A Heart Bent Out of Shape (9 page)

‘I thought you were in Geneva,’ cried Hadley.

‘I was, but I came back early.’

Hadley waited for more, but Kristina clapped her hands together, dismissively.

‘I haven’t swum for ages,’ she said, ‘I could do with a chance to clear my head. You don’t mind hanging on, do you?’

Hadley perched on one of the seats in the hallway. Five, then ten minutes passed. She wandered outside and leant on the wall. Below her the city glittered. She thought ahead to the feeling of emerging from the pool into the night air, hair still damp at the nape of her neck, her cheeks slapped by the cold. Swimming in winter was something she never did at home.

Kristina strolled through the door and Hadley turned at the sound of her approach. She was wearing a sports top and her hair was slicked back into a high ponytail. Her neat rucksack gave her a buoyant look.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ she said, ‘I’m here now.’

Hadley felt like she hadn’t seen much of her in the last few days. She said so, and Kristina sighed dramatically.

‘Oh Hadley, tell me about it. I’m being pulled in just about every possible direction at the moment.’

Hadley bit down a smile. ‘But you sort of like it, don’t you? In a weird way?’

‘Is that what you think?’

‘I don’t know. Maybe. A bit.’

‘Hadley, I’m not a drama queen.’

‘Well . . .’

‘Am I? Am I a drama queen? Oh God, that’s just horrific if I am. I hate those people. Hadley, please, tell me I’m not.’

She grabbed her hand and pulled on it, squeezing all of Hadley’s fingers. Hadley laughed and shook her off.

‘Not in a bad way,’ she said.

‘Are you fed up of hearing about Jacques?’

‘I don’t really hear about him so much any more, you’re with him so often these days.’

‘Am I?’

‘It seems like ever since you told me about him, you’ve started seeing him more than before.’

‘Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong. It just feels like that to you because you know where I go now, that’s the difference. All those times you thought I was so studious, slipping off to the library in search of some strange art history book . . .’

‘I guess I just miss you a little bit, that’s all.’

‘Oh Hadley, but I haven’t gone anywhere. Not really.’ She hesitated. ‘Actually that’s not true. I have gone somewhere. I’m in a very big black hole. But there’s a light right at the bottom of it. And as long as there’s that light, I don’t want to climb out.’

‘I don’t even know what that means,’ said Hadley.

Kristina laughed hysterically. ‘God, and you think I do?’

They walked side by side, not talking for the moment. It was so cold that Hadley felt her lips tightening. Beneath their feet the pavement glistened with night-time frost.

‘How old is Jacques?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Older than us.’

‘What’s that like?’

‘It’s like . . . nothing. It’s not even a factor.’

Hadley nodded. ‘I can see that,’ she said, her voice more wistful than she’d intended, ‘the right person’s the right person. It doesn’t matter how old they are, does it?’

Kristina looked at her indulgently. ‘Hadley, listen, there’s a cute guy called Max in my Art History class. Maybe you’d like him.’

‘You don’t have to matchmake me, Kristina.’

‘No, but wouldn’t you like there to be someone?’

Hadley pushed her hands deeper into the pockets of her coat. She shivered.

‘Or is there someone already? Someone you’re not telling me about?’

‘No,’ said Hadley, ‘not even close.’

‘You’re blushing,’ said Kristina.

‘That’s not blushing, that’s my cheeks freezing off. Yours are the same.’

Kristina shook her head. ‘Whoever it is, you should just go for it. Don’t ask too many questions, just dive right in. I know I complain about what I have with Jacques, but when I’m with him, if I just close my mind to everything else, he makes me so happy, Hadley.’

‘Eyes wide shut,’ Hadley said.

Kristina yelped with laughter. ‘Exactly that. What do people say, just hold on tight and enjoy the ride? Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with that, you know.’

The pool was as busy as it always was. There was the crowded sound of splashing and calling and an indefinable hum that pervaded everything. Hadley wore goggles and a cap that hid her hair and felt boyish in her black bikini. She slipped into the water and began her fast lengths of crawl, slick as an eel. Kristina took a long time to emerge from the changing room but when she did she dazzled in a fuchsia-pink one-piece that made Hadley feel like she was wearing PE kit. From the deep end Kristina paused, checked her space, then executed a perfect dive, emerging from beneath the water almost halfway across the pool. Hadley gaped, noticing the polo-shirted life guard was doing the same.

