Swimming Upstream by Ruth Mancini Read Free Book Online Page A

between us.
    We locked eyes for a moment and both stood waiting
in the doorway for the other to say that this was a mistake. Then Larsen
grinned, ruffled my hair and leapt into Dave’s van. He reached out and shut the
door as he had done so many times in the past. Only this time he wasn’t going
down the M11 to London, to the Fulham Greyhound or the Mean Fiddler, or up
North to Manchester, or round the M25 to Oxford. This time he was going just a
few streets away to Brian’s house; but he was leaving our home. The familiar
heavy metal slam of the van door echoed in my ears like the clunking of a
prison cell door, only I was now locked out, instead of in, where I could have
been - with him. Right now, at this moment, my newborn freedom felt hollow,
cold and strange.
    On Thursday it was Polling Day but all I could do
was to lie on the sofa and stare at the telly. I watched old movies: “Calamity
Jane” and “The Way we Were” and cried for Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand
and for everything they had lost. I desperately needed to talk to someone but
there was no-one I could call. Except… Catherine. Maybe? But she didn’t know
me, or at least not me with Larsen, and she was getting married and I was
breaking my heart and none of it was right, or ripe for discussion.
    Doug rang at around tea-time, when he got home
from work and asked if I wanted to come over; but, again, it didn’t feel right
somehow, with him being Larsen’s friend first, before mine. Besides, I didn’t
want to talk with Marion there. She had a way of looking like the cat that had
got the cream when anyone else appeared to be having a bad time. Deep down I
was wondering if Larsen would come back; pretend he’d forgotten something, say
he wanted to talk. I waited up late into the night, while the election results
rolled in, with one eye on the telly and the other on the door and eventually
fell asleep on the sofa in the early hours of the morning. This must be the
right thing, us breaking up, I reasoned with myself. All we ever did these days
was argue. I wasn’t happy and it was clear that Larsen wasn’t happy. But I
hadn’t expected it to be this sudden, this final, and this soon.
    By Friday morning the Conservatives were back in
power, despite a severe recession, despite losing 38 seats, and despite all forecasts
to the contrary. The phones would be ringing off the hook in the newsroom and I
needed a piece of the action. I couldn’t bear the empty silence of the house
any longer and, finding that I was able to both smile and walk with a degree of
dignity and just one crutch, I caught a taxi to the radio station.
    It took a long time to get up the stairs. I pushed
open the door and caught my breath, inhaling the rubbery scent of hot
machinery, of newsprint and of freshly ground coffee, the smell that defined
the newsroom. The printer that gave us the feeds from the General News Service
was clunking and whirring noisily in the corner of the room. Simon Goodfellow,
the lunchtime reporter, was sitting at my desk. He peered over his shoulder as
I entered and stood up, slowly.
    “Good lord, that looks painful,” he commented, but
didn’t offer to help.
    I sank down into my chair, exhausted. On my desk
was a letter from Phillip marked “Private and Confidential”. I glanced briefly
round the newsroom. Everyone was milling around, carrying out their daily
routine except Simon, who was looking curiously at the letter in my hands. I
stuffed it into my handbag and pushed it under my desk. I logged onto my
computer, and started to type up the news feeds for the lunchtime bulletin,
which Simon had left for me.
    It was an extraordinary coup for the government,
their fourth consecutive victory and one for which the Sun newspaper was taking
full credit, following their provocative headline the previous day urging the
last person to leave Britain to “turn out the lights” if Labour won the
election. It was clever all right; it fed right into the