November
Holly drew the curtains across the dark night, checking to see if the outside lights were on over the porch and in the yard. There were people staying in the smaller holiday cottage, a young couple, and she wanted to make sure it looked inviting for them when they got back in from their day out. Their way back to the cluster of buildings at the end of the track would only be lit by stars. There were no streetlights this far out of the village, but each gatepost was adorned with a string of bright fairy lights set to come on as dusk fell and she’d carefully wound more twinkles around the evergreen shrubs that divided each holiday cottage from the main farmhouse and cobbled yard. The cost of electricity to create a welcoming and enticing ambiance was meagre in comparison to the lifting of spirits she always felt as she drove in, so she could only imagine how appreciative her guests would feel. She’d enjoyed chatting briefly to this particular couple that morning when they were on their way out into the Central Lakes.
She looked at her watch; the others would be here soon. Stevie and Angela were coming round to talk about creating their Arctic Flaps account using some of the photographs that Chris had taken. Holly had invited them to hers because it was closer to Angela’s farm and she had said she couldn’t be out very long. The poor woman – from the little she’d said about her mother-in-law, it sounded awful. How could she put up with such negativity and downright bullying? She needed to stand up for herself. Or maybe her husband, Ed, needed to be more of the man around the place and not let his mother tell him what to do. Even as Holly thought it, she knew that would never happen, not from what she’d observed and overheard since she’d been living here. There was just something about mothers and sons who had been left alone to run a farm. Any other woman involved in that particular relationship was like a threat to the mother, it seemed. If Ed wouldn’t retire his mother to a bungalow in town, her place was with them in the farmhouse in which she’d grown up. She was the boss.
She and Stevie had tried to gain Angela’s confidence and get her to open up more, share her stuff with them during those unfiltered moments when the cold water made them swear or afterwards while they sat huddled up in layers of warm clothes sipping hot drinks and consuming cakes none of them would normally eat. Somehow, it was all part of being a swimmer.
Holly knew that she was the only one who didn’t hold back. Sometimes the other two women squirmed at the details she gave about Simon and her sex, or lack of, sex life. “Do you think it’d be less painful if he were smaller?” she’d asked them, which had made Angela giggle so much that she nearly wet herself, which was when it dawned on her what the other two had been saying about arctic flaps and vowed to do pelvic floor exercises every time they swam from now on. The notion of thinking ‘squeeze and up, up and up’ triggered more laughing.
Often, the howls of laughter, even from Angela, echoed round the Crummock valley. The loudest definitely came from Holly. Never, in all the time that she had been living up in the Lakes, had she imagined there would come a time when she forgot where she was and who she was with, but those moments were more frequent now as she got to know the other two women better. During the long hours she spent in the overly neat house that was supposed to be a luxurious escape from the city, those moments were fast becoming a string of emotional fairy lights to add to her artificial ones that danced in the shadows and made her smile.
What was even more surprising to Holly was that she thought about Stevie and Angela every day, not just in terms of swim buddies, but as real friends: who shared her sense of humour, who were slowly changing her opinion about the landscape, and who had become mentally and emotionally resilient themselves.
Holly opened the door of the wood burner with the heatproof glove, chucked another couple of logs on, closed the door up again with a twist of the handle, and watched while the flames licked up the dry wood. Fire: bewitching but dangerous. Not too dissimilar to love between two people, she thought with a wry smile.
Half an hour later, armed with glasses of wine and Stevie’s laptop, the women settled down on the floor at the low coffee table. Six slippered feet scrumpled up on the expensive designer rug and Jasper the dog was watching them with half an eye open. He’d already sniffed Stevie and Angela when they arrived and had latched on to Angela, probably because she’d stroked his head and tickled his ears in such a confident way that they were now friends. He was still checking Stevie out from time to time, but gradually, the warmth of the stove and the sound of the women’s voices seemed to lull him into a state of complete serenity.
‘So, here we are,’ said Stevie after various clicks and scrolls, tuts and mutters.
