Free The Swimming Pool by Louise Candlish

those doe eyes and that erotic mouth. Her face was more familiar than I might have expected, given that I’d never seen the film, until I remembered the daughter in the picture on the Elm Hill
website and in the lido’s publicity material. Of course: the teenaged Lara looked like her daughter did now.
    On Amazon, I scanned the customer reviews for
Mermaid on Mulberry Street
and found them at best lukewarm:
– Not a patch on
Splash
.
    – Bring back Daryl Hannah, all is forgiven!
    – OK family viewing, but not a classic …
    – Someone should have given the girl some acting lessons – Lara Markham is embarrassingly bad!
    I felt quite defensive on Lara’s behalf and would have considered ordering the DVD in solidarity were it not extortionately priced at £16.99.
    I wondered what she would say if she knew I was occupied in this way. She’d be flattered, perhaps, or validated. I snickered to myself at the unlikelihood of
her
researching
me
– or even being struck by the thought that she’d bumped into me rather a lot lately. To even things up I Googled myself:
Natalie Steele teacher.
    There was nothing much. My entry on the Elm Hill Prep website was the first of very few:
With almost twenty years’ experience in primary education, Mrs Steele is our newest member of staff, teaching her first EHP year-four class this year.
    Favourite subject: history.
    Favourite EHP moment: ‘Taking the boys and girls to the
Golden Hinde
and learning about Sir Francis Drake.’
    An
unflattering headshot accompanied this, my hair stripped of warmth, plenty of putty-coloured foundation on my face. As I’ve said, I always covered my skin for work. Disfigurements tended to distract pupils and distractions were frowned upon by parents.
    It was Nathaniel Hawthorne, if I remembered correctly, who said about birthmarks, ‘It may be the stain goes as deep as life itself.’
    I sincerely hoped not.

7
Monday,
31 August, 1.30 a.m.
    To still the mind, focus on the physical.
    In the bathroom mirror I inspect my birthmark as if for the first time. I can’t pretend I don’t know why it interests me afresh, why, after the four and a half decades I’ve lived it suddenly has new significance. The size of a dog’s pawprint, it has browned with age from the livid raspberry of my childhood, when I would scrutinize it daily, judging it a disgusting flaw, an impediment to future happiness. As a teenager with an allowance, I learned to conceal it with make-up, a ritual that continued daily, on weekdays at least, right until these last transcendent weeks, when I’ve come to think of it as a mark of distinction, perhaps even grace.
    Tonight is different. Tonight I think it’s how they would identify me on the mortuary slab.
    Georgia
, I remember, and the memory of her damp, blanched face makes my body temperature drop by a degree.
    ‘Nat?’
    I jump, like a criminal, drop my hand from my face.
    Ed is in the hallway, watching me from the shadows.
    ‘You
gave me a shock. What is it – is it Molly?’
    ‘No.’ Only his feet and legs are lit by the bathroom light spilling through the open door, his voice disembodied; the effect is eerie. ‘I just wanted to say, if you won’t talk to me about tonight, fine, I can hardly force you. But you do realize you’ll have to talk to the police?’
    In an instant my cheeks are aflame. ‘What do you mean? The police won’t want to speak to us.’
    ‘I think they will. If I were them, I’d be very keen to know why the parents of a child with her medical history allowed her anywhere near a swimming pool.’
    I swallow. ‘The parents’, he said, but what he means is ‘the mother’. No matter how hard I’ve tried, no matter how controlled I’ve been, I’ve always been the sinner in this family.
    ‘I’ve almost finished in here,’ I say, keeping my voice steady, and I close the door on his shadow, stand with my back against it, facing the room.
    My eyes land again on the dress. As I reach to scoop it