Just above the surface

Just above the surface

She loved swimming with a passion that was equal only to religious
fervour. It had come to her a little later in life, as epiphanies often
do. Up until that time, she'd always been a weak and cowardly swimmer,
a vestige of watery, infant terror having remained ever since she was
two and a half.

It was her 10-year-old sister who'd found her leaning into the
half-full water butt. Her head alone was submerged in the dark,
stagnant water. Her body was still and relaxed, as if sleeping. Had the
sister arrived at the scene any later, it would have been a most odd
death. No one ever discovered why or how she had come to be in such a
position. It was only on being pulled out, coughing and spluttering on
the soupy liquid, that the fear struck her, maintaining it's
subconscious grip for all those years. Even now, her fears all but
overcome, she still felt a tingly shiver before submerging herself in
water.

When she had attended swimming lessons as a child, she had never been
able to keep up with her classmates. She would cling to the polystyrene
float, half eaten away by the bites of hungry or curious children, and
pray for the half-hour to end. Even in the float she couldn't trust.
When lent upon it would pop out from under her, landing dangerously far
away from her stranded, frantically kicking body. When she tried to
copy the swimming teacher's instructions to hold the board out in front
and kick hard with the legs, she would find herself choking in seconds,
the chlorinated water coating her sinus and throat. Where the other's
arms were stretched out to full extent, hers were paralysed and bent at
the elbow, hugging the float ineffectively to her chest in
despair.

The idea of 'going swimming' always filled her with a confused
excitement and she would bounce up and down in anticipation, just like
the other children. But once at the pool or beach she would withdraw
and spend the time in the shallows or not in the water at all.

Over the passage of time she developed a genteel approach to swimming,
grafted from watching old women in public swimming pools. She observed
how they would always swim two or three abreast, heads held primly out
of the water so as to be able to continue chatting freely. The ladies
swam a modified breaststroke that reduced splashing to the absolute
minimum. They rarely used a leg kick, they're legs floating like dead
tentacles behind they're plump bodies. They're arms would travel in
small, polite circles - the absolute minimum required for keeping their
bodies afloat. It was less swimming, more a repeated arm gesture - an
extension of their conversation.

She would emulate all but the chatting part. Perhaps as part of the old
fear, she became silent and unfriendly when there was water present.
Others presumed her sullen or over-serious. In a way, they were right.
She was sullen and serious when at the swimming pool, but only there.
Nothing personal.

It wasn't until her 5th year of marriage that she broke the mould. She
was 36 when she met her husband to be. It was at a new years party held
by a friend of a friend of a friend. In turn, he had also been a friend
of a friend of a friend. It was by such a fragile chain they were
brought together - a coincidence that neither of them missed. How else
would a surgeon and a supply teacher meet (except perhaps under the
knife, hardly the most romantic of circumstances in which to forge a
future together)?
They met over the leftover Christmas cake.

She was achingly lonely after having resolved in her mid-twenties never
to marry. He wasn't precisely lonely, but felt he needed a long-term
companion in his peripatetic life. She liked the wrinkles around his
eyes and his imposing, scientific manner, he her mental, and physical
pliancy. They married quickly and spent their first year in Malawi,
where he was working on an aid scheme.

For those first few years she was utterly in awe of the man who was her
husband. Not only was he a surgeon, but one who was prepared to work
for no salary in places where hope had no place. Malawi was like a
grave in the process of being dug. Surgical cases were few when stacked
against the overwhelming scourge of HIV and AIDS. Yet he would lend his
services wherever and in whatever way he could. Thailand, their next
home, was less devoid of hope but his kindness and drive was just the
same.

