LUXURY HOUR

It was the last week of the season and the lido was nearly deserted. She arrived at the usual time, changed into her suit, left her clothes in a locker and walked out across the chlorine-scented vault. The concrete paving had traces of frost in the corners and was almost painful on the soles of her feet. Light rustled under the blue surface. She climbed down the metal ladder and moved away from the edge without pausing. In October, entering the unheated pool was an act of bravery; she had to remain thoughtless. The water was coldly radiant. Her limbs felt stiff as she kicked and her chin burned. At the halfway mark she looked up at the guard, who was sinking into the fur hood of his parka. Nothing in his demeanour gave the impression of a man ready to intervene, should it be necessary. She took a breath and put her head underwater, surfacing a few strokes later. She was awake now, her heart jabbing. She turned onto her back, rotated her arms, kicked hard. The clouds above were grey and fast. Rain later, perhaps. She swam 20 lengths, then rested her head on the coping and caught her breath. The pool slopped gently against her chest. Light filaments flashed and extinguished in the rocking fluid. In summer it was impossible to swim, there was no space; the pool was choppy, kids bombed in at the deep end. Barely an inch between sunbathers. Not many came after early September. But the old couple with rubber caps she always saw in the morning were in the next lane, swimming side by side: her chin tipped high, his submerged. She followed in their wake. They nodded hello when she reached the deep end, and she smiled. She climbed out. Her breasts and thighs were blotched red with the chill and exertion. In the changing room she tried not to look at her midriff in the mirrors, the creping and the collapse. She showered

and dressed, and went into the poolside cafe. It was busy as usual. There were prams parked between tables, people working on laptops and reading books. The debris of muesli, pastries and napkins was strewn about. On the walls were photographs from the ’30s, pictures of young women diving from the high board – now dismantled – or posing with their hands on their hips. The grace, the vivacity, of another era: dark, lipsticked mouths, straight teeth, a kind of ebullient confidence. Their bikinis were high-waisted and scalloped. The scenes looked pre-industrial – open sky, a quality of light. The five-storey civic building opposite the park hadn’t been built. London had not yet encroached. The man behind the counter leaned away from the growling espresso machine and predicted her order. “Latte?” “Please.” There was an immaculate row of silver rings in his bottom lip. His head was shaved in a striped pattern. “Bring it over.” She took a seat by the window, in the corner, and watched the old couple emerge from the lido. Their stamina was far greater than hers – an hour’s swimming at least. They stood dripping and chatting for a moment as if unaffected by the smart breeze. The woman’s legs were strung with thin muscles. Her belly was a tiny mound under the swimming costume. The man had a buckled torso, a white beard. There was a vast laparotomy scar up his abdomen. They were the same height and seemed perfectly suited, even their red caps matched. She wondered if they’d evolved towards their symmetry over the years. Had they ever fought and lied? Had they slammed doors or posted secret letters? The couple parted and went towards separate changing rooms. He walked awkwardly, favouring one hip. In the pool he swam well. Occasionally she’d seen his sedate, companionable breaststroke morph into an energetic butterfly. There was no-one left in the lido. The guard rested his head on his hand, eyes closed, the whistle attached to his wrist hung in the air. The surface of the pool stilled to a beautiful chemical blue. Her coffee arrived. She opened a packet of sugar. She shouldn’t be taking sugar – the baby weight was still not coming off – but she hadn’t ever been able to drink coffee without it. She sipped slowly. The pool was hypnotic; something about the water was calming,

“These days she couldn’t remember anything – where her purse was, which breast she had last fed the baby on. But she could remember his mouth”

rapturous almost. Time here, after swimming, always felt inadmissible to her day. She would linger, ignore her phone. Often she had to race round the shops to be back in time for the sitter. Luxury hour, Daniel called it, as if she was indulging herself, but it was the only time she had without the baby. After a while she went to the counter, paid and left. She began to walk home through the park. The breeze was strengthening, the leaves of the trees moving briskly. There were some kids playing cycle polo on one of the hard courts, wheeling about and whacking the puck against the metal cage. Dogs bounded across the grass. She passed the glass-merchant’s mansion and the old glassworks, both hidden under flapping plastic drapes and renovation scaffolding. The buildings were being converted into a gallery and she’d begun to wonder about applying for a job. She’d hated the city when she and Daniel had first arrived. She’d missed the Devon countryside, the fragrance of peat and gorse, horses with torn manes, the lack of people. But it was what one did, for the better-paid jobs, for the culture; London’s sacrificial gravity was too strong. She’d hated the filth, the industrial claustrophobia, immoral rents. Discovering the park had changed everything, and the nearby property was, just about, affordable – two-bedroom flats carved out of the modest houses of 19th-century artisans. She passed through a rank of darktrunked sycamores. Beyond was the meadow. Its pale brindle stirred in the wind, belts of grass lightening and darkening. The field had been resown after a local campaign by the Friends Of The Park – she’d signed their petition. For a century it had been a wasteland. The horses used to pull the carts of quartz sand to the glassworks had over-grazed it. Dust, cullet and oil from the annealing ovens had polluted the soil. Now it was lush again, there were bees and mice, even city kestrels – she’d seen them tremoring above the burrows, stooping with astonishing speed. It almost reminded her of home. What did people do without access to such places, places less governed, she wondered. Turn to stone. There was a dry, chaff-like smell to the meadow; the grasses clicked and hushed. The enormous, elaborate spider webs of the previous month had broken apart and were drifting free. A man was walking down the scythed path towards her. She stepped aside to let him pass but he stopped and held out his hand. “Emma?”

