Suddenly there was a commotion by the poolside; I heard gasps and whistles as a cubicle door opened and out came Miss Mane. She stood there in her white tights and sleeveless tunic, waiting for Father to introduce her.
‘Ladies, take note,’ he cried, his good humour restored as he leaped onto the stage with the megaphone, ‘and be prepared to be inspired by Miss Mane and her clever doings!’
I couldn’t take my eyes off her, she was so pretty and plump, with arms as well developed as a boxer’s. I had never in my life seen a woman so strong, aside from Auntie Jessie. Where, I heard the people ask, was her corset? What sort of lady was she? But Miss Mane appeared not to hear the comments, watching instead while a bath attendant slid a hoop across the pool, and then she entered the water. Up in the gallery the audience leaned forward, intrigued as to what she would do, as she sank down, came up under the hoop and grasped the sides with her hands. She lifted one leg and then the other and for a second Miss Mane straddled the hoop, while the men whistled and called out, ‘She’s enjoying that!’; and indeed from her smile it appeared she did. Then, having settled herself within the hoop, her feet resting on its edge, she began to rock.
I held my breath, entranced by her power and grace, as she started turning somersaults in the water, flying through the hoop like a bird on a perch. Over and over she went, the hoop moving as easily as if it were made of string, her eyes wide open and a smile on her face throughout.
‘Ord-a-ar!’ shouted Mr Peach as the audience clapped and stamped their feet, as animated as rats in a pit, while from up in the gallery there rained down a storm of nutshells.
‘Gentlemen!’ cried Father. ‘Ladies!’ and he leaned forward and threw Miss Mane a large bouquet of flowers, which she caught with one hand. ‘Does a lady need to know how to swim?’
‘Not likely!’ laughed a man.
My father swivelled towards the voice. ‘On the contrary, sir. A woman has as much need of knowing how to swim as a man. I would say even more! Who is more likely to be with young children at the water’s edge? A man or a mother?’
There was a murmur of agreement.
‘Now, what has a lady to do in order to swim? What terrible sacrifice does she have to make?’ He gestured to Miss Mane, now swimming around the bath with the bouquet held aloft. ‘Why, none! She simply has to come to this swimming bath for a few weeks and I will teach her!’
When the performance was over and Miss Mane got out of the bath, Mrs Peach wrapped her quickly in a cloak before she strode along the poolside through a horde of onlookers. I saw Robert Winkle push his way to the front, all the while licking on his pencil, and I squeezed myself between the men, getting as close to her as I could. She had fired my imagination and I couldn’t wait to speak to her.
‘Did you enjoy the show?’ she asked, looking down on me with a warm smile.
I nodded that I had.
‘You could do that, you know.’
‘I know,’ I said, and she laughed.
‘Not yet she can’t,’ said Father, and I felt uncomfortable then at the way he joined us; I didn’t like how he stood so close to Miss Mane, as if forgetting I was there. And I liked it even less when her cloak slipped to one side and he touched her naked arm, leaving a red mark on her still-damp skin. Father’s job was to train me, not joke with Miss Mane and make all the men laugh.
‘I want to be like her,’ I told him, after she’d entered her dressing box and closed the door.
‘Then swim pretty, Daisy,’ he said. ‘Keep your head above water so people can see you, and put a smile on your face.’
*
The very next day he bought a hoop. He thought he would include it in the show, that I would glide and float while he explained the principles of swimming. Tom-tom wanted to try it too but Father said no, this was something for a girl. It was not as easy as I’d thought; the metal wouldn’t move the way I wanted and I was clumsy in the water. ‘Why are you flipping and flapping your hands?’ teased Charlie. But this only made me more determined; I knew I could do it if I tried, and with one final effort I hurtled through. My head was down, my feet were up and over I went, right through the hoop, the watery world whirling in my ears. Then I righted myself and came to the surface and saw what I had done. I stood in the bath shivering with excitement, water gushing from my nostrils. I had done a somersault just like Miss Mane.
