The Swimmer Page 11

  Ben had stopped playing the piano and was looking out of the window for me.

  ‘Let’s go to the beach,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll be soaked,’ I laughed.

  He was laughing too. He loved the rain, he told me and besides, once it rains beaches all over the world empty of people in a moment. There would be no one there. So, wanting to give him whatever he desired, wanting to keep him happy, we went to a beach near Dunwich. The rain was falling in soft grey veils by now, the sun had completely vanished and the sea was transformed. My heart had taken wings. Ben ran from the car like a child. He thought the wet shingles were wonderful. The beaches in Sri Lanka, he shouted, were so different from this place.

  ‘Stones, hundreds of stones!’ he yelled.

  And he laughed, dancing on the shingles. In the distance the disused power station appeared before us shrouded in mist as we ran towards the water’s edge, shouting at one another. I told him about the town that had slipped into the sea. And how, on a day without wind, local people said you could still hear the fifty-two bells chiming under the waves. He looked at me eagerly, the thought catching his imagination.

  ‘Really?’ he asked.

  I thought how he must have been when he was a little boy, in the years before he had worries. I remember thinking, I’m so happy! A dog bounded, barking, towards us, then turned abruptly at the sound of a shrill whistle and ran off. Ben was busy searching amongst the shingles. We were both soaking.

  ‘Let’s sit in the car till it eases off,’ I pleaded.

  In the car he handed me a pebble.

  ‘I lost my rucksack,’ he said. ‘I left it in one of the fields and couldn’t remember where I had left it. I had a lovely river stone for you in it. But this is better.’

  Some people have the knack of finding things, I thought, smiling. They find things others never see in a lifetime, no matter how hard they search. The pebble, whitened by the sea, was clumsily heart-shaped. He had found it in a mass of grey-brown shingles and now it sat in the dark of his hand.

  ‘For you,’ he said, and kissed me.

  ‘I shall have to start a collection,’ I said. ‘I’ll call it Ben’s museum!’

  He looked at me solemnly. Then he shook his head and folded the heart into my hand and kissed it, finger by finger.

  ‘Everyone has to be young once,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later.’

  His shirt was wet; he was shivering slightly in spite of the heat from the car. I wanted to go into a café for some tea, but he refused. With a flash of insight I understood that he was embarrassed by his clothes and possibly also by his lack of money. I saw too that the swiftness of our passion had masked many things and that this was not necessarily a good thing. Sighing, I suggested we go back to Eel House. Tomorrow, I thought, when I was in London, I would buy him some clothes and a new rucksack.

  That night after our light supper of watercress soup and salmon pasta, before he left, Ben and I made love once more.

  ‘You’re wasting good piano-playing time!’ I teased him.

  ‘The piano does not need my attention at the moment,’ he retorted. ‘It has had my company for hours!’

  I told him he was becoming too bold for my liking and he laughed, delighted. While I had been cooking he had played almost all the music I possessed and I promised to get him some more when I went up to London. In the silence that followed, within the quick, delicate movements of his hands, I felt he was working things out for himself. An inexpressible sweetness took hold of me. Finding him had been a small miracle. I doubted he would ever know how much it meant to me. I held his face with both my hands, very lightly, like a precious object, thinking, You are still too young to see this moment for what it is. Like all else on earth it will be of such short duration. Yes, I thought, this is you and this is what is happening! And as we started the in, out, the long, beloved torso, lowered, lifted, lowered, the delicate, blunt, long caresses, I wanted, with a desperation I cannot describe, for it to never end. And as he began to draw out all that had been so wrong in my life, I saw he was to be my undoing. No, I did not want it to leave me.

  ‘Tell me about your mother,’ I said in the pause that followed.

  His eyes were closed. In the dim blueness of the room, with the soft sound of rain outside, his thick curly hair gleamed and sprung up under my caress.

  ‘My mother?’ he murmured.

  ‘Hmm.’

