Swimming Upstream Read online

“My name's Michael,” he added.

  “I can't, Michael,” I said firmly. “I've got a bad ankle,” I added, nodding at my crutch, although my ankle was actually feeling much better.

  “That's a bit of a lame excuse,” he shouted, in my ear. “Get it? Boom boom.”

  I shot him a withering look. He shrugged, and started jigging around. “All right then,” he shouted. “What about your mate?”

  We both looked at Catherine, whose head was tipped back over the top of the leather seat, her mouth slightly ajar.

  “I don't think so,” I said.

  He didn't appear to be leaving. “What’s your name?” he asked, crouching down beside me.

  I told him.

  “Busy Lizzie,” he said, and smiled as if that meant something.

  The DJ announced the last dance and the music changed to a slow song. Catherine was making a snuffling noise and her hand was twitching in her lap.

  “Come on,” said Michael grabbing me by the hand. “I'll hold you up, don't worry.”

  I hobbled resignedly behind him onto the dance floor. He put his arms round my waist and pulled me to him. I reluctantly draped my hands over his shoulders. It felt too intimate, my breasts pushed up against his chest like that, when I barely knew him. I could feel his breath on my cheek and his hair tickling my forehead.

  The song was Madonna’s “Crazy for You.” You couldn’t actually dance to it. So we just went round and round, like you do to slow songs at discos. It had always seemed a bit stupid and pointless to me, not actually going anywhere, especially with a load of strangers dotted around you doing exactly the same thing. It wasn't as if any skill or dexterity were required, either, like when you tangoed or waltzed. It was simulated sex, really, which is fine when you feel like simulating sex, but I didn't. Not there, not with him, in spite of all the gin.

  When the song ended he tried to kiss me. I let him for a moment out of a combination of pity and curiosity, until he started trying to push his tongue into my mouth. It felt hard and dry, and unpleasantly alive, like a small furry animal. I pushed him gently away and limped back to Catherine, who was sitting up and rubbing her eyes. The lights were coming up and the bar staff were collecting glasses. Sinead O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares to You” was now blasting out of the speakers, and it was just about all I could bear.

  “What time is it?” Catherine asked.

  “Time to go home. Very much so, in fact.”

  We joined a queue at the taxi rank and eventually got into a mini-cab. As we turned into Catherine's street and pulled up outside the house, she stiffened and peered nervously out of the window. Amidst the row of darkened terraced houses, one glowed with light from every window.

  “It must be Martin,” she said, looking startled. “What’s he doing back home?”

  I paid the driver and followed Catherine up the path. Just as she was putting her key in the lock the door swung open and in a flash she'd disappeared inside, the door slamming shut behind her. I stopped on the path, stunned, not quite sure what had happened. I turned and looked back at the deserted street behind me. The taxi was just turning round the corner out of sight.

  There wasn't a sound from the house. I looked at my watch; it was a quarter to three and I had no idea where I was. I'd just decided to take my chances on hobbling back down the road when the front door opened and Catherine appeared looking flushed and apologetic.

  “Sorry about that,” she whispered. “Come in.”

  I stepped inside and caught sight of Martin, surveying us both, stony-faced, from the top of the stairs. I followed Catherine into the front room.

  “Don't worry, he'll be all right in the morning,” she said in a strange voice as if talking to herself and, gathering up an armful of cushions that were scattered on the floor, she patted the sofa and disappeared out of the door. A few minutes later she reappeared with a pillow and a blanket, which she handed to me without a word before she left again, switching off the light and closing the door behind her.

  Moonlight was streaming in through a gap in the curtains, casting a shaft of light across the carpet. I lay back on the sofa, pulling the blanket up to my chin. Through the silence and stillness of the room came the heavy sound of footsteps pacing up and down overhead and Martin’s voice, booming through the plasterwork in didactic tones. Every now and again I could hear the faint sound of Catherine, responding, wheedling, coaxing, and finally sobbing. I pulled the blanket over my head and stayed that way with the blood rushing in my ears long after the noise had stopped.