‘Again!’ I cried. ‘Again!’
Father looked thoughtful and stroked his chin. ‘Daisy, do you think you could dive through the hoop from the plank?’
And I told him yes, I could do anything at all because I wanted to make him proud and be a credit to him. But more than that, I wanted the audience to clap for me as they had for Miss Mane. I wanted powerful arms and a pretty tunic, I wanted to turn in the air with a smile and have bouquets thrown at me. My mother’s worst fear was absolutely right: I wanted to make an exhibition of myself. And now I knew that I wasn’t alone, that I was not the only girl who wanted to swim.
CHAPTER EIGHT
As time went by I could have stayed in the baths all day long if only I’d been allowed. I had no interest in helping Mother at home and my schooling, such as it was, had nearly finished now. I knew how to read and to write, I could name all the Kings and Queens, and as far as Father was concerned swimming was all that mattered and he was the best teacher for that. Soon I could even sleep in the water, hooking my heels onto the rail, taking short quick breaths to keep myself afloat, and then closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep. Father of course said he might include this in a show, but I wanted him to organise not just a gala but a competition. I was eleven years old and I thought it was time I competed against someone else.
‘Don’t be absurd,’ he said, ‘you’re not a racer, and anyway, who would you swim against?’
‘Miss Mane?’ I suggested.
‘She’s an ornamental swimmer and she’s nearly twice your age, she wouldn’t do at all.’
‘One of your ladies?’
Father didn’t deign to reply. But sometimes his ladies did take part in the galas; one was able to swim the width of the bath with a cup on her forehead, two could swim holding hands, and every week it seemed he introduced something new. We had royalty in the audience now, and the Earl of this and the Lady of that certainly enjoyed the shows. The ladies became very excitable watching the men in the bath, and once as I was standing next to Robert Winkle in the gallery, he laughed and said, ‘Such flimsy trunks, such glistening bodies, I do believe the ladies like a bit of rough.’ And I laughed as well, although I didn’t really know what he was talking about.
It was around this time that I began to feel a little anxious about how I looked, becoming as conscious of my appearance as I was about how I was performing. My shape was changing, I wasn’t a little girl any more, and I sensed a shift in the way the audience saw me as I stood on the board, dived down through the hoop and came to the surface with my costume clinging to every curve of my body.
One afternoon at the second-class bath I was intending to join Father’s lesson for ladies. I had entered a dressing box and was just pulling on my costume when a bath attendant called Cabbage Green barged in. I gave a shriek of surprise and he backed out, straight into Mrs Peach. ‘What are you doing in here?’
Cabbage Green spluttered something about not knowing I was there.
‘Do you know what?’ said Mrs Peach, ‘my patience has just about run out with you. Oh yes, I’ve seen you lurking around the bath when the ladies are here, and now you’re in Daisy’s changing box!’
‘Oh they’re all a lot of trollops,’ muttered Cabbage Green.
Mrs Peach was so incensed at this that she lifted up her cane and hit him clean across the head. ‘I’m only sorry I haven’t a club in my hands,’ she told him, and Cabbage Green was thrown out of the baths and told never to come back.
Charlie told Mother that men had begun to whistle as I got out of the pool and she was furious, not at their behaviour but at mine. I thought
she was spoiling my fun, I even told myself she was jealous of the attention. She had never come to watch me, she had tried her best to keep me away from the baths and now she resented my growing success. And what else could I wear to swim? I didn’t want to hide myself and why should I? I was becoming well-known, people were coming just to see me, and Father said from now on the baths would charge a larger entrance fee to ensure a more respectable crowd.
But my worries about how others saw me were soon made worse. One evening Father decided to begin a show with a new lifesaving routine, but one of the appointed drowning men failed to turn up and so at the very last minute he sent for a man he knew named Sailor Jim. Father promised him a shilling and instructed him to change in a dressing box, but when Sailor Jim came out and saw Billy and me standing at the poolside he whispered, ‘I’ll give the fellow coming to save me something to do. You’ll see, maybe I’ll drown him. I’ll lead him such a dance that he’ll not want to save any more drowning men!’
