The Swim Club

by Anne De Lisle

  A sudden cry rents the still air as we tiptoe to our cars. Then another. We tiptoe faster. Then strip off our wetsuits, tug on our tracksuits, gather our picnic essentials, and scurry along the shoreline until there’s a good hundred metres between us and the agonies that are being endured at the water’s edge.

  ‘Why ever would you put yourself through that?’ asks Karen, when we reach a safe distance.

  Wendy settles down on the grass and pulls the lid off her cake tin. Fruity smells sweeten the damp morning air. ‘It’s hard to understand, when they could come down and soothe their souls with a relaxing swim instead.’ She passes the cake tin around.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. Wendy’s cake looks delicious and is still slightly warm from its baking. It beats me how she gets organised enough so early in the day to produce all these homemade goodies. ‘But then some people would think we’re real nutters doing what we do. How much more comfortable swaddling yourself in a fleecy blanket, pretending to be in a womb, than plunging into ice-cold water for the best part of an hour?’

  But it’s eerie listening to the unearthly chorus of cries and groans as we sip our tea and nibble our fruitcake. And I swear they’re frightening the wildlife. Even the effervescent lorikeets have grown quiet.

  When at last the cries subside into silence, I whisper, ‘Are they all born now?’ Though I don’t know why I’m whispering. There’s no way they’d hear us from this distance.

  ‘Reborn,’ corrects Laura. ‘They’ll be feeling serene and back in control of themselves.’

  ‘Bit like us really,’ says Wendy.

  ‘Here they come,’ says Cate under her breath.

  Looking up, I see half-a-dozen women of various shapes and ages strolling towards the car park. I recognise Elsa, who has become so familiar with our legs and bikini lines, and lift a hand to wave. She waves back. I feel as though I’m learning lessons in understanding and tolerance. The rebirthers. Sharon. People with different priorities, different paths, whose experiences are no less valid than mine just because they’re different.

  Aged twenty, I thought I’d learned everything there was to learn. By the age of thirty, I realised I’d been wrong at twenty because I had learned so much in the intervening decade; but then I was fool enough to think again: Now I know it all.

  Approaching forty, I’ve finally learned that we never know it all, that we continue to learn lessons and make discoveries till we draw our final breath. It’s a wonderful revelation that offers great promise for the future: for the days, months, years ahead, for whatever lies just around the corner.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE NEXT SATURDAY I run into Doug’s partner, Lee, at the IGA supermarket. His short hair is spiky and sweaty, and he’s looking ultra sporty in trainers and bike pants.

  ‘Can’t take it easy even at the weekend?’ I say, dodging his trolley which appears to have a mind of its own.

  ‘It gets a bit like that,’ he admits. ‘I feel kind of twitchy if I don’t push myself every day.’

  ‘Looks like that trolley’s giving you enough of a work-out today,’ I remark, reversing my own to give him more space.

  He grins. ‘Sorry, it seems to have developed an uncontrollable urge to run sideways.’

  ‘I’m Charlie by the way,’ I say, suddenly afraid that he might not recognise me with my clothes on. ‘We met at the pool with Doug.’

  The grin widens. ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘Just wondered. People look different –’

  ‘When they’re dressed?’

  I feel a little in awe of Lee who, like Doug, is super fit and a serious triathlon competitor. There was a time when it would have taken a Pulitzer or Booker prize winner to have this effect on me. These days it’s a seasoned triathlete that leaves me feeling like an awestruck groupie.

  We head up the same aisle, side by side with our trolleys, Lee’s knuckles are white with the effort of controlling his. ‘For my boys,’ I lie, selecting a packet of Tim Tams and chocolate Pods, and hoping he doesn’t spot the triple-chocolate ice cream and family-sized pecan Danish poorly concealed by my stack of fresher, healthier produce arranged on top.

  There’s something a bit intimate about checking out the contents of other people’s supermarket trolleys. It can reveal so much about a person: a sneaky view of the goings on in their kitchen which is, after all, the heart of most households. Lee’s trolley is piled high with the usual fruit, vegetables, bread, milk and cheese. But I see six packets of frozen raspberries and at least eight cans of coconut milk, which has me imagining copious quantities of an exotic blend of cocktail. I also spot a packet of tampons and silently applaud his courage.