Yes. He was a marvellous human being. He was also a well-read man, a
very passable jazz pianist, athletic. He was a very good swimmer. In
those first few years she was satisfied with all this. Happy to bask in
the shadow of his talent and radiance. He was often concerned about her
interests, of which there were very few, apart from him. It's not that
he felt stifled by her love. But for a man with so many talents, he
found it difficult to understand why she didn't try to develop hers.
She wrote well. Taught well. Acted well (as he had witnessed himself
during a performance of Midsummer Night's Dream put on by the Malawi
Medical Association Wives and children). Yet she didn't pursue any of
them, unless strongly cajoled and would stop the moment the pressure
was off. He sometimes wondered if their decision not to have children
had been a bad one.

However, by the fourth year of their marriage, she began to feel a
growing envy towards her husband. She couldn't compete with him on any
level. As her sense of inadequacy grew, her desire changed from wanting
to look after him to wanting to be like him. She even looked into the
possibility of training in medicine herself - an absurd idea, she
swiftly discovered, her brain being utterly without science. 'I'm too
old for this' she thought to herself.

'I'm too old for this' she said again to herself as she signed up for a
swimming pool pass in North London where they were living temporarily.
She reflected on all the holidays they had taken together when he would
spend anything from an hour to an entire morning pounding up and down a
hotel pool, or venturing out to a distant reef, or swimming the entire
width of an impossibly large lake. He would always encourage her to
come along and she would usually demur, or join him for a short time.
He would always try to give her tips on stroke and kick, but she would
find herself so embarrassed about her ability and so overcome by her
old fear that she would make an excuse and leave him to his endless
crawling and butter flying.
But despite all those times, she had made the decision to improve and
this, she decided, she would do clandestinely.

The pool she had chosen was a rather foetid public bath, more or less
unchanged since the early 20th century. The fluorescent strip lighting
was dimmed - somewhat inadequate. What with the deco tiles and red
brick, the light they shed was reminiscent of gas lamps. The length of
the pool was in imperial measurements, making it difficult to gauge
one's progress with any accuracy.
But the important thing was, it wasn't the rather posh health club that
her husband attended near the hospital in which he worked. She didn't
want him to see her preliminary splashes and chokes.
Adjusting her new goggles and swimming cap on the poolside, she felt
the familiar grip of fear, washing over her like the water that lapped
at her feet. She got in.
At first she attempted the crawl. Within ten strokes she stopped and
stood up, gasping. The end of the pool, barely visible in the
half-light, was still so very far away. She was exhausted. She knew her
stroke was all wrong, and she'd forgotten to breath, even though
keeping her face in the water was something she detested. It was as if,
once she had managed the ordeal of submergence, emergence was too much
to ask for. She tried again, but still she didn't manage to lift her
face out of the water to breath.
It was not so very far removed from the water butt incident all those
years ago.
By the 8th stroke, not only was she again exhausted, but because she
wasn't looking where she was going, she'd careered into another
swimmer.
'Watch it!' the man said in annoyance, tutting and shaking his head
before resuming his lap.

She only stayed a little longer that day, but despite her lack of
success, something made her return the next day and the next. By the
end of two weeks, she could make it from one end of the pool to the
other, breathing over her right shoulder every two strokes. The sense
of achievement was considerable for her. She wasn't exactly enjoying
the swimming itself. It still terrified her, but whilst she showered
and dried herself in the changing rooms afterwards, she would enjoy an
unfamiliar glow of satisfaction and, moreover, determination. But she
didn't tell her husband about it.
'Not yet. It's too early. Got to get really good before he sees,
otherwise he won't see any difference'.

Not long after this, her husband announced that he had been invited to
spend a year in Japanese hospital as a guest surgeon. Within a month
they departed and, with no more than a konichiwa between them, began
their new oriental life.

Within days of their arrival, she'd been overwhelmed with invitations
from the Japanese doctor's wives to take part in tea ceremony, flower
arrangement and 'English conversation', which she politely
accepted.
'You like the Japanese Green tea?'
'Yes' even though it tastes like pond water.
'You use Japanese chop stick very well'
'Thank you' and have done so since I was 11.
They were very sweet to her, even though it wasn't really her kind of
thing. She found herself yearning for her daily swim though, much to
her surprise. Most of the doctor's wives spoke English, which was a
relief, as she could ask them about swimming pools.

