Swimming Upstream (29 page)

As Zara turned away from the window to face me her
golden hair caught the light and glowed like a buttercup and for a second I
could see her aura spread out all around her. I watched her little chin jut out
and her big blue eyes wrinkle up the way they did whenever she asked a
question. I thought about Tim. And I thought about how safe and secure it would
be, the four of us living here like a family, with Zara’s baby.

And then I thought about Larsen, about Catherine,
and Uncle Silbert and the fear came creeping back again. It was like a sick
feeling that just kept rising up in my chest like bile, and never really going
away. But I couldn't talk about how I was feeling because I knew that Zara
would try and reassure me, and there was simply nothing anyone could say to
make it go away. So I sat there on the sofa in the dusky living room which
smelled of joss sticks and dust and Zara's oil paints which were spread out
across the table, and I just smiled and said, “Maybe we could,” because I
didn't know how to tell anyone that I was terrified that they’d gone, Larsen,
Catherine, Uncle Silbert, and that it could happen to anyone at any time; that
it could happen to me, and to Zara and to Tim too, and that eventually it
would, to all of us; it would happen to all the people that you cared about and
the more you cared the worse it would be, when one day they just weren't there
any more.

“Lizzie? So what do you think?”

“It sounds like a plan,” I said. “But quite a big
one. Let me think about it for a bit.”

“Okay, okay,” Zara laughed.

I stood up and looked round the room. “You're
painting. Those are yours,” I said to Zara, realising suddenly. “You're
painting again. That's what the dustsheets are for. “

Zara grinned at me coyly. “Well ... I'm giving it
a go.”

I threw a cushion across the room at her.

“Okay, okay,” she smiled. “I'm painting again.”

“These are really good,” I said, getting up and
taking a closer look at the ones against the wall. They were all of flowers
again, but they were different from the still-lifes I'd seen in her room
before. These were abstracts, and really atmospheric. There was one of a row of
daffodils on a hill, with a big white cloud floating up above.

“Wordsworth,” said Zara. “I wandered lonely as
cloud…”. I'm experimenting with poems about flowers.”

“That's great. Really great.” I picked up a gloomy
canvas with a single blood red velvety rose, wilting against a black
background.

“William Blake?” I smiled. “Oh rose, thou art
sick…”

“Yes!” said Zara, excitedly. “That’s it!”

I turned to face her. “Maybe this
is
the
right thing for you,” I said. “You seem really happy.”

“I am,” said Zara. “I
really am.”

I caught the tube home. When I got to Baker Street it was
already dark. I hurried through the empty back streets, glancing over my
shoulder all the while. I’d never been nervous about walking home on my own
late at night, and yet tonight I was alert to every sight, every stranger,
every sound. I couldn’t shake off the feeling of fear and vulnerability that
had been with me all day.

As I reached my front door, someone moved out of
the shadows and up the steps behind me. I stifled a scream then realised who it
was.

“Oh Tim,” I gasped. “It’s you.

Tim put his arms round me. “Who did you think it
was?”

“It doesn't matter,” I said. “Come on in.”

Tim stood in my kitchen in his long black coat and
boots while I made hot chocolate for us both. He watched me as I opened
cupboards and moved around fetching mugs and teaspoons from the sink. I spotted
one or two bits of broken plastic that Zara had missed, on the floor below the
cooker. As I bent down to pick them up, I had to steady myself with one hand on
the floor.

“You're shaking,” Tim observed.

“I know. But I'm okay, honest.”

Tim looked at me suspiciously. I handed him a mug
and he followed me into the living room.

He took off his coat and sat down. “I'm sorry
about today,” he said. “What I said.”

“What did you say?” I smiled.

Tim put down his mug and smiled back at me. “Are
you sure you haven't got anything stronger?”

I got up and fetched two glasses and a bottle of
wine from the kitchen.

When I returned, Tim was standing by the window
with his back to me, misting up the glass with his breath. I stood and looked
at him for a moment, at the familiar tall lean back, the muscled forearms, the
black curls at the nape of his neck. I walked up behind him and put my arms
around him.

