The Pools Read online

  ‘Let’s just go straight to bed,’ she said now, climbing the stairs.

  I sat on our bed, waiting for her to finish in the bathroom. She’d bought a table lamp with a pleated silk shade in Woolworths. It was a dark pink, like the roses we’d decided on for the wallpaper. I didn’t know how to lie on the bed as I waited. Every position seemed too obvious, too lewd. So I sat on the edge and looked at the pink shade. Particles of dust played in the air above the bulb.

  Water screamed in the pipes as Kathryn washed. Taking her make-up off. Then the light in the bathroom clicked.

  I sat on my hands so they wouldn’t be too cold when I touched her. I would just ask her. I would ask her about her underwear. No, I would tell her I wanted to see it. I wouldn’t make it a question. She would respond to my demand. I was her husband. She would do this for me.

  When she came in she already had her nightie on.

  ‘Where’s your underwear?’

  That wasn’t right. That wasn’t right at all.

  ‘In the laundry basket, you ninny. Where it belongs.’ She walked over to the dressing table and started dragging a brush through her hair. Crackles of static sparked around her head.

  I sat staring at the shade.

  ‘Are you all right, Howard?’

  She sat down beside me. Her nightie was pink with a lace trim around the neck and the hem. It had little puff sleeves and a bib of lace at the front.

  ‘I want to see you in your underwear.’ I looked at the roses on the wall in front of me as I spoke. The heat from the lamp made my cheek hot. That lamp made the whole room pink, I realised. Like a girl’s bedroom. I was sleeping in a girl’s bedroom.

  She caught my chin in her hand and turned my face towards her, her nails sharp against my jaw. ‘Is that what you want?’ she said, the nick in her forehead deepening.

  I reached one hand out and flicked the lamp switch off. Kathryn let go of my chin.

  We sat in the darkness. I kept my thumb on the lamp switch. She didn’t move. I didn’t move. Although our thighs were close, they didn’t touch. I thought about touching her in the darkness, but the hand on the light switch felt cold and heavy, and the hand beneath my thigh seemed to have died.

  ‘Howard.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is that what you really want?’

  I flicked the switch on again and looked at my wife. I studied her unblinking brown eyes, thinking that if I could only see deep enough I would know. I would know the strength of her feeling for me, whatever that feeling was.

  I pressed the switch again and spoke into the darkness.

  ‘I want to see you in your underwear.’

  Then she went so quiet that for a moment I thought she was holding her breath.

  The mattress gave a sudden bounce as she stood up. I heard Kathryn’s feet padding on the carpet and over to her chest of drawers. I could hardly keep track of her shape as she moved, a black ghost in our bedroom.

  I thought of all the women’s underwear I’d ever seen. Underwear actually on a woman’s body, with flesh inside it. There was Susan Lively, a girl with long ginger curls at school. She’d done handstands so her skirt fell over her head and all the boys could see her white pants. She’d hold them for quite a while, too. At the back of the playground, by the wall of the orchard. There’d be bruised apples on the ground, holey from the worms, and Susan’s legs flashing up into the air. One sock scrunched down around the top of her ankle strap. I remembered the neat frills around the tops of her legs, the way her thighs spilled out of the elastic, and the way that lovely bone stuck out and then curved into a hollow.

  ‘Brazen hussy,’ the teacher called her. ‘Susan Lively you are a brazen hussy, get inside now. And you boys should be ashamed of yourselves too.’

  And Mum, that time I walked in on her getting dressed in the kitchen. I must have been twelve. On winter days it was so cold in our house that she would go down in the morning and light the gas stove, then leave the oven door open all day. She’d dress down there, on the mat by the sink. I knew she was in there, and that I wasn’t supposed to open the door. She was stooped over, gripping the enamel of the sink with one hand while she adjusted her stocking with the other. White spongy flesh hung between the top of her stocking and the bottom of her bloomers. When she saw me she said nothing, just walked over to the door and closed it. And then when she came out of the kitchen, fully dressed, it was like nothing had happened. She looked at me, sitting on the stairs, hiding my red face in my hands. ‘Aren’t you at school yet?’ she said, with a gentle shove on my shoulder.

