by Tom Gregory
Anna said it was considered a massive honour to be asked to help out at the hydropool. It proved I was becoming one of ‘John’s favourites’. I could see other evidence to support this. Once the pool was empty John and I would play around for a few minutes. As the weeks passed we developed a spoof slow-motion underwater wrestling routine, which started with some hand to hand combat and ended with me ‘submitting’ once trapped in a submerged head lock. John was strong. As we faced each other underwater before a bout he reminded me of one of those big oval-shaped contact mines from the war that could now be seen at the seaside in Broadstairs, painted red, and idly collecting money from passers-by. Submerged he hovered, weightless, controlling his buoyancy with the air in his lungs – poised to attack at the slightest approach. His goggled round face, set beneath his balding dented head, would adopt a mischievous toothy grin, like a Halloween pumpkin. He was half villain, half superhero. Upon provocation his wrestling moves would tie me in a knot in a split second. I fought back as hard as I could, but always lost in the end.
Our conversations were playful too. John was a hard man, but he also had a kinder, child-like aspect that I had latched onto. ‘You want to watch out, John,’ I said once we were upstairs in his office.
‘Oh reeeeally?’ he replied in his messing about voice, giggling as he did so. ‘Why is that then, Young Teeeeeefal?’
‘Because unless you’re careful I’ll have to duff you up,’ I said. ‘Show you who’s boss,’ I added, laughing at the cheek of it.
‘It would take a WHOLE ARMY of Little Teeeefals to duff me up,’ replied John with a half smile.
The exchange of threats soon became an extended part of the routine – one of those jokes that becomes funnier the more often it gets used. John was much less serious when it was just the two of us. He was hard to truly know, but I knew I liked him – he was exciting to be around, and I credited him with being responsible for all the swimming adventures of the previous few months, and for my new friends in the swimming club. I also wanted him to like me in return and felt good when he took an interest in me or teased me about something.
John sent me to the vending machines with some change for a toffee bar and a cup of hot chocolate. He said I had earned it because I helped out every week.
By the time I got back to the office Dad had arrived to collect me and was chatting amicably with John about nothing in particular. According to Anna, John had a reputation for being quite difficult with some parents, and because I liked him I hoped this would not apply to us. I had also begun to hope John and Dad would be friends, but in Dad’s company John was very formal.
‘Bye, John. See you tomorrow,’ I called back as we left. I would be back at the pool in the morning. These days John let me go swimming for free on Saturday mornings, and provided I was there early and did a quick twenty lengths in the big pool before the public arrived, I could stay on for as long as I wanted. The lifeguards knew me too, so I was allowed to dive from the high boards, do somersaults from the poolside, and hold my breath at the bottom of the deep end for as long as possible without one of them diving in to rescue me.
Once spring came Mum and Dad decided to let me walk from the house to the pool on my own, provided I went down the High Street. On one occasion when Anna decided to come with me, John gave us £5 to share in the Wimpy on the way home. McDonald’s was not allowed, but Wimpy was. Anna insisted we went to the Our Price record shop en route and bought herself a Pet Shop Boys album she had been saving for.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked John from under his bobble hat. He leaned on the rail in the same space JC had occupied and looked down at me as I trod water with both legs and one arm. The other arm was holding a chocolate digestive out of the sea as I munched on it. It had been held up by John as a signal to approach the boat and then lobbed overboard for me to catch just seconds earlier. I bobbed, chewed, and considered my response. Some hours had passed, but I didn’t know how many. The thudding of the diesel engine was loud, and the fumes were unpleasant. I noticed the round exhaust hole at the stern, on the same side of the boat I was facing. I would have to swim further up from now on to avoid the fumes and prevent them making me sick.
‘OK … fine,’ I said with some confidence. The moment of speaking out loud to another person was itself a treat – a boost to morale. ‘How are we doing?’ I followed up. It was unusual for me to ask this of John (it somehow felt insubordinate) but the question betrayed my underlying anxiety.
