Bron-1

Chapter 1

She hit the surface of the water, arms and legs spreadeagled, with a crash rather than a splash. “MAM!” she shrieked. The cold hit her like a sledge-hammer, sheer pain rather than cold. Everything went dark, and quiet; now the water was filling her mouth, her lungs. Frantically, her gloved hands scrabbled for the canopy release; she snapped it open and pushed as hard as she could on the cracked Perspex. It wobbled, then floated away out of sight into the opaque green water. She spluttered as water cascaded in; everything disappeared into a blur. She clamped her eyes shut and  kicked her feet down onto the cockpit floor, pushing herself upwards; Her head broke the surface of the water. Light, air. She choked, spat out water, spread her arms out to avoid sinking: She gasped. “NAH! NAH! NAH! NAH!” God, it was cold.

Her breathing coming a little easier now, she reached above her shoulders and undid the clips of her parachute and lay back. For now, she’d float, gazing upwards at the sky. For a moment, just breathing, just being alive was enough, even though the hopeless chill of the cold water was completely enveloping her, seeping under her clothing. So cold it was actually painful. She raised both her black-gloved hands out of the water, more of a spasm than a conscious effort.

She’d need to get out of here, and fast, before the cold killed her. She kicked out with her booted feet and swam, backstroke, slowly at first but then with increasing power as she found her stroke, seeking warmth…

She swung her feet down, finding the bottom of the pool floor and levered herself upright, with some difficulty in her saturated clothing. Water crashed out of clothing as she waded, like a sea-monster in a science fiction story, making for the pool stairs with slow, deliberate steps. Pairs of strong male hands reached down to pull her up. Someone switched off the hired industrial blower that had been ruffling the surface of Mr Learson’s swimming pool. The wooden cockpit, ingeniously constructed by the production team, wobbled on the water at the far end of the pool, its job done.

“BASTAD! CONT! BASTAD!”

Bron squelched along the tiles, fists extended. A couple of the crew members suppressed giggles. As always, Chris the producer was the lightening-rod for her rage. “BASTAD!”

“Sorry Bron! But you were BRILLIANT! If there was an Oscar for falling into freezing water you’d walk it!”

Bron ignored this. “We’ll-make-sure-the-water’s-NICE-and-WARM just-like-a-BATH,” she sing-songed, as she trampled one of Mr Learson’s Satsuki azaleas under her boots. There was now open laughter among the crew, but Chris kept a straight face as Bron bore on him. “CONT!”

“Look, Bron, we had to do that. It just wouldn’t have worked if you’d been sploshing around in warm bathwater. We needed that element of shock.”

“I’ll give YOU a fuckin’ shock!” Bron unbuckled her helmet and swung it by the chinstrap at Chris, who ducked sharply.

“Not the helmet!” cried Geoff. “It cost a fortune.” (Also, it would cause massive continuity problems if the replacement didn’t match the original exactly…) “Hit him with this instead,” throwing a small, stout plank of wood to Bron’s feet.

“Actually, don’t hit him with anything,” said Mike, stepping in hurriedly between the two. “Look Bron, if you want to blame anyone, blame me. I thought this one up.”

And it was true. It was he, with Geoff’s help, had got up early on the morning of the shoot to fill Mr Learson’s swimming pool with blocks of ice donated from a local cold store. Quite a job, as they’d needed to ensure that it was all melted before Bron came on set. Floating lumps of ice would have given the game away. They’d been pleased with the result, the temperature of the pool being halfway between a cold domestic shower and the mid-Atlantic. Bron’s frantic gasping hadn’t been acting. She’d been desperate to get out of that frigid water.

“Look, take a nice warm shower, have a hot drink and we’ll show you the rushes. They’ll be brilliant, I’m telling you.”

Bron glared over Mike’s shoulder at Chris. “Mochyn! Mochyn! MOCHYN BRWNT!”

“Look, I don’t know what that means, obviously, but I fully understand why you’re not happy, I do understand...”

“It means … it means that when you were born, they threw out the baby and kept the afterbirth! BASTAD!”

Geoff made a mental note to write the phrase down later so he could use it in a stage play he was writing.

They wondered how long Bron’s tirade would last; normally her flashes of temper were momentary, but then they’d never plunged her into an ice-cold swimming pool before.

Bron swore, and turned out through Mr Learson’s gates and squelched off down Westbourne Grove, attracting curious glances from late-morning commuters.

Continued in Chapter 2: Edit Story Bron-2 | ABCtales