Swimming Upstream (28 page)

She staggered past me with her arms full of bags
and opened the front door.

I wiped my eyes and followed her with her suitcase. As
Catherine walked down the path she said something to Martin, and he got out of
the car and came to the front door and took her suitcase from me. I tried to
look him in the eye but he glanced away. He avoided looking at me until
Catherine was in the car. And then he turned, as he drove away, and he looked
directly at me, and he smiled.

They buried Uncle Silbert two weeks later, a sunny Tuesday
morning in late June, “they” being the vicar and a taciturn but ostentatious
middle-aged man whom I suspected to be his grandson. He was dressed in a long
suede jacket with a fur collar, and had a portly stomach and a long shiny black
car. I thought his car was the hearse when it first arrived but that came along
afterwards, rolling reverently over the gravel towards us. When it stopped he
got out and stood by the car door and waited without saying a word, and it
seemed as if there was going to be no-one else; so we three girls led the way
inside, followed awkwardly by the small crowd in the porch.

All in all there were fewer than a dozen people: us,
a handful of neighbours, two district nurses, and the man in the suede jacket,
who had to keep going outside to answer his mobile phone. It would have been
more if you'd counted the six pallbearers but they didn't stay for the service.
I found myself feeling glad for the first time that Uncle Silbert had died with
nothing; nothing, at least, that his family could get their undeserving hands
on. I hoped that the funeral had been expensive.

We took the front row and stood and watched as
they lowered the coffin down solemnly onto the empty grating before the altar.
The nurses were in the middle somewhere behind us, the neighbours huddled
apologetically into a pew at the back, mumbling into their prayer books. Shelley,
Zara, and I sang out loudly, to compensate, our voices echoing plaintively
around the empty chapel.

When the service was over we tramped over the
springy mounds of grass that covered the graveyard and watched as they lowered
the coffin into the ground. Zara was standing next to me, crying softly, while
the vicar talked a lot about Jesus and only very abstractly about Silbert and
it even made me wonder for a split second if they'd got the right person, if
anyone really knew who it was laying there anonymously in the coffin in the
ground.

“I can't remember what he looks like,” I burst out
in a loud whisper to Zara, then looked up, worried that I had interrupted the
vicar's monologue. I felt a sudden surge of fear, fear that he would slip away
and I'd make myself forget him and that then I wouldn't be able to grieve again
for another twenty years.

I felt Zara slip her hand into mine. “Just close
your eyes,” she whispered.

So I did. I stood there holding Zara’s hand and
wobbling slightly on the uneven ground, the brim of my hat shading my face from
the already warm morning sun. I closed my eyes and then I saw him quite
clearly, lying there with his pale face and his thin lips and his aquiline
nose, dressed in Zara's red jumper with his bony arms sticking out at the
sleeves.

When I opened my eyes again, Tim was standing
opposite. He was wearing a long dark coat and black boots despite the heat and
his head was bent down. It struck me how handsome he looked, like some hero
from a period drama. Sensing my eyes on him, maybe, he glanced up briefly and I
smiled at him. He smiled back and winked at me, and I felt such a warm glow
inside that in that moment I wondered if I loved him, maybe, after all. Tim’s
eyes continued to meet mine. I blushed and looked back down again into the
ground.

“...and Jesus said unto them,” said the vicar, “this
is the gateway to heaven. And therein will you find your salvation.”

Then he added something about holy washing and I
had to let go of Zara's hand and turn away under the pretence of a coughing
fit, but really I was trying to stop myself from laughing because all I could
see when I closed my eyes was a row of mine and Catherine's knickers hanging
over a radiator in some heavenly bathroom, glowing ethereally in the
everlasting light - which in turn triggered a knot of pain in my chest, because
Catherine wasn’t here, and I was pretty certain that I would never see her
underwear draped over the towel rail in my bathroom again. Heaven only knew if
I would ever see her again, at all.

When the service was over, Zara and Shelley
stopped to talk to the vicar and I headed off with Tim through the gravestones
and through the trees until we reached a stile crossing a fence into the car
park beyond. My high heels were sinking into the soft turf. We stopped for a
moment and I pulled off each shoe in turn, and scraped off the moss and earth
with a finger.

