It’s certainly not the same as the sea, Helga thinks, as she lowers herself down the steps after Dominica and Emma, and into the bathing pond. It feels colder for a start, which she hadn’t been expecting, but there are other ways it’s different too. The texture of the water feels silky on her skin, not salty. She’s not as buoyant either, and she’s surprised that she has to kick harder to stay afloat.
She puts her mouth under the surface, feeling the coolness on her chin and seeing little flies jump on the surface. A skein of ducks fly low and land gracefully on the lake in the distance beyond the line of white markers in the water. There are lots of swimmers dotted around and she watches Emma and her friends in the water, like a little flock, as they swim out.
She’s glad she came for Dominica’s sake, but today has made her feel more self-conscious than she’s felt for a very long time. She’d never normally admit such weakness, but she’s been nervous all day. It started with the drive here, which freaked her out – all those suburbs, all those people. In the comfortable rut of her simple life, she’s forgotten about the wider world, about the sheer grubby scope of humanity. She guesses it’s why she’s always been drawn to the solitude of the sea.
She’s not used to strangers either, even friendly ones like Emma and her friends. They’re city people and, next to them, she feels old and shabby. She’s obviously frayed at the edges in a way she hadn’t realised that other people noticed. Why would Dominica have taken it upon herself to get her this lovely new swimming suit?
Once she’s moving in the water, though, she starts to feel calmer, as she taps into that delicious feeling of freedom that cold water inevitably brings. She sees a vapour trail across the blue. It’s been a while since she’s seen one of those. She rather liked it when the skies belonged only to the birds. God knows nature needed a rest from all the pollution, but she suspects mankind will be back to its vile old ways before too long.
This really must be a lovely place to swim every day, she thinks. You don’t get the trees at the ocean. There’s a resplendent bank of them in their full May majesty and Helga sees how beautifully they are reflected in the still water.
Her gaze strays to a group of people talking on the jetty and Helga is about to turn around and continue onwards with the others, when the sound of laughter reaches her on the gentle breeze and something about it makes her turn her head to look.
One of the guys talking on the jetty is blurry at this distance, but there’s something about his profile, about the shape of his head …
Her heart thuds once, very hard. She suddenly stops in the water. She sinks slightly, then scrambles to keep afloat.
Oh, for God’s sake, she tells herself. She’s just latching on to objects and people to make sense of this unusual environment.
It’s not him. He lives in Australia.
Doesn’t he?
But before she consciously realises what she’s doing, she’s swimming back towards the jetty, as if pulled by a higher force.
‘Helga?’ Dominica calls. ‘Helga? Where are you going?’
She turns her attention back to Dominica and the swimmers who are heading for the far bank, but there’s shivers running up and down her spine.
Dominica swims some crawl over and surfaces with a frown on her face. ‘Are you all right. Do you feel OK?’
‘I’m going to … I’m getting out,’ Helga says.
‘I’ll come with you.’
‘No, no, please don’t. Carry on. I’m fine.’
‘But—’
‘Don’t worry, honestly. I’ll just be on the side.’
She smiles reassuringly at Dominica and squeezes her arm, before turning away.
‘Helga?’ Dominica calls out. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure,’ she calls, but she doesn’t turn. Her heart is hammering, as she breaststrokes fast, like she used to, dipping her head way below the water undulating her body and coming up for air, treating herself to the sight on the jetty each time. Her heart is going mental now, as she gets closer. It can’t be, she says to herself, as she frog-legs powerfully; it can’t be, it can’t be …
Soon she’s at the metal steps at the jetty and she climbs out, feeling the water dripping from her hips down her legs. The group have moved away now to the other end of the jetty and she’s telling herself that she’s being ridiculous as she pulls up her goggles onto her hat and feels the wooden slats beneath her feet. She feels self-conscious in her figure-hugging swimming costume as she walks towards the changing area as if she’s on a catwalk.
And then she hears it again.
His laugh.
A man in jeans with shoulder-length silver hair is standing with his back to her, his hands in a padded black gilet, but she’d know that unmistakeable profile anywhere. She’s sure of it. The boy she didn’t meet on the dock nearly half a century ago, all grown into a man. An old man. As old as her.
