The J M Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society

by Barbara Zitwer

  Setting off at a sprint from outside the gatehouse arch, Joey felt the icy cold hit the back of her throat. It felt pure, as though she were breathing filtered, oxygenated water, fresh from the mountain springs.

  She ran through a series of country lanes, keeping track of her lefts and rights. Ten or fifteen minutes passed without her seeing another human soul. She could not think of another time in her life when she had been outside for so long without company. No matter where you went in Manhattan, there were always people.

  The solitude felt unnerving at first. She could have screamed out here and no one would have heard her. But as she jogged on, she felt an exhilarating freedom. She’d even left Tink behind, much to the dog’s disgruntlement. She could do exactly what she wanted. She could sing at the top of her lungs or launch into an impromptu little cha-cha and there was absolutely no one to raise an eyebrow. She had to savour this moment.

  The scenery, as if compensating for the utter absence of human life, was dazzling. Every field, every plant stuck out against the azure of the sky. The lane – one could hardly call it a road – had old stone walls on either side. Some parts were crumbling and some had been recently restored. As she entered the village, she passed a row of cottages with thatched roofs and gardens flanked by potting sheds.

  She came upon a small stone post office and what looked like an ancient inn, “The Pump House”. Through the inn’s leaded-glass windows, Joey glimpsed faces animated in conversation. Batting off a wave of loneliness – she would not give in to her usual self-pity – she looped around the centre of the village and headed out towards the rambling farmlands beyond. A couple of hundred yards on, she turned off the road on to a muddy track, bordering fields, which looked as if it would take her back in the direction she had come. The terrain was uneven, and she kept her eyes firmly on the ground in front of her. Which was why she nearly collided with the ram.

  He stood smack in the middle of the track as Joey stopped just a few feet away. Adrenaline racing, she drew in a sharp breath. What was this creature? Was he going to charge her? Impale her with his horns? It didn’t seem so. He eyed her with indignation. He had no intention of getting out of her way. It was a stand off.

  The ram stared at her, his long face impassive. Joey sidled to her right, pressing close to the hedge to try to squeak by. The ram stepped toward her. Joey stopped. The ram stopped.

  She moved to her left, sinking her new running shoes deep into a puddle. The sheep shook out its ears and moved forward to join her. Joey paused again. The ears were the most disconcerting part, she decided; whenever she moved, they seemed to track her like little satellite dishes.

  “Shoo!” Joey said.

  The ram stared. He rotated his ears.

  “Shoo!” she said more forcefully, this time with real feeling. “Go on – shoo!” The animal did not respond.

  “Please! Damn it, let me through!” At that moment, something caught Joey’s eye in the field to her right. Forgetting her stubborn challenger entirely, she walked up to the hedgerow and edged along to a gate to get a better look.

  The field was populated by bulky black and white cows, some standing, some lying down. But in the distance there appeared to be an expanse of water. It looked like a large pond with a small island in the middle, from which grew a stand of fledgling birches. Something was moving in the water. Not just moving, thrashing about. Joey squinted into the deepening light. Something was wrong.

  “Hello?” she called, her voice too thin in the cold air. There was no response. “Hello?”

  She saw the movement again, and this time she realised what it was: the rising and falling of a flailing arm. She threw the gate open and tore across the field. The pond was a good distance away and the mud and grass slippery and soft.

  “Hold on! I’m coming!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. Cresting a gentle rise in the pasture, she got a clear look down to the water. There, midway between the bank and the tree-lined island, was an elderly woman. She seemed barely afloat, listlessly treading water. Without another thought, Joey raced down the hill to the side of the bank, kicked her trainers off, and with one athletic leap, cleared the reeds and broke the surface of the pond.

  The cold stunned her with a sensation like that of falling into a bed of knives. She surfaced, raised her head above water and broke into a fierce crawl. The woman was a matter of yards away, still struggling in the murky water. She must be freezing, Joey thought, swimming as fast as she could and thanking her lucky stars that she had happened to pass by in time.

  “I’ve got you.” She wound her arm around the woman’s waist, pulling her furiously toward the bank. The woman was thrashing her arms, clearly panicked and unable to process the fact that she was being rescued.

  “It’s okay. You’re okay.” It was hard to talk and swim and breathe at the same time, but Joey gave it her all. Man, the old girl was strong! But she would have had to be, to have kept herself from going under for however long she was in the freezing water. As Joey kicked them both toward the bank, she caught a glimpse of what looked like a shocked, incredulous face framed by white hair. Of course she was in shock. She’d nearly drowned! She seemed to be trying to say something, but Joey couldn’t focus on that now. She had to get them both to shore.