‘Whoa! Don’t we look the part,’ said Holly, peering more closely at the photo of the three of them walking into the lake. ‘He’s good.’
‘He had great subjects.’ Stevie laughed, but agreed it was a good photo, well composed, and Chris had shot them from a flattering angle so their legs looked endless and the lake absolutely stunning.
‘So, what do we do with them now?’ Stevie looked at Holly, who was already tapping on her phone and was in the process of setting up the account.
‘Arctic Flappers is better, I think, don’t you?’ Holly typed it into her phone before the other two could answer.
Stevie didn’t think it would make a huge amount of difference. It still embarrassed her.
Holly continued, ‘I need you to send me some of the photos. One for the profile photo and then we’ll do a couple of posts now while we’re together.’
‘How do I do that?’ Stevie’s brain panicked, looking from her laptop to Holly’s phone as if she literally hoped she would see a handful of glossy photographs floating in the space between them.
Angela snorted and the others both looked at her. ‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘Your face, Stevie. No! I can’t help! I’m no better than you!’
‘Here, give it to me.’ Holly tried not to sound frustrated at the IT ignorance of her friends. ‘Let me. It’s quite straightforward… when you know how.’
Stevie passed her the laptop and flopped back on the sofa, but not before she had grabbed her glass of wine and taken a big swig out of it. ‘I’m just worried my bottom won’t look as perky as either of yours,’ she said with a moan. ‘Note to self, start doing squats tomorrow!’
‘You have to turn your Airdrop on,’ Holly muttered, looking up from the screen with her finger poised on her phone. ‘Stevie! Are you with us or fantasising about Chris?’ She shook her head in mock despair, but then resumed flicking up and down and tapping on the screen for a few more seconds. ‘Done!’ she declared with a sigh of relief.
Her glass was empty, so she stood up, grabbed the bottle, and topped up Stevie’s glass then her own. Angela refused any more since she was driving and would be leaving fairly shortly, she said, looking at the wall clock.
Stevie was staying over at Holly’s, so wasn’t too bothered about how much she drank. Besides, she was in the mood to let go a bit.
There was a series of pings from Holly’s phone to indicate the transfer had been successful. Stevie shook her head and laughed. How easy if you knew how. The other two immediately started to speak excitedly about what they should put in their – the Arctic Flappers’ – first post.
‘Who are we, first of all?’ Holly’s fingers were poised on her phone, but before either of the other two could speak, she’d already started typing. ‘We are unflappable: even when our bits are immersed in cold water,’ she said out loud and then added a frozen face emoji at the end.
Stevie frowned. ‘Maybe take out the “our bits”?’
‘Or maybe something more like “bracing ourselves for our first winter swimming”,’ Angela said.
The others’ pretend yawns woke the dog and he snuffled and groaned as if in agreement.
‘I think what I suggested will do to start with anyway,’ said Holly as she finished typing their bio. ‘Right. First post. I think we need to just have a photo of all three of us walking into the lake – um, this one’s good. And some text.’ She typed a few words. ‘And some hashtags.’
‘Hashtags?’ Stevie was lost but intrigued.
‘Yes, people search based on hashtags, so if we want to be found by the right people, we need the right hashtags.’ Holly sounded so confident that the other two just sat back and watched the master at work.
‘Sorry, but I’m going to have to go.’ Angela said as she started to get up off the floor. ‘I told Ed that I was just popping out for an hour. Stevie, how about your friends down in Oxford?’ Then she frowned. ‘Sorry, I can’t remember whether or not I’ve already asked you that? I think my brain fog is getting worse – maybe it’s because I’m awake most nights sweating and trying not to wriggle around too much in case I wake Ed!’
Stevie grimaced in sympathy and then added, ‘It’s alright, I’ve already told Emma I’m getting a relay team together, but forgot to say that finding a man up here is a bit tricky! Do you fancy a trip down there? We could do a bit of recruiting down south. Maybe the men are more suitable?’
‘Do you reckon?’ Holly raised her eyebrows. ‘I’m up for that. Can you get away, Angela? Shall we talk to Ed?’