  When she hung her knickers out to dry they blew in the wind like shopping bags; only after that they weren’t like bags at all, because I knew that Mum’s flesh had been inside them, spilling out of the sides and warming the cotton.

  Over by the drawers, Kathryn stooped down and hooked the hem of the nightie around her fingers. I could just see the outline of her now. Her curvy hair and body. The tips of her breasts moving slightly as she pulled open the drawer. She sighed as her fingers rummaged through its contents. I thought how hard it must be to tell what was what in this darkness, wondered how she would choose the best pair. But I didn’t turn the light on.

  She closed the drawer, letting her hips fall against it to shut it fully. I thought of the way she’d slammed the library filing cabinet closed as I watched her. Swing and slam. But this wasn’t like that at all; it wasn’t nearly as definite. She held the knickers out before her and stepped into them, one leg at a time, wobbling a bit. Then she reached into the straps of a bra and hoisted herself into it. It took a minute for her to hook herself up.

  ‘What about your legs?’

  ‘What?’

  I tried to think of a word I could use that wasn’t stockings. ‘Wouldn’t you usually put something else on?’

  She put her hands on her hips. ‘Howard – ’

  ‘You would usually be wearing something else.’

  I heard her blow upwards into her fringe, as she had done on that day in the library. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘All right.’

  She sat down on the opposite side of the bed as she rolled up the stockings. The mattress bounced as she leant over and came back up again, smoothing each leg with her hand, the hardness of her wedding ring rasping along the sheer fabric.

  ‘Bugger.’ She turned round to face me. ‘I think I’ve got a ladder.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  She blew up into her fringe again. ‘I can change them.’

  ‘No. Don’t do that.’

  We sat on our opposite sides of the bed. I kept one cold hand on the light switch; the other lay dead under my thigh. She drummed her fingers lightly on the mattress. She was in her underwear, as she had been for Jack. I wanted to see her, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to turn the light back on.

  ‘I’m getting cold,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to get into bed.’

  ‘Yes. Don’t get cold.’

  She pulled back the covers and slid into the bed. Shivered.

  I stood up and undressed.

  We lay in bed together. The sheets felt hard, frozen. I thought I wouldn’t be able to move under the cold weight of them, but then Kathryn’s hand caught my fingers and led them over the cold expanse of the mattress and onto her breast.

  I let my hands run over the pieces of fabric that covered those parts of her body, my fingers pulling on elastic, the tips of them feeling the roughness of lace, the flimsiness of nylon. She lay there, quietly breathing, as I removed it all, piece by piece, and she didn’t help me when I struggled with the hooks of her bra and her suspenders, she just let herself go loose in my arms so I could turn her whichever way I wanted and I knew she wouldn’t break, or even make a sound, as I pushed my fingers into her and called her my wife.

  four

  April, 1969

  It was one of those cold, bright spring Sundays that’s perfect for pushing the mower back and forth, working up a glow, then going into the house smelling fresh, l
ike the grass. But we were at Mum’s, for tea.

  Mum handed round a cake she’d made. She spent every Sunday morning baking, ready for our arrival.

  ‘It’s too dry,’ she said as she cut into it with her silver cake knife. ‘I know it’s too dry.’

  It was coconut, and there was a coating of that chewy desiccated stuff on the top. As I picked a piece up a lot of crumbs fell back onto my red spotted plate.

  ‘It’s lovely, Mum,’ I said.

  ‘Bless you, Howard, for your charity. It’s the coconut. Difficult not to make it too dry.’

  We were sitting in the living room. In front of Mum was the second largest of her nest of tables, upon which was the coconut cake, and the silver cake knife that was part of Mum’s set of Good Cutlery. That knife came out every Sunday, but I had never seen any other item in the set of Good Cutlery.