  ‘My mother used to draw faces. We had her drawings all over our house. My grandfather, before he died, my father, before he disappeared, me…before I left.’

  ‘How did she bear to let you go? How will she cope without a word from you?’

  He was motionless, his face unreadable.

  ‘It is not possible to have everything,’ he said, at last. ‘She is a courageous woman.’

  ‘Would you like to ring her?’ I asked suddenly.

  He looked startled.

  ‘It’s not possible,’ he said. ‘It would be too expensive.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the cost. Would you like to phone her?’

  He hesitated. His eyes were open now, watchful.

  ‘What’s the time difference?’ I asked briskly.

  Here at last was something I could positively do.

  ‘Five hours…four and a half…depends,’ he told me, reluctantly. ‘I don’t know if the phone will be working…if she will be in the house…if…’

  He was making excuses, I told him.

  ‘Well, it’s too late tonight, but if you can get here by six tomorrow you can ring her then. Okay?’

  He didn’t answer, turning his face away so that I leant over him, pulling him towards me, wanting to kiss him. Still he did not move. Only when I tugged at his hand and found his mouth did I feel the saltiness on his face as he hugged me to him, fiercely.

  Afterwards, before he left, when I had gone to pour him a glass of wine, I found him staring at my bookshelf.

  ‘There’s trouble in Pakistan, you know,’ he said. ‘They’ve tried to kill some Sri Lankan cricketers.’

  I kissed him. He seemed to have become remote in the few moments I had been away. Suddenly, for no reason, I was afraid.

  ‘The wars everywhere will begin to join up. People will write about them, make up stories. But what’s the use? It won’t change anything.’

  He did not want to talk about love any more. I could see that the moment had passed. Terrified, seeing him slip away from me, I wanted to hold on to him, but I didn’t know how.

  ‘Leaving wasn’t a simple thing,’ he said, sipping his wine. ‘I stood on a tarmac stairway and smelled the air and looked over the land where I was born.’

  We were silent. He, I supposed, because he was remembering, and I, because of a terrible feeling of exclusion. Whatever experiences had defined him, I would never be wholly part of. A feeling of hopelessness came over me, but then he caught my eye and took hold of me and kissed me.

  ‘I didn’t know people could have such blue eyes,’ he said.

  ‘Why don’t you stay?’ I asked lightly. ‘I’ll get you up at dawn.’

  He hesitated, thinking no doubt that he would be missed, but it had begun to rain again and I could see that he was exhausted so it was, I think, a little against his will that he stayed. As I closed up the house for the night I noticed my answerphone flashing. It was a message from Heather’s friend, the journalist John Ashby. He wanted to arrange a meeting with me later on in the week.

  Tuesday, September 6th. I went up to London to the Home Office. I had wanted to make an appointment, but no one ever answered the telephone. It was maddening. First you were presented with a series of automated options and if you chose to ‘hold for an operator’ you were eventually cut off. I had tried the number on and off for a couple of days and in the end had given up. The website, too, was out of date and difficult to use. I had tried downloading a form but only half of it printed and I could not get a reply to any e-mail I sent, either. So I had booked a ticket on the six forty-
five train to Liverpool Street. Ben must have been up working for two hours already, helping with the milking. All night it had rained and I had lain awake, worrying about him. I felt that the conversation about his mother had upset him.

  He had left in the early hours. The rain had begun the process of bringing the leaves down; yellow spotted willow lay in a carpet on the grass as I walked with him at dawn towards the river. He kissed me once and then he pushed his way through the hedge into the field beyond. Just before he disappeared from view he turned and waved.

  ‘Go back to bed!’ he called, softly, and then he was gone.

  I watched him disappear, a familiar feeling of desolation descending on me once more. The certainty came upon me in that moment that I wanted him to live at Eel House.

  Last night I had tentatively brought the subject up.

  ‘It’s too soon for you,’ he had mumbled.