‘You’re doing really well, Tefal. I want you to settle in for a couple of hours now. Cover off some of the distance.’ He seemed upbeat, almost excited. There was little else to discuss. I wanted to continue the conversation, but couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘Can I have another biscuit?’ I ventured, my mouth spluttering the crumbs of the first.
‘No,’ came the reply.
‘OK. See you in a couple of hours then,’ I said matter-of-factly, before resuming my stroke and drifting back off into my private world.
1986 was one of those years when big things just kept on happening – the snow was merely the start. There was even a football World Cup in Mexico. That meant not only two sticker albums to complete in the same season, but also that Gary Lineker and Peter Shilton, my favourite players (apart from Leyton Orient’s Alan Comfort and Peter ‘Bomber’ Wells), were on the telly more. Orient were never on the telly. Dad, meanwhile, was obsessed by the news, and so was Dr Lynsky, my new form tutor, so there was no getting away from other global events.
When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded we all talked about it in the playground seriously like grown-ups, though a joke was doing the rounds by the end of the day. When the nuclear reactor exploded at Chernobyl one boy in the year below was made to wear a dust mask to school by his mum, so we teased him mercilessly until he took it off. And when the AIDS advert came out on TV Roger Rat-Bag said it was dangerous to have sex with an iceberg. I sort of got it, so I told Dad, who said it was very funny. I was now old enough to stay up for the 9 o’clock news, which made a few things – mostly the politics, which Dad loved to talk about – slot into place, but other things, like girls, maths and how to beat Anna at anything, were still a mystery. Happily, Anna took the train to school on her own, so I got to ask Dad the most important of life’s questions for fifteen minutes every day on the way to school in the car:
‘Dad. Why can’t we go on holiday on a plane? To Spain, like Rog. Or Florida, like Ellis? Why do we have to go on a canal boat all the time?’
Something about money and ‘interest rates’ (whatever they were) confirmed the answer was no.
‘Can we have Capital on instead of Radio 4? Anna says it’s the best radio station.’
A straight ‘No’.
‘Can I go to the disco at school next Friday?’
‘Erm, yes, but I believe you’re helping John at the hydropool? You ought to check with him.’
Meanwhile, the fast lane on a Wednesday night was hard work. After last summer’s Windermere trip Anna and I were in the top group. The Senior swimmers were still much faster than me, but the swim sets were the same for everyone. After a long set, like twenty lengths of crawl or a 4x4 medley, I was breathing so hard that my head felt dizzy and I couldn’t quite see properly. The chemicals in the pool made things worse; everything – the air I gulped, and the water itself – felt mildly toxic compared to the open water. Once home I put cold cucumber slices on my eyes to relieve the soreness. The hardest bit was getting out at the end of each set, joining the back of the queue and starting all over again. Just concentrating on what was to be done next was challenging. Often I fell so far behind that the next set had already started by the time I got out. If I missed John’s instructions from the poolside, which only ever came once, I just had to dive straight back in again and copy what was happening in front of me.
After training I went to John’s office. I would always say hello and goodbye to him as I came and went. My trips to Eltham Baths had becom
e more frequent: Wednesdays for club night; Friday for hydropool duties or a late evening training session; Saturdays when I would train on my own before having free time; and Sundays when I would train with the Senior group or do demonstration drills for John’s life-saving class, which was open to the public. I knew everyone at the pool, and they knew me – the lifeguards, Beryl the kiosk lady (who always admitted me for free), and John himself, who was always there. The baths had become a safe and familiar place, like home, or even school, where I had also begun to discover more confidence. That night, a couple of parents were walking out of John’s office as I approached, shaking their heads and rolling their eyes. ‘He’s so bloody difficult!’ muttered one to the other. Unbowed, I burst in.
‘John, can I go to a disco on Friday instead of the hydropool, please?’
John sighed, without looking up from behind his desk. ‘Why do you want to do that, Tefal?’ he eventually replied.
