The Swimming Pool (8 page)

‘Ah,' Gayle said, somehow both pleased and displeased by this information. ‘I get it. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours.'

‘Yes,' Ed said. ‘Though I'm hoping no spinal injuries will be sustained in either activity.'

At the mention of tutoring, we'd arrived at the well-trodden subject of escape routes from the System, of teaching having become a minority pursuit, most of our time spent writing up notes in one form or another for some phantom authority who would never read them.

Gayle
drank her Oyster Bay with the gusto of the institutionalized. ‘Is it
really
too much to ask that I be allowed to prepare a lesson, teach it, and then start preparing the next?'

‘I think we'd all like that,' I said, and was met with the now-familiar humouring nods of those who did daily battle with a grisly crew of between thirty and forty pupils while I swanned about with my selective intake of twenty-four. I felt selfish relief that Ed had made the first step towards bridging the divide.

Evidently Craig was thinking the same thing. ‘So you're joining the dark side as well now,' he said to Ed. ‘Never thought I'd see the day.
Et tu, Brute
and all that.'

‘You should consider it yourself,' I told him. ‘The demand for private tutors has never been higher.'

‘I don't know. I've heard a lot of scare stories,' said Gayle. ‘One on one, it makes you very vulnerable.'

‘I wouldn't risk it, personally,' Craig agreed, and we all nodded, downcast. In my eagerness I'd forgotten that two years ago he had been investigated following a complaint made by a male pupil about his relationship with the boy's on-off girlfriend, a classmate. Rumours of teacher-pupil fraternization were fairly routine. Every year, there would be at least one girl at All Saints who eschewed her peers in favour of a teacher her father's age (Ed, with his allegedly Delon-esque bone structure, had been the object of his share of crushes) and the issue was often escalated unnecessarily, thanks to parents drawing fire before listening to a word of evidence.
What had been less routine in Craig's case was the parents making a complaint to the police. Eventually, it had been dismissed and the accuser suspended, but it had been a frightening experience for Craig and his colleagues.

‘Under-fourteens will come with a parent,' I said. ‘We'll use the living room as a waiting room.'

‘Fat lot of good that does anyone,' Gayle said. ‘Parents never have a clue what's going on, even under their own noses.'

There was a brief silence as each of us wondered what we might not be noticing under ours.

‘Kids have got us over a barrel,' Craig said. ‘There'll come a time when we're not allowed to make eye contact with the buggers.'

‘The answer is robots,' Gayle said. ‘TeachBots. I'm going to apply for a patent.'

I began to stack the plates. How many times had the four of us had this conversation? Friendships were built on this, I supposed, on the comfortable familiarity of a shared script. Perhaps it was the completion of my first year on ‘the dark side', as Craig put it, but I felt detached from the collective sensibility, even liberated.

‘Anyway, the downside to all this is I'll be working through the summer while you lot are free to malinger,' Ed said.

‘One of us already is,' I said from the counter, where I unboxed and quartered a readymade apricot tart. ‘I didn't want to rub it in, though, so I haven't displayed
the twenty-four thank-you cards I received this week.' One from every single child in the class, mostly hand-crafted: the rich were different indeed. ‘But I know you'll appreciate the Fortnum & Mason chocolates we're having with coffee. I've got kilos of them.'

‘So how did you spend your first day, Nat?' Craig asked.

‘Toasting at the lido mostly.' Hearing the echo of Lara and her friend, I wondered if Gayle had too. I added dollops of crème fraîche to the tart and began passing the plates to the others. ‘You know what my ambition is this summer? To forget that I'm a teacher – who cares what kind? I know, I know!' I raised my voice above their cries. ‘I wouldn't be “malingering” at home if I wasn't one. I'd be chained to a desk in town somewhere with a week's leave if I was lucky. But I'm still going to try. I'm going to live this summer like … like a civilian.'

There was brief silence, then Craig and Gayle broke into laughter, raising their wine glasses to me and crying, ‘To Nat, the civilian!'

Only Ed looked perturbed, even a little fearful. ‘Good luck with that, Nat,' he said.

If Lara traded on one brand of persuasive charm, her daughter Georgia, I discovered, was the agent of quite another. I'd like to say I happened to be at home for her first session with Ed, but the truth was I deliberately returned from errands in good time to be there.

When I arrived, they were in his study. (‘Study' was perhaps overstating the definition of a zone that had previously been a cloakroom. All it needed was bars across the tiny square window and a slop pot in the corner and it would have been an authentic cell.) The door was ajar and I could see on the small desk a stack of sample GCSE papers, along with the stapled assessment Ed had prepared. Over this a blonde head was bent, long strands veiling the details of her face. She was a dainty girl, I could tell that much, and graceful: the way she drew up an ankle and tucked it under her, as if her limbs were made of more pliable materials than the rest of ours, spoke not only of good genes but also of a decade's worth of dance or gym classes – or perhaps synchro, her mother's sport.

