The Swim Club

by Anne De Lisle

  ‘Good. Because the way I see things, it was your rebuffing of Doug that sent him into Anya’s arms seeking consolation. Doug always has been a bad loser.’

  I snatch my hand away and sit up very straight. ‘That’s awful! You’re suggesting that my actions are responsible for what has happened to your marriage!’

  ‘And I should be thanking you. I do thank you.’

  ‘I think we need a cup of tea,’ I say.

  He follows me to the kitchen, and he’s standing so close when I set the kettle to boil that my heart starts to race, I take a deep, steadying breath and turn around. He puts both hands on my shoulders, then, with a quick glance at the door, drops a kiss on my mouth.

  Charlie Tarrant, after a four year drought, kissing two different men in the space of a couple of months.

  It’s over too quickly. ‘Just testing,’ he says.

  ‘You can do it again if you like,’ I say.

  He lingers a bit this time. Long enough for me to take in his taste and warmth, and to detect a sense of something akin to hunger on both our parts. When we stop he slips his arms round my waist, pinning me to the bench top, and leans his brow against mine. Suddenly I’m very glad the boys are in the house, because there’s a definite feeling that we’d drop to the floor right where we’re standing if they weren’t. And that’s a shocking thought. I see the smile in Lee’s eyes and know he’s thinking the same thing. With both hands on his chest I gently push him away. ‘Tea or coffee?’

  After the tea is made we return to the verandah.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ he says.

  I sip my tea. ‘I can’t recall any questions.’

  ‘Earlier, before I made a grab for you, I asked you to give me the chance to prove that my being here is not motivated by the wrong reasons.’

  Grab. I smile at his choice of words.

  He sits forward, ignoring his tea, reaching for my hand again. ‘There’s a softness about you, Charlie, that’s been missing in my life for a long time. I know the timing’s a bit off. You’ve been alone for four years, for me it’s been four minutes. But sometimes, when you know something is right, you just have to snatch the opportunity. Do you remember when we talked of the tale of Hero and Leander?’

  I nod.

  ‘You said that you couldn’t imagine me drowning in the Hellespont or anywhere else. And I said, Not unless I lost my way.’

  ‘I remember. Are you suggesting you’ve lost your way now?’

  ‘No. Because you are holding the lamp, Charlie.’

  I smile at his analogy. ‘That’s a great responsibility you’re placing on me. What if my lamp goes out?’

  ‘It won’t. It’s too bright. Blazing like a solar flare. Yours is a lamp I could never lose sight of.’

  ‘You’re asking me to take a leap of faith.’

  He squeezes my hand. ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s not easy for me to do. If I jump and you don’t catch me I will land very hard.’

  ‘It won’t happen.’

  ‘I’m a bit of a package.’

  ‘So am I.’

  My fingers are getting crushed, but I manage a return squeeze. ‘Very well,’ I say.

  He lifts my hand and presses it to his mouth. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So what now?’

  His ready smile spreads wide. ‘Now we celebrate with an afternoon of Skirmish.’

  EPILOGUE

  IT’S THE LAST DAY of April. The pool has closed for winter and the girls and I decide to christen the start of our third season of winter training with a moonlit swim in the dam.

  Another full moon, another calm night. The air is satin smooth, the water black silk. We swim about three hundred metres from shore and form a circle, floating on our backs, arms and legs outstretched, suspended like offerings to Orion the Hunter who’s glittering away in the western sky.

  My naked body is caressed by the gently lapping water. The silence of the night washes over me. It is hypnotic to float and contemplate, and it’s easy to silently applaud the changes that have occurred in all of our lives. Karen has burst her way back into the land of the living and overcome her horror of the water to swim in anything, however deep, dark or raging. If good has come out of Adam’s death, I can’t help believing it was to transform her into the indefatigable woman she has become. And now, in her own good time, at her own pleasure, she has invited the devoted Dominic into her life.

  Laura floats at my side. Her seven months’ pregnant stomach is a pale dome protruding from the water, as though the moon has fallen from the sky. Huge, full of baby: dolphin boy enjoying his first dip in the dam. Laura has consolidated her marriage, overcome her fury and her disappointment in Sam. The blinkers are off. She’s taking the time to look sideways, to cherish what she’s got.

  Wendy, engrossed, consumed by a sense of purpose, is busy nutting out the nutters with her psychology studies. Where she’ll travel from here on is anybody’s guess. I sense she’s barely started.

  Cate is in a state of bliss, the brand new speck of life floating inside her enough to make me yearn – just a little – to feel it too. I touch my belly and wonder, just as training together had our menstrual cycles coinciding, whether our wombs might not slip into harmony too. Only time will tell.

  I smile to myself, and think of Lee who’s at home with the boys, adding a new dimension to all our lives. It’s a daily dose of male company that for Mikey and Dan is a supplement to the continuing, if slightly erratic, visits from their father. And for me is the perfect end to my years in the wilderness. I know Lee and I would never have found each other if I hadn’t embarked on my remarkable journey with this circle of friends.

  ‘Well, what next girls?’ says Laura, bobbing upright.

  We all sit up to tread water.

  ‘What else is there to conquer?’ says Karen.

  ‘Everest? The South Pole? Count me out,’ I say.

  ‘You’re getting soft, Charlie. Too cosy with your lover.’

  ‘Cosy? Little chance of that, living with the Energiser Bunny. He’s been talking wistfully of the Hawaii Ironman lately. He says it’s been on his ambition list for years.’

  ‘Now there’s a thought,’ says Cate. ‘Four-kilometre swim, one hundred and eighty across the scorched lava flats on your bike, forty-two kilometre run.’

  ‘Better let these babies come along first,’ says Wendy.

  We lie back again, floating, floating, and I spare a thought for Adam, as I often do. Though his death is always going to add a tinge of sadness to what we’ve achieved, our achievement surely honours him. I can’t help believing the water that took him that fine spring day has in some way tried to compensate for its random act of cruelty.

  I think of how we were floundering once, each in our own way, yet with each other’s support we’ve found the buoyancy we need. And I think how the power of five is so much greater than five times the power of one.