''Even' is near to your house. It has gym and 25-metre pool. Members
card is too cheap' chortled Mrs Yamada, wife of an orthopaedic surgeon.
She brandished her 'too's in most sentences, usually meaning 'very',
but not always.

She followed the map Mrs Yamada had drawn. She'd assumed 'Even' was a
Japanese word, but was wrong. It was emblazoned in English letters on
the side of the building, with a sub-caption '- For your tasty
life'.
Guffawing, she thought perhaps the name referred to how one's body
should look if one went often enough. Even and tasty.
After half an hour of form filling, broken English and not taking her
shoes off when she should, she finally made it to the swimming
pool.

It was segregated into lanes: in the farthest two were those who swam
fast and assuredly, like her husband, and the middle for the less
assured. In the nearest lane the people weren't swimming, but walking.
Striding would be a better word for it. Up and down. There was
technique involved. And grit too. They frowned intensely as they hiked
through the water.
She chose the lane next to the walkers so that she could observe them
at closer quarters. She slipped into the water and with a deep breath,
began a length of the crawl she'd been practicing.

By the time they had left England she had managed to swim two
consecutive lengths of crawl before having to switch, through
exhaustion and fear, to her old lady's breaststroke. After two of
breaststroke she was able to summon the courage to do another of crawl,
and so on. This was what she was hoping to achieve in this new pool but
she couldn't help noticing that her course was unusually crooked. She
wondered if it was Jetlag.
As she approached the end of the pool she could actually feel a sucking
sensation, tugging her under and towards the lane of walkers. The
turbulence increased on the return lap, and when she finally reached
the wall, she stopped, panting, heart beating rapidly.

She realised that the walker's striding was the reason for the strong
current. It made her chuckle wildly in between gasps. Whilst trying to
catch her breath, she paused to watch the other swimmers. Everyone was
swimming with much more precision than in the London pool. At home,
there were a handful of people who could swim well, but the majority
swam badly, with no style or technique. It made her laugh again to
think she'd become so discerning. But here, everyone swam (or walked)
well. Some swam slower than others, but all of them, young and old,
with an even, coordinated motion of arms and legs.

Her swimming really progressed. Within a few months she was able to
swim the crawl for between 20 and 30 lengths at a time. She had studied
carefully the swimming lessons that happened around her and, even
though unable to understand the words, she learnt a lot about kicking
technique and the movement of the arms from watching under water. Her
speed improved dramatically and she found it was necessary to move into
the fast lane, which made her feel truly proud. When she swam now, she
felt a sense of gliding through the water, rather than struggling with
it. She knew it sounded silly, but she sometimes felt 'at one' with the
water. It felt like flying. Where once her body had felt like it was
sinking clumsily, working against her, it now floated, or rather
skimmed the water. Her arm, as it sank into the water in front of her
and then pulled through to complete a stroke, reminded her of a dart or
arrow. When she swam she was in a different place. When she breathed it
was with such fluidity that she barely had her open mouth out of the
water. With a relaxed turn, she kept her head just above the surface,
thus using minimal effort and not disturbing the stroke.

But still she couldn't tell her husband. She felt that, when the
opportunity arose for her to show off her newly cultivated skill, her
body would fail her and she would be left thrashing about in the water
in panic. She dreamt of this many times - the look of both
incomprehension and contempt on his face as she tried to swim through
water the consistency of golden syrup. As her swimming improved, the
fear of discovery only increased.

