The next thing I knew Billy had me by the shoulders and was dragging me backwards. I hadn’t even made it to the fountain; I had only just begun to swim. Stubbornly I tried to resist, but he pulled me to the steps and right out of the pool.
‘Well I never,’ said Mr Peach, who had come hurrying in after my father. ‘She’s a young one to take to the water like that!’
‘That’s enough,’ said Father. ‘Billy, get her dressed. Just wait,’ he warned with a shake of his finger, ‘’til I get you home.’ But then, when Mr Peach wasn’t looking, I was certain he gave me a wink and instead of being angry he had been rather impressed. Because it was at that moment in the pool at the Lambeth Baths that Father realised what I already knew. There was no doubt about it: I was a natural-born swimmer.
CHAPTER THREE
When we returned from the baths Mother was waiting, standing by the window above Mr Hallway’s chemist shop, worriedly watching the world outside. London was too big a city for her; she didn’t like us being out and about, even if we were with Father.
‘I want you to knit Daisy a costume,’ he said, as he took off his coat and began emptying out his pockets, looking for his tobacco.
But Mother hadn’t heard him; instead she was looking at me. ‘Why is your face so flushed?’
‘She jumped in the bath,’ said Charlie, who never could keep his mouth shut when there was something that didn’t need to be told.
‘What?’ Mother held up her hands in alarm. ‘Why on earth would you do a thing like that, don’t you know you’ll drown yourself?’ She turned to Father. ‘Why weren’t you watching her?’
‘I was.’ He smiled and began to fill his pipe. ‘That’s why I want you to knit her a costume.’
‘Pardon?’
‘A costume.’
‘What does she need a costume for?’
‘For swimming,’ said Father. ‘We’ve come to Lambeth to work, my dear. I’m going to teach her and she’ll need it by next week.’
‘I’ll do no such thing,’ said Mother. ‘She’s a girl not a boy, why do you want her to do what boys do?’
‘It’s precisely because she is a girl,’ said Father, ‘that’s the novelty of the thing, don’t you see? So now you will make her a costume.’
*
The following week Father asked if the costume was ready. I had seen Mother knitting, I knew she had made me an outfit and I couldn’t wait to try it on. I was so delighted at the idea; I had never worn something made especially for me. All my clothes were hand-me-downs from Auntie Jessie’s daughters and this was the first time I would have something of my own. But oh! the disappointment when Mother brought the costume out. It was nothing like the suit Billy wore: this would cover every part of my body, with blue woollen sleeves to the wrists and legs down to the ankles.
‘Put it on,’ said Father, lighting his pipe and looking amused.
So I did, struggling to get my feet into the legs of the costume, to pull the scratchy wool up over my chest and thrust my arms into the sleeves. How ever would I swim in this?
Charlie burst out laughing. ‘You look like a teddy bear!’
‘No she doesn’t,’ said Billy loyally.
‘I can’t move,’ I said. The wool was beginning to prickle me and my skin was growing uncomfortably hot. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘Don’t be so ungrateful,’ said Father, although I could see he was trying not to smile.
But I was nearly in tears now as I fought to get the costume off, pulling at the sleeves, tugging it down to my stomach. ‘I want one like Billy has.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ said Mother, ‘you’re a girl.’
This was beginning to sound like the story of my life and I’d had enough. I sat down on the floor and sobbed. Father took no notice: he smoked his pipe, drank a cup of tea and ate his breakfast. Then he began gathering his things together and put on his coat.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘let’s be off to the baths.’
‘Daisy can stay here,’ said Mother and she crossed the room to stand in front of me.
‘No!’ I wailed, ‘I want to go to the baths!’
‘If you don’t want her to swim,’ said Father, pushing Mother out of the way and hauling me up from the floor, ‘then why make her a costume?’
