A Boy in the Water

by Tom Gregory

  Midway through a pursuit I caught sight of Rabbit, on the edge of the dock, and in trouble. He was cold, which was not unusual, but had also developed a severe leg cramp and so was trying to get out, labouring awkwardly up the giant steps as he did so. His right leg was locked out, as if in a brace. Once he reached the terrace he hobbled, shaking violently from the cold, towards the stash of kit bags. John, unusually quiet that night, caught sight of him and walked over briskly. His face was all rage. He pushed Rabbit back into the water. There was some shouting. I stopped swimming instantly and looked on, treading water from the middle. In four years I had never seen John lose his cool. In fact, apart from the odd pool-based mass-wrestle during free time, I had never seen him lay a hand on anyone, let alone push someone into the water. A commotion unfolded between them as Rabbit tried to explain, this time from the water, that he couldn’t go on. John swore and shouted, waved his arms around in anger, and then stormed off. Mother Duck swam over, helped Rabbit from the dock and calmed things down. John disappeared.

  The strain of the summer of 1988 had reached fever pitch. John was under enormous pressure, albeit largely self-induced. I knew from Windermere that he had an extraordinary ability to function without much sleep, even though he insisted others must not. But he was effectively working seven days a week: opening the pool at 6 a.m., running the large public baths all day long, and training us in the evenings. On his days off, he was with me, Mother Duck or both, doing yet more training. He was masterminding a golden year: two solo swims including a world record attempt, and two relays – one of them the renowned two-way. The burden was starting to show.

  ‘All right, Rabs?’ I said, dripping over my kit bag thirty minutes later, eager to find my towel. He sat against the wall. The colour had returned to his face but his lips remained blue and he was still shaking a little. He was wrapped in even more clothing than usual.

  ‘OK, Teefs?’ He looked up smiling. ‘All good here, mate,’ he added unconvincingly. ‘What about old JB busting me back in then, eh?’ he said, his jokey demeanour masking a deeper wound.

  ‘Yeah, mate. I saw it. You did your best. That’s all.’

  ‘I just get so f-fucking cold, mate, n-no matter how … f-fast I go,’ he said, a hint of panic entering his voice, replacing its normal comedic timbre. Rabbit of all people didn’t want to let anyone down. Relay squads relied on pace to beat the tide, which he had – but the cold was another thing entirely. It was a problem with no obvious solution. I was angry with John – he had upset my friend, who was doing his best. It was John who had put him in this position in the first place, I thought. The pressure was starting to show, the cracks in people’s resilience appearing, John included.

  ‘Well, look on the bright side, mate. At least you’re not a big fat “Mr Lard Body”, eh?’ I said, grabbing a handful of my copious belly blubber and wobbling it in his face, hoping somehow to cheer him up. He laughed his usual laugh and things resumed as normal.

  Two weeks before the return to school I was back at the Little Chef to see Mave, en route to Dover with John, but also with Mother Duck. The call had come the night before to be ready in the morning with my swimming kit, and my passport. Initially I panicked, but John explained on the phone that this was not the day of the swim. It was a special trip, for just the three of us, to take a look at the French coast and enjoy a day out together. From the rail of the ferry’s top deck Clair, now twenty-two, and I looked back to England, and forwards to France – both of which could be seen from the middle – and considered the massive undertaking that we were trying to attempt. The great expanse of the Dover Strait stretched out in all directions. Sensing my apprehension, John was playful and made jokes all day at the expense of us both.

  We drove to Wissant Bay in the August sunshine. Mother Duck and I put our arms around each other on the cliff top as John took a photo on her camera for her album. ‘My God, you two are ugly,’ he said, releasing the shutter. We rolled our eyes and laughed. Behind us was the English Channel, which we both hoped to conquer. In front of us, holding the camera, stood the man who, remarkably and in just three years in my case, had planted the seed of an idea, nurtured it into reality and then made it possible. The beach below was windy and with some surf to play in, so I tore my clothes off and went for a swim. From the water I saw John and Clair sit side by side on the sand. The three of us understood that the years and months of our collective preparations were now all but over. This was a treat – an acknowledgement of all that had passed, and a reconnaissance, to let us both visualize how things might be in the days to come. Now it was a matter of waiting for the conditions, a judgement call with what weather and tide information was available. We would soon execute a series of meticulous and intricate plans, which, in my case, John had long since made.