She didn’t see Joel coming. She was dawdling at the shallow end, catching her breath, when he tapped her on the arm. She turned around, thinking it was Kristina.

‘You again,’ he said.

Joel looked different in the water. His hair was boot-polish black and shining wet and his skin was deep brown. He had a sliver-thin scar across his right shoulder.

‘Hello,’ she said.

He was so close to her, and she was grateful that they weren’t standing on the slippery poolside tiles, their near-nudity entirely visible. She folded her arms across her front.

‘So you’re a swimmer, huh?’ he said.

‘Not really. More of a splasher.’

‘No, I saw you do a couple of lengths back there; you’re a swimmer.’

‘I never get the breathing right, though,’ said Hadley. She exhaled slowly. ‘See, I’m breathless.’ She was conscious of her chest rising and falling as she said it.

‘So this is where the bright young things hang out, is it? The municipal baths, the favoured haunt of the Lausanne literary set.’

‘Are you including yourself in that?’

‘Young-ish things, anyway. And my trunks are bright.’

‘It’s the stench of chlorine, and the floating sticking plasters – we come for the ambiance, really.’

He laughed, and his hand rubbed at his chin, scratching for the non-existent beard again.

‘By springtime we’ll be swimming in the lake,’ he said, ‘a helluva lot more scenic than this place.’

‘I can’t think of anything more beautiful than that,’ she said, ‘surrounded by mountains, the sky above. Totally undisturbed.’

‘Oh,’ said Joel, ‘I can take a hint.’

He turned to go but Hadley caught his arm. For the briefest moment her fingers brushed the hardness of his shoulder.

‘No,’ she said, laughing out her embarrassment at the sudden touch, ‘I didn’t mean that. Only that I love the way we’re all here together, listen to how
noisy
it is, and yet we’re completely separate and in our own worlds.’

She glanced away, and noticed Kristina on the other side of the pool. She was preparing to dive again. She stood, oblivious of the eyes on her, then arced gracefully, with barely a splash as she entered the water.

‘So you came here on your own?’ he said.

‘Oh, my friend’s somewhere here,’ said Hadley, waving her hand.

‘Another Brit?’

‘Danish.’

‘Have you made many Swiss friends yet?’

‘I’d like to, but not really, not yet. You?’

‘The staff at the Institute seem to keep themselves to themselves. Although Caroline Dubois hosted a dinner party the other night.’

‘How was it?’ said Hadley.

‘Very chic.’

Hadley nodded, wondering if anyone else had been there, or if the sleek skirt and the ice smile would have been for Joel alone.

‘You know what, though,’ he went on, ‘considering her husband’s a wine lover, we drank from the world’s smallest glasses.’

Hadley felt a disproportionate rush of relief. ‘Was it very formal?’ she asked, grinning.

‘
Trè
s formal. I worry about returning the favour. My apartment has more of a box of wine and a take-out vibe.’

‘I don’t think a box of wine would even fit in my room.’

‘Small?’

‘But perfectly formed.’

‘Want to know something else about my apartment? I can’t use the washing machine after ten o’clock at night.’

‘Wouldn’t you have better things to do then, anyway?’

‘Not the point, Hadley. Freedom starts with being able to wash your socks whenever you want, don’t the Swiss know that?’

‘Is that right? You’d better get going then. You’ll miss your chance.’

‘Nope, that’s my Friday night. Right now I’m leaving here and going straight to the nearest bar. To warm up with my old friend Jim Beam, maybe.’

Hadley laughed again, and it came out like a gulp. Beneath the water she shifted her weight from one foot to another.

‘I only just got here,’ she said, ‘I’ve only done ten lengths.’

‘Then you must do more.
Au revoir
, Hadley,’ he said.

‘What bar?’ she said, before she could stop herself.

‘What bar? Not Mulligan’s, that’s for sure.’