  Lying in the darkness, watching him, unable to sleep myself, I was aware I was being idiotic. It was far too soon for both of us, but impulsiveness had taken hold and I was consumed by his plight. I knew I would do anything to help him.

  Later, sitting on the six forty-five train to London, I watched the light burst out of the sky. Last night Jack had rung me sounding his normal self, irritable and rushed. They were planning to be back in two days, he said. I needed to find out what the position was at the Home Office before I could say anything to anyone, even Eric. Jack with his xenophobia would have to be handled carefully. The whole subject of Ben would need to be broached slowly, for if there were no hope of Ben staying legally in Britain, Jack would be the first to denounce him.

  I glanced at my watch. I had read that the queues at the UK Borders Agency, as it was called these days, were horrendous. I wanted to be there when the doors opened.

  The train passed a forest made charcoal by the light on the horizon. Space is the luxury of Suffolk. It hangs in quiet stillness over the flattened fields. The morning was like honey; summer’s lease was almost over. All I had was Ben’s proof of postage, and a copy of the handwritten letter he had sent. He had been reluctant to give them to me and this had started me worrying again, in case he felt I was taking him over. In the end he had let me scan them so as not to relinquish the originals.

  ‘Don’t, whatever you do, tell them I’m working, will you?’ he had said at one point.

  ‘Of course not! And in any case, you’re hardly being paid anything, so it isn’t really employment!’

  ‘I know. But don’t tell them.’

  ‘How do they think you are living?’

  He shook his head, looking angry. It was the closest we had come to a disagreement. I could feel the tension between us. We need to live together, I thought. Iron out our differences, deal with them.

  ‘Don’t tell them,’ he warned again, and in the end I had promised, furious with a system that was so cruelly confused for any refugee trying to comply. I only had one question. How could I sponsor Ben? After my visit to the Home Office I had an appointment with my financial advisor. I had decided to withdraw some money, and open a separate bank account for Ben. Without his knowledge. It broke my heart to think of the indignity of his poverty. I was going to put money into the account every time he did a job for me.

  The morning light appeared unstable after last night’s rain. The train passed close to the sea, never quite allowing us more than a glimpse of it, but with an underlying sense of its presence behind the matchstick woods. We passed a bleak war memorial and a silo tower and then a graveyard of machinery glittering in the sunlight. I bought a coffee from the trolley and took out my bundle of papers. I had decided that I would temporarily give up trying to work on my book until I could clarify Ben’s legal position. We passed Wickham Market. High banks of greenery flashed by. The carriage was almost empty, save for two men working on their laptops. I caught sight of my reflection in the window. My life was on a landslide beyond my control, I thought ruefully. The train stopped at a small local station and several people got on. One of them was reading a newspaper.

  SOFT TOUCH BRITAIN, screamed the headline. JOBLESS IMMIGRANTS STAY HERE AND GET £715 A WEEK BENEFITS.

  Underneath, I could just make out:

  Tighter borders are what are needed with fingerprinting of every visa applicant wishing to travel to the UK. We are also cracking down on illegal workers, with more enforcement raids than ever before.

  I shivered. How desperate would you have to be before you wanted to live in this hostile country?

  At Ipswich the train began to fill up and a row broke out between the elderly passenger near me and the ticket inspector. The man was travelling on a senior, reduced-fare ticket but had forgotten to bring his card with him.

  ‘You’ll have to pay the full price,’ the inspector told him.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ the man said quietly. ‘I’ve just returned from abroad. When I left I emptied my wallet out and then forgot to put the card back in. I can ring my wife and get the reference number for you. You can check it on your system?’

  The ticket inspector licked his lips. He was already shaking his head.

  ‘’Fraid I can’t do that,’ he said with some satisfaction. ‘You’ll have to pay the full fare.’

  ‘Look…I’ll just phone…’

  ‘Suit yourself. It’s either seventy-two pounds thirty, or you get off at the next stop. You have to travel with the rail card, otherwise it’s illegal.’