  A week hence the conditions did look just right and so Mother Duck received ‘the call’. Twenty-four hours after that, and after more than fifteen hours of swimming she was pulled from the water 3 miles from the French coast. She had missed the second tide and so was being swept, exhausted, back towards the North Sea and away from the headland surrounding Calais. It would be another five hours before the tide would let her make an approach, and by then the gap to the shore would have widened by another few miles given the shape of the coast and direction the tide was taking her. Like most people who made an attempt to swim the Channel, over 90 per cent in fact, she had been beaten by the combination of distance, tide and prevailing conditions. Being Mother Duck she had wanted to carry on regardless. John had no choice but to pull her out for her own safety. The news came back to London via the normal channels – a call from a payphone, somewhere near Dover, probably the Lantern pub, and a subsequent ring-round key people to share the news.

  Anna told me, grave-faced, having taken the call from Vicky. I gulped, felt physically sick, and was then instantly engulfed by two conflicting emotions. The first was sorrow, for Mother Duck, or Clair as I thought of her in that moment. No one deserved to make a crossing more than her. No one had done more for the swimmers in the club, as teacher, mentor and proxy parent, than her. She would be heartbroken and on some level I was too. The second emotion was more primal – fear. If she couldn’t do it, the chances were that I, aged eleven, would fail too. I tried desperately to block out the emotion, but it wouldn’t go away. My swim window would start any day now.

  Renata Agondi was a long distance swimmer from Brazil, and a very good one. Rumour had it she had swum large stretches of the Amazon and had a phenomenal capacity for distance, such was her stamina. She had come third in the Capri to Naples race over some 22 miles a few weeks before. She was world class.

  On 28 August 1988, days after Mother Duck’s aborted attempt, she died, some 5 miles from the French coast, while trying to complete a Channel crossing for the first time. She was fit, experienced, and twenty-five. It was all over the news. The details were unclear but John thought it was hypothermia that killed her. What little inside information was available suggested that she had fallen unconscious on a number of occasions, but that on the final blackout her body just went to sleep for ever. No wonder John kept me awake after a long swim. A tragedy had occurred within the sport of Channel Swimming, but it was not the first. At least three people had died trying to do this, although not all under the supervision of the Channel Swimming Association. They died trying to become one of the successful names on an exclusive list. The French authorities did not see the death of a swimmer in their waters as an inevitable outcome of the ‘spirit of adventure’ within an extreme sport – a tragic consequence of simple sporting endeavour. They would be launching an inquiry, probably with a view to pressing manslaughter charges. Against whom, no one yet knew, but the rumour was that the coach, pilot and CSA observer who had been in the boat were all potentially in the frame. As my swim window opened and we waited for the weather and the tidal combination to be just right, the tragedy of Renata raised the possibility I might not be allowed to swim at all – part o
f an emergency response to a preventable death.

  The dinner table was silent despite my desire to discuss this news. Mum and Dad said barely anything as we piled into the enormous shepherd’s pie John insisted upon. I had an extra-large helping, and some bread and butter on the side. Anna, in her normal way, could read the situation where I could not. After dinner she spoke to me as we cleared the table, and out of earshot. ‘Tomsk, this Renata thing has really spooked Mum and Dad. I think they’re worried about you having a go. Just so you know. They’ll probably want a chat with John about things. I’ll keep you posted.’

  It seemed a fair point, but not one I was willing to accept. With Clair’s failure I was worried, but largely about the distance and the magnitude of the event itself … Four years to train for it, and just one day to do it, I reflected. There wouldn’t be a second chance before my twelfth birthday in October if I failed, and the season would then be over – too cold, chance gone for ever. So it was all or nothing. And I was not worried about dying. Doctors, medicals and consent were all very well, but also largely irrelevant. The only thing that mattered was John. John Bullet would keep me safe. Of that I had no doubt whatsoever. I remembered his words from the Dutch trip – ‘I will always, ALWAYS look after you, Tefal.’ I trusted him with my life.

