A young woman goes abroad to a sunny, beautiful location with her much older, much more sophisticated lover. He is wealthy, urbane and keen that she should learn to swim. Her days revolve around the pool and trying to negotiate this relationship – the older man seems sometimes affectionate but sometimes withholds the love she feels she needs. There is pressure and sex and above all else, the pool.
“They would know her predecessors. They would compare her minutely, her appearance, her accent the way he behaved with her. They would know better than she how important she was to him, if it were serious or just a passing notion.”
Published in The Love Object, Jonathan Cape, 1968