  ‘I hear you girls have been swimming in the dam through winter,’ he says.

  ‘You probably think we’re mad.’

  A smile lights his eyes. ‘No. Amazing. It must be freezing.’

  ‘A bit.’ We start manoeuvring our trolleys towards the checkout.

  ‘I’ve always believed women were more resilient than men,’ he tells me as he reaches for a bag of chocolate-coated raisins. ‘For my daughter,’ he adds.

  ‘Sure,’ I grin. Then, ‘That sounds like a compliment.’

  ‘It is. Sometimes I think us men should be ashamed of ourselves. We’re usually bigger and stronger, but we cry harder when there’s pain and discomfort.’

  I can’t help smiling. It’s exactly the sort of thing we girls spout when there are no men present, but I’ve never heard a man admit such a thing before. I decide I like Lee.

  ‘I also hear you’re all competing in a triathlon,’ he tells me.

  My pleasure in our conversation twists into embarrassment. I know I don’t look like a triathlete, and suspect he’ll think I’m deluding myself. ‘Well yes,’ I admit, ‘we’re considering it. That is, Cate seems to think we should. Just a short one.’

  ‘You’ll love it,’ he says. ‘And you’ll get addicted. Wait and see.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. It’s a big deal – starting late – when sport hasn’t really been your thing.’

  ‘Never too late,’ he says.

  ‘Perhaps. But I do wish I’d started earlier. I guess there were always other priorities.’

  I fancy I spot a touch of sympathy in his eyes, and wonder if he’s heard the sordid details of my marriage break-up. It would be seven or eight months since he and his wife moved to town, I calculate, plenty of time to catch up on the local gossip.

  Then Laura’s voice in my head pulls me and my paranoia up sharp. Old news, Charlie, lots of other stuff has happened since … and I know I’m falling prey to my foolish insecurities again. Besides, even if Lee has heard my story, the worst sort of light it could shed on me is that I was unable to maintain the interest of a husband. That scarcely makes me a bad person, just boring. The trouble is, I don’t want to be thought of as boring. Not by people like Lee and Doug, whose discipline has me bestowing role model status on them. The very idea piques my pride, makes me want to prove myself. ‘Well, if we do enter a triathlon, you can be sure we’ll be training hard for it,’ I tell him.

  We’re standing at the checkout. I’ve already stuffed my groceries into my bag, Lee is paying for his. He signs his name on his credit card slip in a bold, clear hand, and I can’t help noticing he writes Leander Ross.

  ‘I know,’ he says, when I comment. ‘My parents have a lot to answer for.’

  We walk out to the car park, lugging our purchases. I’m intrigued by his name, and say, ‘I guess they were thinking of Hero and Leander.’

  He’s surprised. ‘You know your Greek mythology?’

  ‘Some. Especially the romantic bits.’

  I don’t add that the tale of Hero and Leander was my favourite story in the Illustrated Book of Legends that I used to sneak out of my school library whenever I could. There was something about Leander’s magnificent swims across the Hellespont that magnetised me, even back then. Night after night Leander swimming to the arms of his lover Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite.
Hero lived in a tower in Sestos at the edge of the Hellespont, and every night she lit the lamp in her tower to guide Leander to her. Leander had persuaded Hero to permit him to make love to her by convincing her that Aphrodite, as the Goddess of Love, would surely have no interest in the worship of a virgin. Their affair flourished for months.

  But one fateful night a storm blew Hero’s lamp out; Leander lost his way in the wild waters of the Hellespont and was drowned. Hero, demented with grief, threw herself from her tower to join her lover in the afterlife. My Illustrated Book of Legends had a grim illustration of a tempestuous sea, with massive, curling waves reaching like claws for the pale, doomed Leander, one arm upstretched to the heavens as though beseeching the gods to pluck him to safety: the sort of picture that would excite the morbid curiosity of any teenager. It was enough to give me the willies about stormy seas.

  ‘My mother made sure I learned to swim well,’ says Lee, and opens the boot of my car for me.

