70

Toby met Leah outside Park Road baths on Thursday afternoon. It was a blustery, wet, miserable day with the nasty bite of a chill north wind. Toby’s cheeks felt raw and exposed without their furry covering and he brought the collar of his coat up high round his face to protect himself.

In his carrier bag he had a brand-new pair of trunks, purchased that very morning from his new favourite menswear shop. They were black with a grey stripe down the sides and made of a very unembarrassing cotton fabric that didn’t cling to anything at all. Leah looked windswept and dishevelled when she arrived a moment later, but she was smiling widely and greeted Toby with a kiss on the cheek.

‘Nasty day,’ said Toby, following her towards the entrance.

‘Vile,’ she said, smiling at him over her shoulder. ‘Perfect day for a swim.’

Leah was already in the pool when Toby emerged from the changing rooms a few moments later, clutching his towel to his chest. He watched her for a minute or two, moving effortlessly up and down the pool with strong, languid movements. She smiled when she saw him watching her and patted the edge of the pool. ‘Are you coming in?’

He nodded, marvelling at the solid slope of her bare shoulders, the domed sheen of her wet hair.

‘Just be careful,’ she teased. ‘No stunt dives this time.’

He put the towel down on the side of the pool and carefully picked his way to the shallow end. He lowered himself onto his bottom and let his legs dangle in the lukewarm water. He heard a distant memory echo in his head, a teacher calling to him, ‘Dobbs! I want to see ten lengths, breast stroke. Get that gangling body in the water now!’ Toby shuddered slightly and let himself slide into the pool. Leah swam to him and got to her feet. Water cascaded off her body. She was wearing a black swimming costume that gleamed in the fluorescent light. Toby tried not to let his gaze wander too freely around her impressive form, tried not to let it linger too long on her firm round breasts, on her strong thighs, her armpits, her knees, her collarbones, her groin … but it was impossible. She looked astounding. She looked so good that he wanted to throw her over his shoulder in the manner of a caveman and make love to her in the undergrowth. He gulped and tried to turn his attention to the matter in hand. To the matter of getting his whole body under the water and afloat in some mode that wouldn’t humiliate either himself or Leah.

He started off on his back, having some vague recollection that that was easier than swimming on your front. Leah smiled encouragingly at him. ‘Are you OK?’ she mouthed. He nodded, causing water to flood over his brow and into his mouth. He flung himself over onto his front and choked. He really wasn’t designed for this. If the optimum aerodynamic design for swimming was, say, the dolphin, then Toby was more of a newborn giraffe. Leah, on the other hand, was sleek and solid and built for the water. She smiled as she swam back towards him. ‘Why don’t you just splash around in the shallow end for a while, wait until you’ve got your fins back.’

‘My fins?’

‘Yes, everybody’s got fins. They’re invisible. You just have to work out how to operate them.’

‘Right,’ Toby nodded, unconvinced, and flipped himself over onto his back again. His ears filled with water and he closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of being partially cut off from reality. He floated there for a while, his hands and feet rotating gently under the water, listening to the gurgle of underwater movements, the muted echoes of shouting children, and considered his next move. Because he hadn’t come to the swimming baths today with Leah to swim. He had much grander plans for the afternoon than a bit of splashing around inelegantly in piss-filled municipal water. Today he was going to take another big step towards his future. Today he was going to shape his destiny. Today he was going to do something utterly amazing, but potentially devastating.

He drifted across the pool, his head full of plans, his eyes closed, oblivious to the existence of anybody else until his head hit something hard and he realized that somehow or other, without even really trying, he’d reached the other end of the pool.

Toby had a lot of news to fill Leah in on in the pub over the road. She listened rapt as he told her all about Con and Daisy getting back together and Ruby moving out with Tim. She was moved to tears when he told her Joanne’s story and delighted when she heard that Jack had invited Melinda out for dinner and that Melinda was bouncing round the house like a lovesick teenage girl.

‘So it’s nearly all come together?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘Just got to get the house finished and I’ll be ready to move on.’