She might have considered it a snub, were it not for the way he looked at her just before he turned to go. It wasn’t a too-hungry stare, but it was an acknowledgement, nonetheless, of her existence. In one glance he took in her wet body and pale shoulders and slim waist beneath the water. Then, instead of taking the few steps to the ladder, he placed his hands on the tiles and hauled himself up and out in one deft motion. Hadley watched him walk smartly towards the changing rooms, the water slicking down his bare back. As he rounded the lifeguard’s chair she saw him slip on a tile, and for a moment she thought he’d fall. But he held his balance and kept going. It was an endearing hiccup in an otherwise smooth exit. She smiled, and dipped down under the water. She felt entirely weightless, and as though she didn’t need to breathe at all.

nine

Hadley’s birthday was in late November, and for the
first
time in her life she woke up on that day to find herself in a white world. She drew open the blinds and looked out over the snow-covered rooftops. The sky was smudged blue and grey and the lake lay beyond, steely and unchanged. Her balcony had its own private drifts, with crystals forming at the window’s edge. She pushed open the door and felt the sting of the cold air.

‘Happy birthday, me,’ she whispered.

A card had arrived for her from home, and inside was a piece of Sam’s finest artwork. He’d drawn her with a snowman again, but this time they stood in a patch of flowers, and the sun beat down overhead. His colouring had stayed inside the lines and he’d written the first message inside:
Happy birthday to you, Hadley, love Sam, by Sam xxx
.
Her mum and dad had written beneath, and tucked inside was a fifty-franc note. They’d written,
Celebrate with your new Swiss friends!

Her new Swiss friends
. She thought of Jacques, and imagined Kristina bringing him to her party later. Standing slightly awkwardly with his hair ruffled, and a smear of lipstick on the side of his cheek. It would never happen. No matter how close she and Kristina were, it seemed that she and Jacques were never destined to meet. That evening Chase, Jenny, Bruno, Loretta, Kristina and Hadley had decided to go for dinner in the old town, a rare departure from their slapdash cooking in the kitchens of Les Ormes. Hadley would have been content for her birthday to pass unmarked but Kristina saw the date of birth in her residence permit and was determined not to let that happen. She had rallied the others and booked a restaurant. It would be the first evening that they had consciously spent together in several weeks.

Hadley set the card on her desk in pride of place. She hadn’t felt even slightly homesick since she’d left but there was something about the day that made her wish, just for a passing moment, that she was back in the cheerful noise of her home. Her mum would be singing along to the radio, her dad pretending to complain about a household chore, her brother kicking a blow-up football along the hallway, rippling the rug. She could slip into that world so easily; at home she was Hadley who always had seconds of mashed potato, Hadley who cried at films even when they weren’t supposed to be sad, Hadley who took the stairs three at a time, on the way up
and
the way down. It was strange that the very things she found irksome sometimes about being at home, the swaddling, the easy folklore, the suspension of the real world and everything in it, were, now that she wasn’t there, turning out to be the most seductive. For the first time since she’d arrived in Lausanne she inexplicably felt as though she shouldn’t be there, that she was in the wrong place. She shrugged the thought away; birthdays always made her sentimental. Her phone rang and she answered it in a rush.

‘Happy Birthday, Hadley!’ three voices cried in unison.

She closed her eyes and listened to her family sing. She smiled, and smiled, and tried very hard not to cry. Ten minutes later, buoyed by their merry conversation and heartfelt well wishes, she went into the kitchen to brew coffee, and settled in to looking out over the snow scene. It was a different angle to the view from her room; here the lake was a broader cut and a band of burly elms stretched below Les Ormes. The snow was the perfect birthday gift, she told herself, and she would cherish it. If snow ever fell at home it never lasted for long before it grew slushy and grey. Council trucks sprayed grit grumpily and people walked with teetering, uncertain steps. That day she vowed to dance in the street and throw her face up to the sky as the flakes settled on her lashes.

‘Happy Birthday!’

Kristina swung into the kitchen and deposited a paper bag on the table. Inside were two crisp and flaking almond croissants, their favourite
boulangerie
treat.

‘These are for you. Happy Birthday, my sweet.’

Kristina kissed her on both cheeks.

‘I just made coffee. Want some?’

‘Hadley, I have to run. I’m got an early tutorial.’

‘Have you?’

‘Yes. Oh, you’re thinking of Jacques. Every time I say I’m going somewhere now you think I’m actually going to see Jacques.’

‘Well, aren’t you?’

‘No, not today.’

There was a snappish tone to Kristina’s voice. She tore the corner from one of the croissants and nibbled at it.

‘I’m actually going to buy you a present. That’s what I’m going to do.’

