Swimming Upstream Read online

  “What?” I turned my head slowly. The rest of the room did a lightning dash to catch up with me.

  “Jellybelly,” Jeff persisted, leaning against the bean bag and wedging me even more deeply into its contours. My forehead felt cold and prickly. “You must have heard of Jellybelly.”

  He turned to Karen who had sat down in front of us with a bottle of vodka.

  “She hasn't heard of Jellybelly,” he said.

  “Stop it,” I stammered faintly.

  “Stop what?” said Jeff, looking confused.

  “Saying Jellybelly. Please.” With a concerted effort I lurched up out of the beanbag and stumbled into the hall, past Jude and Larsen and up the stairs. Larsen watched me go and looked as though he was about to say something but Jude was talking to him, her mouth pressed up against his ear.

  I stood at the washbasin, squinting under the bright light at my reflection in the mirror. I looked a mess. There were dark rings of eyeliner under each eye. I licked my finger and wiped at them, but it only made it worse. Then my mascara started coming off as well. I turned the tap on and splashed cold water onto my cheeks.

  Someone banged on the door. I opened it and a tiny girl with short blonde hair shot in, hoisted up her raincoat and pulled down her knickers.

  “Sorry. I’m busting.” She stared at me from the loo. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” I smiled, steadying myself against the sink.

  “I like your hair,” she commented. “Red’s my favourite colour.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I prefer to call it auburn.”

  She grinned at me. She had a tiny elfin face, with big blue eyes, a turned up nose and a pointy chin.

  “You look like a pixie,” I observed. I was still feeling very stoned. I sat down on the edge of the bath. Her eyes twinkled, amusedly. She flushed the chain and squeezed past me to the sink. “Although I have to say you're not dressed like a pixie,” I continued, looking down at the black stockings and shoes under her navy raincoat. “I'd say you were ... a traffic warden?” I guessed.

  “Not quite right,” she said, turning round and opening her coat with soapy hands, to reveal a light blue uniform. “A nurse.”

  “This isn't fancy dress,” I pointed out.

  “I know,” she said, and winked at me. “Got a kinky boyfriend, that's all.”

  “You’re kidding? He makes you wear that to parties?”

  The girl in the raincoat laughed. “It was a joke. I am actually a nurse. I work at Addenbrookes. I’ve just finished my shift.”

  I put my head in my hands. “I’m so gullible. What an idiot.”

  “Hey, hey, hey,” said the girl. “I am the queen of gullible. I used to think that the stars could talk.”

  I lifted my head up. “The stars? As in the ones in the sky?”

  “Yes. I was told that by the matron at the….the home. I was brought up in a children’s home. Out in the countryside, near Saffron Walden. In the middle of nowhere, it was. And at night I couldn’t sleep for all the…well, the noise. There was always this noise going on outside the windows, crickets, I think, and I don’t know what else. I told matron and she said it was just the stars chattering.”

  “That’s kind of cute.” I smiled.

  “Not when you’re sixteen it isn’t.”

  “What?”

  “I was sixteen before anyone told me that the stars can’t talk. I was kissing my boyfriend under the moonlight and I said, “Aren’t the stars quiet tonight?” He looked at me like I was crazy. Then he dumped me.”

  “That’s harsh,” I said.

  The girl in the raincoat nodded. “So, who are you? I’ve not seen you before. Are you a friend of Jude’s?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I think we’ve established that.”

  “Oh, right. Don’t take it personally. If you’re not a friend of Jude’s then you’re not a friend of Jude’s. The Girlfriends’ Club, well, they’re all a bit cliquey. Anyway, I’m Zara,” she said, and held out her tiny hand. I took it.

  “I’m Lizzie,” I told her before I lost my balance and slipped backwards into the bath, still clinging onto her hand. Zara tried to pull me back but she was taken by surprise and she flew forwards and landed up on top of me. We both cracked up laughing so hard that neither of us could stop.

  “Zara?” called a voice from outside the door.

  “In here!” Zara called.