“Here,” said Tim, as I wobbled, and offered me his
arm. I grabbed hold of the sleeve of his coat, and Tim steadied me, with an arm
around my waist. I glanced back briefly towards the church entrance where the
girls were waiting. Zara was standing on the path, shading her eyes with her
hands. She nodded towards the car park, then pointed to the church and she and
Shelley wandered off up the path towards the vestry.

Tim was climbing over the stile, his coat sweeping
the fence.

“Sit a minute,” he said, pulling me down next to
him on the stile. We sat silently for a moment, watching as Zara and Shelley
disappeared round the corner.

“Zara seems well, given what’s happened,” I
commented. “I thought this might set her back, losing Uncle Silbert. But it
doesn’t seem to have done.”

“She’s been good,” said Tim. “She seems to be on
the mend.”

“She certainly looks happy.”

“How about you? Are you okay?” asked Tim.

“Not really,” I said. “I feel like some kind of
rug has been pulled from underneath me. Everything’s falling apart.”

Tim took my hand and held it tight. “You mean
Uncle Silbert?”

“Partly, yes.”

I paused. And then I told him about Martin. I
wasn’t sure how he would react, but I owed him an explanation, or something. Or
maybe I just needed to connect with him, with my remaining friends. I needed to
not feel so alone. But when I’d told him, Tim looked hurt and angry, and he let
go of my hand. I realised that I’d done the wrong thing and isolated him
instead.

“The bastard,” he said.

“It’s really hurt Catherine. And now she’s gone.”

“She’ll get over it,” he said.

“I doubt it.”

Tim stared away up into the trees. I knew that he
was angry with me as well as Martin. I knew that he felt betrayed. I knew that
he was secretly wondering whether I really wanted Martin. I now regretted
having told him.

“I never wanted it to happen,” I said. “If that’s
what you’re thinking. I knew he liked me, it’s true, I could sense that. But it
was all one way. I swear. And even if it wasn’t, do you seriously think I would
have risked hurting Catherine, risked my friendship with her? Apart from Zara,
she was the best friend I ever had.”

“I’d like to punch his face in,” said Tim.

I sighed. Tim was no different from any other
bloke in this respect. His pride was hurt because he felt that I was his. And
that was all that he could think about.

Tim sat and looked at the church in silence. I
turned away and put my head in my hands.

“It’s not just about him,” I said. “It’s triggered
things. Other things. I just can’t stop feeling frightened. I feel like
something terrible is about to happen, every minute of the day.”

Tim didn’t say anything for a moment. Then he
said, “Let me look after you.”

I swallowed hard and wiped my eyes on the back of
my hand. Tim put his hands on my shoulders and turned me round to face him. “I
love you Lizzie,” he said. “I've loved you from the very first moment I set
eyes on you.”

I looked up at him and smiled, briefly. For a few
moments we just sat there, the air around us warm and still, the sweet, sickly
smell of cow parsley, clover and knapweed mingling and rising up from the
hedgerows.

Then Tim said, quietly, so that I almost didn't
hear him, “But you don't love me.”

I looked up again. “I do ...” I began, but I was
too slow.

Tim got up and looked me squarely in the eye. I
could see he was angry again.

“Bullshit,” he said, and jumped off the fence and
into the car park.

“Tim!” I yelled after
him, but he was gone.

Back at the house we sat in the living room, where we
ordinarily never sat, and surveyed each other in gloomy silence. It was a big
room. There were a couple of paintings propped up on the floor against the wall
and dustsheets over the furniture. The room, which was cold and never got
enough light anyway, was suitably funereal. It looked like the front room in an
American horror movie.

Zara kept getting up and making tea. Every time she
got up and went out to the kitchen I jumped, thinking there had been a knock on
the door and that she was going to answer it.

“He's got a key,” said Shelley, after a while.

“I know,” I said. “I just feel bad, that’s all.”

Zara came back in with the teapot.

“He'll come back,” said Shelley. “When he's ready.”

Zara put down the teapot and stared at her, her
tear-stained face illuminated with hope.

“Do you really think so?” she said in a whisper.