  Mum poured the tea into the iris-patterned cups. ‘I love irises,’ she said. ‘I think blue is my favourite colour. For flowers.’

  Kathryn had been quiet all day. I could tell she felt cold because she had her hands clasped around her knees and was hunched forward. Mum tended not to have more than one electric bar on unless it was completely necessary.

  Mum eyed Kathryn’s posture. ‘Is she cold?’ she mouthed to me.

  ‘I’m fine,’ said Kathryn.

  Mum took a bite of cake, chewed and swallowed. ‘Isn’t Kathryn having any?’ She waved a plate in my wife’s direction. ‘Come on, tell us what you think, Kathryn. I think it’s better than shop bought, at any rate.’

  ‘I’m sure it is,’ I said.

  Kathryn bit into the cake.

  ‘Of course, not everyone has time for baking,’ said Mum. ‘I’m one of the lucky ones.’

  I looked over at my wife. She put her plate down on the arm of her chair.

  ‘It is a little dry.’ She spoke very quietly, hunching her shoulders up higher and fixing her gaze on the corner of the table.

  Mum’s cuckoo clock ticked loudly.

  As she put her cup and saucer down, Mum’s eyebrow began to twitch. She shifted in her seat and said, ‘Well. Well. Well.’ Then she stood, nearly toppling the second largest of the nest of tables, swooped an arm down to pick up Kathryn’s plate, and marched into the kitchen, pleated skirt swirling behind, plate held out in front.

  I looked at Kathryn. ‘What did you say that for?’

  ‘She’s the one who said it, Howard. I was just agreeing with her.’

  ‘She always says that, though. She always says those things.’

  ‘What do I always say?’ Mum had re-entered the room and was standing behind me with a big plate of Gingernuts in her hand and an even bigger smile on her face. ‘I thought Kathryn might prefer a biscuit. Seeing as she doesn’t care for cake.’

  ‘Look. I just agreed with what you said.’ Kathryn’s voice was suddenly loud, and she put her hand up to her throat as she spoke. She looked over at me. ‘That’s all I did.’

  ‘Coconut cake is meant to be a bit dry, surely – ’

  ‘It’s all right, Howard,’ said Mum. ‘You don’t have to try to make it better. Kathryn’s quite right. The cake was dry. I don’t know how anyone could eat it.’

  The three of us were silent for a moment. The cuckoo clock kept ticking. Then Mum leant over Kathryn and for a minute I thought she was going to grab her by the neck, but she just placed the plate of Gingernuts in her lap and said, ‘Have a biscuit, dear.’ She looked into my wife’s face. ‘Go on.’

  Kathryn took a biscuit and began to chew as Mum watched.

  ‘The cake’s wonderful. Really,’ I said. ‘Wonderful.’

  Mum straightened up. ‘I think I’ll put it in the bin.’

  She snatched the cake from the table and marched out again.

  Kathryn and I sat in silence, listening as Mum scraped the cake into the bin, the knife screaming on the china.

  After a moment, I spoke. ‘Get your coat on. I’ll meet you outside.’

  By the time I’d left Mum’s, Kathryn was halfway down the road. She walked with her head on one side and a little swing in her hips. She walked like she wasn’t in any hurry, one foot stepping deliberately in front of the other, her arms swaying a little, her hair swaying a little.

  Even then, I wanted to touch her.

  Behind branches just coming into bud, the sun was low in the sky. As I followed Kathryn out of the gate and along Totleigh Way, the sun hit me full in the face. I stood still for a minute, blinded by the bright orange light, and I felt my hands and feet go warm. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply.

  Kathryn could wait. Mum could wait.

  ‘I’m expecting a baby.’

  I opened my eyes and squinted against the sun. She must have stopped and walked back towards me, because she was facing me now.

  ‘Howard. A baby.’

  Her coat was unbuttoned and I could see the whiteness of her throat.