Helga approaches, hardly able to breathe as she reaches him and touches his arm.
As he turns, it’s as if the whole world has gone into slow motion. She drinks him in, the water droplets dripping from her eyelashes, as her mouth opens in a gasp.
It is him.
Linus.
Time has been kind to him in the way that it is to men. His tanned skin is lined from years in the sun and he has a silver goatee beard, a leather band around his neck with a silver pendant on it. He always wore a necklace. She has the original one he gave her on the photo frame next to her bed.
‘Linus.’ It feels like her body is being flooded with light, just saying his name.
‘Helga?’ he asks, as if he can’t quite believe it either.
She’s aware of the skin on her arms and thighs. How she must look so saggy and old.
‘I was in the water and I thought it was you. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re here.’
‘My daughter’s friend swims here,’ he says, but his blue eyes are locked with hers. And the golden energy is now surging between them.
She nods, as her brain scrambles to catch up with the facts. He has children. That figures. And now she sees a wedding ring on his finger. Of course he has a wife. Who wouldn’t have snared a catch like Linus? She’s always known this, logically, but now she understands that there’s a childish part of her that has always wished he’d been waiting for her.
‘I followed your career. You were so successful. I always knew you would be. It’s no surprise you’re in the water. You always were a mermaid.’
My little mermaid. His nickname for her. His eyes glitter as he says it and her stomach erupts with butterflies – old, girlish emotions that don’t belong in an old woman, but they are there just the same. Just as strong.
‘You’re cold,’ he says, and she realises that her teeth have started to chatter.
‘Yes, let me get my towel and coat. It’s just over there.’
He walks with her as she goes to retrieve her coat from where she’s left it in the changing area. She shrugs it on over her wet costume, knowing that she should get changed, but she can’t waste these moments.
‘Do you live here?’ he asks, as she joins him outside.
‘No, I’m just visiting. With a friend. I live down in Brighton. By the sea. What about you?’
‘I’m over for a visit from Oz. I got stuck here for the lockdown. It’s been a crazy year, but there are worse places to be stuck. I’m going back. Won’t be long now.’
He’s been here the whole time? Her Linus. In easy distance? And now he’s leaving to go to the other side of the world?
She reaches into her coat and takes out her notebook, but she drops it, her hands are shaking so much. He bends down to pick it up at the same time as her and their heads are so close together she can breathe him in.
‘You still take a notebook everywhere?’ he asks. He smells the same.
She never takes much notice of this vital sense, but her olfactory memory is stirred now. She can’t pinpoint a place or a time, but she remembers an atmosphere. An atmosphere of youth and sunshine and endless sex. She’s touched his skin more than anyone’s in her life and she remembers how they were permanently draped around one another. As if they couldn’t bear to break skin contact. She runs her eyes over his face and hair and imagines pressing her forehead against his. The urge to pull him inside her is almost overpowering.
‘Take my number. If I ever get down to the South Coast, I’ll be sure to come and say hello.’ He stands, breaking the moment.
Does he feel this too? This familiarity, this unfathomable sense of ownership after all this time?
‘I’d like that,’ she says, but she can hardly get the words out.
He flicks through the pages.
‘All these beautiful birds. You always were so talented. Look at this,’ he marvels. She’s so private about her notebooks, but she’s handed it over to him without a second thought. She’s proud that he likes what he sees on the pages. She watches as he points to a clean page and writes down his mobile number and she knows that, from now on, this will forever be the most precious of all her notebooks.
‘You should get in the warm,’ he says. His eyes lock with hers. Those little freckles near the bridge of his nose are still beautiful.
From further along, towards the entrance, a woman calls out. ‘Dad? Dad, you coming?’
He waves and Helga follows his gaze to the blonde woman. She must be in her forties and she has an athletic figure and wide smile, just like his. She’s very attractive, Helga realises. Linus’s genes were always going to produce splendid offspring, though. That was a given. Helga wonders how it would feel if that confident young woman was her daughter.
He passes back the book. Helga is trapped in his gaze, but it’s too bright, too exposing. Because he’s cracked something open inside her, something long buried. It’s desire, she realises, but it’s something more, too, a heart ache that feels so strong, she worries that she might actually be having a heart incident.