‘No! Don’t do that. Um, I’m not sure, but you two could always go without me.’
‘It’d be nicer if we could all go. Let me message Emma and see what she reckons,’ said Stevie. ‘I’m sure she could put us up if we go. She’s got a sort of annexe attached to her house; we could just squeeze in there for two nights.’ She hugged Angela, who looked as if she needed a grizzly bear hug, kissed her on the cheek, and moved aside to let Holly do the same.
* * *
As the rear lights of Angela’s car disappeared from the yard in a red blur, Holly closed the front door, checked that the dog hadn’t escaped with his new friend, and then suggested to Stevie that they move to the comfy chairs, refill their glasses, and put their thinking caps on.
‘So, how’re things with you and Simon?’ Stevie spoke the words before realising she had even had the thought. Maybe Holly didn’t want to talk about deep stuff? She almost immediately attempted to lighten the conversation. ‘And his swim trunks! Did you ask him if he was interested in being our man?’
‘Yeh, I did.’ Holly laughed. ‘As expected, he shrieked in horror and asked me if I wanted to join their mountain-biking team. “Same thing”, he said. “I’m not trained up to swim seriously. I’d die, or my bits would drop off!”’
‘Ha-ha, he’s probably right!’ There was a slightly uncomfortable silence. Both women knew what the real question had been. It was Holly who saved the awkwardness from deepening.
‘But I’ve talked to him about my worries, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Go on…’ Stevie wasn’t quite sure how far the conversation was going, but sensed that Holly would be open and just needed a bit of gentle encouragement.
‘I couldn’t think how to put it at first, you know, which is strange, because I’ve always been able to talk to him about anything. But in my head, the painful sex and an affair are linked. Maybe it’s my fault?’ She looked at Stevie with such confusion.
‘No, no, Holly, don’t ever think anything like that is your fault!’ Stevie grabbed the younger woman and hugged her so hard they both winced.
‘Ouch!’ Holly laughed. ‘I know, I know, it’s crazy, but sex has always been such a big part of our relationship. It’s just,’ she said with a sigh, ‘if that goes, I’m not sure what we’ve got left.’
Stevie felt a shudder go across her shoulders as if Holly’s words had stirred up her own pain, which she’d been trying so hard to bury. ‘I understand, honestly I do. But, from what you’ve told me about Simon, how you met, and your plans for the future, there’s tons of stuff going on between you.’
‘Yeh, you’re probably right. I still asked him, though. I said, “Do you still love me, Simon?” And he looked at me as if I’d gone mad. Actually, he looked quite angry! Of course, then I felt defensive, which never helps, and we had a massive argument.’
‘Oh dear!’ Stevie shook her head and empathised completely with how the conversation had gone for her friend. Talking about emotions had always been difficult with John, too. In fact, she’d stopped trying because he just shut her down by walking away.
‘But in the end, that was a good thing,’ Holly explained, ‘because after the storm comes the calm, if you know what I mean?’
Stevie didn’t really, but guessed Holly meant they had make-up sex. Ah, she thought, I know what’s coming. Still, she let the younger woman finish her story and get everything off her chest. This was a safe space here between the two of them. Knowing this made Stevie feel quite emotional to the point of having to catch her tears with her finger and take a few deep breaths until she felt okay again.
‘It’s okay, I’ve got it.’ She waved Holly’s hands away as her friend reached out to hand her one of the napkins on the coffee table.
‘We tried to have sex, it hurt, we stopped, but this time I explained to Simon exactly how it felt physically and how bad it made me feel emotionally. I asked him if he was worried about it, about not having good sex anymore… which led to me saying that I wouldn’t blame him if he went off and had an affair!’ Holly was crying now, but still managed to speak through the hiccups and croaky voice. ‘That started another argument and Simon walked out.’ Then she looked at Stevie, who was making funny noises.
‘Oh, Stevie! Are you okay?’ Stevie’s face looked so, so sad. Absolutely devastated, in fact.