‘You know full well why!’ she snapped. ‘What wife doesn’t do what she’s told?’ She knew, as we all knew, that Father’s word was law and however much she might oppose him, in the end she would always say, ‘I suppose you know best, Jeffery.’ My mother was a martyr, she would make it clear she was under duress, but if Father wanted something doing then she would do it. Perhaps she thought that if she appeased him for now then we would both tire of the idea of me swimming, and in that of course she could not have been more wrong.
‘So,’ said Father mildly, ‘let’s go. There’s no use having a swimming costume if a girl hasn’t yet learned how to swim.’
*
It was still early in the morning when we arrived at the baths, well before the men began jostling at the pay office and the washerwomen started queuing with their loads. Soon it would get crowded, for Father had put an advert in the local newspapers announcing swimming lessons during the summer drowning season and already he’d had quite a response. When we reached the second-class pool he handed me my costume and pointed to one of the dressing boxes. ‘Change in there,’ he said. ‘Today is the day you learn to swim.’
So I took off my clothes, put on the costume and although I didn’t like the feel of it, I couldn’t wait to get in the bath. I pulled the sleeves up to my armpits, rolled up the legs until they came to my knees, then pushed open the half-door like a racing horse coming out of a stable.
My first skill was to learn to float and Father took a hands-on approach; I was to lie in the pool where it was shallow with his arm held firmly under my back. The best place to learn was the ocean, he explained, for seawater gives more support than dead water, but a bath would serve the purpose nearly as well. ‘Here,’ he said, standing next to me in his bathing drawers and patting my chest, ‘this is where the floating power is, here in your lungs. Trust the water, Daisy. Before you learn to swim, you learn to float. It may seem simple but not everyone can do it well. If you can float you can do all sorts of things. You must appreciate the supporting power of the water and learn to confide in that power. Buoyancy, remember that.’ Buoyancy: it was such a wonderful word, so full of promise and bounce, and I laid myself out on the water, balancing on Father’s hand, knowing that he was there to carry me. I trusted my father, I had no reason not to, and more than anything in the world I wanted him to be proud of me. He had taken me here against Mother’s wishes, no other girls were allowed in the bath, and I had to make him want to bring me again. After a while I cast my eyes to the right and there he was, standing with both arms by his side. I couldn’t think what was so remarkable about this, until I realised that he was no longer holding me. I was floating by myself. Look at me! I wanted to cry. Will you just look at me!
Then Charlie appeared, running into the bath to spoil my moment. ‘She can only float because she is fat!’ he cried and I lost my concentration, rolled to one side and began to splutter.
‘Indeed she is fat,’ said Father, ‘but even a thin person like you could float if only your legs wouldn’t sink. Now off you go, we’re busy.’
When he was satisfied with my floating, Father taught me to tread water, walking my feet up and down as if I were climbing a flight of stairs. Then he brought a small tank from the far end of the bath, placed it on the poolside and told me to get out. ‘Come and look,’ he said, as a big green frog popped up out of the murky water and blinked its eyes. ‘Watch carefully, experience is better than theory. See how they kick their legs? They are the model for human swimmers.’ But while frogs could swim because they had the gift of nature, a person could do what no fish or frog could do: we could swim with our face up or down, we could swim on our right side or left. We could stand in the water
, sit in it, lie on it and even, if we chose, walk on the bottom.
‘Now remember,’ said Father, ‘it’s easier to push the body through the water than to pull it. So when you get back in the bath, use your hands to open a way for the rest of you.’
Soon, under his repeated instruction, I could manage several strokes one after the other and in no time at all I was propelling myself successfully across the width of the pool, just like a frog. I felt as wonderful as I had that morning in the sea at Margate with Billy, because this was where I belonged. I was myself in the water, only more so. When I swam, my body became me.
‘There you have it!’ cried Father when I had crossed the pool for the second time. ‘That’s the ABC of swimming!’ and he laughed and pulled me out of the bath with one strong swoop of his arms.
*
Billy took me home that morning and all the way I prattled on, about how good a swimmer I was, how I could float and do my strokes. I was so proud of myself that the moment we came indoors I went rushing up to Mother, shouting, ‘I can swim!’