By the end of the year she could swim 2000 metres freestyle, with
tumble turns, in about 35 minutes. She had also mastered the butterfly
stroke and was beginning to come to terms with the backstroke turn. Her
commitment to swimming was as strong as her dread that he might find
out. She mused that the swimming was making her a little strange in the
head. She rarely thought of anything else.
'Perhaps it's the chlorine' she thought absently.
The invitations by the doctor's wives had dwindled months ago as she
kept cancelling outings in favour of spending her days at 'Even'. Her
husband was kept busy enough by the hospital not to be suspicious, or
even inquisitive about what she did with her time.
This bothered him just a little, and he asked her if she would like to
go on a nice holiday once the year was up. Wanting to make his absences
up to her, he suggested something he believed she would enjoy.
'How about we get one of those rail passes and act like backpacking
teenagers in Europe's capitals? Lots of art galleries and museums but
less of the youth hostels and camping?'
'It's not really your kind of thing, is it?' she said 'You've been
talking about Lake Garda for ages. Why don't we go there?'
'Not your thing either. A big lake and lots of windsurfing&;#8230;?'
but she could hear the hope in his voice. The truth was she wanted to
go there. She loved her pool and was feeling almost sad about leaving
it, but it excited her to think of swimming in open, fresh water. The
idea of the lake's great depth scared her, but since her improvement
she found water-related fear was quite thrilling. She was also
determined, at last, to show her husband what she had been up to. It
was time to dazzle him. To make him see her differently. She'd noticed
that he didn't notice her so much anymore.

They drove from Verona airport up to Riva, at the very northern end of
Lake Garda and arrived at the lakeside hotel at around 10:00pm. Tired
from the journey, he fell asleep quickly. She couldn't sleep. Tomorrow
was the day. She hadn't swum for nearly two weeks, as they'd been so
busy leaving Japan and shipping things home. She was certain that she'd
forgotten everything she'd taught herself. She didn't want to sleep
because the dream she'd been having almost nightly for the past month
would come to her. The dream in which she couldn't swim while he
watched. She rose from the bed and looked out over the black lake. It
looked like oil. It looked like it would have the consistency of the
water in her dream. She shivered.