Holly knelt in front of the sofa, put her hands on Stevie’s knees, and spoke gently to her. ‘What’s wrong, love? Hey, it’s okay. You’re here. You can talk to me. All this talk of arguments and affairs, it’s my fault. I’m sorry.’
In between hiccups, Stevie managed to calm down a little and Holly could see that her friend was trying to work out whether to just let it all go, let the dam collapse and release a load of swirling, polluted water all over a sociable evening.
‘Talk to me if you want to. Or we can just sit and cry. Both of us. It doesn’t matter.’ Holly’s tone was warm and reassuring.
It took a few more minutes and much nose blowing before Stevie composed herself. Her eyes were once more focusing on where she was and, more importantly, thought Holly, how safe she was here. Even the sceptical dog had come to comfort her. He’d jumped up on the sofa and nuzzled his big head onto Stevie’s lap. She was stroking him without seeming to realise it.
‘I think it’s all this talk about affairs, dating, trust. It’s thrown me. I thought I’d got over it, but obviously not!’ Stevie said with a sigh, holding out her glass for Holly to refill.
Then Stevie continued while Holly listened in dismay. ‘You know my husband cheated on me? I’ve told you, I’m sure, but I’ve never told you anything else, like how we met or what we were like as a couple.’ She shook her head and stared into the flames of the wood burner.
‘I met John in our final year at university. I guess you could say he swept me off my feet, but the relationship didn’t last because he took a job with an American firm who sent him to Chicago to work in their head office. He asked me to go with him, but I wanted to continue my law training and see if I could make it to the Bar. I remember how surprised he was that I would put my career before being with him. Oh, God! The argument that ensued afterwards was horrendous. But it was all I’d ever wanted to be. Anyway, I suggested we could take turns to visit each other until either his secondment came to an end or I qualified. I should have seen the red flag then! He just refused to listen.
‘Years later, we bumped into each other in a city wine bar one Friday at lunchtime. He bought champagne and insisted we celebrate each other’s success. And then, for the second time in my life, he swept me off my feet and back to his apartment. He said he liked strong women and how it turned him on to hear me describe how much I wanted him. At first, it was exciting to be with him again and I ignored all those red flags, such as his increasing need to control me, not just physically, but emotionally. Within months of reconnecting, we’d conceived our first daughter, then got married shortly afterwards.’
Stevie knew Holly was staring at her intently. She felt her cheeks glowing and knew it wasn’t just the heat from the log burner. It had been so romantic to be blooming with child as she walked down the aisle with this successful and attentive man by her side. But then she fell silent because there was the other side to her marriage, the one where that same man she’d fallen in love with had gradually drained her self-belief and hope. She looked across at Holly and debated how much detail she could bear to share with the other woman. But it felt so good to be talking about it, such a relief to not hold it within her heart where it sat like a leaden weight.
‘I warn you, Holly, it’s not pretty from this point on. Are you sure you want to listen?’
Holly nodded.
‘It got to the point where I sometimes felt intimidated, not just by his coldness and lack of empathy, but also by his strange sexual tastes: persuading me to have sex even if I felt too tired, suggesting we watch porn films together, buying me ‘sexy’ outfits to wear and then giving me the silent treatment and withholding sex for a week or more if I refused to wear them.’ This revelation clearly shocked Holly, Stevie could see it on her face, so she was really grateful to be allowed to just continue. Now, she knew she needed to get this off her chest.
‘You know, sometimes, I thought about leaving John and taking the girls with me, but he adored them so much I just felt too guilty to make any real plans.
‘After a short career break while the girls were very little, I returned to work, but instead of lifting me up and reminding me of what I had achieved professionally, it became a battleground: between work, motherhood, and John. The other partners in the firm suggested I reduce my hours so that I could spend more time with the girls. I was really grateful for their understanding, and it did help. And, you know what, for a while John’s behaviour became more loving and supportive. I remember wondering whether the problem had been my pursuit of professional accolades all along. Maybe John felt jealous or like less of a man the more successful I became?