After
the session, they came into the living room, where I was reading a novel and Molly socializing online with friends who lived so close by she could virtually have conducted the conversation from her bedroom window. Ed made the introductions and Georgia regarded us with well-mannered ease. We were all standing.

‘Hello,' I said very brightly. ‘I've met your mother, but not you, I think.' It was unconvincing, the notion that I might not remember her, and I hastened on: ‘Would you mind passing on our thanks for her recommendation?'

As Georgia widened her eyes I noted that the irises were paler and more golden than Lara's. I knew from the photograph, of course, that she was a pretty girl, but what the image had not conveyed was the frankness of her appeal, the lack of embellishment. She was devoid not only of make-up and other adornments, but also of the twirling and flicking of hair, the twisting of ear studs, common in adolescent girls. Her clothes appeared to have been selected if not for camouflage then for comfort, light cotton garments that skimmed the sharp symmetry of her hips and elbows and collarbones. Not so like Lara then, after all, with her tousled up-dos and fringed shawls and kohl-smudged gazes.

‘If you just say that, she'll know what it means,' I added. I didn't want to be more explicit about the hypnotherapy in front of Molly.

‘Sure.' She gave an elegant half-shrug. ‘I like your top,' she said, and I was about to thank her when I realized she was addressing Molly. She liked Molly's high
ponytail, as well; in fact, now her attention was on Molly and not me she was far more forthcoming. Her voice was standard posh girl, with an endearingly earnest quality. ‘Don't you sometimes wish you had a younger sister so you could do her hair for her? I do. Like my mum used to do mine.'

I imagined Lara and her sitting in front of the mirror brushing that spun-gold hair, mother and daughter Rapunzels who could never be lonely while they had each other.

‘My mum thinks it's vain to spend hours on your hair,' Molly told her. This was a new habit: to present opinion that might not be entirely generous-spirited as mine, not hers. Whereas in the past she'd have looked to me for reassurance in the presence of an affecting new acquaintance like Georgia, lately she'd become dismissive, keen to disassociate herself from me. It was classic stuff, just another signifier of growing independence, but that didn't mean I had to like it.

‘You can probably tell that just by looking at me,' I joked.

‘I think spending a
little bit
of time on your hair is acceptable,' Georgia said, glancing politely from Molly to me. ‘It's social grooming, isn't it? Primates do it. It's not just about hygiene, it's about bonding and communication. It's not like we're trying to look like some Disney princess.'

Goodness, had she read my mind about Rapunzel? My hand sought the corner of the sofa, anchoring me.
Georgia's presence was starting to cause a strange uncertainty in me, making me tongue-tied, a little soft-kneed, and the trigger seemed to be her unselfconscious beauty. After all these years, might I have got it wrong? Might being pretty be important, after all? As the thought developed, I felt a terrible plunging sensation: since I was feeling this with Georgia when I had not with Lara, who was as beautiful as her daughter, if not more so, did that mean my issue was not with beauty but with youth? I must be experiencing the terrible midlife realization they say awaits us all, that the departure of youth is not some temporary wheeze, like when you have flu and look a decade older in the bathroom mirror, but is permanent, gone and never coming back. And every day that passes takes you further away from when you had it, every day that passes carries you
closer to the end
. Like Gayle and Jo, with her stripe of white roots, I was far closer to Sarah and her worn-out joints than I was to Georgia and her elastic, peak-condition anatomy.

How horrendous: a midlife crisis right there in my own living room. Curious though I'd been to meet Lara's daughter, I was grateful when she left, frankly.

‘Do you think she's one of those teenagers with a totally secret other life?' I asked Ed later, when I'd recovered from my turn. ‘You know, that whole cliché? She seems all sweet and simple on the surface but in reality has a career in underage porn and a crack habit?'

‘I actually think she's the real deal,' said Ed. ‘A genuinely nice kid.'

‘Then
maybe it's a case of role reversal. The parents are free-spirited so she plays it by the book. Is she bright? She seems it. I bet she doesn't even need extra tuition.'

‘I'll have to mark her assessment,' Ed said, ‘but I'm guessing she needs it no more or less than most of them. But you know how it is, they infect each other – even the hippie ones.' He meant mothers. Mothers spread infection. FOMO, they called it: fear of missing out. They saw another mother pushing ahead and they thought they ought to push ahead too, the inevitable result being that everyone remained the same as everyone else, just in a new, more expensive way. A way that placed children under greater strain – particularly, I'd observed, girls.

Once, I'd left school early during term time to go with Molly to see a psychotherapist at the Maudsley Hospital. Arriving back in Elm Hill, I'd taken her to La Tasse on the high street for a hot chocolate. All around us women chattered about themselves – even the staff in the place comprised opinionated females – and I'd had a sudden sense of being in a piece of science fiction, a world in which men had been eliminated from society.

‘Well, they pretty much have, haven't they?' Gayle said when I told her about it later. ‘In Elm Hill, anyway.'

I laughed, amused and a little smug, because I had no reason to doubt that my own place in the matriarchy was assured.

At least, not until Georgia Channing came along.