‘But you already did,’ Hadley held up the paper bag, ‘I don’t need anything else.’

‘Now you’re just being silly.’

‘I actually mean it. Look, how about we dump the Institute today? Just run around the city in the snow. We could go back to the Hôtel
Le Nouveau Monde. Or take a pedalo out – I wonder if they let you do that in winter? Imagine the view from the water.’

‘Hadley, I can’t. Anyway, it’s Friday.’

‘So?’

‘You’ve got your American Literature class.’

‘I can skip it for once.’

‘I know you think I don’t notice, but I do, you know.’

‘Notice what?’

‘You always make an extra effort on a Friday.’

Hadley looked down at herself. Last night she’d painted her nails a cherry-red. She had on her favourite winter dress, a checked woollen one, that skimmed her thighs and made her look taller than she really was.

‘It’s my birthday,’ she said. ‘If you can’t look nice . . .’

‘Okay, sure, that’s right.’ Kristina bent down and kissed her again, and the sweep of her hair brushed Hadley’s cheek. ‘It’s your birthday every Friday.’

Kristina blitzed out of the door, throwing a
see you tonight
behind her. Hadley flicked a croissant crumb from the black of her tights. She poured herself another coffee, wondering if it was obvious to everyone, or just to someone who knew her like Kristina.

As she walked to the bus stop, her breath coming in white puffs, the snow squeaked beneath her feet. A cautious sun drew sparkles on the pavement and she wished she had her camera with her. It was the kind of day you wanted to capture, that you’d need to see again in order to quite believe.

Joel Wilson’s lecture had something of a hurried quality about it that morning. He seemed distracted, clicking his pen between his fingers, his usually fluent stream of talk broken with protracted
okays
and other fillers. It was as if he would rather have been somewhere else. On the bus on the way in Hadley had overheard talk of the ski resorts opening early. Her mind ran on and she saw those steep, crystal-bright slopes, low-dipped skiers cutting new lines, and the roar of a mountain bar afterwards. She could picture Joel there. She imagined him skiing bravely and with a hint of danger, finishing the day with burnt red cheeks and his hair sticking to the back of his neck. She hoped that Kristina had meant it when she said that she would teach her that winter.

Despite racing through the class, as it drew to a close Joel fell to dawdling. He fiddled with some papers in his briefcase and appeared to search for a passage in a book. He looked up as she passed his desk.

‘Hey, Hadley,’ he said. ‘How do you like all this snow?’

‘I love it,’ she said. ‘I heard that if it keeps falling they’re going to open the ski resorts early.’

‘They are? No kidding. I’ll expect a lower turn-out for the next class then.’

It was the first joke he’d made in the last hour, and she took heart. ‘I don’t think the Swiss are a nation of rule breakers. Remember your washing machine?’

‘Well, sure, but you think nobody skips class here?’

‘You tell me,’ she smiled.

‘No students skip
my
classes,’ he said, ‘that’s true. Now why do you think that is?’

‘Their hearts couldn’t bear the breaking,’ said Hadley, trying to sound cavalier. He looked at her, his face puzzled, and she opened her mouth to utter some qualification, to remind him that she was only quoting him, using some of the first words he’d addressed them with at the start of the semester.

‘Your first class . . .’ she began.

‘So somebody was listening, after all. That’s a relief.’

They smiled at one another; Hadley grateful for the cover, and Joel with a glimmer of amusement that wasn’t unpleasant, that pleased her, in fact, when she thought about it later. She said something about being late for her next class and he walked with her to the door. In the corridor they said goodbye, and went their separate ways.

She saw him again by chance at lunchtime. She was in the cafeteria eyeing the sandwich counter, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

‘Apparently I have to wish you a Happy Birthday,’ he said.

She smiled. ‘How did you know?’

‘Student records. We have a file on each and every one of you, you know. Past misdemeanours, first pets, the lot. It’s all in there. But I see you’re on your own for lunch, what’s that about?’

‘Why were you looking at my file?’

‘It’s the best way to learn your names.’

‘But you know my name.’

‘And to check out your academic records. There are some knowledge gaps among the students, and I like to know who’s taken what course. Yours was one of many, Hadley, and I just happened to notice your birthday. Now, lunch? Solo? I repeat, what’s that about?’