  The door opened and Doug’s head appeared. He smiled affectionately at the pair of us, laying sprawled in the empty bath, then helped us out one by one. Zara followed him out to the landing. He smiled and put his hand on her arm, then turned and looked at me warily, as I came out behind her. Standing next to him she looked even tinier. She could barely have been five feet tall. She swung from side to side on her black stockinged heel and they both watched as Larsen came running up the stairs.

  “There you are,” he said to me. “Hello Zara.”

  “Hi,” said Zara, who seemed to be moving backwards, with Doug behind her.

  “Are you okay?” asked Larsen, looking deeply into my eyes, his face racked with concern. A door slammed behind us and we were alone.

  “I have to go.”

  “Why? Don't go,” he pleaded. “Aren't you feeling well?”

  “Not really.”

  “Come on, you need to lie down,” said Larsen, and before I could protest he took my arm and manoeuvred me into one of the bedrooms.

  The room was dark. Larsen eased me down onto a mattress on the floor, took off my shoes and sat beside me. I could feel the vibrations of the music thumping underneath me. Moonlight streamed through the bare window, which had no curtains, and my eyes adjusted slowly. Up on the ceiling above me, a number of glow-in-the-dark stars twinkled down, reminding me of my conversation with Zara. To my left, beside my head, a stack of vinyl albums stretched the width of the room. An acoustic guitar was propped in the corner next to a raggedy-edged poster of Jimmi Hendrix. The room smelled vaguely of old cigarette butts.

  “Is this your room?” I asked.

  Larsen nodded.

  I sat up uncomfortably. “What's your girlfriend going to say if she comes up and finds me in here?”

  “My girlfriend? What are you talking about?” Larsen frowned and my heart leaped. “Ah, you mean Jude?” He laughed. “You didn't think..? Jude's not my girlfriend. She lives here, that's all. She shares the room downstairs with Bri.”

  “Bri,” I echoed, and lay back down again.

  “Brian. Her boyfriend. They're both artists - those are their paintings downstairs, his and hers. Only he's not here; he's at a lock-in in the Jugglers Arms, which is why she's pissed off. She's okay, though. She's gone round Marion's.”

  “Marion?” I added the name to my mental register.

  “Doug's girlfriend. Her and Jude are best buddies.”

  I was confused. “But -”

  “Marion doesn't like parties,” said Larsen. He shifted on the mattress beside me. “Now enough about Jude and Marion. Let's talk about something more interesting, like - you and me.”

  I looked up into his eyes and he looked back into mine. He was so beautiful. He was the most handsome man I had ever laid eyes on. But more than that, there was something familiar about him. It was as if I knew him, already.

  Larsen lit two cigarettes and passed me one.

  “So why did you drop out of College?” I asked him.

  “Failed my exams. Like I said.”

  “You didn’t think of re-sits?”

  “Nah.” Larsen shrugged. “What’s the point? That’s just going backwards. I believe in going forwards.”

  “No U-turns,” I smiled.

  “Precisely.” Larsen smiled back and kissed me on the cheek. I felt a shiver of excitement running up my back. He took a puff of his cigarette. “Besides, that was the old man’s dream for me, not mine. Get a degree. Become a teacher.”

  “A teacher?”

  “Yeah. They’re both teachers. Acade
mics. They both lecture at the University.”

  “And that wasn’t for you?”

  “No. My dream was always to play music.”

  “Let me guess. They don’t approve?”

  “My dad thinks I’m wasting my time.”

  “And your mum?”

  “She doesn’t even acknowledge that this is what I do. Her eyes glaze over if I mention music. Unless it’s Mahler. Or Mozart. Or Mendelssohn. She’s German,” he added. “She’s fluent in five languages. But she pretends not to understand if you say anything she doesn’t want to hear.”

  “Do all her composers have to begin with “M”? I smiled.

  Larsen grinned. “Something like that.”

  “So you’re a closet academic. And middle class to boot,” I teased.

  “Like I said, it’s how you feel, not the family you were born to.” Larsen sounded defensive, and I regretted what I’d said.

