by Gillian Best
I went to the furthest edge of the pier and leaned against the railing, looking down at the water where I had first fallen in. The whirl that had caught my eye when I was a girl was there and I took comfort in its consistency. If the currents were still there, twisting and turning, then there was no reason I shouldn’t be.
The sun was warm on my face and I scratched my scalp under the edge of my wig. It was a nice enough wig, the hair fuller and a nicer, more mahogany colour than my own had ever been, but it felt like wearing a woolly hat in summer – hot and unnecessary. So I took it off and stuffed it in my pocket. To my surprise when I ran my hand over my head I felt the tiniest bit of stubble growing back.
I walked across the width of the pier so that I could look into the harbour. On such a beautiful day, at this time of year, I knew there would be swimmers beginning their training for the forthcoming season. How I wished I could have been in there with them, in the glassy sea.
Even from a distance, I could tell by the quality of their strokes who had the greatest chance of success. Some, with their elbows high, hands reaching and stretching far past their heads looked like they might be able to finish, and in a very good time. But, it’s not just the quality of one’s stroke that is necessary to complete a Channel swim. You have to keep going long past the point when your brain tells you it’s lost all interest in swimming. You have to keep moving, continue to struggle, hour after hour and mile after mile. The body becomes a machine devoted to kicking and pulling. They key is to get beyond everything else and focus on the basic mechanics until your brain finally goes to the place where it’s still. You shut everything out as much as possible.
I always felt it was a chance to prove myself worthy of the sea. Some swimmers wanted to dominate and exert as much control as possible, but this missed the point. Those were people who were not going to enjoy their time in the water, and to me that was a waste. It was the same thing with the ones who were concerned with their time, who wanted to get to France as quickly as possible. Yes, by the time I had finished I was glad to be out of the water in almost every respect, but no matter how exhausted, sore and cold I was, I knew I was privileged to have been able to spend so much time with it.
My swims were closer to conversations with an old friend and I felt it would have been rude to rush off, though there was no chance of that: I was never a particularly fast swimmer, but I had tenacity. I stayed in for as long as it took.
Closing my eyes, I inhaled deeply. The salt air smelled like home. Town was on my left and I wondered if my life would have been better or worse if I had done things differently? If I hadn’t married and settled down? If I had stayed in France, or if I had taken the newsman’s bait and made my first attempt before getting married? What if I hadn’t had children? Would I have got cancer? Would I have been happy? What if, what if.
I felt the castle looming over me as it had always done. Protecting England, as John said, but what did it mean? Keeping us safe from what, exactly? There was no chance of a marauding army invading Dover, so what did we have to be frightened of? Was life outside the town’s boundaries so dangerous? I didn’t know and couldn’t say because I had never gone to see.
Was it worth it? Some days it was. And other days it made me feel small. I had swum the Channel, more than once. It was an accomplishment but there were times when it left me feeling hollow. I had hoped it would be the thing I became known for, and it had, but was Martha the Swimmer any different from Mrs Roberts or Mum? And I hadn’t just become a mum, I had raised two brilliant, beautiful children. And I hadn’t just become a wife, I had fallen in love with a good man who loved me back. Was that enough? And how could you tell?
John came up beside me and held his hand out.
‘What?’ I said.
He opened his fingers slowly and in his palm was a Tunnock’s teacake. ‘Your favourite.’
It was wrong to regret spending my life with him, but in that moment his kindness felt like pity and it was suffocating. He was too predictable and what was worse was that he didn’t see it that way or even care that our routine was so insufferably dull.
I thanked him and put it in my pocket.
‘You need to go in?’ he asked.
I nodded.
‘Maybe you should. Just get your feet in, not a proper swim, but something to keep you from drying up.’
My husband had somehow come to an understanding within himself.
‘Just up to your knees. Give the trousers a good soaking. It might lift your spirits.’
It would. I knew it, he knew it and so did the sea, why else would it be so calm and inviting? But it wouldn’t satisfy me. What I needed from the water was something private.
He put his arm around my shoulders. ‘Are you tired, dear? Shall we go?’
I ignored him.
‘Martha?’ he said.
‘What, John?’ I snapped. ‘I’ll call a taxi.’
‘Good. You do that. I’d like to stay a while longer.’
‘I won’t ring for one just yet then.’
‘No, I’d like to be by myself for a while.’
I didn’t look at him. I’d purposely ruined his very sweet romantic afternoon and I didn’t care.
‘I’ll see you at home,’ I said, and marched off as quickly and stridently as possible. Which amounted to a few sharp paces before I lost my breath and had to slow down to my shuffly, cancer-ridden gait.
I stomped down to the water’s edge, not watching to see if he left or not, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the swimmers. I desperately wanted to be in there with them. I should have been. Under normal circumstances I would have been, by now my tan lines would’ve been firmly in place but as it was my body had nearly returned to a uniform colour. There was a shadow – more of an echo – of my costume’s outline and I wondered if it was due to my stubbornness, my refusal to accept that I may never again be amongst the swimmers in the harbour.
Maybe, I thought, I’d had my last swim.