‘Because Roger Rat-Bag and Quilts are going, and because there will be girls there … from Anna’s school.’
‘So this is a Colfe’s disco then, eh?’ John enquired, looking up suddenly, although he already knew this given it was where I went to school. ‘Colfe’s is a school for wankers.’ He looked back down as he said it.
I didn’t reply. John had begun to say this to tease me lately and usually I took no notice. Everyone was teased about something, often something visually obvious. In my case my forehead and school were the main sources of ammunition. However, on this occasion it seemed to matter. Still I said nothing. There was a long, awkward pause.
‘Who are “Rat-Bag” and “Quills” anyway?’ asked John in a derisory tone.
‘It’s Quilts, not Quills. They’re my best friends … at school anyway,’ I added, sensing his unease at the possibility that anything, or anyone, could be more important to me than swimming and the club.
Another pause.
‘OK. You can go. But I want to meet this Rat-Bag … He sounds like trouble.’
I thanked him as I ran out the door to find Anna and Dad. John shouted after me from the office. ‘TEFAL!’ he bellowed, so I stopped on demand and looked back.
‘Better make it 7 a.m. on Saturday then … and thirty lengths before free time.’
‘OK, John,’ I called over my shoulder, grinning as I resumed my exit plan.
‘… And bring RAT-BAG!’ I heard, just, as I passed the ticket kiosk. I had made a good deal.
I asked Mum what I should wear to the disco. I had been to a swimming club disco so I knew broadly what to expect, but a school disco might be a different proposition. I wondered if there would be a raffle. I had only ever entered one raffle, but having won a clock radio, which was now in my room and a prized possession, I was keen to enter another.
There would be two years of boys and two years of girls. Mum said that if girls were going it was best to be smart; girls liked boys who were smart. My smartest outfit had been purchased for a recent family occasion. It consisted of grey flannel trousers, a white shirt with a ‘wing collar’ and a very smart clip-on red bowtie. ‘Shall I wear my bowtie then, Mum?’ I said.
‘Yes, good idea. I’ll iron your special shirt.’
On the way there, Rat-Bag’s mum, who I liked very much, complimented me on my bowtie, as if to prove Mum’s point. Roger, however, who was wearing much cooler clothes, surveyed me in silence across the back seat as I fastened my seatbelt. His silence suggested some unease at my turnout.
The main school hall felt sparsely populated, the space too large for the size of the group. Clusters of boys and girls stood, segregated, against the walls, too scared to venture into what had become a dancefloor in the middle. The DJ on stage boomed familiar pop songs through enormous black speakers – a gantry of flashing lights above his head, and, just like on Top of the Pops, a smoke machine occasionally emitted clouds of mysterious vapour. Eventually we began to dance in circular groups. After half an hour or so I plucked up the courage to ask one of the Blackheath girls to dance. I was not very good at dancing, unlike Rog who was confidently displaying a range of moves, most of which reminded me of a robot. My dancing was more of a side-to-side wobble despite having picked up some tips at the swimming club discos. Neither my dance partner nor I looked at each other as we wobbled. I was in time, she was not. I soon regretted having asked her at all. At the end of the song I was relieved to get a tap on the shoulder from Roger. He beckoned me outside to where Adam Mawyer, the tallest boy in the year, was waiting. They stood shoulder to shoulder and I knew something was wrong, although Roger was too nice to look intimidating. ‘Greg. Me and Rat-Bag think you are moving in on our birds,’ said Mawyer.
‘No I’m not!’ I protested, upset at the accusation and being ganged up on.
‘Yeah, you are,’ said Roger, ‘and you’re wearing a bowtie – making us look bad.’ His words caused a pain inside me.
‘So you better back off our birds, Greg! Got it?’ said Mawyer aggressively, jabbing his finger in my direction. They walked back into the hall, leaving me standing.