  “It’s a shame about your degree, though,” I said. “A degree can get you a long way.”

  “I thought you were packing it in?” Larsen challenged me.

  “Well, I didn’t say that. I mean, it’s early days. I don’t think it’s come to that yet.”

  “Your call,” said Larsen, and shrugged. I sensed he wanted to hear me say that I was leaving college, and I wondered why he cared. I was strangely and secretly glad that he did.

  I looked up at him. “Karen said you had just broken up with someone.”

  “Karen told you that?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah. I have. It’s been dead in the water for a long time now though.”

  “How long were you with her?”

  “A few years. Five, maybe.”

  “That’s a long time.” I paused, and then asked, “Is there any chance of you getting back together?”

  Larsen looked at me as if I were mad. “I told you. I never go back, to anything,” he said. “Once it's over, it's over.”

  There was an awkward silence.

  “It doesn't matter,” I said, uncertainly. “I’m sorry I asked.”

  “Time for another drink,” he said, and he jumped up and headed out of the room.

  I could hear people milling around on the landing, and someone called out “Hey, Tyler” as he passed them on the stairs. I lay and watched the shadows cast on the ceiling by the passing traffic, while the music throbbed below. After ten minutes had passed, it started to dawn on me that maybe he wasn't going to come back. Of course he would, eventually, since this was his bedroom but I couldn't just stay there, not for much longer, not if he didn't want me there. I wondered if Jude had come back from Marion's and was once again crying on his shoulder over the elusive Brian.

  I turned over and buried my face in the pillow. It smelled sweet and musky, an indefinable aroma of sleep and shampoo and sweat, of Larsen. I inhaled deeply, breathing him in. Five more minutes, I kept telling myself. Five more minutes, then I'll go. But every five minutes was followed by another. Eventually, I sat up and felt around on the floor for my shoes. I was about to get up when the door opened and Larsen stepped into the room, holding the remains of a bottle of vodka and two paper cups.

  “Why, oh why, oh why,” he said, “do people bring brown ale to parties?”

  “Because it's cheap and no-one likes it,” I said, almost laughing with relief. “And they’ll still have something to drink when they’ve drunk what everyone else has brought.”

  “Spot on. Bloody scroungers.” He looked at me. “And where do you think you're going?”

  “Nowhere,” I smiled and lay down on the bed again.

  “Look, I got this. Took me a while to find it.” Larsen kneeled down on the floor beside me and poured two generous measures of vodka into the paper cups, and handed one to me. “So,” he said. “Where were we?”

  Several hours later I became aware that the music had stopped and that the house had fallen silent.

  Larsen leaned over, pushed my hair away from my forehead and kissed me gently on the lips. His breath was sweet and warm.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  “I dunno, three or four.”

  “Do you think everyone’s gone?”

  “Yep. Or crashed out.”

  I propped myself up on one elbow and peered around the room, blinking and trying to focus in the dark. The moon had shifted. All I could see were darkened shapes and Larsen's silhouette above me.

  “Do you think I should go home?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I think you should stay here, with me.”

  There had been many times in my life when I had been indecisive, many times I'd felt ambivalent about things and unsure of what I really wanted (especially when I got it). But I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wanted Larsen, more than I'd ever wanted anything or anyone in my life.

  Larsen sat up with his back to me while he unlaced his trainers. I could just about see his shoulder muscles moving up and down inside his t-shirt. With a deep-seated sense of foreboding I wondered if I was going to have to pay for this at some point in the future, if the Gods would get jealous, as the saying went; but I didn't care.

  “How're you doing, are you okay?” Larsen was leaning over me again.

  “I'm okay,” I said. “I have to admit, horizontal is good.”

  “It's good for me too,” he confided, as he slid under the covers and covered my body with his own.

  3

  Martin stood by the car in silence and held the back door open.

  “Uh uh, sprained ankles in the front,” said Catherine, tugging at the passenger door and helping me inside. She climbed into the back seat with my crutches.

