61
It was three-twenty. Leah had arranged to meet Toby outside Park Road Baths at three o’clock. She glanced up and down the road once more before giving up and making her way inside.
The pool was quiet. She liked coming on her day off. She padded barefoot to the end of the pool and slid into the water. It was lukewarm, viscous, immediately calming. She ploughed up and down the pool, feeling the tension leave her shoulder blades, her neck, her hips. After four lengths, she stopped and hugged the edge of the pool for a moment. And that was when she saw him.
She wasn’t sure it was him at first, the tall, thin man in the tiny schoolboy Speedos that clung film-like to every lump and bump of his genitals. He had no hair and a very strange lopsided face. But as he approached and began to smile, she knew without a doubt. It was Toby.
‘Oh, my God,’ she said, ‘Toby. You look so … what happened to your …? Oh, my God.’
‘I’m a monster,’ he said. ‘Melinda attacked me with a pair of clippers, then a man called Mr Shiyarayagan pulled out one of my teeth.’ He opened his mouth to show her the gap. ‘Now I am virtually naked in a public place for the first time since my school days. Bits of me are just falling off. I am being slowly disassembled. By next week, I will be bereft of any covering at all. I’ll just be bones.’
The left side of his face was slightly swollen and palsied with anaesthetic. His voice was muffled. ‘And I’m sorry I’m so late. It all took so long at the dentist’s. I saw the hygienist, too, who felt that my teeth needed nearly an hour’s worth of her attention.’ He shook his head, disbelievingly. ‘It’s been a very strange week.’
‘Well,’ said Leah, ‘you may as well continue the theme. Jump in!’
‘Oh, God.’ Toby peered at the water. ‘I really … this is just so … I haven’t been in a pool for so long. I mean, maybe I can’t even swim any more?’
‘Of course you can. Come on. Jump in.’
Toby was looking a little bit wobbly. He stood on the side of the pool contemplating the water, swaying slightly.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Yes,’ he said distractedly. ‘I am. It’s just the air in here, it’s so … blue, isn’t it? Doesn’t it make you feel light-headed?’
‘No,’ laughed Leah.
‘You’re probably used to it. It must be the chlorine. Or something. I have to say, I’m feeling really a bit odd.’ He took a step closer to the edge and closed his eyes. He swayed unsteadily to the left, then he swayed unsteadily to the right. Then his entire being, all six foot something of it, swayed forwards, poker straight and head first into the shallow end of the pool.
‘Oh, my God, Toby!’ Leah watched in horror as a thin plume of red ribboned its way up to the surface of the pool. Toby’s body lay motionless on the bottom of the pool. The lifeguard blew a whistle and people started running towards them. Leah hooked her arms under Toby’s armpits and brought him to the surface. ‘Oh, shit, Toby, are you OK?’
His eyes were closed and he had a large gash above his right eye. An elderly man appeared at Leah’s side and helped her pull him from the pool. Leah scrambled out of the water and pushed her way to Toby through a cluster of people. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, pushing past the lifeguard. ‘I’m a qualified first-aider.’ Toby was unconscious and bleeding profusely. She tipped his head backward and pinched his nose. Then she pulled his lips apart and brought her mouth down over his, to apply the kiss of life. Someone had pressed a towel to his forehead and someone else was calling an ambulance. Leah pushed her hands against Toby’s chest, then blew into his mouth again. Still he didn’t breathe. Still he didn’t open his eyes.
‘Here,’ said the lifeguard, pulling her back by the shoulder, ‘please get out of the way.’
‘No!’ Leah pulled away from him and continued pumping. Finally, as she took her mouth away from his for the fourth time, Toby coughed. Leah rocked back onto her heels and exhaled, heavily. There was an audible sigh of relief from the crowd of onlookers. Toby coughed again and this time a fountain of chlorinated water left his mouth. The third time he coughed, he vomited, copiously, all down his chest and onto the tiled floor. The crowd of onlookers inched back.
Toby opened his eyes and looked straight at Leah. Then he looked round at the sea of faces. Then he sat up. ‘Leah,’ he croaked, looking at her in awe. ‘Did I just drown?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded.
