amelia kindly. ‘And anyway,’ she added, ‘at least you know it’s your turn next; I don’t think the chair will want to play.’ Katie looked at the chair, standing benignly on the grass. She giggled.

‘We could ask it,’ she began. But Amelia had started jumping again.

‘Jingle, jangle, centre, spangle, jingle, jangle, out.’

They had been sent out to play in the garden until their father came to pick them up. Nobody could quite remember what time he’d said he was coming. Amelia thought it was ten, and their mother thought it was ten-thirty, and Katie had been convinced it was quarter to nine, like school, and had actually stood by the door,
ready to go, until nine o’clock had come and gone and it was obvious he was coming later.

Amelia had suggested, sensibly, that Mummy should ring Daddy and ask him. But for some reason she didn’t want to. She never wanted to ring Daddy. It was always Daddy who rang. He’d rung during the week, and talked to Mummy, and said he was going to take the girls fishing this Sunday. Fishing! Katie had never even
been
fishing. They’d both got very excited and gone down into the cellar and brought up all the nets and buckets they could find. Amelia actually had a fishing-rod that Grandfather had given her, and she’d generously said that Katie could hold it with her if she wanted. Mummy had washed out two jamjars for them, in case there was anything small that they wanted to bring home, and they’d chosen a chocolate bar each as a special treat for their packed lunch.

But all of them, even Mummy, had forgotten that this Sunday was Swimming Day at the Delaneys’ house. They
couldn’t
miss the Swimming Day. Everyone was going from the village; even people who didn’t really like swimming. Amelia briefly wondered what it must be like, to be a person who didn’t like swimming. She simply couldn’t imagine it. Everyone she knew liked swimming: her, Katie, Mummy, even Daddy when he was really hot.

They’d only remembered about the Swimming Day yesterday, when they bumped into Mrs Delaney at the shops, and she asked if they were coming, and Mummy said that she thought this year, unfortunately, the girls would have to miss it. Katie had nearly started crying right there in the street. Amelia was more grown up than that, but as soon as they were in the car, she’d asked in a desperate voice, ‘Couldn’t we go to the Swimming Day tomorrow and go fishing another time?’ At first Mummy had said no, of course not, in an angry voice. Then, when they got home, she’d said no, but it really was a
pity. Then, later, she’d said maybe Daddy wouldn’t mind. And last night, as she tucked them into bed, she’d said that as soon as Daddy arrived, she would ask him, and she thought he was sure to agree.

‘Jingle, jangle,
out.
’ Amelia thumped heavily onto the grass. ‘I’m boiling,’ she added.