The Swimming Pool (23 page)

Even
for Lara this was bold. I was thrilled by that boldness, thrilled by Miles's lack of censure, thrilled, too, that Ed had left, for he would have made it his business to shut this down and, in the event of failure, would likely have phoned the police.

‘Lucky Ed's gone home,' I heard myself say, blithe, treacherous.

‘We'll have to work on him,' Lara said kindly. ‘Some nuts are harder to crack, but the summer's not over yet.' With that, she was on her feet, Ed forgotten. ‘Let's go!'

‘What about the kids?' I said.

‘We'll leave Milena in charge.' And it seemed that a matter of seconds later the au pair had been briefed, towels bundled into a bag, and we adults were strolling across The Rise towards the park entrance.

This might be the most important summer of my life, I thought, drunk enough to mistake arrogance for significance, weak enough not to realize it at the time. The most important
night
.

Stephen and Miles were bantering about how the group might best be hoisted over the locked gate without injury, when it was discovered that it had been left open.

‘What about security cameras?' I said, and we all halted, bumping into one another and giggling. I like to think now that a part of me was paying tribute to Ed, or at least remembering that I had a respectable job to lose, but I suspect the reality was I just wanted to belong, to be a vocal participant in this escapade.

‘The
pool lights won't be on,' Lara said, ‘so it'll be too dark for the cameras to catch our faces.'

‘She's got a point, though,' Angie said. ‘What about when we go in through the door? There'll surely be a camera on the entrance and I'm pretty sure Reception has some sort of night light.'

‘Oh, for goodness' sake, girls, it's not a jewel heist,' Lara said. ‘I'll have a word with Liam tomorrow and get him to delete the evidence.'

‘Will he agree?' I asked.

‘People don't turn Lara down,' Miles said, and smiled at my immediate acceptance – and therefore demonstration – of the point.

We're playing by different rules
, I thought foolishly.
We're living life faster, higher, more memorably
.

We entered in fact through the staff door to the side of the main entrance, Lara concentrating comically hard as she disabled the alarm. And then we were in, past the café loos and through the unalarmed door to the pool terrace. The only light was the green security panel above the emergency doors, the rest of the site a palette of blacks. The water was smooth, its dimensions ambiguous, like a secret lake.

When it became apparent that Angie had not packed swimwear, I imagined we would keep on our underwear, but in a matter of moments Lara, Angie and Stephen were naked, hardly bothering to cover themselves with their hands as they dropped into the water with stifled cries.

Exhilarated,
I did the same, at once breathless from the cold. Unlit, the water was a sublime unknown and my sense of the distance to the edge imprecise. My blood raced in my veins and I was a child again, imagining myself in the middle of an ocean at the mercy of deadly currents or silent submarine ambushes. The same unseen that frightened my daughter excited me. It always had.

‘Isn't it the most gorgeous sensation in the whole world?' Lara was gliding up beside me and treading water.

‘The swimming or the breaking in?'

‘Both. I'm so glad you came with us, Natalie.'

‘So am I,' I said. ‘What an adventure.'

‘Have you ever done anything like this before?'

I had an unpleasant involuntary memory of her sister teasing and belittling me for my unexciting ways. ‘I've swum in the middle of the night, but not, you know, skinny-dipping.'

‘Was that in those woods you told me about? In Stoneborough? I remember what you said that time about feeling free.'

‘Yes.' I was overjoyed that she remembered details like this. It was as if she instinctively recognized the experiences that had shaped me. ‘We didn't have to break in, of course, but we had to break out of our homes.'

Her face came closer, hair sleek, cheekbones and brow sharp. ‘I bet you were the leader, weren't you?'

‘Deputy,
in fact. To a girl who's since been jailed.' I spoke with a heedlessness that was only half affected.

‘Goodness,' Lara chuckled. ‘So you were led astray by a delinquent then?'

‘Let's just say I was open to suggestion.'

‘I've noticed.'

As she began to circle me in that smooth way of hers that hardly rippled the surface, I grew freshly aware of our bare skin under the water. If our feet or hands or knees or elbows made contact, would it be different knowing the rest of us was naked?

