The Swim Club

by Anne De Lisle

  ‘Yep.’ She stops to blow her nose again. ‘Classic weak bully sort of stuff. I think he’s been using the drug to compensate for the inadequacies he feels when he’s around me. And if that’s the case, we’ll both be better off apart.’

  This news is rocking my world. I can’t begin to imagine what it’s doing to Laura’s. ‘Don’t go back there tonight, Laura. Stay here.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ve got my toothbrush in the car. And my swimming bag.’

  This brings a smile to my face. ‘You’re not going to miss your swim tomorrow?’

  ‘No. Never. Especially not now. It’s the swimming that keeps me sane.’

  ‘Did you have any idea? I mean, for me, this is so out of the blue.’

  She shakes her head. ‘It’s only when they run out of the stuff that their behaviour is all over the place. A steady supply and they’re pretty normal. Still, I should have picked it. I blame myself for that.’

  ‘Don’t. If you missed it, it’s because you’re hardly at home. You work all the time.’

  ‘Head down, blinkers on. Oh, I knew there was something. He’d been distant, different, almost apathetic at times. There were mood swings and faraway looks. But, as I said, I thought he was having an affair.’

  I feel terrible that I haven’t guessed how unhappy Laura’s been. So I might have had the occasional flicker of a suspicion that all wasn’t well in her life, but I saw nothing concrete enough to prompt me to delve. Ever since Alec, and probably before that too, I have guarded my privacy jealously; perhaps that’s made me reluctant to intrude into the lives of others. Even friends. Friends in trouble.

  Or, more likely, it’s my own selfish need for stability that’s stopped me from acknowledging, even to myself, that one of my security blankets has been wearing thin. Much more comfortable to blithely look upon Sam and Laura as being there for me, as being an unshakable prop in my life.

  I try to express this as I’m standing on a chair fossicking for pillows and a spare doona from the upper reaches of the linen cupboard. ‘I saw a change in him at Adam’s funeral. I wondered if he was ill and you were too scared to tell us while we were still reeling from Adam’s death. I wanted to ask. I guess I was afraid to, partly because voicing it might have made it real, but also because it seemed a bit intrusive. Now I feel like I wasn’t there for you in your hour of need.’

  ‘But you have been there. You, and the other girls. Swimming keeps me sane. It’s the best therapy I could have,’ she says, and catches the pillow I toss down.

  We go to the office, which is really a fourth bedroom, and set up the sofa bed for her. ‘Maybe you should have something to help you sleep,’ I suggest. ‘I’ll make us a hot chocolate while you get organised.’

  I’m expecting an argument, but she smiles and says, ‘Thanks.’ Meek and compliant. I’m seeing a whole new Laura.

  ‘Strange,’ she says, when I return, steaming mugs in hand, ‘but I feel almost calm. Better than I’ve felt in weeks. Talking has cleared my head, given me direction.’

  ‘We should have talked sooner.’

  ‘Not your fault,’ she says, reading my guilt. ‘I have a mouth and a voice. I could have spoken up.’

  Though I know she’s trying to let me off the hook, I still feel like a bad friend.

  We’re a subdued group after our swim the next morning. Stripping off, towelling dry, Laura tells the girls that her marriage is as good as over. Without divulging the exact particulars of Sam’s problem, she admits he’s been battling an addiction.

  I’m amazed at her togetherness. At her dry eyes and steady voice. So she might have suspected all wasn’t well for some time now, but I can’t believe she’s not feeling pulverised by the confronting proof. With the exception of last night, when her discovery was brand new and raw, she’s been cool and calm, almost as though she’s discussing someone else, some case she’s read about.

  The other girls, however, appear as startled as me.

  Karen’s wide-eyed. Narcotics, veins, needles, it’s a world I’m sure she’d never thought would touch her own. ‘Addiction is a scary word,’ she says.

  ‘Conjures up all kinds of ugly images,’ agrees Cate.

  ‘And results in misery for all those in the fall-out zone.’ Laura’s half-dressed, way ahead of the rest of us, her rapid, efficient movements perhaps the only sign of her inner turmoil. ‘I think the crux of the matter is that he’s always resented that I earn more than him.’ She starts ruthlessly dragging a comb through her woolly hair. ‘It’s chipped away at his precious male pride, his sense of worth.’