‘Can you really?’ Mother didn’t look at me; she was busy threading a needle, and I so wanted her to put down her sewing and open her arms, to share in my success. But as she stabbed the needle into the pincushion on her lap I knew she was angry. She didn’t like it that Father was teaching me to do what boys did. She would not praise my efforts; instead she wouldn’t pay me any attention at all.
*
As the weeks went by I never wanted to leave the baths. The only topic we spoke about at home was swimming and a day not spent in water might as well have been a blank in my existence. I complained bitterly every morning when I was told to get out and the pool was filled with naked boys and men, splashing and shouting with no notion at all about how to swim. I wanted to spend my life in that water, safely contained within the stone walls; I couldn’t wait to race Charlie and Tom-tom, to see who was the fastest and to know that one day it would be me. But for now I had to get out.
Then one morning Father announced he would put on a fete; it was a novel idea and something that hadn’t been done before, and it would require a great deal of preparation. He visited other baths to see what London swimming clubs were up to, and then he began to devise a routine. He wanted to teach men to swim, but first he had to show them how. The important thing, he always said, was to bring oneself to the notice of the public.
All of us would help with the fete; no one was allowed to be idle. If we wanted to eat, then we must work. Billy would race against the other boys, Father would perform, but what would I do? That’s what I wanted to know. ‘Practise floating as I’ve told you to,’ he said, ‘and learn all you can, Daisy, the poorest trick may come in useful some day. Swimming is a skill that must be properly learned. If you can manage a whole length without stopping, then you will be in the show.’ I was overjoyed and at once I started practicing. Within a week I could swim a length and I had earned my place in the show.
Each morning Father drilled me, along with Charlie and Tom-tom, and we went through our routines under his watchful eye. But he wouldn’t allow us to watch while he practised for his performance, and the bath was closed to everyone but for himself and Billy. Sometimes we hid in the gallery, me and Charlie and Tom-tom, and we saw him do the oddest of things. One day Father walked into the water wearing a heavy coat, another time a pair of boots. Once we saw him lying on his back with a leg in the air and often, when he got out of the bath, he stood by the side puffing intently on a cigar until it was hot and smoky. Then he removed it from his mouth and stared at it with great concentration as if deciding what to do.
‘Jeffery,’ Mother demanded when she saw him doing this at home, ‘either smoke it or put it out! What are you doing?’
‘Practising,’ said Father, ‘just practising.’ For he knew that nothing must go wrong in the upcoming fete; it was his first chance to show the world his Family of Frogs.
CHAPTER FOUR
I could barely sleep the night before the gala. I was so excited that I kept my brothers awake for hours with my chattering, until Charlie pushed me out of bed and Mother came in and cried, ‘Enough!’ She wasn’t happy with the fete; she resented the baths that dominated my father’s life. And as for the idea that I would take part, I don’t know what upset her most: the thought that I would drown or the idea that people would be watching while I did.
But Father had made up his mind and so instead of spoiling me as she once had, Mother tried her utmost to ensure that I knew my place at home. ‘Boys first!’ she said whenever there was something to be given out, whether meat or pudding or sweets, and she made me wait until all my brothers had what they needed before finally turning to me.
That night before the fete I woke in the early hours to see a shadowy figure at the doorway and smell the smoke from my father’s cigar. ‘Don’t let me down,’ he said quietly, as if speaking to himself, and I was certain he was talking just to me. I closed my eyes and pretended to still be asleep, while in my head I told him I would never, ever let him down. I had practised long and hard and would do everything he had taught me. I heard the old wooden boards of the house creak as a lodger went up the stairs, the slam of the door as Father left, and then I must have fallen asleep because it was light in the room. A woman was crying ‘Milk!’ outside, and I knew that at last the day of the fete had come.
Mother said she was poorly, a bird had pecked at the window during the night and she would not say goodbye to us when we left for the baths at midday. Billy was excited about the gala just like me, perhaps even more so, for he knew he had to beat the other boys and that Father had wagered ten pounds that he would. He took the lead as we left the house, while Charlie began to lag, complaining he was tired and that swimming made his eyes sore.