‘He used to look at me sometimes with a mixture of sexual greed and arrogant pride.’ Holly raised her eyebrows, but Stevie shook her head vigorously. ‘No, not good, it was just weird! I felt completely stripped naked, but in an exposed, not loving, way.’
‘Your hands are shaking, Stevie,’ said Holly, immediately taking hold of them and forcing her own strength into them.
Stevie stared down at her own ring-less hands in the loving grasp of her friend’s carefully manicured ones. Every time she divulged another snippet of her previous life it felt as if this woman was ready to catch her. But it was taking a huge effort to open up, even though she so desperately wanted to.
She held on tight to Holly’s hands and squeezed them hard. ‘Thank you for being here,’ she said quietly.
‘It was a Sunday morning and I’d been looking forward to a bit of a lie-in after we’d had dinner guests round the night before for rather a late and alcohol-infused evening. It ended up with me and my husband having the sort of sex I’d given up on – the kind where I actually got a choice in what happened. Maybe he’d let his guard down because he was drunk? Either way, it just felt so good to lie there in bed enjoying the feeling of sleeping naked and waking up next to the man who’d had such a hold over my emotions for so many years, but who I still didn’t really understand.
‘He was lying on his side, facing away from me, still asleep. Hugging himself. I remember watching for a few seconds, examining his long fingers and carefully clipped nails and thinking, Why oh why did he not just love me in an ordinary sort of way? It’s all I ever wanted.’
She looked at Holly, who didn’t smile. Stevie took a deep breath and began again.
‘I don’t know why he had an affair. I know we had our issues, some of them quite serious, but in our own funny way we got on. Or at least brushed the issues far enough under the carpet to stay together for the children. Anyway, the weird thing is, as we were getting ready the evening before, he had started a conversation about how friends of ours all seemed to be having affairs and weren’t we lucky to still love each other so much. I remember thinking how out of character it was for him to be talking about our marriage at all – we just never did. He never wanted to talk about emotions or love.
‘Then our friends arrived and I didn’t give it much more thought, really.’ She took a big mouthful of wine and sank back into the sofa again.
‘I don’t think he did it because he didn’t love me anymore. On the contrary, according to him, I’d stopped loving him and he felt rejected by me.’ Stevie’s face showed her misery.
‘I didn’t understand what he meant. I’d always given him everything he asked for and done everything how he wanted it, including sex.’
Holly raised her eyebrows and asked, ‘How did he tell you?’
This was the part that had hurt Stevie the most. As she slowly described what had happened that morning, she felt herself slipping back into all the emotions she’d gone through.
* * *
While her husband had been in the shower that morning after the party, she’d been sitting up in bed, sipping the mug of tea he’d brought her. His mobile had pinged – not just once, but several times. She’d never touched his phone before, so it was really out of character for her to reach over to his side of the bed. There were a couple of message notifications, which she could read the first line of without even trying to unlock the screen. It was enough. And then she nearly jumped and spilt her tea.
His phone had started to ring, a woman’s name appearing on the screen: Sharon. Perhaps because of what she’d read in the messages, or her female intuition, she pressed the green symbol and waited, holding her breath.
‘John! Answer my messages, you bastard! Who is she? John? I know you’re there. Say something.’
And then the shrill voice stopped and was replaced with the sound of panicky, quick breathing, which made Stevie’s stomach churn. Her throat was tight with horror and disbelief. It felt so odd to just stay quiet and not respond. But shock had paralysed her. In hindsight, what she had wanted to do was find out who the heck this woman was, and who else her husband, with whom she’d had such amazing sex only the night before, had been sharing his body with. But even as the full truth of her husband’s double deception hit her like a cold wave of water, the woman, Sharon, said, in a tone devoid of emotion, ‘Don’t bother calling, John. It’s over. I’m done!’
In spite of how her relatively peaceful world had just exploded, Stevie remembered feeling a wave of protectiveness for her husband. Then the penny dropped. Protect that bastard? The man who had cheated on her? Her husband had been screwing another woman… two other women. How many more?