  I stepped forward and slipped my hands inside the rough wool of her coat and pulled her towards me. There was a slight smell of bacon fat on her collar; it mingled with the sweet hairspray scent of her hair. I held her closer. We stood in silence. It was so warm there in the sunlight that her forehead was slightly moist when I kissed it.

  I looked around me. There was nothing but that strange orange light.

  Kathryn put her arms around my shoulders and rested her head on my chest. Her hair tickled my neck as she spoke. ‘Are you pleased?’

  I wanted to shout out in the street, to run back to Mum’s and tell her, to pick my wife up and carry her home, but all I could do was say yes, yes. Yes.

  I had no idea you could get so ill just from that, from expecting a baby. It was like every part of Kathryn’s body was against the idea. Bits of her that I thought might have just yielded to the situation swelled up, bruised, bled and even split. Every month her body seemed to resist that little bit more. And all the while, he was in there, growing stronger and stronger.

  By the seventh month, her legs were like thick branches. Her curves were swelling, bending the wrong way.

  One morning I kissed her in the kitchen and left for work as usual. But when I stepped outside it was colder than I’d thought, so I popped back upstairs for my jumper, and there she was, naked, standing in front of the mirror, a hand on her belly, looking herself up and down. She’d slipped off her dressing gown, and it lay in a red Kathryn-shape on the bed behind her. It was as though she was standing in front of one of those distorting mirrors you get at the fair; she was a strange reversal of her usual shape, her flesh now solidly filling the spaces where her curves had once dipped in and out.

  She turned and saw me standing in the doorway.

  I looked at the floor. ‘My jumper – ’ I said, ‘it’s a bit chilly out there.’

  I knew she was staring at me.

  ‘I’ll leave it.’ I began to retreat. ‘Sorry.’

  As I was closing the door behind me, she called my name. I hesitated on the landing before answering, to give her time to put her dressing gown back on, then I spoke into the small crack in the door. ‘I’d better get to work.’

  ‘Come back in.’

  ‘I’ll be late.’

  There was a silence before she said, ‘Please.’

  I stepped into the bedroom. She was still standing in front of the mirror, one hand on her rounded belly. The dressing gown in the Kathryn-shape remained splayed out on the bed behind her.

  ‘Do you want to feel the baby?’ she asked.

  I looked at her. She wasn’t smiling but her eyes were soft. I lay my jacket on the bed beside her dressing gown, put down my briefcase, and shut the door carefully behind me before approaching. She watched my reflection in the mirror as I moved towards her. I noticed that her breasts had spread out across her chest and the nipples were so dark they looked like flattened poppies.

  ‘My hands are cold,’ I said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  There was a streak of talc running from the top of her thigh
to her knee and I wanted to reach out and rub it away, but she led my hand to her stomach. Even her fingers were softer and rounder; as her hand clasped mine, I thought of plunging my fingers into warm earth.

  ‘Can you feel it?’

  I waited. Her stomach was hot, and my hand was heating up.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘There. Did you feel that?’

  All I could feel was the heat, and I kept thinking of the talc on her thigh. ‘Aren’t you cold like that?’ I asked.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I just thought you might want to put your dressing gown on.’

  ‘There!’ she said. ‘Did you feel that?’

  There was a pulse beneath my hand. I waited, and then there it was again, something pushing through Kathryn’s skin and into mine.

  ‘I felt it,’ I said.

  ‘I knew you would,’ said Kathryn. ‘Eventually.’ She smiled up at me, and I let out a laugh as our baby kicked again.

  She brought him home from the hospital wrapped tightly in a yellow crocheted blanket that Mum had kept from when I was a newborn. It was trimmed with satin, soft from so much washing. I worried that the car wouldn’t start in the cold, but I turned the key in the ignition and we were off first time.

  We drove home on icy roads. I took each corner very slowly, changing down into second in plenty of time. The sun was out, despite the cold; puffs of steam from the power station cooling towers were full and white as we came into Calcot. Kathryn opened her own coat and folded the bundle of our baby inside, close to her chest. As I drove, I left one hand on the gear stick so Kathryn could hold it.