  ‘Thanks.’ I dump my shopping in the boot and fish for the keys in my bag. ‘She must have. Can’t imagine you drowning in the Hellespont, or anywhere else for that matter.’

  ‘Not unless I lose my way,’ he says, and I’m surprised to see that his ready smile is absent.

  Laura comes over that night. She breezes in, bright and cheery as usual. You’d never suspect the upheaval in her private life. Sometimes she has me wondering what she’s trying to prove: that she has an infallible, unbreakable spirit? Or maybe just that she is in control. That despite things going wrong between herself and Sam, she can and will command every other aspect of her life. It’s a state of mind I can imagine leading down all sorts of dangerous paths and I determine not to let the evening pass without making her talk about it.

  I uncork a bottle of champagne – something I’ve become rather good at after so long living on my own. I fill two glasses, and Laura and I head for the verandah. I can hear the buzz of The Simpsons in the background.

  We settle in my favourite painted rattan chairs made comfortable from years and years of use. The winter night is cold and we’re swathed in fleeces, but it’s too beautiful to sit indoors. Laura props her feet up on the balustrading. ‘Starry, starry night,’ she says.

  The sky is clear, the heavens a twinkling mass, and the air is sweet with the intoxicating scent of early jasmine.

  ‘Laura –’ I begin.

  ‘I’m thinking about considering giving him a second chance,’ she says, still staring at the night sky. ‘Just thinking about considering.’

  How did she know I was going to ask that? ‘You’re reading my mind.’

  ‘Read you like a book. Giving me those penetrating looks. All frowning concern.’

  ‘Okay, okay, so I’m transparent. But really, how are you?’

  ‘Fair enough.’ She leans forward in her chair to face me. ‘I’m doing all right. Sam’s really trying, awash with guilt, weaning himself with amazing speed. He swears he’d do anything not to lose me. He’s been going to a counsellor on the coast every couple of weeks, which I think is helping.’

  ‘That’s something,’ I say.

  ‘The trouble is,’ Laura pauses to take another sip from her glass, ‘that his sneaking and thieving threatened my professional reputation and I don’t think I’ve any respect for him any more.’ She leans back in her chair and returns her feet to the verandah railing. ‘I see him as someone I once respected and cared deeply about, but now all that is marred by anger and pity.’

  ‘Anger and pity’s not good.’

  ‘The anger is getting less, but the pity isn’t. I know it’s selfish of me, I know it’s unreasonable, but I think I need him to do something admirable if I’m going to regain that respect.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Kicking a drug habit could be considered admirable.’

  ‘Not quite what I had in mind. It needs to be something more for me to start feeling how I used to feel.’

  ‘Well at least you’ve resisted making permanent decisions yet. You’re giving him time.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s very wise.’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘As long as you’re not being made miserable sharing the house with him.’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘And as long as you’re addressing the underlying issues that turned him into an idiot in the first place.’

  I’m rewarded by a glimpse of the dolphin smile. ‘I hope the counselling’s doing that. And I’ve tried to make him understand that I don’t mind being the main breadwinner, that I always wanted a career more than I wanted to do the Earth Mother thing. But I suppose we’re all ingrained with the patterns of our own upbringing. Sam’s father was the big career man, his mother the sweet little wife: baking cakes, growing prize roses and, of course, raising children. It’s only natural for Sam to see that as a normal and desirable way of life.’

  I sip my champagne. I’ve never had the courage to ask Laura whether her childless state is a matter of choice or biology. It’s always seemed too intrusive a question. A matter of choice, I prefer to believe, but now that I know how brilliant Laura is at pretending nothing’s wrong when her life is actually doing a major cave-in, I no longer quite trust her not to successfully hide other heartbreaks.

  I glance through the French doors to where the twins are slumped in front of The Simpsons. It’s frightening to imagine life without them. For so long they have been my raison d’être. Witnessing their metamorphosis from round-limbed toddlers to gangly half-men – Dan now with a suspicion of down on his upper lip, looking more like a dirty smear than a moustache; Mikey mad with jealousy of it – has been a constant source of wonder to me. But if I’d never experienced motherhood, would I miss it?