Mrs Bryony Foster, HYP, Dip Hyp, GQHP, and various other qualifications of the sort I'd grown wary over the years of accepting as evidence of anything much, greeted me with the calm, inclusive air I recognized from Mrs Godwin and other successful negotiators of the modern middle-class family. Even the environment resembled Elm Hill Prep, with its restored period features and wittily contrasting soft furnishings, presumably selected to remind paying customers of their own homes.

‘Are you coming in too, Mrs Steele?' she asked.

‘Well, yes.' I hesitated. ‘Or am I not supposed to?' It had not occurred to me that Molly should attend the hypnotherapy session without me.

‘I'm happy with whichever you decide.' She glanced at Molly with just a trace of significance. ‘It can sometimes make older children self-conscious to have a parent there. Molly might feel more relaxed if she's not observed.'

‘I'd like to go in on my own, Mum,' Molly said.

‘Really?' She had a purposeful expression that I didn't think I'd seen in previous times, though it was possible she was simply a better actor now that she was older. Whole days, perhaps weeks, of my life had been spent debating with Ed whether or not our daughter ‘really' wanted to get better, so fiercely, so enduringly, did she fight the prospect of going near water. (Another fear birthed in those lightless, insomniac nights: did her
continued suffering express some subconscious need to punish me?) We agreed that she did, but that time and again the phobia proved too powerful, the evil twin that perpetually triumphed.

‘Okay,' I said, and that was that. How tall and solid she was as she walked from me into the consulting room, the opposite of a waif like Georgia Channing; from behind, from a distance, you could be forgiven for mistaking her for an adult.

I waited with a copy of a health and fitness glossy, listening for the screams that told of unnatural goings-on, of confirmation that I had made a terrible mistake in letting her go into a room with a hypnotherapist, in coming here, in taking Lara's advice in the first place. Gayle was right, what did
she
know about phobias? Her self-confidence was practically sociopathic, her own offspring demonstrably flawless. And hadn't she said the recommendation had come from ‘asking around'? Around whom, exactly? Doubtless a circle of other privileged numpties with new-age leanings, women like Angie, who walked the streets in waffle robes and booked Reiki sessions for their dogs.

I imagined Bryony's voice on the other side of the door, chanting in Molly's ear:
Ignore your mother, she let you down very badly …
What would emerge from Molly in return? She'd been too young to retain conscious memory of the original incident, all previous experts had agreed on that, but were they about to be overruled? This was a regressive therapy, after all.

Then,
inevitably, almost as if those maternal concerns had assembled expressly to conceal the thought:
What if it were me in there?
If experiences you genuinely couldn't remember were extractable in this way, what about those you deliberately sought to suppress?

Conveniently, I would require no answer of myself on this score for Bryony's door was opening and Molly came strolling out. She looked undamaged, even cheerful.

‘How was it?' I asked, noticing she held a cup of water and wondering if it had been used in the therapy.

‘It's only been half an hour, Mum.' She sipped the water.

‘It went very well,' Bryony said, joining us. ‘Molly will tell you about it herself, but I'm confident we're going to be able to make progress together.' When Molly excused herself to visit the bathroom, she added, ‘I gather you have a new local pool. My advice is that you don't take her there again until she suggests it herself.'

I was heartened by the use of ‘until' when she could have opted for the less committal ‘unless'. Paying, rebooking, I recognized old feelings, the foremost being gratitude that the burden of worry was being shouldered by someone better qualified than me. Was this, then, no different from the others? A necessary attempt at a cure rather than a faithful one?

As always, the only true belief that mattered was Molly's.

‘So was it like falling asleep?' I asked her, as we walked towards Oxford Circus for the bus home.

‘It
was more like feeling sleepy,' she said.

‘What kind of thing did she say?'

‘Stuff.'

(Stuff: the noun-sibling of ‘Whatever'. ‘We'll assume you're more willing to elaborate in your English essays,' Ed would say.)

‘Are there any exercises to do?'

‘Not really.'

‘And you're sure you're happy to go back?'

‘Yeah.'

It was a while since I'd been in the West End during rush-hour and, though there was movement and action in every direction, the clamour was less than I remembered. Black cabs moved with an almost sinister noiselessness and there was a marked absence of conversation since nearly everyone we passed walked with his or her head bowed, attention riveted to a phone screen. I was struck by how young the faces were – some looked only a few years older than Molly – with their smooth foreheads and richly pigmented hair. I wanted to urge them to look up and appreciate the world while they had attention to spare. Enjoy it! Discuss it! Then, all at once, I had a flare of the same fear I'd felt with Georgia, the sensation of hurtling away from my prime and towards death. I felt almost dizzy.

It was the sun, I decided, surfacing. In the suburbs it consoled, here it punished, oppressed. I saw that Molly had shaken me off and was walking ahead as if
alone. About to cross a one-way street, she too was looking at the screen of her phone, oblivious to those silent taxis.

‘
Molly!
' I called in warning and she turned, cross with me for having fallen behind, cross with me for catching up. ‘Careful of the traffic,' I said, falling into step again, slightly breathless.