Whispers From Behind The Cellar Door

Whispers from Behind the Cellar Door
The Swimming Pool


Soft light reflecting from the dark blue surface of the pool danced and swayed on the glass-and-wrought-iron ceiling and on the shiny leaves of the giant pot plants that lined the water’s edge. The room, though dominated by the swimming pool, was also a conservatory, and the proximity of lush, colourful vegetation to the curving, irregular edge of the water called to my mind a rainforest pond. Or a luxuriant fantasy of one – the water was, after all, chlorinated, and surrounded by a good three feet of travertine tiling. The low wicker table and matching chairs in the alcove to my right further softened the initial impression of a jungle watering hole, making it seem closer to a colonial retreat.
I turned to my host. ‘Ferdy, this is lovely – the best room in the house. I want to strip off and get in there right now.’
‘You’ll have to wait,’ he smiled. ‘Supper’s being served in the dining room in ten minutes.’
I almost laughed to hear him say that - Ferdy Stokes, who grew up on a council estate in East London. He probably never dreamed he’d one day have supper served to him in his own dining room, let alone have his own pool. Wealth suited him, though. As did marriage to Susie. I’d never seen him happier. Or fatter.
Susie was on top form at supper. Her liveliness and sparkle kindled a spiritedness in Ferdy that I hadn’t known since the very earliest days of our friendship. You’d have thought that such a normally taciturn chap would have been overwhelmed into silence by her, but no – Susie was forever coaxing contributions out of him: she wasn’t satisfied to let her husband ride on her own conversational coat-tails.
‘Tell Philip about our neighbour, Ferdy,’ she would urge. ‘You know, Old long-hair. What’s his name? Go on – about the time he asked us if he could use our pool.’
So Ferdy would obligingly relate the story of how this chap, Richard somebody-or-other, came to their door one day soon after they’d bought the place and announced that the previous owners had let him use the pool on a regular basis, and would Ferdy be so kind as to continue the arrangement. Ferdy had been taken aback by the fellow’s twinkling eyes and humble demeanour and had agreed without really thinking. And now this Richard had become a bi-weekly visitor.
If anyone was coasting at that table it was me. The maple-glazed lamb burgers filled with goat’s cheese, garlic and rosemary, served up by their lovely Italian au pair, Fiametta, were astoundingly tasty, and the Chateau Latour 1982 gave the whole meal the quality of something very rich and dreamy.