‘Tell me more, Natalie. Who was this jailbird accomplice of yours?'

‘She was a girl from the village. I didn't really know her. It was more a friendship of convenience. We didn't keep in touch afterwards.' Though it was still only a matter of days since I'd been reunited with Mel, the occasion already felt deep in the past, its purpose served, on its way to being expunged from the record. At the centre of her turning circle, I clumsily trod water, straining to track her moving face. ‘But that summer, when she and I were together it was like there were no rules. No one to tell us no. I don't think I've ever had that since.'

Delighted as I was with Lara's response to the persona I'd adopted during this little speech, I was unprepared for the wild, seditious thoughts that came next: Ed was the kind who would have told us no. If he had stayed this evening, I wouldn't be here now: I wouldn't have been allowed. Was that how it was going
to be from now on? A succession of nos to every one of my yeses? We admitted ourselves that our relationship had been built – partly, at least – on a shared system of disapproval, a belief that we were right and others were wrong. But it only worked, didn't it, if we agreed?

At last Lara stopped moving and hovered in front of me. Under water her hand reached for mine, lacing our fingers together. ‘I think you must be a water-baby like me,' she said.

There was a hammering at my pulse points. ‘I think I must be.'

‘You know, I always think that if Heaven falls, I'd like to be swimming.'

‘If Heaven falls? You don't mean …?'

‘Not the desperate, struggling kind of drowning,' she said, ‘just being swallowed by the water in a peaceful way.'

‘Oh.' I was suddenly uncertain, for, inevitably, Molly had sprung to mind.
The water will swallow me
. But Molly was safe in her bed in Stoneborough, I assured myself. She need never know about this Elm Hill adventure. Lara's fingers still gripped mine, her face close, inches away, eyes darker than all the blacks around us, pulling me into them. As a swell surprised us, splashing my face, she let go of my hand and rose with the water in perfect synchronicity, minutely attuned to ebb and flow. Beyond, at the nearest edge, I caught movement, a slow stride, and realized it was Miles. He was still dressed.

‘Isn't he coming in?' I asked Lara.

‘Oh,
he doesn't do pools.'

‘But he
can
swim?'

‘He can, but he doesn't.'

‘Like your sister,' I said, thinking how interesting it was that two of the people closest to her had rejected the great passion of her life. Not her children, though. And not me. ‘But they
could
swim, if they had to? Not being able to, like Molly, that's the dangerous thing.'

‘I can tell you're still really worried about her, aren't you?' Lara said, and to my disappointment she paddled slightly away from me. ‘I think you should stop. Things will happen as they're supposed to. Divine justice. Karma.'

These were the sort of remarks I would normally dismiss as hogwash, but that night, spellbound, they sounded like the answer to everything.

As she swam off to join Angie and Stephen, I climbed out to use the staff toilet by the kitchen. Alone, inside, the sense of trespass was much greater; I imagined my towelled figure being caught on CCTV, studied by Liam and his team in the morning. Tipsy enough to be more tickled than appalled by the thought, I was giggling when I emerged, only to find Miles waiting in the narrow corridor that led back to the café.

‘You gave me a shock,' I said.

‘Hello, Natalie,' he said, and it was the entirely normal tone and volume that made it so disquieting, as if there were nothing odd, nothing illicit, about our being in a locked building in the middle of the night. I, by contrast,
was keenly aware that I was half naked, damp and unkempt, while he was fully clothed, wholly composed.

‘Is everything okay?' I asked, a tactful way of asking him to move aside.

‘Couldn't be better.'

Still he did not move. My choice was to remain motionless in front of him or to navigate past, back to the wall and breath held. I chose the latter, but as I edged past he took a step to trap me tighter, as good as pressing me to the wall. Confused, embarrassed, I eased myself the rest of the way, my bare skin making contact with his clothing and dragging slightly against the fabric. Only when this excruciating manoeuvre was complete did he turn from me quite leisurely and enter the lavatory, the door closing soundlessly behind him.