“The past was restoring itself too viscerally. Since the baby she had felt nothing, no desire... Now, there was a familiar low ache”

She looked up. For a second she didn’t recognise him. He had on a tie and a suit jacket. The planes of his face came into focus. The heavy bones, the irises with their strange uniformity of colour, no divisions or rings. He was a little older, his hair darker than she remembered, but it was him. “Oh, God,” she said. “Hi.” He moved to kiss her cheek. She put a hand on his arm, turned her face too much and he kissed her ear, awkwardly. “Do you still live around here?” “Yes, I’m over on Hillworth. Near the station.” “Nice area.” “Yes,” she said. “It is nice.” The wind was throwing her hair around her face. She hadn’t properly washed or brushed the tangles in the changing room. She moved a damp strand from her forehead. It felt sticky with chlorine. He was looking at her, his expression unreadable. “I’ve been swimming,” she explained. “At the lido?” She nodded. “Wow! It’s still open? I should go there. Is it cold?” “It’s okay. Bracing.” Had he forgotten? The cold water never used to bother him. She ran a hand through her hair again, tried to think what to say. Her mind felt white, soft. The shock of the real. Even though he’d said he was leaving, she’d expected to run into him and had, for a time, avoided the area. After a few months the expectation had lessened, and the hope. Then the baby had come, and life had altered drastically. She’d assumed he’d moved away for good. His face was becoming increasingly familiar the more she looked. The shape of his mouth, too full, too voluptuous for a man, the fine white scar in the upper lip. “So, where are you these days?” she asked. “Brighton.” “Brighton!” “I know!” He smiled. One of his front teeth was a fraction squarer, made of porcelain – the accident on his bike while at medical school, she could recall the story. She’d liked tapping it, then the tooth next to it, to hear the difference. Heat bloomed up her neck. These days she could not remember anything – where her purse was, which breast she had last fed the baby on, the name of the artist from her university dissertation. But she could remember his mouth, and lying so close to his face that its structure began to blur. She felt as if she might reach out now and touch the hard, wet surface of his broken tooth. She put her hands in her coat pockets. Around them the grass was swaying and hissing. A bird darted out of the field, flew a few feet and then disappeared between stalks. He was studying her, too. Probably she looked tired, leached and aged, the classic new mother’s demeanour, not like the woman who had come up to him in a low-cut swimsuit and asked to borrow change for the locker. “I’ll pay you back tomorrow.” “I might not be here tomorrow.” “Yes, you will.” So confident, then. She hadn’t applied makeup, there was no point most days really, and her mouth was dry and bitter from the coffee. At least the long coat hid her figure. There was no point avoiding the obvious question. “Did you go to Burma?” she asked. “Myanmar,” he corrected, quietly. “I did. Well, officially to Thailand, but we went across the border most days into the training camps.” “I thought you would.” “Now it’s not such a problem getting in. Tourism.” She nodded. She was not up to speed on such things anymore. “Was it difficult?” She wasn’t sure what she meant by this question, only that she imagined privation, forfeit, that he’d made the wrong decision. “Sometimes. We had a decent team. A lot of them were more missionaries than doctors really, but on the whole the quality was good. I don’t know whether we helped. The students qualified, then got arrested for practising.” He shrugged. He glanced towards the north end of the park. “So it’s still open?” “Yes. Last week before winter closing. You should go before it shuts.” For old time’s sake. She did not say it. Nor, why have you come back? He glanced at his watch. “I have a conference. I’m presenting the first paper, actually. I have to get to Barts.” “Oh. Congratulations.” He had obviously come up the ranks. Hence the suit, the tidy version of his former self. He shrugged again.