“She doesn't mean Uncle Silbert,” I told her. “She's
talking about Tim.”

“Oh,” said Zara. “I see.” She sat by the window
and stared out onto the front lawn. “I can't believe he's gone,” she said.

“Who are we talking about now?” asked Shelley.

“Uncle Silbert,” I offered. “And maybe he will.
That’s what Catherine would say. Maybe he’s here with us now.”

“He is,” said Zara. “I know it. I can feel him
around us.”

“You’re spinning me out now,” said Shelley. “I’ll
go and make some more tea.”

When Shelley was out of earshot Zara grinned and
said, “I’ve got something to tell you.”

I felt something tighten inside my chest, a
fluttering of my heart. I seemed to have been in this semi-permanent state of
anxiety since the day after the party, since Uncle Silbert died. It felt as
though I was waiting for something bad to happen at every turn.

“What is it?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

“You bet,” said Zara. “I’m more than okay.”

“More than okay?” I said. “Doesn’t that mean “not
okay”, for you?”

“No,” laughed Zara. “It doesn’t. It means I’m
pregnant.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“I’m certain. I’ve been to the doctor. I thought
it was just what with being ill and everything that I was so late. It didn’t
even occur to me that that was what it was. But the doctor confirmed it. I’m
ten weeks gone.”

“Oh my God! That’s… incredible.”

“I know.” Zara grinned happily.

I hesitated. “So … well, you’re having it?”

“Of course I’m having it Lizzie!” Zara looked at me
as if I was stupid. “This is what I’ve always wanted, all my life! You know
that. You know I always regretted not having the baby before, Doug’s baby. Now
I’ve got a chance to get over that.”

“But… what did the doctor say?”

“He said I’m having a baby.” Zara was starting to
look cross.

“But… what about the illness? And the drugs?”

“He’s taken me off the mood stabiliser and put me
on a different anti-depressant.”

“So, the doctor said it’s okay?”

“Yes.”

“I mean did he say you should have it?”

Zara hesitated. “Yes. Of course. You don’t kill a
baby just because you’re depressed.”

“I know that. But you weren’t just depressed,
Zara, you were psychotic.”

“It’s my choice. He said it was my choice.”

“But what did he advise?”

Zara was silent. I looked across at her, sitting
curled up in the armchair in the corner, her legs underneath her, her hands in
her lap and her golden hair tumbling over her shoulders. She looked calm and
peaceful, more so than I’d seen her in a long time. “He said it wasn’t going to
be easy,” she admitted. “But that it was my choice.”

I sighed. “Well, of course. That’s true.”

“Life changes direction,” said Zara. “You just
have to go with it. You have to “Feel the Fear and do it anyway””.

I said, “That book’s not for people with manic
depression, Zara.”

Zara grinned back at me and we both burst out
laughing.

“See? I’m well now,” said Zara. “I
feel
well. I’ll be fine.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Okay.” I paused. “Are you going to tell James?” I
asked her. “I assume it’s his?”

“No. I mean, yes, it’s his. But I’m not going to
tell him. He doesn’t want me. And I can tell you right now, he won’t want the
baby. He’ll think it’s a trap. And he’ll pressure me to get rid of it. Like
Doug did. I’m not having that.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Oh yes I do. He’s young. He’s ambitious. He
doesn’t want a family. And if he did, he certainly wouldn’t want a baby with
me. Not with my genes. The last time I saw him he looked at me like I was
crazy.”

“You were,” I smiled. “A bit.”

Zara smiled. “I know. But I’m not any more. My
nurse said that I may not have another episode for years.”

“Was that really what she said?”

“Okay. She said I could also have one again next
week.”

“And coming off the medication?”

“She said that it was a possibility that the
pregnancy hormones would keep me “buoyant””.

“But?”

“But that I could get ill again.”

“So, about James… well, I just thought, if you get
ill again then… maybe you could do with the help.”

“No. He won’t help. He won’t want it.” Zara’s face
suddenly lit up. “Hey, though. Here’s an idea. You could help me. We could do
it together. Didn’t you say that you’d have to move out of Lynne’s at some
point? You could move in here, have Clare’s room. We could bring it up
together!”