‘It’s so good to see you again, Helga,’ he says. ‘So good.’
She nods. ‘You, too.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve got to go, but my daughter is in charge today and if I don’t do what she wants …?’ he confides with an old Linus grin. He doesn’t look as if he really minds being bossed around. She feels a childish sense of loss that he’s going. She wants to be introduced to his daughter. She wants him to tell her that she’s his long-lost lover.
‘Please call me, Helga. Please. I’d so love to talk to you, but I can’t here.’
‘I will. I promise.’
‘Will you?’ he asks and his blue eyes bore into hers.
She sees a flicker of doubt. He doesn’t believe that she will. And why would he, when she let him down all those years ago? But she solemnly promises.
He leans forward and kisses her on the cheek, but she remains motionless. As he walks away she almost calls out after him because she has to know. Did she break his heart? Like she broke her own? Did it hurt as much for him as it had done for her?
The rest of the day is a blur and she hardly registers it when Dominica announces that it’s time to go back to Brighton. Helga can tell that the day has done her the world of good and that she’s been cheered up by seeing her family and swimming in the pond, but she knows, too, that she’s let Dominica down, by being weird and quiet.
But she can’t help it. She can’t help going over and over the encounter. Linus is here. In the UK. She clamps her hand around the notebook in her pocket. She has his number. And he wants to talk. She can hardly believe it.
She feels very strange, her chest tight with a knot, right in the middle. She knows there’s been a seismic shift, like an earthquake under the seabed and she’s grateful that Dominica doesn’t press her on the drive home. But as the familiar shape of the South Downs come into view, she finally cracks, when Dominica says, ‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on?’
‘Sorry.’
‘What’s bugging you?’
‘Oh … I don’t know. Everything. The past.’
‘The past?’ Dominica asks, confused.
Today has made Helga feel old in so many ways but seeing Linus has been like she’s been thrown a rope back to the past. Back to the daredevil, risk-taking girl she used to be. ‘I thought I was scared of the future, but maybe it’s the past that’s the difficult thing to face …’
‘You want to stop talking in riddles and tell me what’s going on? I’m guessing it’s something to do with that guy you were talking to?’
Helga nods and she watches the rosy hues of the sunset as she tells Dominica about Linus and how she’d always wondered about him, how there’d always been a flame in her heart for him.
‘Oh, I see. So he was the one,’ Dominica says, referring to their earlier conversation. ‘You never answered before.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Helga admits, because all of her seems to be leaking out. Everything that has been brittle and icy is suddenly water. ‘He was the only man I ever truly loved.’
‘I’m glad it was that. I thought you might be having a heart attack.’
‘I thought I was when I saw him.’
‘So, what happens now?’
Helga sighs. ‘He’s going back to Australia as soon as he’s able. He told me to call him.’
‘And you’re going to, right?’
Helga sighs, her heart torn. ‘I want to. I said I would, but is there any point in raking over the past? I’m not sure if we’d have anything in common. He’s got a family and …’ She shakes her head. ‘I feel so nervous. Like a silly girl when I’m an old woman.’
‘Oh Helga,’ Dominica says. ‘Don’t be scared. Call him.’
‘You think I should?’
‘Yes,’ Dominica shouts. ‘Hell, yes. Because if you don’t, I will.’
By the time they’re back in Brighton, it’s dark. Dominica drops Helga at the end of the lane, making her promise before she gets out the car that she’s going to go home and call Linus straight away.
Helga puts her notebook in her bag for safekeeping and her keys too, then kisses Dominica before getting out of the car. She’s been a good friend today.
‘Promise me?’ Dominica says.
‘I promise.’ It’s the second promise that she’s made today.
As she walks up the lane, she feels lighter, buoyed up by Dominica’s confidence, like a balloon that might take off. She’s so excited, she starts walking faster towards the hot shower she needs, before she’ll make herself a tea and ring him. She will ring him now because she’s promised Dominica. And they’ll talk for hours. She already knows they will. His blue eyes fill her mind.
She doesn’t notice the man on the corner turn to follow her.