  Slowly, I became aware of another presence in the room. Opening my eyes tentatively, I blinked in the darkness, seeing nothing but the shadows of the furniture. I lifted my hand slowly from under the blanket and reached for the table lamp beside me, found the switch and pushed. It clicked, but nothing happened. I lay rigid, my heart pounding in my chest. I wanted to get up, get out but I was too afraid to move. I screwed up my eyes tight and prayed. Sensing something at the foot of the sofa, I slowly opened them again. In an instant, the blanket was whipped away from me. I screamed. Then I felt my body rolling over as the sofa creaked and sank beside me.

  “Shhh,” said Martin, putting his hand over my mouth.

  “What… what are you doing?” I whispered, pulling his hand away.

  “You screamed. You were having a bad dream. I came to see if you were all right.”

  I blinked and moved my head. “What time is it?”

  “Early still. Around six.” I realised he was right, that it was now morning. A shaft of early morning sunlight now beamed into the room through the gap in the curtains and specks of dust were dancing through the air. I saw that the blanket was still over me, after all. My body was stiff and aching.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. I think so.”

  “So what were you dreaming about?”

  “Nothing. Like you say, just a bad dream.”

  Martin reached out and stroked my hair back from off my forehead. “Poor thing.”

  This didn’t feel right, but I didn’t know what to say.

  “I’m okay, really,” I sat up slightly. I was relieved to remember that I was still fully dressed. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

  “You didn’t. I was up anyway. I was about to go for a jog.”

  I glanced up at him and saw that he was wearing tracksuit bottoms and a sweat top. “Don’t let me keep you.”

  “It’s okay.” He made no move to leave.

  I shifted away from him slightly and tried to think of something to say, before he could touch me again. “Where do you go? Jogging I mean?”

  “Just round the block. Up to the shops, round the park, back again.”

  “Sounds good. I would like to say I’d join you, but… I don’t think I’m going to be jogging for a while. Or swimming, come to that.”

  “That’s a shame.” Martin paused. “I used to compete, too, you know. Nationally. I was on the verge of turning professional, until I injured my back. That put paid to a lot of things.”

  “Like?”

  “My career for a start.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s tough. What happened?”

  “I had an accident. On my bike.”

  “Your bike? You were on a bicycle?”

  “Motorbike. I had a Kawasaki. A Five Hundred. I used to import and sell them, bikes. And cars, too. A real good crack, it was, got to drive them all over, delivering them to customers. I had a good little business going. Till I hit a tree. It was wet. I just skidded off the road.”

  “God. How awful. Were you badly hurt?”

  “You could say that.” A wry grin. “Both legs broken, and, worse, damage to my spinal cord. “Incomplete”. That means it wasn’t a total loss of function, thank God. But I didn’t know that at the time. I was in traction for weeks. It was bloody miserable. It felt as if my life was over, at the time. That was back in Eighty-Four.”

  The year I’d met Larsen. There I was, all tied up with the business of fallin
g in love, while Martin was in pain, lying on his back in a hospital bed. I felt a stab of pity for him.

  I said, “You must think I’m a real baby, then. All I’ve got is a sprained ankle, and look at me, moaning about it.”

  Martin smiled. “The trick is to keep it moving. And put pressure on it. Try standing on it. Stand on one leg.”

  “What, now?”

  Martin laughed. “I’m serious. As often as you can. You need to strengthen it. Physio’s what you need - and lots of it. I can help you if you like.”

  “You’re a physiotherapist?”

  “Well, no. Not exactly. But I’ve picked up a few techniques along the way. Believe me, I’ve come across more than a few serious injuries since I’ve been coaching.” He paused. “That doesn’t sound very good does it?”

  I laughed. “I know what you mean.”

  “Anyway, I got interested after the accident, in rehabilitation, I mean. After I got some movement back in my spine. I kept telling myself, making this bargain with God, you know, that if He would let me walk again I would do something positive…and then I did walk. And, well, every cloud, you know. I figured if I can’t train enough to compete myself, I can help other people.”