We hadn’t time to object or to warn Father; the poolside was packed with people and it was time for the demonstration to begin. The first drowning man fell into the bath in his clothes and after waiting a moment Father swam to the spot. He dived under the water, came up behind the man and seized him by the ears. Then he put his knees against the drowning man’s back, straightened him out and floated him to the side, to loud applause. The demonstration continued: three more men jumped in and began to splash around, while three lifesavers dived in to help. But Sailor Jim was having none of it; he fought and struggled, gripping his rescuer and hissing furious oaths, refusing to let anyone near his ears. Soon the other drowning men had been saved and just this one was left, locked in mortal combat with his would-be lifesaver. The crowd roared their approval at this exciting turn of events as the two men punched and kicked each other in the pool, until Father himself had to get into the bath and, locking Sailor Jim round the neck, pull him out. Billy and I stood on the poolside laughing fit to burst, but I soon stopped laughing when I went to change for my part of the show.
The moment I got into the cubicle I knew something was wrong. I had had an odd feeling in the pit of my stomach ever since I’d woken up that morning and when I removed my clothes to put on my costume I was shocked to see a patch of blood on the back of my skirts. Where had it come from? I had injured myself a few times while practising in the bath, although never while performing. I had been bruised from the hoop, hit my head once or twice during careless dives or scraped my legs along the bottom of the bath. But I hadn’t practised at all that day, so how had I got blood on my clothes when I could neither see nor feel a wound? Had I sat on something unawares? Where had the blood come from and why was it such a dark brown?
I stayed there in my dressing box, listening to the noise outside, Father’s voice through the megaphone and people calling my name. Then Mrs Peach came looking for me. She gave a little knock and a ‘You all right, Daisy love?’, and when I didn’t answer she opened the door and found me sitting dejectedly on the bench, my stained skirt in my hands.
‘Has your mother told you —?’
I shook my head; I had no idea what Mother was supposed to have told me.
‘It’s your monthlies,’ said Mrs Peach. ‘Do you know what to do?’
Again I shook my head.
Mrs Peach went away and came back with a carefully folded rag, told me to use that until another was needed, and showed me how to secure it in place. I did as she said, aware of the increasing din outside and worried that someone would burst in.
‘It will happen every month,’ said Mrs Peach. ‘You’re a woman now. It means your seed has come down, Daisy, and one day you can be a mother.’
I didn’t understand where this seed had come from, but I felt a little better now. ‘Does every woman have this?’
‘Every woman,’ she nodded. ‘Oh, some might take to their bed for a week —’
‘A week?’ I was aghast.
‘But most of us just keep going. You’ll get used to it.’ Then she laughed. ‘A little gin and water usually does the trick.’
I stood up then and an awful thought almost struck me down. How would I ever be able to swim? How could I put on a costume and perform with this rag between my legs? It would fall out, it would be seen; there would be evidence in the pool.
Mrs Peach must have seen the look of panic on my face. ‘You’re a healthy young girl,’ she told me, ‘it’s no reason to stop you doing anything. Just say you’ve had a turn or you’re out of order, that way you won’t need to go into the water. I’ll see that your father knows, now off you go home.’
So I did, and although Mother was surprised to see me back so soon she didn’t ask me why and I of course didn’t tell her. As for Father, he didn’t say a word about why I’d been excused from the show, and the following day when I woke up the bleeding had stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
The next time it happened I went straight home from the baths, rushed to the bedroom and shut the door. Then I began upturning boxes and burrowing through bags, looking for the rag I’d used before. I was too young really to look after myself, I didn’t know when the bleeding would start and I wasn’t prepared when it did. A few moments later Mother came in. ‘What’s going on?’ She had come from the kitchen; an apron was tied round her waist and in her hand was a rolling pin dusted with flour. ‘Where’s your father?’
I didn’t answer; but I watched the way her eyes narrowed as she saw the rag I had just put on the bed.