  As a wet Atlantic low rained its way across the UK, and with another in its wake, a ridge of high pressure from the south began to reach up and interrupt the conveyor belt, poking up through Biscay and extending defiantly further north. Maybe it would get far enough to reach us, stop, then hang around for a while – a last blast of sunshine and warmth before the long march to Christmas. The moon and sun were approaching the point of equinox and so they would combine to deliver the weakest of neap tides in the days that followed – the lowest possible volume of water into the Channel, and the least tidal effect. I didn’t fully understand this at the time, but discovered in later years that John had thought about this in great detail. The trick was to identify the period of least possible tidal influence on any attempt, combined with the warmest temperatures of the year. The run up to the equinox was my best chance.

  I went to school at the start of the new term carrying Mum’s letter, addressed to the Headmaster and marked ‘urgent’ in Mum’s elegant writing. I pretty much knew what it would say … ‘Tom is involved with a world record attempt … Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t dream of pulling him out of school … tides and weather dependent … short notice window to cross now open … Seeking your cooperation in this matter … Sorry, Regards, Mary.’

  I handed it to the Headmaster’s gowned prefect, went to join my new class, and imagined the face of the Head, Vivian Anthony, as he read it at his desk.

  An hour or so later, the same prefect entered the classroom and waited beside the teacher’s front desk to indicate a private conversation was needed. Mr Arnold, not one for being interrupted mid-dictation, was walking up and down the lines of desks, reciting from his encyclopaedic memory the events that preceded the downfall of King John. The prefect caught my eye as he scanned the classroom, waiting for Arny to finish his soliloquy. Then followed a quiet word in Arny’s ear, a look of astonishment from Arny back to the prefect, and a silent nod to me to pack up my things and leave. This was it then. A now familiar knot, the same one I got when I stood at the water’s edge before a big swim, gripped my stomach, and once again, but probably because I was eleven, I wanted to cry. No time for that, though. This was what I wanted to do, I told myself.

  I waited in the foyer of the main school entrance. Mum arrived in the car but didn’t get out, which indicated a sense of urgency. The car door clunked shut and I looked over. Her confident smile and calm exterior were a little too fixed.

  ‘Looks like we’re on then, Mum!’ I said chirpily, unwilling in my subconscious to show any fear and so trigger her protective instincts. We all had to go through the motions now.

  ‘Yes, looks like it,’ she said matter-of-factly as we pulled away from the school gates.

  I lay in bed at three in the afternoon, wide awake. The enormous plate of food Mum had brought to my room had been eaten and the plate left empty on the tray. The curtains were closed, but daylight seeped in around the window as my tape player spooled through the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on low volume. ‘She’s Like the Wind’ was the only track that remotely seemed to capture my mood, but even that wasn’t a very good fit. I lay awake, wishing I could fall asleep.

  John’s instructions had been simple and clear. Get home, go straight to bed, eat shepherd’s pie at about 2 p.m., more sleep, then get up at 9.30 p.m. – no earlier, no later. Once up and dressed, drink some tea, eat a snack and say my goodbyes quickly. He would pick me up at 10 p.m. on the dot, so there was to be no ‘fannying around’. Meanwhile, there was nothing else to do. My swim bag had been packed for days, and I was hardly in need of luggage. The clothes I travelled down to Dover in would be good for whatever took place in the next forty-eight hours. I lay in my room alone, thinking. This would be without doubt the hardest thing I might ever choose to do. The sensation of fear mainly came on when I imagined something going wrong: being pulled from the water or having an emotional breakdown during the swim. It was really fear of failure. Better not fail then, I thought. At some point, I fell asleep.

  Mum, Dad and Anna stood on the front porch. ‘Go Bro,’ said Anna gently as she gave me a quick hug. ‘Good luck, son,’ said Dad as he did the same. ‘Take care, Tom-Tom,’ Mum said, but in her case there were tears visible, try as I did not to notice them, and the hug lasted a little longer. John stood at the rear passenger door of the blue Vauxhall, holding it open for me. Dennis Wetherly sat in the front seat. John’s plan was now in motion.

  ‘Get in, Tefal,’ said John, beckoning me onto the back seat, ‘and get your head down, lad.’