Before she could reply he said, ‘Want to grab it with me?’ and without waiting for an answer he put her baguette on his tray, and took one for himself. ‘I get twenty percent off the prices here,’ he said, flashing his lecturer card like an FBI badge. ‘Go get us a table.’

As she sat down she glanced around. She had seen other students with their tutors there before, taking coffee, leafing through essay pages at a corner table, and, if you didn’t know otherwise, you might have thought Joel was a student himself. He had a youthful sort of posture, one leg cranked up over the other, the hems of his jeans straggling with loose threads. He wore a similar T-shirt to the one in the department photograph. White, and rippling slightly where it ran over his stomach.

‘So, plans for later?’ he asked.

‘Just a dinner. At this place Le Pin.’

‘I’ve heard good things. That’s all very civilised.’

‘It’ll start off that way, at least. I expect we’ll go on somewhere else, and it’ll degenerate from there.’ She thought of Kristina, and eyes wide shut. She said, ‘You should come for a drink. If you’re not doing anything else.’

‘I can’t, I’m sorry.’

‘Of course,’ said Hadley, quickly. ‘The last thing you want to do is hang out with students.’

‘Actually it’s very tempting, but I have plans already. I’d have been there like a shot, otherwise.’ Perhaps he noticed her embarrassment, for he changed the subject deftly. ‘So, all this snow talk – you’re a skier, then?’

‘Well, no, I’ve never been. But I’d really like to. My friend Kristina’s going to teach me.’

And she talked on. She told him about the bungalow she grew up in, where she still lived with her parents and brother, when all of her friends had gone off to make new homes of their own. The flatlands that surrounded it. The absence of anything that could really be called a view. She talked about how she wanted to go up high into the mountains, higher than anyone probably ever needed to go, just to see how the world looked from up there.

‘And ski back down,’ he said.

‘Trying not to break all my bones in the meantime.’

‘You’d be good at it,’ he said. ‘I can see you liking the speed.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘And the danger.’

‘Not too much danger.’

She sat back then and took a bite of her baguette. She chewed slowly and he was quiet. She decided she had said too much. Her mum and dad. Sam. The daily bus to university. There was no reason he would be interested in all of that.

‘I grew up in California,’ he said, suddenly. He stirred a sugar into his coffee and clacked the spoon against the cup; once, twice, three times. ‘Soon as we were old enough my little brother and I used to ride up into the mountains in a clapped-out truck, me at the wheel, him playing with the radio looking for anything loud and with guitars. We’d spend the day on the slopes with junkyard skis, figuring things out for ourselves. We’d come home battered black and blue, all kinds of sprains and pulls and twists, muscles screaming for mercy, snow-blinded, because we never had the proper kit and the sun always shone so hard it gave us these searing headaches, but . . . happy. Very, very happy.’

‘What’s your brother’s name?’ she asked, not wanting him to end the story.

‘Winston. Sounds like something you’d call a cat, doesn’t it? No nine lives for him, though.’

She looked for the right thing to say and only found, ‘Oh?’

‘He passed away. Car wreck. Turns out that truck of mine wasn’t the safest.’

She looked down at her hands, her red nails feeling suddenly garish. She squeezed them together.

‘I’m sorry. I can’t imagine what that’s like.’

‘You never lost anybody?’

‘No.’

‘What, not even grandparents?’

‘No.’

‘You’re lucky.’

He looked at her and she felt her naïvety shining thinly, as though he could see all the way through her and out the other side. Hadley had no experience of loss, and in that moment, against all judgement, she wished that she did. Anything, a once broken heart, an old but unutterable grief, just so that she could tell him about it and show that she understood.

‘I don’t know why I told you about Winston just now,’ he said, and she was relieved that his tone was contemplative instead of dismissive. ‘I usually don’t. I keep him for myself. See this?’ He pointed to the tiny scar, just above his lip. ‘Same car wreck. Had this since I was seventeen and it’s never faded. I don’t want it to, either.’

Hadley met his eye and did her best to hold it.

‘Well, this is fine birthday conversation,’ he said. ‘Great date, I am.’ She laughed easily but she noted the phrase; she’d remember it later, play it back. He skipped on, ‘What are you, twenty-one? Twenty-two?’

‘Just twenty.’

‘Twenty.’ He shook his head. ‘I can barely remember it.’