“You're wrong,” I whispered. “I do love you, you
know.”

“But not in the right way,” said Tim.

“I don't know if I can love anyone in that way
right now,” I told him. “There's too much I have to sort out.”

“Is that an excuse?”

I shook my head. “This isn't about you, Tim, this
is about me. I've always depended on someone else for my happiness, and blamed
them for my misery. I need to take control of my own life. I need to know I can
survive on my own.”

“No man is an island,” said Tim.

“I know that. And that's true. But... this may
sound crazy, but I don't feel I can be really free to let anyone love me properly
until I don't need them to anymore.”

Tim turned to face me. “I can't help it,” he said.
“I still want you.”

I sighed. “I don't know Tim. I don't know if I can
promise you anything.”

“It doesn't matter,” he
said and put his arms round me. And as I kissed him and as he unbuttoned my
blouse I wondered if I were the one that was crazy and if I was giving up the
securest thing I'd ever had for the freedom to face the world alone.

The radio was playing softly in the background. Tim was
making a rollup with one hand, his other arm round me. He lit it and settled
back against the pillows. I leaned forward and kissed him on the stomach.

“What did you think of the funeral?” I asked him.

“Gateway to heaven,” he said disdainfully. “Looked
like a hole in the ground to me.”

I didn't say anything. “When I go,” he continued, “I
want them to chuck me in the sea.” He took a puff of his rollup. I craved a
puff myself, but took a deep breath instead

“Not a bad place to end up,” I agreed. “In the
sea, your soul free and floating around with all the fish.”

“Lizzie, what happened to your father?” asked Tim.
He asked this hesitantly, as people always did, because they weren't sure that
they should be asking. I only minded that they might not really want to know.

“He died,” I said. “He was hit by a car. I was six.
He collapsed, as he was crossing the road, and a car hit him. I was there
outside our house, waiting for him on the pavement. I saw it happen.”

“Oh God,” said Tim. “I'm sorry. You've never
really mentioned him before.” He squeezed my hand.

I said, “I suppose the subject just never came up.
Until you asked, that is. I’ve never known how to talk about it without
worrying that I’m upsetting someone else.”

“Someone
else
?”

I nodded. “No-one ever seemed to want to talk to
me about it. It’s as if they think you’re going to crack up if they do. I just
got used to shutting up about it. Until I met Catherine and Zara, that is. That’s
the first time anyone wanted to talk about me. Before that… well, I got attracted
to other people's problems and tried to solve them instead. It’s like some kind
of self-nurturing by proxy. But it doesn’t really work.”

Tim nodded, so I carried on.

“It’s like everyone else’s pain was always out
there needing attention. You seek out people who are the same as you, the
walking wounded, because that’s what you know, what you’re comfortable with. But
then they are so wounded too that they can never give you what you need. Larsen's
father left when he was six, the same age as I was when I lost mine. When I told
him about my father he dismissed it. Told me that having a dead father was
preferable to having an absent one, in that a dead one was rejection only by
default. I accepted what he said; I could see his point. But in the end it
doesn't really matter who does the leaving. You still have to learn to live
without them just the same. And if that's too painful ...”

“What?”

“You just convince yourself you never cared about
them in the first place. Forget them. Replace them. Only, of course, that
doesn't quite work. Not in the end, because there'll always be one day when you
end up alone, when you have to face your ghosts.”

Tim looked up. “Is that what’s happening now?”

“I think so. Everything’s started coming back to
me. Things that I had forgotten. Or if I did remember, it was just in a
factual, anecdotal way. I’d lost the associated feelings. I could remember
standing outside our house, the trees that lined the street, the sun shining
down, even the dress that I was wearing that day, my favourite pink dress. But
I couldn’t remember how frightened I was when the ambulance came, or what
happened in the days and weeks that followed. It’s a bit like freeze framing
scenes from a movie with no sound. “

“So what did happen, to you, I mean, when your dad
collapsed?”

“A neighbour called an ambulance, and I stood
there on the pavement and watched as they were both taken away.”

“Both?”