I stared at the sea wall that enclosed the harbour. I thought about how much of my life had taken place here within the confines of its walls. How I had sought out the confinement and security that came from being caged in this small piece of the sea – there were other places, up and down the coast, where I could have gone, but this is where I had learned to swim all those years ago, and there was something that always pulled me back.
There was a small opening in the seawall that allowed boats to pass through, it was a small window of opportunity to escape if one was brave enough. All my life I had swum parallel to it, never fully realising that my escape route was right in front of me.
Eventually the late afternoon brought a breeze and I felt a chill. It was time to go home. In the taxi on the ride back I struggled to keep my eyes open. I went into our house and when I shut the door, John came into the foyer.
Without saying a thing, he carried me upstairs, pulled back the duvet, and helped me to undress. I lay back against the pillows and felt him standing there, watching over me. I held my hand out and he squeezed it. I burst into tears.
He stroked my hand and I let myself cry. The first time since the diagnosis, since the operation, since the chemotherapy.
Then he let go and I felt adrift. It was as if holding onto him was the only thing tethering me to the world and our life, which from my perspective just then, was the only thing that mattered. He sat on the edge of the bed and took off his shoes, I heard them drop softly on the carpeting. And then he got under the duvet and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tightly, almost clutching me to him.
‘How was the water?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t go in.’
I couldn’t see him and didn’t know if he smiled a little bit when I said that, but he held me even tighter then.
The Fifth Of September
The morning of my fourteenth birthday, my alarm woke me at 5am as usual. I got dressed and checked to make sure I hadn’t forgotten to pack anything important. My Speedo,
cap, goggles, towel, paddles and pull buoy were all present and accounted for but I couldn’t leave anything to chance, so I did a quick scan in my room and then another one in the bathroom where I found my earplugs on the counter behind a box of tissues. I chucked them in my bag and breathed a sigh of relief.
My mums couldn’t know or even suspect what I was up to.
On my way out, I passed through the kitchen and saw a small box wrapped in birthday paper – glitter and multi-coloured polka dots – on the counter with a note next to it.
Have a great day, hon, it read in Iris’ handwriting. Proper gifts tonight. See you at All Star Lanes at 6pm. We love you to bits.
I opened it to find a fairy cake covered in hundreds and thousands, which I ate in three bites, the wrapper I left on the note as thanks.
Wiping sprinkles off my mouth with the back of my hand, I left the flat silently and when I got downstairs I didn’t turn right to go to the pool at York Hall where the rest of my teammates would soon be gathering for our daily practice, instead I carried on to the tube and London Bridge station where I intended to catch the 6.42 train to Dover Priory.
I should have been working on flip turns and starts but I wanted to give myself a present, something I had always wanted: I was going to introduce myself to my grandparents on my birth mother’s side.
From the station, it was about fifteen minutes on foot to their house. I didn’t have money for a taxi so I walked. It was nice, too, because it gave me time to rehearse what I was going to say, not that I hadn’t been doing that since I’d decided to make the trip, it’s just that going over my lines again calmed my nerves. I thought about what my coach always told me before a meet: commit and visualise. So that’s what I did.
When I got to 107 Shakespeare Road, I stopped and I was a bit disappointed because their house looked pretty much like all the others. I had always believed there would be something distinctive about their house, a clue to the people who lived inside. But there was nothing more than a shiny black door and white-grey bricks. The front garden was lacklustre as well, the only thing that looked like it was thriving was an ordinary bush with tiny pink blossoms and spiky branches.
The front windows were covered with lace curtains that looked like standard issue old dear draperies, the same kind you might see in an old age care home.
There was one positive sign: the lights were on, so someone was home. I took a deep breath, pressed the bell and listened as it echoed in the foyer.
I heard muffled voices and I thought I saw the curtains move and then, finally, the lock turned and the door opened revealing my grandmother.
‘Yes?’ she said.
All the things I had practised saying flew out of my mind. If this had been a race, I would have been DQ’d immediately for falling off the starting blocks.
‘Hi,’ was the only thing that came out of my mouth. Even my voice sounded weird: small and thin.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her. She wasn’t what I’d been picturing, which was your typical granny covered in cardies and knitting things, with cats and tissues in her sleeve. I knew that version wasn’t quite right either, because I knew what she could do, but I had never once seen a photo of her, so in my imagination she had assumed default granny status.
She was really tall, taller than me and I was nearly five foot five inches, so she must have been nearer to five foot seven, or even eight. Her shoulders were broad and that really shouldn’t have come as a surprise because she was a swimmer. We all have broad shoulders.
‘Can I help you?’ she asked.
I bit my lip and stared at my feet for a few moments. ‘I hope so,’ I said, once I’d screwed up my courage. ‘I’m looking for Martha Roberts.’
‘You’ve found her,’ she replied.
A man’s voice shouted from the depths of the house, ‘Webb!’ And then a three-legged dog nearly knocked her down as it raced past me and out the front door.
‘Webb!’ Martha called, clapping her hands. ‘Come back here!’ She ran toward him and the moment she was close, he dashed off just out of reach.