‘But you saved me?’
She nodded again.
He touched his fingertips to his temple. ‘Am I bleeding?’
‘Uh-huh. There’s an ambulance coming.’
‘Oh, God, what’s going on, Leah? What’s happening to me?’
‘It’s fine,’ she soothed. ‘You’ll be fine. Do you think you can stand up?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘No. I don’t know. Do you think I should try?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh, God,’ he said, glancing at the floor. ‘Oh, God. There’s sick everywhere. Did I do that?’
‘Yup.’
‘Oh, how disgusting. I’m so sorry. Did you have to kiss me, with, you know, sick on me?’
She smiled and helped him to his feet. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you did that after I kissed you.’
‘Oh, thank God.’ He took the bloodied towel from the man who’d been holding it against his head. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘Thank you, everybody. And I’m really sorry,’ he said to the lifeguard, ‘about the mess.’ His foot hit a slippery patch of sick and he skidded slightly as they moved towards the changing rooms. He clung on to Leah, his bare skin against hers. She pulled him towards her by the waist and was struck by the feel of his flesh under her hands. It felt so hard, so vital, compared to Amitabh’s softly upholstered body. She thought fleetingly of the hundreds of times she’d glimpsed Toby’s backlit form in the window of his bedroom, of the occasional sightings of him on the street, bundled up in peculiar clothes, strange hats, an abundance of hair and layers and coverings. Even in the summer he covered his legs, his arms, his head. It was oddly gratifying, almost thrilling, to see him unwrapped, stripped bare of his hair, his clothes, his dignity. It made him real, not just another character in her own personal soap opera, but a man.
Someone retrieved Toby’s clothes from the changing rooms and they sat together in reception, waiting for the ambulance.
‘You’ll need stitches in that,’ said Leah, peering underneath the bloodstained towel.
‘Ah, well,’ said Toby wryly, ‘that just caps off my week, I suppose.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ said Leah. ‘I feel really guilty.’
‘Oh, no.’ He looked at her in concern. ‘Really, you mustn’t feel guilty.’
‘Well, I do. It was my idea for you to come swimming. And now you’re injured. You could have died in there, Toby.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s entirely my fault. I had tequila for breakfast …’
‘You didn’t?!’
‘Yes. I’m ashamed to admit that I did. Not because I have a drink problem because, really, if I have any drink problem at all, it’s that I don’t drink enough. Although from my recent appearances you’d probably find that hard to believe. And then God knows what they gave me at the dentist. Gas and air and drugs and …’ He shuddered. ‘I was a fool to come. But I’ve just been looking forward so much to seeing you …’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, it’s all that’s got me through the week. The light at the end of the tunnel.’
‘Oh, no. And look how it ended up.’
He smiled at her. ‘It’s ended up fine,’ he said. ‘I have a scar to add character to my face. And I’ve been kissed by a beautiful woman. Not that I can really remember much about it.’
Leah smiled, feeling strangely delighted by his description of her as a beautiful woman. ‘It was very nice,’ she said. ‘You’re a very good kisser.’
‘Even when I’m comatose?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Well, that’s good to know,’ he said, ‘for the next time I’m kissing somebody in an unconscious state. And I’m so grateful to you for not letting that man save my life.’
‘Yes. I would have been horrified if I’d come to, with his greasy chops all over me.’
Leah laughed. ‘That’s why I didn’t let him. I knew you’d be appalled.’
He smiled at her and Leah was suddenly struck by how incredibly different he looked without his hair and muttonchops.
‘You know something,’ she said, ‘I was wrong. You’ve got a very nice-shaped head. In fact, I prefer you without your hair.’
‘You do?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You used to look like Tom Baker. Now you look like Christopher Ecclestone.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘that’s exactly what Melinda said. Is that a good thing, then?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is. It’s a very good thing indeed.’
The ambulance pulled up outside the baths and Leah got into the back with Toby.
‘You know you don’t have to come with me, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know. But I want to.’
‘Good,’ said Toby. He took hold of her hand. ‘Good.’
They were still holding hands when the ambulance pulled up outside casualty ten minutes later.