Anger and panic made her dump the phone back on the mattress and pull the duvet over it. The sound of the shower and the singing had stopped. She didn’t know what to do. Confront him? Lie back and continue sipping her tea and pretend nothing had happened? Or grab her fleece dressing gown from the back of the bedroom door and avoid John by going downstairs? But he’d see that there had been a call from a Sharon and that it had been answered. She had no choice. Perhaps if she just closed her eyes it would all go away and her life would not get sucked down some dark, suffocating plastic pipe like the ghost spiders she so often hoovered up from the corners of the house. She had thought about how next time she would leave them be. Even fragile, seemingly irrelevant creatures have a right to exist. She squeezed her eyes hard like lemons, trying to stop the hot tears. But it was pointless.
‘Alright?’ Her husband’s voice brought her back into the now, but she just couldn’t pluck up the courage to do what she knew she had to do. Not yet. She needed a moment or two. Once he had seen his phone. Then there would be no alternative.
In the end, she made her escape by taking a shower. Never had hot water gushing over her head felt so welcome. Her shoulders were strong and had supported many troubles in the past, but her instinct told her that this was about to be one of the messiest shitshows yet.
* * *
‘Anyway,’ Stevie dragged herself back into Holly’s beautiful, cosy and safe sitting room, complete with gently snoring dog. ‘I couldn’t forgive him. I just couldn’t. It hit me hard. I told him to leave and said I never wanted to see him again. It was the first time I’d ever stood up to him. Then I walked into a lake.’
Holly’s jaw dropped as she gripped Stevie’s hands. ‘What? You walked in—’
‘Yes, and I wasn’t going to walk out again. I just wanted to go, leave him, the children, everything. It felt as if he’d stripped me of all dignity, self-esteem, love, imagination, dreams, respect—’
‘And where? Where did you go? Was it Crummock?’
‘Yes, where else?’ Stevie instantly regretted snapping at Holly because of course her friend knew that it was the only lake as far as she was concerned. None of the other lakes or bodies of water in the Lake District had her heart or soul. ‘Down at Bird Poo Island. Where we swim.’
Holly’s eyes gave away her concern. Stevie could see that she had almost reached the limit of the information she could handle in one go, but she needed to say just one more thing.
‘I think if it had been anywhere else, I might not be here today. I can honestly say that for some reason, as soon as I was waist deep, I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do. So, I just swam until I was thinking more clearly. I know it sounds completely barmy, but that water is unique. There’s something about it that accepts fears, tears, and worries, and takes them away from you. It washes you clean and releases you.’
She stopped and looked at Holly. ‘It released me from everything that day. I walked back out feeling calm and knowing that I was going to be okay. What had happened hadn’t been my fault, but it’s taken me a long, long time to truly believe that.’ She ignored Holly’s look of disbelief. ‘And I’ve been walking into that lake first thing in the morning ever since.’
Holly sank down on the floor next to the sofa and leant back against it. She stared into the flames of the stove. ‘Sorry, Stevie, but I’ve just got to say it: what an absolute First Class bastard. Not only did he have an affair, but why the hell would anyone do that to a woman as beautiful, inside and out, as you?’
Both women sat for a little while deep in thought. It had been a huge deal for Stevie to talk to someone about what she had done that day. She’d never told anyone before, but it had felt right to trust the truth with someone she now shared the water with, someone who would appreciate seeing her for who she really was.
Both of them sighed in unison, then laughed at the ridiculous way life tossed you around like flotsam. A log popped, the tension burst, and the dog jumped, then put his head back down on Stevie’s lap. Holly pulled herself up and looked at her watch as she did so. ‘It’s getting late. Would you like another drink, a cup of tea, talk some more?’
‘I’d love a cup of tea, if that’s okay? Not sure I can go to sleep quite yet. I think I need to have a bit of ordinary, if you know what I mean?’ Stevie gently nudged the dog off her lap and stood up, stretching a bit. ‘Shall I put another log on for you?’