“My mother went with him. Pete, my brother, was at
school. I was taken into a neighbour’s house. Then the police came and told me
my dad was dead and my mum was staying at the hospital. They said she had had
an asthma attack. She never really told me what happened. I stayed at the
neighbour’s house for a few days with Pete. And then my mum came and took us
home. But it wasn’t mentioned, wasn’t talked about. I suppose my mother just
couldn’t.”

“So how did it feel, losing your dad like that?”

“Frightening. I know that we had to move. We
couldn’t stay in the house, my mother told me that later. But all I remember at
the time is we left suddenly with no warning. I still can’t remember anything
much about it. Except feeling frightened. The whole time. Feeling… just scared.
Pretty much what I’m feeling now, as it happens. I think my dad dying so suddenly
like that… I think I must have thought that it was going to happen to my
mother, and then to me too. I’ve always had these nightmares, about ghosts. I
think that’s what they were about. Death. Ghosts coming to claim me, just like
they claimed my dad.”

Tim hugged me to him. “That makes sense.”

“But that wasn’t the end of it. My mother then met
the man who became my step-dad. He hated us, me and Pete. His pleasure came
from making us unhappy. It wasn’t just the random, unpredictable violence, the
times he hit us, pushed us from behind, so that we stumbled and fell, the times
he kicked us up the backside, humiliated us, smacked our heads into walls….”
Tim looked shocked, aghast. “It was the bullying, the teasing, the way he
belittled us, called us names. It just erodes your self-confidence. Eats at the
essence of you. It was as if he was trying to destroy me as a person. If I
complained, tried to tell my mother, he would just say I was weak, couldn’t
take a joke. My mum couldn’t cope with it, any of it. Nobody talked about what
was going on. I think Pete felt so humiliated and angry that he didn’t want an
ally in me; he just alienated himself from the whole family. Who could blame
him? Nobody could acknowledge it. But that made it even more isolating. Sometimes
I would watch my mother, I would know she wasn’t happy, and I would wonder if
she would have it in her to leave. But then along came Keri. So we stayed. I
just went to school to get away. Then Pete left, went to live with friends, and
I realised that I could do the same. On my sixteenth birthday I packed my bags
and left home.”

Tim was silent, taking it all in. He held me
tighter. “What a bastard,” he said.

“I know,” I agreed. “But it wasn’t until Martin
came along that I allowed myself to remember, relive it. How bad it had all
been, you know? It’s not just the actual violence. It’s living with that
permanent threat of it hanging in the air; that’s worse in so many ways. I
spent most of my childhood treading on eggshells, trying not to upset him,
trying to make him like me. It’s like those people you hear about who are
kidnapped and then start to identify with their kidnappers. Violence, the
threat of it - it makes you stop being yourself and start being what you think
they want you to be.”

“You were just a kid,” said Tim, shaking his head.
“I want to kill him.”

I nodded. “I know Pete felt that way. For a long
time. Probably still does. He did the right thing, allowed himself to be angry,
to hate him. Me, I just adapted, tried to be good, blamed myself when I wasn’t,
when I made a mistake, got things wrong. My mother left him eventually. And I
escaped it all, in the end, before then. I moved in with my boyfriend, David. I
lived with him and his family for three years and realised for the first time
what a normal family was like. Then I got a grant and went away to college and
had the confidence to leave David behind. But the past crept back in. I was
scared of being alone, facing myself. Until I met Larsen that was, and then it
felt like I had finally found what I had always been looking for. That bond. That
indescribable closeness. The thing that I had never had with a man, with a
father, the thing that I had been missing all my life. That person who loved me
so deeply, so passionately that he could never let me out of his sight. We were
inseparable from the very start. It felt as though he was what had been missing
all my life.”

Tim took his arm from round my shoulder. “So why
did it end. With Larsen, I mean?” He picked up his Rizla papers and started to
roll another cigarette.

“I think that what attracted us to each other was
the thing that destroyed us in the end: we needed each other too much, to fill
a void. We were literally each other’s “other half” when what we needed to be
was whole. Neither of us had faced our ghosts.”