They had their breakfast on the balcony overlooking the water, which,
despite winking prettily in the morning sunlight, looked to her no less
frightening than previous night's oil slick.
'Right!' he said, rubbing his hands. 'Time for a swim. Shall I meet you
up here later or down at the trattoria for elevenses?'
'Well, I thought I might come with you&;#8230;'
'Okay, but you'd better bring a good book. I feel like a fast swim. The
wind will get up in about and hour and then there'll be nothing but
windsurfers. Best to make the most of it.'
There was a time, she thought, when he would have at least asked me to
swim with him, even if he knew the answer would be no. Now he doesn't
even bother with that small thing.
Suddenly she really wanted to show him. It was almost an aggressive
feeling. Certainly competitive. It felt good.
Down on the beach he rushed into the water and began swimming away from
the shore with his strong crawl. She followed him in. The water was
cold. Freezing. She looked down at her toes. There were small fish
playing above them. With an inward scream of fear and anticipation, she
snapped on her goggles and dove in with a graceful flick. The cold
water hit her head and made her gasp. The water felt hard and heavy.
But not like oil. She could move through it. She looked up mid stroke
to see her husband quite far off and ploughing steadily onwards. She
increased her pace. Her body grew warmer. She tried not to look down as
it showed the bottom dropping steeply away from her. Instead, she
closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing and pace. It had
occurred to her many times before that the act of swimming was, to her
at least, meditative. There was no calming the nervousness she felt,
but concentrating on the rhythm at least prevented her from actual
hysterics.
She looked up again. She couldn't tell if she had gained on him at all.
He was no further away, that much she was sure. She had, in fact,
gained on him far more than she could allow herself to believe. He was
still unaware of her presence though.
She didn't look again for a while. Her body had fully warmed up and she
had begun to get into that really exhilarating stage where everything
was flowing - the water working with her. She didn't feel tired.
Nothing was too difficult. She forgot her fears entirely.
When she passed her husband, she was close enough for him to notice
that someone was close by. He stopped altogether. He too had been in a
meditative state. He had been thinking about her, about them. About how
detached they'd become. There was no animosity. Just a growing
detachment. He wasn't even sure if that was such a bad thing.
Treading water he looked around him. He saw a very fast and skilled
swimmer speeding away from him. He thought it odd that in a lake so
large, and as far out as he was that someone would be swimming so
close. A woman. Her body maintained such a shallow depth that he could
see the straps of her bathing suit.
Feeling a jolt of sexual excitement he decided to give chase. He was in
the habit of that kind of thing, after all. It had been so easy to do
in Japan. The patients and even the other doctor's wives were all but
throwing their slim, gorgeous bodies at him. His working hours were
never so long as his wife supposed. He wondered if the woman he chased
was Italian and how she would compare to those oriental girls.
He was swimming as fast as he could, but was surprised and vaguely
insulted to find that he had made very little progress in catching her
up.
At that moment, she was pulled out of her reveree. She stopped abruptly
and looked ahead. Nothing. She spun around, suddenly fearful, and aware
just how far from the shore she was. He was there, perhaps 10 metres
away. Not swimming. Just watching. There was a curious grin on his face
unlike anything she'd seen before. She didn't recognise it for the leer
it was. She smiled back, unsure how to act. She pulled off her goggles.
His grin faded into something that bordered on shock and, she thought,
scorn.
He was so surprised to see his wife that he forgot to tread water and
was submerged for a few seconds. His emotions were confused but it felt
like he had been caught in the act. Returning to the surface, he tried
to gain some control.
'Lucy? Is that you?'
She nodded coyly. She was trying to interpret his expression. It wasn't
exactly how she'd expected it to be. He looked almost angry. He was red
in the face!
'What the hell are you doing?' he blurted.
This was not at all what she'd hoped to hear. Now she felt angry. She
was about to say something back to him when something large and white
entered into her frame of vision, just to the left of her husband. The
large, white thing made contact with her husband's head. His face
crumpled, the anger leaving it instantly, and he disappeared under the
water.
Her mouth hung open. No sound came out.
'Boun journo!' cried a friendly voice. An Italian man was waving to her
from the big white thing. It was a yacht. He had no idea that he had
just hit her husband.
Her mouth opened and closed in pantomime. And then, with a voice that
surprised her
'Boun Journo signor!' she cried.
'You are long way from shore. You wanta the taxi?'
He helped her out of the water and offered her a towel. She sat at the
back of the boat, watching the spot she had last seen her husband while
the Italian man prattled on. She watched the spot until it was
impossible to know where the spot was. Nothing. Just the small waves
that were getting larger and larger as the windsurfer's wind began to
pick up.

********

She never really did understand why she hadn't brought the authorities
attention to her husband's disappearance until 9:00pm that night. She
was pretty sure she didn't regret it, but then she tried not to think
about it too much.
Besides, these days her time was filled. The pool had just been
completed and the last of the furniture would arrive the following day.
Her husband's life insurance was ample. Enough for her to buy a small
villa on a small Greek island in the Ionian Sea. Along with the house
came several acres of land. When she first viewed the property, she had
taken a 25m tape measure with her to check for the garden's
suitability. Once the planning permission was settled, the labourers
came at once to begin work on the pool. The men who dug the pool would
often make jokes about the English lady's eccentricity. She had no
husband, no children, not even a pet. She would simply spend her days
watching them build the pool. When it was completed, they asked if they
could watch her inaugural swim.
'Why not?' she thought.
The water was perfect as she slipped in. The pool stretched its 25m
carpet of sparkling aqua marine before her. She pulled on her goggles
and cap, felt for the faint but familiar butterfly in her stomach, and
then began her swim.
'You think it's wide enough?' one of the workmen said to another.
'Only just.' Look. She's doing breaststroke now. That'll be the
test'.
She knew it would be just wide enough for her breaststroke leg kick.
She knew because she'd had her kick measured. She didn't want the width
of the pool to be even an inch more than necessary. This pool was not
to be shared. She wasn't going to swim with others. Not ever if she
could help it.
It was her pool. A pool of her own.
The workmen watched her, impressed, for about 10 minutes. They watched
her, increasingly bored for another 5, and then they left. It didn't
look like she would be stopping anytime soon.