Chapter 22
Twenty-two
THE BOYS ARRIVED AT breakfast; we were at the pool by noon.
When Victoria said we were going swimming I’d expected a tiled, chlorinated affair, but it wasn’t like that at all.
The pool was a mossy rectangle with lichen-covered slabs around the perimeter and stone naiads stationed at each corner.
There was a thin time-rusted ladder at one end and a shell grotto at the other.
Obi and Jolly bobbed in the water while Victoria reclined in the long grass.
I sat next to her, hunched over the battered copy of Jane Eyre I’d brought with me that weekend.
‘Read to me,’ Victoria demanded, applying sun cream to the freckly skin of her arms.
‘No. I’m too embarrassed.’
‘Go on, read to me.’ She lay on her front, her chin nestled in the crook of her elbow. ‘I like the sound of your voice.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes, I like your accent, it soothes me.’
‘I’ll have to restart the chapter.’
‘Oh, don’t bother with all that. Just read from wherever you are. I wish to be lulled.’
‘Fine.’ I rolled my eyes and cleared my throat theatrically. ‘“Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now.”’
‘Who’s speaking?’ she asked, lifting her chin.
‘Rochester.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘Jane’s lover.’
‘Grumpy fellow?’
‘Yes – sort of.’
‘OK, carry on.’
‘It is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame.’ I glanced sideways at her.
A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead and into her hair.
Beneath her brother’s smudged Ray-Bans, her eyelids fluttered.
‘And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.
’ I heard a gentle snuffling sound. She rolled onto her side, dozing. ‘As for you,—you’d forget me.’
‘Are you two lazy cunts getting in or what?’ Jolly yelled, startling us both.
‘We will eventually,’ Victoria said, with a dismissive wave of her hand.
‘Come on. We want to play chicken,’ Obi added.
‘Who’s going on whose shoulders?’ Jolly asked. ‘I’m not having anyone’s thighs around my neck.’
‘It’s all right, Jol,’ I said, placing the book in the grass. ‘You can sit on mine.’
‘You’re not tall enough.’
‘I’m five seven, I’ll have you know.’
‘Fine. But hurry up. My hands are getting all pruney.’
I pushed my sunglasses up my nose and a dragonfly whizzed past me.
I watched it dart backwards and forwards, skating across the surface of the pool.
But then Obi swam down, trying to grab at Jolly’s ankles, and the insect darted away.
I lay down beside Victoria, the hairs of my arm touching hers, and stared at the sky, an endless, perfect blue.
Just then, I heard a voice. Not Helena’s – who’d gone to bed with a migraine – but a man’s. Obi and Jolly craned their necks to see who it was. I sat up and turned around.
‘Ciao amici,’ Stefano called out, barrelling down the hill. ‘You miss me?’ he asked, removing his T-shirt and shorts.
I nudged Victoria. She remained still.
‘V, what the f—?
‘Watch out,’ Stefano yelled, cutting me off. He sprinted past us and jumped in the water, soaking the four of us. Victoria squealed and, jerking upright, reached for her towel.
‘Good to see you,’ Obi said as Stefano surfaced for air.
‘We weren’t expecting you,’ Jolly said, swimming over to him and trying to catch my eye.
‘Hi Steffy,’ Victoria said, dabbing at her hair. ‘There are beers in the cooler if you want them.’
‘What’s he doing here?’ I whispered.
‘No idea,’ she replied, lying flat again. ‘The more the merrier though, eh?’
‘Hello Shannon,’ Stefano said sheepishly, wiping water from his eyes.
‘Hello,’ I replied, my heart hammering inside my chest.
Stefano ducked his head under the water again and swam to the far end of the pool.
‘I thought it would just be us,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘You promised it would just be us, V.’
Victoria rolled her head away from me and released a languid sigh. ‘I guess Obi invited him.’
I looked at the pool, where Stefano had Obi in a headlock and was trying to push him underwater, then back at Victoria, her face serene beneath the sun’s glare.
She must have felt me staring at her, because after a moment she got up and tottered over to the pool’s edge.
I scrambled to my feet and followed her.
‘Is it cold?’ she asked, her arms crossed around her middle.
‘It’s fine,’ Obi replied.
I went and stood beside her, my body trembling.
‘Yeah, come on in,’ Jolly added.
Stefano grinned and splashed the edge so that we both reared back.
‘I’m scared,’ she said.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Obi said. ‘Just jump.’
I stared at the murky pool, at our reflections dancing on the surface. The water rippled and sparkled beneath us, distorting our bodies into one greenish monstrosity. But then the right side of me seemed to grow larger; I felt a hand on my shoulder.