  Martin got into the driver’s seat beside me and started the engine. He drove silently out of the hospital gates and out onto the ringroad. Once or twice I caught him glancing in my direction. When I glanced back at him, he looked back at the road ahead of him and smiled. I was a little taken aback at his cheek. Here he was, engaged to be married, and yet he was chatting up strange women at the swimming pool and inviting them for coffee. Surely he must at least be wondering if I was going to tell Catherine? The tension between the two of us was palpable. Catherine, however, didn’t seem to notice anything and talked all the way back about school, telling various anecdotes about the two of us for Martin’s benefit.

  The strange thing was that I barely remembered any of the events that Catherine was talking about.

  “Do you remember that time I came over to your house?” asked Catherine, as we stopped at the traffic lights on Hills Road. I noticed that Martin was going the wrong way back, or at least taking a longer route than necessary, but I didn’t like to comment. “We must have been ten or eleven. Your dad threw your bike onto the neighbour’s skip because you had left it on the path outside?”

  “No,” I said, surprised. “I really don’t.”

  “Go, on, you must remember. You promised to put it away in future but he wouldn’t let you have it back. We sneaked out later to see if we could rescue it, but it was gone.”

  “I don’t remember Catherine, honest. I don’t even remember ever having a bike.”

  “Well, I guess you didn’t after that,” said Catherine, quietly.

  I turned back and smiled at her. “It’s not you, it’s me. There’s loads of stuff I seem to have forgotten.”

  “Me too,” said Catherine, cheerfully. “Mind you, I did miss a lot of school. Glandular fever. I had it every summer. And bronchitis in the winter.”

  “Sticky mattress more like,” said Martin, speaking for the first time. “Your parents were too soft on you.”

  I felt Catherine tensing behind me.

  “You caught up, though,” I said quickly. “You didn’t fall behind. That was amazing.”

  “I was good at exams, that’s all. I knew the formula. How to give the examiners what they wanted. I wasn’t naturally brainy like you. Lizzie was the clever one,” she said to Martin. “She got five A’s in her first year report and she was Student of th
e Year. I was so envious.”

  “Hmm,” I sighed. “Now that I do remember. The girls in my class buried me in the materials box during needlework and took it in turns to sit on me.”

  Martin let out a short snort of laughter. “Sorry,” he added.

  “That’s okay,” I smiled. “I’m over it.”

  We turned right off Gonville Place into Mill Road. The house would be empty and in darkness, of course, but since we had left the hospital I realised I’d been harbouring a small and selfish hope that maybe the tour would have finished early and that Larsen would be here. I really missed him, I realised that now. Maybe we could talk things through, be honest with one another, discover what was wrong and fix it - find a new bright way forward, together. Telling Catherine about him at the hospital, talking about how we had met, had reminded me of the passion between us, of how much he had meant to me, and still did. It had reminded me of exactly how much I had to lose.

  “Which street is it then?” asked Martin.

  “Sorry, sorry. Just here, turn left,” I apologised.

  Martin pulled up outside the house. I thanked him for the lift. He shrugged by way of reply and nodded at the house. “No-one home?”

  “No,” I said. “My boyfriend’s away. Due back tomorrow.”

  “Pity,” he said quietly as Catherine got out of the car to help me out.

  I turned to look at him. What was a pity? That I was on my own tonight? Or that I had a boyfriend who was coming back tomorrow? Martin just looked back at me and smiled.

  Catherine opened my door. She handed me my crutches and helped me out of the car.

  “Can you manage?” she asked. “We can help you inside if you like?”

  “It’s okay. I’m going to have to get used to these things sometime.”

  Catherine stared up at the house. “Are you sure you’ll be all right on your own? I don’t like to leave you.”

  “I'll be fine. Honest,” I smiled.

  She held me steady while I hooked my swimming bag over my shoulders and fished around in the side pocket for a pen. I wrote my telephone number down on the back of her hand.

  “I'll call you,” she smiled. “I really want to stay in touch.”