‘Is that what I think it is? You’re not even twelve years old! Where have you been today?’
‘The baths,’ I mumbled, although she already knew this.
‘The baths! You’ve been in the water at a time like this? This is what swimming does to you! Get into bed right now.’
‘But I’m not tired,’ I said.
‘Tired? I’m not talking about tired. Get into bed and let nature do its work.’
‘But I feel fine.’
‘Well you’re not fine,’ and she stepped towards me, pushing so hard on my chest with the rolling pin that I toppled backwards and onto the mattress. ‘You will damage yourself,’ she hissed. ‘I forbid you to ever swim again. You won’t be fit for anything. You will never have children and who will marry you?’
I didn’t dare to answer. I couldn’t say I didn’t want to marry, that I knew what I wanted to do and that was to swim. I hoped that when Father came home he would understand. He had trained me as hard as a boy; he had taught ladies to swim; he’d invited Miss Mane to perform. Surely whatever Mother said he would never stop me swimming?
Eventually I heard him come home and I crept to the top of the stairs to listen. ‘This has gone far enough,’ said Mother. ‘She is too old to be making an exhibition of herself.’
‘Is that so?’ asked Father. ‘And do you think I can put on a show without her?’
‘Have you no shame?’ she shouted. ‘It’s your daughter the men are whistling at.’
‘Save your breath,’ he snapped, ‘and stop your nagging. I need her there. She can stay home for now, but then I want her back. How else do you think we can afford all this?’
That night I was made to move into a small box room in the attic that smelled of mice, and was no longer allowed to sleep with my brothers. I felt so lonely and punished up in that room as I listened to the sounds of my brothers fighting and playing downstairs. I was a woman now, Mrs Peach had said. Was this what it meant to be a woman, that I could no longer do what I wanted? Miserably I stood by the window, looking out over the chimney pots, thinking I would climb out and slide down the roof and run away.
But then the bleeding stopped, and soon I was back at the baths. And if I sometimes had to take a break from swimming Father never asked why. It was a topic we didn’t discuss. Only I was to wear a different costume now. The woollen suits that Mother had knitted me every year since I was four were replaced with a tunic and pantaloons. It wasn’t so easy to swim like this; the tunic chaf
ed me badly under the arms, the pantaloons filled with water and made it difficult to kick my legs and it took me a while to regain my confidence in the pool. But Father was adamant; I must be properly dressed.
Perhaps it was a result of all the arguing, but he was absent from home even more than usual and Mother was frequently sending one of us to fetch him from the Crown and Cushion on the corner of Westminster Bridge Road. Father spent many an evening in the clubroom there, surrounded by sportsmen and journalists, drinking ale and issuing challenges. ‘Billy will swim any man five miles for twenty a side!’ he would cry, although he knew my brother would do no such thing. Billy had defied Father: first he had refused to swim against Harry Parker in the Thames, and then he had lost a race because of cramp. So why was Father still wagering that my brother would win? Perhaps he could not face the fact that Billy didn’t want to swim, for his talent was far greater than my other brothers’, or perhaps Father just could not bear being told ‘no’.
One day he bought a greyhound, a sleek creature with weepy eyes, which was said to have good legs and be fit to run with very little training. We named him Hunter and Father wagered he would swim a hundred yards against any other dog. But Hunter had no interest at all in racing; instead he followed Father to the Crown and Cushion and fell asleep on an old pillow behind the bar.
Our father continued to issue challenges; he felt the shows were getting stale. He was growing tired of the rowdy, tepid baths, the ornamental swimming and the lifesaving shows. Professor Belle wanted something new to turn his hand to. But until the day Captain Matthew Webb came to the Lambeth Baths, I don’t believe he knew what that would be.
CHAPTER NINE
The first time I met Captain Matthew Webb it was a rainy September morning. I was standing near the pay office at the Lambeth Baths listening to Father’s instructions for the following day, when Robert Winkle came hurrying through the turnstile with a man I’d never seen before.
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