Suddenly I was beneath the water, thrashing and twisting, algae wrapping like tentacles around my hands and feet.
I could feel myself being pulled under, deeper, drowning.
I panicked, reaching for the light and, with a gasp, emerged from the water.
My eyes stung. I wiped a lick of slime from my face.
I could hear laughter and applause coming from the boys.
‘That’s one way to do it!’ Stefano yelled.
I spun around to find Victoria towering over me, laughing. She caught my eye and, smiling triumphantly, took a bow.
‘SHANNON? SHANNON? ARE YOU OK?’
I blinked, slowly. Jolly stood before me. He waved his hand in front of my face.
‘Hellooo? Anyone there?’
I was sitting on the stone veranda. I’d been out there for an hour. My legs and hands were stiff. The gardens and grounds spread out before me. I was dressed for dinner. Victoria had insisted I wear the lavender gown. She was upstairs getting ready.
My hair was still damp from the pool.
‘Hello,’ I said evenly.
Jolly sank down into the green-and-burgundy striped deckchair beside me. In my periphery I could see he was wearing a dinner jacket and a white shirt, open at the collar.
‘You look nice,’ I said.
‘Oh, so you can see me then,’ he said. He picked at his top button. ‘It’s Henry’s. V fished it out of his wardrobe.’ He pulled a dickie bow from his pocket and began fiddling with the fastening. ‘These people – can you believe we actually have to dress for dinner, and in this heat?’
‘Hmm.’
‘I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love the theatricality of it all, but I’m sweating my balls off here.’
‘Yes.’
‘Also’ – he lowered his voice and glanced back at the house – ‘I’m completely out of my depth here.
I mean, I knew V had money, but this’ – he gestured at the landscape – ‘I feel like I’m in fucking Brideshead Revisited, you know?
And her mum . . . yikes. I mean, you know me, I can get along with anyone, but the ice queen in there – I don’t know, it’s like suddenly I don’t know how to behave.
I guess meeting Helena does explain a lot though. ’
‘Hmm.’
‘And also, what’s with our Italian visitor? Did you know he was coming? I’m pretty sure V said it would be just us.’
‘I didn’t know.’
‘Are you OK with it?’
‘With what?’
‘With him.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘OK.’ Jolly paused and ran a hand through his hair. ‘And look, well, I’m sorry for laughing earlier, when V pushed you. It was a nasty trick . . .’
I gave a small shrug.
‘Shannon?’
I remained still.
‘Are you OK?’ Jolly asked, leaning forwards.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, continuing to stare ahead.
‘Are you sure? Because you’re acting kind of weird.’
A fly landed on my arm, then flew away.
‘You can tell me, you know, if something’s upset you or if you want to talk. Is it the pool thing? Because again, like, I’m really sorry.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘I’m fine.’
‘What’s wrong?’
I stared silently at a white tree, thunder-struck and parched in the distance.
‘OK.’ Jolly cleared his throat and spoke carefully, as if to a madwoman. ‘What’s going on, Shan?’
He placed a hand on my knee. I looked down at it, then up at him.
I opened my mouth, trying to form the words with my tongue, to sound them out with my dry, sunburnt lips.
‘I . . . have these moments when I feel like . . . it’s like I’m behind glass or underwater.
Things feel far away. They don’t quite feel like they’re real. ’
Jolly frowned. ‘And does this happen often?’
I shook my head.
‘Because it kind of sounds like you’re disassociating.’
‘Sometimes it feels like I’m someone else . . .’
‘My cousin used to disassociate.’
His voice moved further away.
‘Sometimes it feels like I’m no one at all . . .’
‘You know, there are therapies which can help—’
Like he was in an echo chamber.
‘And it’s like I’m disappearing—’
‘My cousin was given antidepressants as well—’
Like he was a voice in my head.
‘And I don’t know who I am—’
‘She got help.’
Like he was underwater.
‘And time moves slowly—’
‘With help, she was able to manage it.’
Drowning.
I closed my eyes.
‘Shannon?’ All of a sudden, Jolly was crouched in front of me, grasping both my forearms and shaking me. ‘Look at me.’
I did. The glass shimmered.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said. ‘You’re OK. I’m here. This is real. It’s Saturday, a warm summer’s evening. You can smell honeysuckle and jasmine. You can hear birds. You can see trees.’
I stared at him, Jolly, my friend, and gradually the glass began to melt.
He gave my arm a light pinch. ‘You can feel me touching you, yes?’
I blinked and nodded my head. I scrunched up my face. I flexed my fingers, pumping blood into them; bringing myself back to life.