‘You’re going to drown,’ he taunted me. ‘You’re just a baby and you don’t know how to swim.’
‘I do!’ I said. ‘I can float better than you. And I’m going to do more in the gala than you!’
‘Ignore him,’ said Billy, ‘let’s march.’
So we did, and I felt so full of self-importance as my brother swung the bag with my costume inside that by the time we got to the end of the road I didn’t care what Charlie said or that Mother wouldn’t come to watch.
*
When we arrived at the Lambeth Baths the walls outside were covered with posters and people were already jostling to get in, women shrieking as rough men shouldered them out of the way and pushed through the turnstile. Billy led us down the hallway to the second-class pool, where the sides were dense with spectators and the donated prizes – the medals and cufflinks – were arranged for the winners on the stage in front of the band.
‘All ready?’ Father asked. ‘Now go and get changed, then sit on that bench there and wait quietly until it’s your turn.’ When we came back he had climbed onto the stage with a megaphone in his hand. How proud I was that he was my father! How fine he looked in his best suit, with a clean shirt collar, a white waistcoat and a red cravat. How wonderfully loud his voice was, and when he spoke every single person around that bath stopped to listen.
‘Ladies and gentlemen!’ he announced, ‘I welcome you to the Lambeth Baths. Today for your entertainment, in what is acknowledged to be the finest display ever brought before the public, I am delighted to present to you… London’s very first fete of natation!’
Then the show began and I watched a group of boys line up at the shallow end for the opening race. In they dived to swim 400 yards and at once there was chaos in the bath. I saw one boy not following a straight course at all and when he neared the side he thought it was the end, stopped to turn himself around and was kicked in the head. I was just leaning forward to see what would happen to a boy who had climbed upon another’s back and was trying to win that way when my view was swamped by dozens of top hats and frock coats and portly stomachs. Everywhere were shouting men, leaning over the water, pointing hands and shaking fists, urging on the boys. I didn’t even see
who won the race, but all around the poolside the gentlemen were dipping into pockets to honour their bets.
Then the boys left the bath and the handicapped race began. Billy stood with half a dozen older boys, all looking awkward in their unfamiliar bathing drawers. I knew he was feeling self-conscious, aware that people were already laughing at the way his leg turned in at the knee and asking, ‘What will that boy do?’ But while Billy was the last to enter the bath he started as if he’d been shot out of a pistol and at this the betting men yelled and stamped their feet, the air growing hot and thick with smoke. Up in the gallery the handful of ladies craned their necks, following the progression of the swimmers in the pool. Still the din increased as the boys made it halfway down the length of the bath, Billy’s arms turning like windmills, pushing him ferociously through the water. As he took the lead and was half a yard from the end a great wave of noise filled the room, more deafening even than the New-cut on a Saturday night. I heard a man shouting, ‘You fat-headed chunk!’ to his son who was floundering in the middle of the pool, while Mr Peach was urging the gentlemen back towards the wall, crying ‘Ord-a-ar! Ord-a-ar!’ Then the race was over, Billy had won and I was on my feet cheering with the rest.
At last the crowd grew quiet and the pool was empty again. A cornet player began to blow a gentle tune, the lights were dimmed, the ladies settled back in their seats and everyone waited to see what would happen next. It was then that Father appeared, still in his best suit, walking slowly down the steps and into the shallow end of the bath, all the while puffing on a cigar.
‘What is he doing?’ I heard someone ask, as suddenly Father thrust the lighted end of the cigar into his mouth and dived in. ‘Well I never!’ they cried. ‘How does he do that? He’s smoking under the water!’ I laughed in delight as curls of smoke began to rise up to the surface of the bath. So that was what all the practising had been about; our father was as clever as a magician and the spectators cheered so loudly that the flowers in the hanging baskets trembled.
Daisy Belle Page 3