  ‘It’s not just the money,’ I say. ‘As a doctor, you command respect in the community. People admire you, feel grateful to you, look up to you.’

  ‘Maybe he wanted you to find him out,’ suggests Karen.

  The comb stills in Laura’s hand. ‘A cry for help? I hadn’t thought of that.’ She turns to pull a T-shirt from her bag. ‘Well if it was a cry,’ she says, yanking the T-shirt over her head, ‘he’s been heard loud and clear. But if this gets out, I’ll be in more trouble than he is.’

  We are all silent, awed by the magnitude of the problem.

  I suddenly have the strangest thought that we’re being tested, knocked down one by one, like skittles for the gods’ amusement: a game to see if the strength that comes of friendship and unity, the mortar that binds us, is strong enough to hold our group upright while each as an individual is shot down.

  Wendy, the only one of us whose life seems untroubled, has been quiet so far. Now she says, ‘Are you sure you want to leave him, Laura? Life alone. Is that really what you want?’

  ‘Preferable to being in a screwed marriage.’

  ‘But are you sure it is screwed? Surely you’ve had plenty of good times – enough to try and work through this problem?’

  Laura sits down to pull on her trainers, defiance in her every jerky movement. ‘Sure there have been good times, but that’s all obliterated by this mess. There’s been too much dishonesty: lying, stealing, I’ll never trust him again.’

  And it occurs to me, though I wish it didn’t, given that all my loyalty is Laura’s now and forever, that her anger is partially driven by the guilt she feels over her own conduct. Keeping those combination locks secure would have prevented this from happening, and she knows it.

  ‘Perhaps you should think before you leap,’ I say. ‘Don’t make decisions in the heat of the moment.’

  She stands up, fully dressed with awesome speed, leaving the rest of us still searching for our underwear. ‘Well, I do intend to stay at home for now, to keep an eye on him. But living separately. Not that that will be much different. We haven’t had sex in six months, and you know what? I haven’t cared. I’ve been pleased, he’s been such a bastard to live with.’

  Wendy, with the come-hither look of a well-trained courtesan, says, ‘I have the opposite problem.’

  We all swivel round to stare.

  ‘Lack of sex has never been an issue in our household,’ she goes on. ‘It’s morning and night, every day, and has been since the day we were married.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ she adds, lifting one slender arm for a quick squirt of deodorant, ‘it would be nice to have a break.’

  We’re all fascinated. It’s a wonderful distraction from Laura’s woes – one I can see Laura was more than ready for – and an admirable display of perception and timing on Wendy’s part.

  ‘I thought when Graham turned forty he might slow down a bit,’ she tells us, ‘but nothing changed. He’ll be fifty next year and things still haven’t diminished, if you know what I mean. My only respite is when he’s interstate at a conference.’

  ‘Maybe you could slip a sedative in his coffee after dinner,’ I suggest.

  ‘Can’t you just say no?’ says Karen.

  ‘Well I could I suppose. But he’d be so hurt and disappointed. The precedent was set years ago, it’d be a major thing, like telling him there’ll be no more hot
dinners. And it’s not that I really mind. Once we get started, it’s nice, it’s just that it’s so relentless.’

  ‘No sense of spontaneity?’ Cate suggests.

  ‘That’s it. So predictable.’

  I confess that I haven’t been near a man for more than two years, let alone had sex. ‘In fact the nearest thing I’ve had to a date in that time was my five minutes in the car park with Doug Bernhoff.’

  ‘Yet you write about love and passion,’ says Wendy. ‘You’re like Emily Brontë writing amazing things about the passion between Cathy and Heathcliff when she’d never been within cooee of a relationship herself.’

  But I think what Wendy does is more impressive. I tell her so. ‘Seriously,’ I say, ‘where do you get your stamina from?’

  ‘I drink lots of herbal tea.’

  We all laugh.

  ‘No really, I go to a naturopath. It helps. I don’t think I could cope without my naturopath’s special blend of tea.’