  I was listening to this exchange with amazement.

  ‘I’m only doing my job.’

  ‘Well, can’t you do it with a little imagination?’ I asked before I could stop myself. ‘Can’t you see this gentleman isn’t lying?’

  The man glared at me. Then he ran his hand smoothly over his greasy hair.

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter,’ the passenger said hastily. ‘They’re all like this nowadays.’

  He paid for a second fare and the inspector had swayed off down the train.

  ‘It’s called running a society,’ the elderly man said. ‘There’s something Kafkaesque about life in Britain nowadays.’

  We were passing slowly through Suffolk, and its landscape of flooded fields. The sky brightened across the horizon. High white clouds were reflected in mile after mile of shining dyke water, so that the marshes seemed to stand between the clouds and nothing. It continued to threaten rain. My tea trembled in its plastic cup as I thought of Ben.

  At the Home Office I entered by a side door that looked as if it might be an entrance to a warehouse. People shuffled forward in a queue, quietly submissive, confused. Mine was the only white face amongst them. I had worn a cream linen dress, thinking I needed to be formal, but now felt uncomfortably out of place I took a ticket and joined the line. The room was painted a lurid green. A plastic rack stood against the wall. It was stuffed with leaflets in every shade imaginable. They were numbered but some of the numbers in the series were missing. A listless man, an African with close-cropped hair, walked over and began picking some of them out absent-mindedly. The number on the board flickered and changed. Forty-seven. Mine was fifty-three. I sat staring ahead, conscious of curious eyes on me. The African man returned with a handful of the leaflets and handed them to his small daughter who instantly began to sort them by colour. The door to the lavatories opened and closed and a woman in a burka came out. She had three children who clung to her, screaming. The girl at the reception desk looked up from her telephone call and frowned slightly. She had rings on every finger, I noticed. Then the number above me flickered and changed again. Forty-eight.

  I went back to thinking of Ben. I tried not to dwell on the life he had lived before me. It’s all in the past, I told myself, wanting reassurance. Instantly and perversely, I was lit by the fear that nothing had changed, really. The small girl beside me finished sorting out her pamphlets. She walked over to the rack and began stuffing them into the lower pockets. She was not quite tall enough to reach and most of them fell on the floor. Her father walked slowly over to he
r and gently began to put them back, but the little girl began to scream in frustration. She wanted to tidy them up herself. Her father picked her up and whispered in her ear. Then he carried her as far as the large patio window and together they watched the traffic rushing past outside. I picked up the newspaper on the low table and read: Asylum applications in 2007 were at their lowest level for 14 years, according to statistics.

  The board above me flickered. When I looked up again the African and his child had disappeared into one of the consultation rooms. The number on the board was fifty-two. I was next.

  The woman who waited for me in the cubicle was young. She was protected by a sheet of toughened glass. I sat on the plastic chair but could not move nearer. It was screwed to the ground. There was a minimum of privacy. The woman raised her head slightly, then went back to staring at her computer screen.

  ‘Could I have your reference number, first.’

  The notice on her desk told me her name was Vicki and she was a ‘Processing Officer’. Like meat, I thought. Her face had the blankness of a certain kind of youth, unlined and expressionless. I suspected she would remain this way, no matter how much she aged. Life would not mark her; she would not let it. She was frowning.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said and I handed her the copy of Ben’s letter.

  ‘This isn’t enough,’ she said flatly. ‘And it’s a photocopy.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t want to take the original away from the person. He is in some distress at his precarious state. I didn’t want to add to it. I’ve got a proof of postage too, if that’s any help.’

  I could hear my voice. It had become slightly pleading.

  ‘We don’t take account of photocopies.’

  ‘Yes, I understand, but I was wondering if you could look up the serial number and check you received his letter?’

  ‘We don’t acknowledge photocopies. You’ll have to bring the actual document and he has to actually fill in the form.’

  I was silent.