Reader, I Married Him. Tracy Chevalier

HALL

      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 rectangular 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; the trick was 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, put her head underwater, surfacing a few strokes later. She was awake now, her heart jabbing. She turned on to her back, rotated her arms. The clouds above were grey and fast. Rain later, perhaps.

      She swam twenty lengths, by which time she was warm and the idea of autumn seemed acceptable, 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 hard to swim, hard to find the space; the pool was choppy, kids bombed in at the deep end, and the water washed out over the edges, soaking towels and bags. Barely an inch between sunbathers. Not many came after early September. But the old couple with rubber caps she always saw on quieter mornings 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 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 crêping and the sag. She showered and dressed, and went into the poolside café. 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 thirties, 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 mouths, straight teeth, a kind of ebullient confidence. The scenes looked pre-industrial – open sky, birds in vee formations overhead. The five-storey civic building opposite the park hadn’t been built. London had not yet arrived.

      The man behind the counter leaned away from the growling espresso machine and predicted her order.

      Latte?

      Yes, please.

      There was an immaculate row of silver rings in his bottom lip.

      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 thin, but strung with muscle. 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. She wondered if they’d evolved towards their symmetry over the years. 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 hanging in the air. The surface of the pool stilled to a beautiful chemical blue.

      Her coffee arrived. She opened a packet of sugar and poured it. She shouldn’t be taking sugar – the baby weight was still not coming off – but hadn’t ever been able to drink coffee without. She sipped slowly. The pool was hypnotic; something about the water was calming, 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 were 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 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. 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 jobs, for the culture; London’s sacrificial gravity was too strong and it had taken them. Discovering the park had changed everything, and the nearby property was just about affordable.

      She passed through the rank of dark-trunked 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. For a century it had been a wasteland – the horses used for pulling the carts of quartz sand to the glassworks had overgrazed 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. There was a dry, chaff-like smell to the meadow after the summer; 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.

      Alex.

      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 concentration 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.

      Hi. Do you still live around here?

      Yes, I’m over on Hillworth. Near the station.

      Nice area.

      Yes.

      The wind was throwing her hair around her face, tangling it. She hadn’t properly washed or brushed it 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.

      At the lido?

      She nodded.

      Wow! It’s still open? I must go there. Is it cold?

      It’s OK. 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 going, she’d expected to run into him and had, for a time, avoided the park. After a few months the expectation had lessened, and the hope, and she had reclaimed the space. 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 as she looked. The shape of his mouth, too full, 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. His teeth. One of the front ones was a fraction squarer, mostly porcelain – the accident on his bike. She had liked tapping it, then the tooth next to it, to hear the difference. Heat bloomed up her neck. These days she could not remember things – 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