A small group had gathered to watch. Someone was handing out croissants, and when one was offered I took it, not because I was hungry but just grateful to be noticed. I put it to my lips and remembered a time in Paris with Leo when we’d had pain au chocolat on the banks of the Seine and then went to a bookshop where he’d disappeared up a rickety staircase while I petted a cat curled on a battered sofa, picked shards of pastry out of my teeth and worried which hand I was using to do which. They smelt of chocolate and cat for the rest of the day because we couldn’t find anywhere to wash. My eyes filled with tears: Leo and I would never go to Paris again, even though it wasn’t a particularly pleasant memory as I found the city dirty and unfriendly, there were no green spaces, and despite Leo speaking fluent French, they used to curl their lips at him because he never sounded anything but English and as puffed up as their croissants.
I swayed and sank onto the bench, blinking and fighting the breathlessness, until a warm patrician voice said, ‘Oh my love, don’t look so horrified – they’re not Greggs or anything. I made them myself.’ A middle-aged woman with eyes like berries was smiling down at me, waving a napkin, so I made a show of nibbling the croissant and mumbling my thanks, cursing myself for being such a distracted old bat. She carried on moving through the crowd, handing out her pastries and pleasantries, then everyone surged forwards, so I struggled to my feet again, to watch two men in waders and lurid jackets sailing across the pond in a curious-looking boat.
About four feet off the bow hung a circular contraption with small bars dangling from it into the water, like a giant set of wind chimes. Next to me, a chap was explaining the process to the woman on his other side. The device worked in combination with a conductor on the hull to create an electrical field in the water wherever the boat travelled, with an on-board lever controlling the current. The men made large circles around the lake, one steering and operating the electrical lever while the other knelt poised with a net. For a while nothing happened, but then a glistening grey buoy popped gaily to the surface – the first stunned fish. ‘Ooooh,’ said the onlookers, clapping politely. After that they started bobbing up everywhere, gleaming and flaccid, waiting to be fished out. Every time the second man scooped one up, the watching crowd cheered and clinked their paper cups of mulled wine.
But the longer it went on, the more unsettling it became. The rhythmic ‘plash’ as they juddered out of the water, the slow whoosh of the net, the resulting thud as they hit the container. Plash, whoosh, thud. Plash, whoosh, thud. Then … flap. The stunning only lasted long enough to get the fish into the boat. Those vast, prehistoric-looking carp, covered in pond-mud, were hauled on board and immediately started writhing and flopping. Plash, whoosh, thud, plash whoosh, thud. Flap, flap, flap.
One minute you’re gliding along, not a care in the world, and the next a huge prod appears and knocks you for six, and then everything is different and you’re gasping with the shock of it. And there’s no triumph in survival, because you’re just swimming round and round endlessly in a new lake, mouthing pointlessly. I’d rather someone put me out of my misery. Ashes to ashes. The breathlessness, back. Plash, whoosh, thud. I could look the other way, then it would go away. Don’t think, don’t think. Thud, thud, thud. I clutched the railings, trying to ignore the looming branches above, but my skin prickled around the edges, flared, and I felt myself fall amidst reaching hands and faraway shouts as the blackness took over …
Something rough was rubbing against my cheek, moving up my face like a scourer. Moaning, I turned my head away.
‘She’s coming round, move back!’
The scourer was back, rough and warm, with sour breath behind it. I could feel my nose wrinkle as the stench flooded my nostrils.
‘Give her some air! Nancy, get away with you!’
Reaching out feebly, I encountered a handful of fur. Then felt the scourer on my hand. A tongue. I pushed it away and moaned again.
I must have been a bit under the weather, because when I finally came to I was lying on the bench and the woman with the berry eyes and pastries was holding a wet napkin to my forehead, onlookers peering around her shoulders. Struggling to the surface, clammy and astray, I could still feel the link with whatever underworld I’d been to, and closed my eyes again, hoping they would all go away.
‘Gosh, you took a bit of a turn, my love,’ the woman said, holding my wrist. ‘I don’t have a clue what I’m doing with this pulse nonsense,’ she continued, jiggling my hand gently. ‘What’s right, after all? Seventy, eighty? I don’t know. No, don’t get up just yet.’
‘Oh no, I’m fine, really.’ I heaved my legs off the bench. ‘Sorry to be such a bother, I don’t know what came over me.’ The darkness was receding, replaced by the equally cold sweat of embarrassment. My cheek and hand were coated in some sort of sticky substance and there was that urge to go and wash it off.
‘Probably the weather, sweetie. It’s a bit parky, isn’t it? Let’s just sit for a moment and look at the trees. Aren’t they beautiful? Would you like another croissant? Go on, build up your strength. I’m Sylvie, by the way. And these two are Nancy and Decca.’
Still dazed, I realized she was indicating two small dove-blue dogs prancing round her feet. As she sat down on the bench next to me they jumped up either side of her, and I had to shift along to make room, wiping the back of my hand on my skirt. We sat eating croissants, looking up at the trees, and they were rather beautiful in a bleak way, stark and spiky against the pearly sky, with weak sunlight clawing through the clouds and dappling on the lake. The crowd had dispersed, although the men continued to circle, scooping the last of the fish.
‘Something toxic in the water, apparently,’ remarked Sylvie, nodding towards the lake. ‘I do hope they survive the experience. Who’s Leo, by the way? Your son? Would you like someone to fetch him?’
Leo.
I would have liked nothing more. Someone to go and fetch him, bring him back to me. He’d march up, take my hand, say, ‘Missy! What have you been up to, silly old girl?’ And we’d walk home together and light a fire to ward off the cold. The tears came again and I dabbed them away, the drops warm on my white fingers.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Sylvie, patting and squeezing my icy hand. ‘I shouldn’t have asked. You said his name, and I thought, maybe … Anyway, let’s just sit here awhile, shall we? No hurry.’
So we sat, mostly in silence, but sometimes Sylvie would point out a plant or bird or dog of note, and I was able to reply adequately without worrying I was boring her or saying the wrong thing. Then I finished my croissant and dusted off the flakes, ready to get up and say goodbye to this easy, undemanding woman who had been the first stranger to speak to me in weeks. Best to end the conversation before I wanted to instead of after she did.
‘Thank you so much,’ I said, awkwardly holding out my still-sticky hand. ‘So kind, but I must be going …’
‘Bollocks, we missed it.’
We both turned to see Otis’s red-haired mother dragging her sulking son down the path between the lakes. He was wearing a cape and had hooked a shield over the handlebars of his scooter, his russet hair sticking out in different directions. I wanted to smooth it down, then ruffle it up again.
‘See, I told you they’d die without us,’ she huffed, shouldering an enormous over-stuffed bag and leaning down to fondle the dogs.
‘Angela, love,’ said Sylvie. ‘Late as ever. Fancy a coffee? I was just about to ask … um …? She turned to me expectantly.
‘Millicent,’ I murmured, scarcely able to believe my luck. Would it be all right to say yes? Surely I deserved a treat? But it wouldn’t do to look too eager.
‘Millicent