  “That’s very…well, big-hearted of you.”

  Martin shrugged. “It took me a while to get there. I kind of gave up for a while, after the accident. Got a bit down. You know. But I got there in the end. And my back’s much better now. Good enough for lifesaving, anyway. And I keep in good shape.”

  “I can see that,” I said, then wished I hadn’t. “So,” I added quickly, “How long have you been working at the complex?”

  “A couple of years.”

  “Ever had to save anyone’s life?”

  “Once or twice. There was one time when a very overweight woman came in eating a kebab.

  “What?” I laughed. “You’re kidding.”

  “Straight up.” Martin was smiling now. “I was just about to go over to her, tell her we didn’t allow food by the pool side. Next thing, she’s screwed up her wrapper, lowered herself into the shallow end, flopped onto her stomach and sunk straight down to the bottom.”

  “Oh my God, what did you do?”

  “Well, jumped in, of course, pulled her out. Resuscitated her.”

  “You gave her the kiss of life?”

  “Of course. Had to. That’s my job.”

  “And she was okay?”

  “Yeah, she was fine. I had onion breath, though, for the rest of my shift.”

  I laughed. Martin looked down at me and smiled. He placed his hand on top of mine. “So. How are you feeling now?”

  I glanced down at my ankle and, under the pretext of making myself more comfortable, slid my hand from under his and used it to shift my body weight. “Better. I’m fine. Really.”

  “Good.” Martin leaned forwards and kissed me gently on the cheek. He let his lips pause there for a moment and I could feel his breath, warm against my face.

  “Please,” I said, quickly, to stop him.

  He looked into my eyes. His face was still very close to mine. “What?” he whispered.

  I stumbled for words. “Catherine,” I said and added, “Don’t hurt her.”

  I knew I’d said the wrong thing. Martin sat up and shook his head.

  “It’s none of your business,” he said, quietly.

  Then he left the room.

  It was still early, and there was no sound from upstairs. I found some paper in my handbag and scribbled a note to Catherine. I left it on the kitchen table and slipped out of the front door. The street was empty apart from a few cats and a paperboy doing his rounds. I limped to the end of the road and stood on the corner, and looked in both directions. I could see a newsagent and a grocer’s shop at the bottom of the road that I recognised. I realised that I knew where I was, at the top of Cherry Hinton High Street and Fulbourn Road. I spotted a phone box on the corner and started towards it, pulling my purse out of my bag to check if I had change.

  Suddenly, I heard a whistle, looked up and saw my father walking down the street towards me. I stopped in my tracks and stared at him but he didn't seem to notice me. He opened a gate further up the street and disappeared up the pathway. I continued to stand there, rooted to the pavement, holding my breath while time stood still. The gate opened and the postman came back out. It was the postman. It wasn’t my father. Of course it wasn’t my father. How could it be?

  “Morning, love,” said the postman, cheerfully, as he passed.

  “Morning,” I replied, in a whisper.

  When I got home the house was cold. I switched the heating on but the boiler had gone out in the kitchen. After a couple of indifferent flicks at the pilot light, I gave up on it. I made myself a cup of tea and sat in the living room by the window with my jumper over my knees, watching a couple of pigeons pecking away hungrily at the cracks in the pavement outside. My stomach churned, demanding food, but I couldn't think of anything I wanted to eat. I couldn't think of anything at all, except that I wanted Larsen back. I couldn't remember what could have been so bad, bad enough for me to give him up. I thought of all our arguments and longed for even that. Anything had to be better than this. As Sinead O’Connor had so pertinently reminded me, nothing compared to him. It was that simple. He was Larsen. Nothing - no-one - compared to him.

  I sat curled up in the chair until my toes and my nose were numb, then climbed wearily up the stairs and into the bedroom. I pulled the curtains to shut out the light, pulled off my jeans and crawled under the heavy feathery folds of the duvet.

  5

  Larsen had been gone for nearly three months when Marion and Doug threw a party at their new flat on Chesterton Road.