  I looked back at my family. They stood in a tight huddle on the doorstep of our house in the suburban half darkness. I smiled at them from the back seat window, trying desperately to hold my nerve. This was suddenly a massive moment happening in slow motion. It was the moment, I realized, where I could back out and when my family, in numbers, would protect me and my decision. Panic rose up inside me and I reached for the handle of the car door. But then something inside held me back. A quick wave and we were gone.

  6. The Sea of Faith

  3.15 p.m., 6 September 1988 – 10 hours, approximately 4 miles from the English coast, English Channel

  Everything went warm. It was blissfully dark and quiet now. The sense of comfort was beautiful. Total peace had arrived. My mind and body experienced a rush of pleasure, just like when I had been given gas and air and an injection when I put a pitchfork through my foot.

  But the screaming voices and the thud of the diesel engine snapped me back, violently. I was still in the sea. From darkness to bright light, silence to deafening noise, from warmth to shivering cold, from peace and comfort to piercing pain. I had fallen asleep, only then to wake up. The lurching contrast between the two states was traumatic. I felt immediate despair. Redbeard was on the rail, with Mother Duck and JC – all shouting at me. I must have swum a few strokes in my sleep before eventually slowing to a halt. I coughed some water. Perhaps the intake of sea had triggered a more primitive instinct, to wake up rather than to drown. Dazed but with some sort of adrenaline coursing through me, I looked at the line of faces on the boat. They all read anxiety. JC asked me if I was cold. The doctor was listening. Somewhere in my mind Renata’s fate registered and so for the first time on the swim, I lied. ‘No,’ I replied. Where was that bastard Bullet anyway? This was all his fault, and I hated him. How could he put me through this? He clearly didn’t give a toss about me. Where was he?

  The blue and white bobble hat was at the prow of the boat, looking forwards, towards the coast. I saw him there, on his own, and a moment later he turned and looked back at me, raising his arm and pointing behind him as he did so. He was pointing at the cliffs. I looked across to England once again. Some time mus
t have passed before I eventually fell asleep while swimming, because the cliffs were closer than I remembered them. Much closer.

  John folded his arms over the rail just beyond the wheelhouse. He stared at me with his trademark half smile and we locked on to each other with our eye contact. Nothing was said. I started to swim again. The pain pulsed through my body. Glancing backwards, I could see the rest of the rail was now clear of spectators. It was just John and me now, finally. The next two or more hours would test every facet of our relationship. If I was to carry on and get to England, I needed him there now, on that rail, and he knew it.

  I don’t know how or when it had happened, but suddenly John was only just visible, perched at the top of a massive structure. The trawler was no longer a Kentish shore boat built for fishing, but an enormous ocean-going vessel. The steel sides of this ship rose from the sea in a wall of sheer metal, threatening to suck me underneath. At one point the colour of her looming bows changed, from blue to red and then back again. The ship towered over me as I swam alongside. I felt some fear somewhere, on account of being so small yet so close to the huge ship. But there was a sense of awe too. How had I ended up here? Confusion. Disorientation. I needed to see John, so I looked up high into the sky on each breath – trying to crane my neck all the way around to a right angle to see straight up to the sky, so high was this vessel. Then he disappeared in the blinding light of the sun. The bobble hat was nowhere to be found in the glare and the fear took over. Eventually there was a different commotion on board. People were moving around. I glimpsed someone’s flesh in the sunlight. Somewhere nearby there was a splash, and I was no longer alone in the sea.

  Hallucinations are like those rare dreams you manage not only to remember, but also to feel. They are being awake and asleep at the same time, a set of events that your conscious brain would know not to be real if it were awake, but that feels very real in the moment. And like dreams recalled once awake, you can play them back on demand, like a tape recording, just by thinking about them; each scene stimulating the senses in minute detail. The hallucination took hold for a while in the sea. It is hard to know how long, but more time passed before reality began to claw its way back, assisted by a shock of pain that ran through my legs. I remembered exactly where I was, and how much it hurt. I wanted the hallucination back. It was better than the desperation and the pain. I started to cry, with a rhythm defined by hours and hours of swimming. My wailing was underwater, because the act of drawing breath prevented an audible expression of trauma above the surface. My goggles held more tears than ever before. If I cried until they were full, well, it would all be over. They might pull me out. John might end it for me.