  I’ve never thought of going to a naturopath before. I feel well, healthy, but I start to wonder if there are levels of hitherto undreamed-of energy within my grasp. Maybe this would help my swimming, give strength to my arms and shoulders. Maybe a naturopath could help Laura too, provide her with a drug-free way of calming those spinning, angry thoughts.

  With a wave to the girls and a hug for Laura, it’s time to go. As soon as I get home I flip through the local phone book to find a naturopath. Our town might be small, but the choices are great, given the bohemian nature of a large percentage of the population.

  As any old-timer will tell you, Macclesfield was once a sleepy little dairy town with a few stores, one wooden church, a butter factory and tiny weatherboard cottages on stilts. Barefoot children from outlying farms rode their horses in to school, two or three a-back, and the lush green paddocks around town were dotted with plump black and white Friesian cows.

  But early in the 1970s the stunning scenery and sparsely populated acres caught the imagination of the exodus of hippies then heading north. I can’t imagine how startling the appearance of so many long-haired, bearded, sandal-wearing refugees from the city must have been for those solid dairyfarming families. Perhaps they thought they were being invaded by one of the Lost Tribes of Israel.

  Communes and cooperatives were formed. The population swelled. Soon the barefoot children of the dairies mingled with the barefoot, snaggle-haired children of the communes. Rumour has it that an aroma of marijuana began to sweeten the dung of the dairy.

  By the time Alec and I moved to Macclesfield eight years ago, the hippies had matured into alternative lifestylers, communes had become permaculture villages, and more and more people from varying walks of life were heading for the high ground. Retirees from low-lying towns came for the peace and the cooler climate. Commuters realised they could live in the hills and still get to the coast or even to the city for work. More shops and cafes opened. Business boomed. Soon the population could be measured not in hundreds but in thousands.

  Those original hippies might have disappeared, but Macclesfield is still the best source in Queensland for organic produce and alternate remedies. I swear, every time I go into town another healing centre has opened its doors. There are iridologists, clairvoyants, aromatherapists and reflexologists.

  Massaging techniques can be anything from Craniosacral, to Shiatsu, to Bowen or Rolfing. Diagnosis can be achieved via your tongue, your eyes, the colour of your fingernails, the soles of your feet. Treatments can be holistic, magnetic, can involve water, flowers, placentas, urine and vacuum cups. All manner of unspeakable things can be done to your colon; a veritable candy shop of treatments for willing adherents. Which I’m not. Oh no, I’m very much a part of the coalition of the unwilling when it comes to anything that doesn’t involve the Hippocratic Oath. Charlie-Keep-Your-Placentas-To-Yourselves-Tarrant. Until today.

  Sitting in the waiting room of Gavin Peters, naturopath extraordinaire – according to his ad (no mention of placentas) – I’m given a glass of water, asked for a urine sample and told to fill in a questionnaire about my dietary habits. Seeing as I’d rather have a Coke than a glass of water, I suspect I’m going to be a bad student.

  A tallish, wiry man appears, my name is called and I’m ushered into a private room. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, feeling like a naughty schoolgirl as Gavin pours over my all-too-honest dietary confessions.

  Gavin has a prominent Adam’s apple in his neck and a small head that he tilts now and again as he considers my questionnaire – putting me in mind of a wading bird with a golf ball lodged in its throat. ‘You eat chocolate every day?’ he asks after an age, then looks up at me as though I’ve broken one of the Ten Commandments.

  ‘Is that very bad?’

  The Adam’s apple bobs. I imagine that most people who visit Gavin are halfway to salvation before they come: eaters of brown rice, chick peas and lentils, drinkers of green tea. Not that I’m averse to these things myself, it’s just that I’m pretty keen on chocolate and champagne too. I wonder if I’m his worst patient ever.

  ‘Put it this way,’ explains Gavin, ‘the chocolate you eat converts inside your guts to a gluggy, glooey substance, which adheres to all the villi in your intestines. You will be unable to digest any nutrients whatsoever.’

  ‘That can’t be good.’

  ‘What’s more, your urine sample shows that you are twenty times as acidic as you should be. Have you been stressed lately?’

  ‘No more than usual.’