The man rushed out of the house and whistled. The dog perked up his ears. Martha motioned for me to walk in a large circle so I was behind the dog and then, when she nodded, I ran towards him and he bolted straight into the house.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘Care to come in for a cup of tea?’
I nodded and followed her in the house where the man was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper and eating a boiled egg.
‘We talked about this. You can’t get him all riled up like that,’ she said.
The man ignored her.
‘Sit down,’ she said, pointing to the kitchen table. ‘This is my husband, John.’
He grunted without looking up.
‘Sorry, I didn’t catch your name.’ She reached into the cupboard for mugs.
I hated my name. It was so ridiculous and old-fashioned.
‘Myrtle,’ I said.
The moment I said my name it fell, bouncing off the counter before shattering on the floor.
‘What are you doing?’ John roared.
Webb ran into the kitchen and went straight to Martha.
‘No,’ she said, pushing him away with her foot. ‘John, he’s your dog. Do something.’
‘He’s fine.’
Webb sniffed at the broken china and picked up a larger piece that he took into the living room where he hopped up on the sofa, setting it down next to him as he settled in.
‘Webb!’ Martha shouted. ‘John, get that away from him!’
‘Ignore him, he won’t eat it. He knows it’s not food.’
‘That’s what you said about the chicken bones.’
‘Oh, Lord, the chicken bones! Are we going back to that? Are we always going to go back to the ever-loving chicken bones? Because if we are then please, I pray that I am struck down now!’ He held his arms out and looked to the ceiling.
‘Stop it,’ she said curtly.
‘Stop what? Stop going back to a minor incident that you insist on blowing out of all reasonable proportion every time the dog does something you don’t want him to do? Stop rehashing something that happened and wound up being fine in the end?’
‘I don’t want to argue with you, please—’
I made sure to avoid eye contact with both of them. Instead I stared at the pattern on the placemat. Was this how they were together?
‘The hell you don’t! All you do is argue and shout and wind me up! You pick on everything I do. All I hear, day in and day out is John do this, John don’t do that. John did you remember to do this.’ He pushed his chair back with enough force that it fell over. ‘If the dog wants to sit on the sofa and chew a chipped piece of crockery then let him!’
He stood there, uncertain of where to go next, but full of an energetic rage. He looked at the kitchen, then the dog, and decided that things looked better on the couch, or maybe it was some kind of solidarity with the dog I don’t know, but he shuffled over and tripped on the edge of the rug, falling forward to land with a thud.
‘Goddamnit!’ he shouted, pushing the worn carpet away from his face and easing himself into a seated position.
‘This house is a death trap! I’m sick and tired of this.’
His face was red and he was breathing heavily.
‘Nothing is simple here, ever. Traps around every corner.’ He glared at Martha. ‘You probably propped this up somehow,’ he said, pointing at the carpet. ‘You probably spent the better part of yesterday afternoon figuring out how to get me to fall down, just to prove I can’t function without you.’
Martha’s face was stone cold but I thought I could see her eyes welling up. She seemed suddenly aware that I was in the room and forced a smile, which made me feel even more awkward.
‘I should probably go,’ I said, getting up quickly.
‘I’ll walk you out,’ she said.
I got my bag and noticed that she got hers too. When we were in the road she
paused.
‘Wait here,’ she said.
She went to the next door neighbour’s house and rang the bell. I watched as she had a short chat to a middle-aged man with brown hair. He did a lot of nodding then put his hand on her shoulder and nodded once more, then she came back to me.
‘Is everything alright?’
‘Mmm, yes. Everything is fine,’ she said.
We kept on walking and I wanted to ask her about her bag which was bigger than you’d have expected someone to take just to go down the shops.
‘Your name is Myrtle?’
I nodded. ‘I hate it.’
She laughed. ‘Myrtle, would you like to come to the seaside with me?’
The way she was acting, with that bag and everything, it’s almost like she knew me.
I nodded and followed her. She walked at a good pace, and when we arrived I saw the same sea that I’d seen from the train. It was calm, the sun was shining and I’d expected the beach to be full of people by this time of day, trying to squeeze the last bit out of summer. But I suppose they had other things to do.
We got off the pavement and went onto the pebbles and I was surprised that it wasn’t a sandy beach. I’d never been to a beach before without sand. It was strange and I couldn’t imagine it being much fun for sunbathers. Martha sat down when we were about twenty-five meters from the water. There weren’t any waves crashing dramatically onto the shore and I was a bit disappointed. In my mind the sea was always dramatic. In the distance were the ferries that went across to Calais, and some other massive boats in the harbour, but where we were was sheltered by a seawall, making another little harbour-like area that was not that different to an incredibly huge outdoor swimming pool.
Martha stared out at the water and flexed her fingers. ‘Are you going to tell me why you came all this way?’
‘How do you know I’ve come a long way?’
‘Your club,’ she said, pointing to my bag. ‘Bethnal Green Sharks.’
‘No one survives a shark attack,’ I said out of habit.
She chuckled. ‘Bethnal Green is quite far.’
‘Not really.’
‘So you swim?’