  I top up our glasses. ‘But Sam married you,’ I point out to Laura. ‘Not his mother. And he must have known how bright and independent you were from the beginning.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘And he must have found that attractive or he wouldn’t have committed himself to you in the first place.’

  She leans over and squeezes my arm. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Nothing in you has changed. It’s Sam. Insecurity has grabbed him hard. But instead of anaesthetising himself, he should have got out there and done something worthwhile with his talents. He’d feel good and you might rediscover your respect.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘He needs to do something admirable.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I think we’re back to where we started.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  We lapse into silence. I sip my drink and breathe in the scent of the jasmine.

  After a while Laura says, ‘You’ve done so well surviving all this time on your own. You call me bright and independent, and maybe I am. But I dread the thought of living out my life alone, of coming home each night to an empty house.’

  ‘Easier for me,’ I say. ‘I have the boys.’

  ‘Yes, but the boys are temporary. One day they’ll grow up and be gone.’

  ‘Unless one or both of them turns out to be gay. Gay men make the best sons. They spoil their mothers rotten.’

  ‘You’re optimistic.’

  ‘Guess I am. Especially since I’ve spotted pictures of Jessica Simpson’s cleavage stuffed between the pages of their homework books.’

  ‘Have you really?’ Laura’s face is suddenly alight with amusement, and she turns to look through the glass of the closed French doors. The twins sit mesmerised by the TV screen: a picture of pyjama-clad innocence. ‘Well if that’s how it is,’ she warns, ‘they’ll fly at the first opportunity. Doesn’t that frighten you?’

  ‘It terrifies me. But I have five years at least before they finish school. Five years to train myself not to be terrified.’

  ‘You might meet someone in that time.’

  ‘I don’t know that I want to.’

  Laura sits forward on her seat and looks straight at me. ‘What
are you so afraid of, Charlie?’

  There’s a loose bit of rattan on my chair that suddenly holds a great deal of fascination. I’ve never considered myself afraid, as such, just wary. Having been bitten and bitten badly, I’m not exactly keen to risk history repeating itself.

  ‘Not all men are like Alec,’ she prompts, once more reading my thoughts.

  I look up and smile. ‘I know. It’s more than that. Sure, I trusted Alec and he behaved like an absolute prick and I’ll never forget that for the entire rest of my life, but I’ve made a comfortable little niche for myself and the boys. We’ve adapted. Our routine suits us. My writing’s been going well – though it’s been a bit sluggish lately – and I’m supporting my family, living in a house I love, the boys are happy at school and seem to be developing into decent young men without a male role model. Why would I want to risk throwing a wild card into all that?’

  Laura sets her glass down and reaches for the bottle. ‘I don’t believe you’re telling me the whole truth, Charlotte,’ she says, taking my glass from me and filling it up. ‘It’s more than the safe little routine thing. I think you’re afraid of men. You’re not even comfortable eating a sandwich with Doug Bernhoff at Marc’s, for God’s sake.’

  I settle back in my chair, resigned to the inevitable. ‘Okay, you’re right, Doug does rattle me. I’m intimidated by his prowess in the pool, of course, and he’s amazingly good-looking, but I don’t think it’s just the looks or the athleticism that unsettle me so much. And you needn’t take that as an admission that I’ve grown afraid of men. I ran into Doug’s friend, Lee, in town today and didn’t feel rattled at all. I can only imagine my unease around Doug is because he’s single. Available. As am I. And that means I might be put in the uncomfortable position of having to tell him to back off one day.’

  ‘Hasn’t it occurred to you that the time might come when you won’t want him to back off?’

  I take another sip from my glass, considering her words. ‘I doubt that very much. I think I’ve slotted poor Doug into the Alec category – not to be trusted, capable of anything.’ I glance towards the French doors, but the twins are still absorbed in the TV. ‘I felt used by Alec,’ I say, lowering my voice. ‘You know that, and running into Sharon Lewis recently brought it all raging back. It wasn’t just the leaving, it was the using. Taking me to bed when he was all worked up about Emma but couldn’t get at her. It still makes me want to disinfect myself.’