I ran out into the car park and started to cry. It didn’t stop. Half an hour later Dad arrived to pick me up. I told him the whole sorry episode, struggling to blurt it out. He seemed to understand, but, in a way that often happened with Dad, things sounded like they would get worse before they got better.
‘That’s not the last time you will cry over a girl, Tom, believe me. Just wait until you get older!
… Don’t worry, son,’ Dad continued. ‘Just think, you’ll be back in the pool first thing tomorrow.
… And besides, I reckon young Mawyer put Rog up to it anyway. Rog is your best friend.’ I stopped crying at that remark, but still fell short of a reply.
‘… I’m sure John would agree with me … for what it’s worth …’ he tailed off. I considered the point. John would agree. Maybe I should have gone to the hydropool after all. I decided to invite Roger to come swimming next Saturday to meet John, as requested, provided we were still best friends.
We drove home. ‘You’ve changed the radio!’ I said in surprise, snapping out of my misery. It was playing ‘Saving All My Love for You’ by Whitney Houston, who had gone straight to number one. The same song had made the tears harder to control just moments earlier as it echoed from the school hall while I waited in the car park for Dad to transport me home.
‘Have I? Oh yes, maybe I did … I quite like this one.’
Dad and I went for a long walk through London along the Regent’s Canal that Sunday. Unlike most people I knew, Dad thought all canals were interesting, especially when they passed through cities. I took my Walkman in the expectation that things might get just too boring, but Dad and I chatted frequently in between moments of comfortable silence. We walked under the Thames through the foot tunnel to the docks, and then to Limehouse where we picked up the towpath through the East End. Much of this part of London was now a building site, punctuated by hidden communities. The canal was full of debris, and the sky was full of rain.
‘Dad, do you think I should swim the Channel one day?’ I asked as we strode past a park in Hackney.
‘Well, that really depends.’ He paused. ‘Do you want to?’
‘Maybe,’ I offered.
Dad paused again.
‘What made you ask me that, why now?’
‘Not sure really. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot.’
‘Well, that’s understandable,’ he said. ‘It looks to me as if John may have the same idea. It would explain all the things he’s asking you to do.’
Anna and I were now part of the core group of swimmers, but John had recently started to single me out to do more and more swimming. I found that I wanted to be around him – to follow him. Everything that happened at the club came with a sense of fun and adventure, which often revolved around John himself. The notice board of the baths flashed into my mind. I realized I wanted to be on it – somehow.
‘But could I, Dad? Do you think I could do it one
day?’
‘Of course,’ he said without hesitation. ‘You of all people could do anything if you really wanted to, Tom. No doubt about that at all.’
We went back to companionable silence and walked in step, winding our way along the towpath, heading further west towards Camden Lock. A man with shabby shoes and a straggly beard shivered inside a blanket under a bridge, sheltering from the rain. Another man, holding a beer can, wobbled towards us. The graffiti all around us gave the place a threatening feel – as if we were trespassing. Dad shook his head as we passed an open lock gate, and we pushed it shut to prevent any more water being lost. Gradually the urban decay gave way to smarter surroundings. The colours of Camden Market appeared on one side, and the smell of frying onions made me hungry. It was a smell I recognized from the terraces at Orient, where Dad and I now watched football every other Saturday afternoon after swimming.
Anna’s favourite Pet Shop Boys track, ‘West End Girls’, played over and over in my head – the music in time with our steps. The song was made for London, and the moment on the towpath with Dad. I strode out, to keep pace.
As the summer of 1986 approached, the news was full of stories about radioactive sheep in the Lake District after Chernobyl, and the risks to tourists. Palfrey’s grandfather refused to let him come to Windermere because of it. Mum and Dad didn’t seem to mind as Anna and I were back there again. The camp began in the same way, but I was not homesick this time. There was no storm either, so we went for a swim in the stream. It glided quickly and deeply through the campsite, running clear and promising adventure. I wore my goggles and floated along the surface in the flow on my own for a while, studying the underwater world.