“It’s nature. Are you scared?”
“Are younotscared?”
“Do you think I might be triggered? Because I fell in the lake at Victoria Park?”
“I’m the triggered one; I nearly froze to death after that.”
“I didn’t even get to touch the duck. Come on, put your goggles on, swim properly! We’ll do a lap.”
“I don’t want to put my head under.”
“Fine!”
Coralie swam sedately, keeping her head out of the water.
Zora flipped and twisted like a fish. “You’re not supposed to go too close to the edge,” she popped up to say.
“Why?”
“In case you see a dead body. No! You might damage the plants, that’s all.”
They struck out into the middle of the pond. Coralie wanted to hold a buoy to rest, but she was scared of the unseen rope trailing against her legs.
“So, is this it?” Zora bobbed in front of her. “Have you and Dad broken up?”
“No—” Coralie started. “Look at those women.”
Two swimmers had struck out to the deepest part of the pond. They had stopped and were resting—were they? Or clowning? They started splashing and holding each other.
“They’ll get told off,” Zora said.
“Are they kissing? No…Oh God—they’re drowning.”
A whistle blew. A kayak streaked out from nowhere. “Lady in the red hat!” a woman with a megaphone boomed from the deck. “Both of you. Stop struggling. Let go. Let go now! You’re dragging each other down!”
One of the two heads sank under the surface for a long time.
Screams and cries rang out around the pond. Coralie gasped. “Fuck!”
“Get apart! Get apart now!” the megaphone woman shouted.
The head popped back up. The rescuer reached the weeds. The two swimmers held the kayak, one on each side. After a while, they began an embarrassed breaststroke to shore.
“That’s what we were like,” Coralie said. “Adam and me. Dragging each other down. I just needed to be alone so I could rest, and breathe, and save myself.”
“And are you saved?”
“I think maybe I am.”
•••
That night,she did her hour of bedtime as usual. At the end, when the children were asleep, and Zora was up in her room, Coralie slipped out of the house and sent Adam a different message. She was accepting visitors—well, only one visitor—to her flat on Graham Road. Fifteen minutes later there was a tap on the front door. Coralie ran down to open it. His shirt was open one more button than usual. Sweat beaded on his temples and ran in rivulets down his chest. She saw his face again, what he actually looked like—not just how she felt about him. She was nervous, trembling. So was he.
The heat was incredible, she could smell his skin. They kissed, and he rested his chin in her cupped hand. She’d forgotten what hefelt like, too, that he was a person, warm and alive. He’d been an idea, a shadowy enemy, a ghost reaching out from the past. Now he was Adam again. She remembered that she loved him. “Do you still love me?” she asked.
“Yes. Do you still love me?”
“Yes.”