  He’s taking notes, putting ticks and crosses in little boxes on the sheet. I want to ask why, if the chocolate coats all my villi with an impenetrable layer, I do not then get extremely thin, seeing as my body can’t digest anything at all. But I’m loath to sound pert.

  ‘Your urine reading,’ he says, ‘could also be a result of an unusually high intake of dairy foods.’

  His eyes are on me. I realise it was a question. My thoughts slide to the Cadbury ad. A glass and a half of fullcream milk … And I’m more than partial to a bit of brie with my champagne … I debate whether to tell him this or not. Discretion being the better part of valour, I settle for a vague nod and hint of a shrug.

  He ticks and crosses his sheet, adding as he writes, ‘Another symptom of a high dairy intake is, of course, an excess of mucus.’

  What is it with mucus and me? Are we inextricably linked, doomed to walk through life hand in hand? Gavin looks up, tilting his head at my silence.

  ‘No problem with mucus,’ I say. ‘None at all. Actually,’ I add, brightening, ‘Talking of that, mucus I mean, I never get colds. Perhaps I have a good immune system?’

  Suddenly Gavin’s frowning, looking deeply concerned. ‘How long since you’ve had a cold?’

  ‘Oh, two or three years, and that wasn’t a bad one.’

  ‘I see.’ Clouds darken his face, and suddenly I don’t feel quite so pleased with myself.

  ‘Surely,’ I say, with a stab at good cheer, ‘that’s a positive thing.’

  Gavin lays down his pen and leans forward to look me in the eye. ‘Put it this way. If I walked into a room full of people, knowing that one had a serious illness, a cancer or a form of heart disease, the surest way to identify that person would be to ask how long since they’d all had colds. The one who’s not had a cold in years is the one.’

  I’m confused now. ‘Wouldn’t it be the other way round?’

  He shakes his head. ‘Serious illness triggers the immune system to go into overdrive, thereby suppressing colds and other minor ailments.’

  I am silent. Great. Now he’s telling me I have cancer.

  ‘I’d like you to come in for some further tests,’ he says.

  Silence.

  ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

  He prescribes ginseng and gotu kola to increase my energy and endurance, some magnesium tablets and liver tea. I pay the receptionist then walk out of the door never to return.

  It’s a stinking hot day outside, unusual for Ma
rch, and the bitumen in the car park feels like it’s sticking to the soles of my shoes. I’ve forgotten my hat and I’m seriously cranky about the huge sum I’ve just forked out for a bag of leaves and a minute pot of pills. Thus I am unbecomingly hot, flushed and frowning when I hear a familiar voice at my side.

  ‘Charlie! Hi!’

  It’s Doug Bernhoff and his dazzling smile. He’s dressed for work, looking immaculate, his tanned face very dark above a white shirt and cornflower blue tie.

  ‘Hello,’ I say. Why do I always run into this man when I’m looking cross and harassed, or waddling around half-naked by the pool? I pull myself up. Why should I care? It’s not as though I find him attractive or anything.

  ‘I just had lunch with a client over the road,’ he says, ‘and saw you come out of the naturopath here. I wouldn’t have taken you for a herbal type.’

  I tighten my grip on the bag of herbs. ‘I’m not really. It was my first visit.’ And last.

  With my free hand, I fumble through my bag for the car keys.

  ‘Here, let me hold that for you while you find your keys.’

  ‘I’m fine, they’re here somewhere.’

  But Gavin’s goodies are taken from my hand. ‘Ginseng,’ says Doug, peering into the bag. ‘Gotu kola. Good for stamina, I believe.’

  I feel myself blushing furiously, and swallow the mad urge to explain that my visit was not about acquiring energy for sex, not at all, but about maximising my potential in the pool. ‘That’s right. I’ve been feeling a bit lacklustre. Maybe training too hard.’

  ‘I hear the pool will close in a month,’ he remarks.

  ‘I know. Seems crazy when it’s still so hot. Ah, got them!’ I hold up the keys in triumph.

  Doug doesn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Has no one ever considered running the pool through winter?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Heating costs are deemed too high when it comes to council pools in towns as minor as Macclesfield. Every year it closes from April to September. Always has done.’