‘To Cornwall?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘or maybe Devon. Look.’ He pulled open his carrier bag and took out a sheaf of papers. ‘I printed these off today, for you to see.’ He handed her the papers and watched her while she flicked through them. They were properties he’d found on the Internet. Fishermen’s cottages and Georgian townhouses and windswept bungalows and barn conversions. They had landscaped gardens tumbling towards the sea, courtyards filled with hanging baskets, manicured lawns that stretched to the horizon, paddocks, outbuildings, driveways, workshops. They were small; they were large; they were compact; they were rambling. Each one represented a dream of some kind or another, a suggestion of a lifestyle, of an existence.

‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘I think,’ she said, ‘that living in London is the biggest rip-off known to man. I mean, look at this one –’ She pulled out the details for a double-fronted cottage facing the sea in a fishing village in Devon. ‘That’s probably what my flat’s worth. A piddling little one-bedroom flat in Finchley? Or a gorgeous three-bedroom cottage facing the sea?’ She shook her head. ‘These are amazing. Completely. I could happily live in any one of them.’

‘You could?’ he said, his heart starting to race lightly beneath his ribcage.

‘God, yes. Oh, wow, look at this one. Look at the garden. And that kitchen. And it’s even got a shop …’

Toby smiled and pulled the page from her hand. ‘Do you like that one, then?’

‘It’s amazing. Imagine living there, running your own little shop. How lovely would that be?’

‘I think it would be the loveliest thing imaginable,’ he said. ‘Completely perfect.’

‘So, wow, which one are you going to buy?’

‘I’m going to buy,’ he said, ‘the one that you like the best.’

‘No,’ she laughed, ‘it’s your dream. You have to decide.’

Toby glanced down at his beer, then back up at Leah. Her hair was still damp from the swimming pool. Her face was clear of make-up. She was so vital, so healthy, so alive. He could imagine her throwing sticks for dogs on beaches, cycling up a hill to get the papers, going for a bracing dip in the sea in the middle of winter. He could see her running stewed fruit through a muslin cloth into an empty jam jar, collecting apples in a basket, sitting in a low-beamed pub drinking something local. She was a country girl trapped in an urban existence. She would thrive in the country. She would blossom. And so would he.

Toby took Leah’s hand in his and breathed in deeply. ‘I think you should come with me,’ he said.

‘What?’ she smiled. ‘To look at places with you, you mean?’

He breathed out. For a moment he said nothing. He knew exactly what he’d intended to say, what he wanted to say. He wanted to say, No, come with me and live with me. I’ll be lost without you. I need you in my life. I need you to feel normal. But as he listened to the words in his head, another voice started whispering in his ear, saying, This is mad. Completely mad. I mean, why would you leave everything behind to come and live with me? You didn’t even know me two months ago. And you’ve got a boyfriend and a job and I’m just some weird bloke who lives over the road. You know, some bloke who’s still married, for God’s sake, married to some woman who’s probably dead for all I know, some bloke who’s managed to be in love with a selfish, silly, horrible cow for fifteen years even though he knew it was pathetic, some bloke who claims to be a poet though he’s written nothing worth even looking at for years, some bloke who’s sitting here wearing second-hand underpants. I mean, if you ever wondered who it was that went into charity shops and actually bought other people’s underwear, well now you know, you’re looking at him. And for some reason, Christ knows why, I’d got it into my head that you and I had some kind of future together, that you and I made sense. I thought I was going to make this wild, random, utterly insane suggestion and that you would actually give it serious consideration.

‘Ha!’ he said, loudly and unexpectedly.

‘What?’ said Leah.

‘Nothing,’ said Toby. ‘Just, er, I was going to say, but, now, I don’t know. And, I just … shit,’ he punched the table. ‘I’m such an idiot.’ He pulled on his overcoat and began stuffing the property details back into his carrier bag. Leah gazed at him. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I have to go. I have to, er …’

‘Toby,’ she said, ‘what’s the matter? Don’t go.’

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘I have to. Goodbye.’

He grabbed his carrier bag and left the pub without looking back, striding through the early evening gloom and drizzle, each drop of rain burning against the raw surface of his skin.

Leah tried to catch up with him. He could hear her calling out to him. He started to run, his feet hitting the wet streets of Crouch End with heavy, rhythmic thumps, until he couldn’t hear her voice any more.