I hurried across the terrace to where the other three were now dressing.

‘Clothes on,' Angie hissed, passing me my dress. ‘We thought we'd better quit while we're ahead.'

When Miles returned he made no mention of our peculiar interaction, so neither did I.

‘I should think about getting home,' I said.

‘Come back to ours and we'll order a cab for you,' Lara said.

At La Madrague, Angie and Stephen peeled off for Steadman Avenue and Lara settled me with a drink in a ground-floor room I took to be Miles's study. When Miles excused himself, I assumed for the night, Lara followed him upstairs to find her phone to call the taxi.

Perhaps
it was the cosy decor, the chocolate leather furniture, crammed bookshelves and wool rugs, but it felt several degrees warmer in the room than outside and I rose to open the only window, a little porthole overlooking the drive. As I did, traces of conversation between the Channings drifted into earshot from above.

‘Couldn't be more perfect …' (Lara.)

‘… too drunk …' (Miles.)

‘…
always
too drunk.' (Lara, louder.)

The voices receded. Another eavesdropped tail-end of a conversation: I was making a habit of it. I thought of that complaint of Lara's about her sister's opinions on her ménage –
I can't help it if other people aren't as inventive as we are
– and of the oddness with Miles just now, his immovable, unfriendly body against mine. Then I had a new thought, a fuzzily cautious one: had Lara gone to the Pharm? Was she going to offer me cocaine or some other drug? Should I agree? Should I do it, just once? What would Ed and Gayle and Craig say about
that
?

When Lara reappeared, her glass still in hand, she clinked it against mine and said, ‘I've got a confession to make.'

‘Sounds dangerous,' I said, smiling.

‘I didn't order your cab.'

‘Why not?'

She looked unblinkingly at me. ‘Because I thought you might want to stay over.'

I caught my breath, electrified.

‘The
kids are sleeping at Angie's, Marthe's at her boyfriend's, so we'll have the house to ourselves.'

‘But I only live a few minutes away,' I said, throat dry, already doubting that I had interpreted this correctly.

‘I know that,' Lara said, and continued to look hard at me, a faint curve to her lips. There was no ambiguity now, or at least little enough.

And I thought, just as I had about the drugs,
Should I
? Should I allow myself to feel feelings just like she felt them? Reckless, euphoric feelings that denied the advancing years, years in which I'd done so little against the grain it was pitiful.

‘Lara,' I said. ‘I'm not sure if –'

Her murmurs shushed me as a kiss on the corner of my mouth shocked me into stillness. ‘Miles will explain. He's just coming down now …'

Miles. Until that moment I had not understood of myself what I now did: if anything were to happen, if any line were to be crossed, I was not interested in crossing it in
his
direction.

From above there came the sound of a door closing, then slow footsteps on the polished staircase.

I sprang to my feet and put the glass down. ‘Thank you, La. I don't know what to say, but I really had better go. Ed will be wondering what's happened to me – he'll be phoning and getting worried. And it doesn't matter about the cab, I can easily walk.'

Trembling, every pore of me alive with nerves and confusion, I slipped into the passageway and towards
the front door, just in time to meet Miles at the foot of the stairs.

‘Natalie,' he said, and it seemed to me that his tone had a trace of appetite to it.

I stammered a goodbye.

‘Don't rush off!' Lara protested, behind me.

And the two of them stood in the open doorway, watching as I scurried across the pebbles. When I turned, waving awkwardly, Lara blew me a kiss, her other hand on Miles's arm as he swung away. I could not see their expressions, but I imagined them as beautifully impassive, roused at most to mild surprise.

I made my way at speed down The Rise, past the grand houses, towards the main road. Though yellow light still glowed behind some of the windows, they'd been closed to the night and not a human sound leaked from them. As I walked, there came across the treetops the scream of a police siren and, for an anxious moment, I thought it was coming towards me. But then I realized it was in fact getting fainter and was soon lost altogether.

By the time I emerged from bed in the morning Ed was already in his office, so I took him a cup of tea and sat in the spot reserved for his students.