  “You’ve got to come,” Doug had insisted on the telephone. “We never see you these days.”

  On the evening of the party I took a taxi to the address he’d given me. I knocked on the door and took a deep breath. Doug answered. He put his arms around me and squeezed me tight.

  “How are you?” asked Marion, as I entered the kitchen.

  It was hard to judge whether this was an invitation to tell her how I was coping without Larsen, or just the standard British pleasantry, to which the response “Fine. And you?” would prompt another “Fine,” and allow her to get her drink and go back into the living room.

  “Oh, fine,” I said, watching her. Something about Marion’s face told me that she had rather hoped I wasn’t fine at all. She was the sort of person who would slow right down to look at a car crash.

  “Drink?” she said. She tipped a three litre wine box onto its side and squelched the remains out of the silver paper and into two glasses.

  “So,” she said, finally, “How's things between you and Larsen?”

  “Well, we've split up,” I said. I knew that she knew that. I was just hoping that if I started from the very beginning, someone might come into the kitchen and interrupt us before I had to say anything very much else.

  “I know that.” Marion looked confused. “I was just wondering if, you know…” she trailed off.

  “No.” I shook my head. “If what?”

  “You won't mind seeing him?” Marion still looked confused.

  “Why should I?” I laughed, rather too loudly. “We're still friends.”

  “Oh yes,” said Marion. “Of course.”

  I raised my glass and smiled.

  “Hello,” said Larsen, coming into the kitchen. He was wearing an old baggy blue jumper that I'd never seen before.

  “Hello,” said Jude, from behind him.

  I was sitting on the stairs with a bottle of wine.

  “Alright,” said Larsen, sitting down beside me.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “How've you been?” he asked, rather woodenly.

  “So so,” I said. “New jumper?”

  “Not really.” He glanced awkwardly away towards the living room door. I felt disappointed. I wanted to know how he'd been coping. I wanted him to put his
arm round me. I wanted us to talk like we'd meant something to each other.

  “What about you?” I asked. “How've you been?”

  “Not bad. But Julia's moving in with Brian…”

  “Who’s Julia?”

  “His new girlfriend.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Yeah… so, I think I'm going to have to move out.” He still wasn't looking at me.

  I wondered if there was a reason for him telling me this. I wasn't sure how I'd feel if he said he wanted to move back in again, into the spare room. Of course it was still his house too. And I missed him so badly. Seeing him here, now, feeling him next to me, so close, but acting like a stranger, was almost impossible to bear.

  “So, what are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Well…”

  “If you need to… you know, move back…” I trailed off. “Into the spare room of course,” I added and laughed stupidly. Larsen still wasn’t saying anything. I suddenly remembered his words the night we met. “I never go back. Once it’s over it’s over.”

  “How's work?” Larsen asked me.

  “Good,” I said. “I did a seven-day shift last week, so I've got a few days off. I'm programme editor from Thursday.”

  “You got it.” Without exclamation.

  The living room door opened and Jude poked her head round and looked at us. I smiled. She went back inside and shut the door.

  “Well, I'm only acting up,” I said. “You know, just a secondment…” I was aware that I was speaking very quickly. I was also aware that Larsen wasn’t really listening properly but I seemed unable to stop myself from telling him and hoping that he cared. “It’s for the lunchtime show, in fact. Greg Chappell's got an eight week attachment at IRN. But in realistic terms it means he's unlikely to come back again.”

  “Well, aren’t you on the up and up?” said Larsen. He stood up. “See you later,” he added, and went back into the living room.

  I poured myself another glass of wine and considered the up and up. I decided there was no such thing. With an up, it seemed, there was always a down. Laws of gravity, I supposed.

  I wandered through the darkened living room and stood there for a moment. The Happy Mondays were blaring out of the speakers. Karen and Marion were dancing together in a manner that didn’t invite me to join them. Larsen was sitting on the sofa, talking to Jude. I spotted the back of Doug’s head on the balcony outside and opened the door.