  Finally, they reached water shallow enough to stand in. Joey helped the woman to her feet, surprised at how heavy she was on land, and then by the fact that she was wearing – a bathing costume? Together, they staggered through the reeds and then collapsed on the safety of the bank. Panting, Joey turned to face her.

  “Are you okay?”

  The woman was coughing and spluttering. In her mind, Joey began to run through the steps of artificial resuscitation.

  One, clear the victim’s airway of any obstructions…

  The woman had stopped coughing and was blinking rapidly at her. “You got a little water in my throat there.”

  Well, that was an odd reaction. The woman gave one final cough then calmly said, “Thank you dear. I meant to do just ten minutes, and I probably was closer to fifteen. But I wasn’t expecting such a dramatic reminder that it was time to come out!”

  Joey froze. The woman was smiling. Clearly, she was mad.

  “You sound American,” the old woman commented. “Oh, dear, look, you’re shivering!”

  With remarkable agility, the woman skittered up the slippery bank toward a small neat pile of clothes stacked on top of two large towels. She wrapped one of the towels around her waist and threw the other down to Joey.

  “I always bring an extra,” she said, smiling kindly. “I’m so sorry, dear. I’ve given you quite a fright.”

  “I thought you were drowning,” Joey said simply, feeling her face growing hot. Now it made sense. She couldn’t believe she’d made such a rash assumption. Then again, she couldn’t believe that anyone in their right mind, let alone a frail old lady, would think of paddling around in an icy lake in January.

  “You must be Josephine.”

  Once again, Joey found herself mute. This was all too weird. She had humiliated herself by sprinting through cow pats to save a woman who didn’t want or need to be saved, but at least she had figured that no one would find out about this. She was in the middle of nowhere; it wasn’t as though she had leapt into Central Park’s boating lake. But this woman knew her name…

  “Yes. I’m – Joey.” She tried to stop her teeth chattering. She was shivering wildly now. She didn’t think she had ever been so cold.

  “Well, delighted to meet you. I’m Aggie, Sarah’s mother-in-law.”

  Aggie? Joey thought. This woman was Henry’s mother, Lady Howard? Surely she wouldn’t be swimming in icy ponds in the middle of winter… She’d be – reading Trollope and serving on the hospital board and overseeing a house run by maids and butlers.

  “Sarah told me you were coming here today,” the woman went on. “I was going to drop by Stanway House this evening.” She smiled again, flashing bright turquoise eyes. Aggie fi
nished drying herself, stepped into her trousers and pulled on a turtleneck and sweater. Then she sat down on a stump and pulled on a pair of waterproof boots. She stood up and grabbed her towel. “We’d better get inside or you’ll catch your death.”

  Joey now trotted along behind Aggie, growing ever more awed. Of course Joey might have recognised her if she had attended Sarah and Henry’s wedding, but that was yet another trip she’d had to cancel at the last minute. Now, she couldn’t remember why. Something had come up at work, something that had seemed so important at the time.

  Joey glanced up at the woman, striding purposefully up the rise toward the trees in front of her. This woman had a title. She had lunch, on the odd occasion, with the Queen! How this squared with the oversized muck boots and swimming alone in the dead of winter, Joey just wasn’t sure. But the bone structure of her face was definitely regal and her gait strong and dignified. And if behaving with grace while under pressure signified a healthy dose of class, the title was well earned. Joey herself would have hauled off and smacked any lunatic who came after her the way she had come after Aggie just moments earlier.

  “I’m really sorry,” Joey began, finding her voice at last as the two of them hopped over the stile at the end of the field, “I’m mortified.”

  “Don’t be absurd,” Aggie chided. “There’s not many a girl who’d have jumped in to save me.”

  “I should have seen the clothes. I shouldn’t have just assumed –”

  Aggie smiled and patted her arm, “It was very noble. We’ll say no more about it.”

  The two continued in silence for a couple of minutes, Joey wishing she didn’t have soaking wet clothes, racking her brain for suitable subjects of conversation. What did you talk about with a Lady? Were there subjects that were totally off limits? Were there rules?

  As they turned toward the village, their path was blocked by a cow. A cow with friends. So many, in fact, that they blocked the road, preventing Joey and Aggie from moving forward, sideways or any way at all. In the middle of the herd was a red-faced farmer wielding a stick.

  “Oh dear,” Aggie murmured under her breath. The man pointed his stick accusingly at Joey.

  “You!” he bellowed over the chaotic mooing. “I saw you run by. Right through my gates, right through my fields, leaving everything open for all damnation to break loose. Look…” He swept his stick about, gesturing at the bovine chaos. “All this, because of you!”

  Joey struggled to remain upright while pressing herself up against the wall at the roadside to keep out of the animals’ way, wondering whether cows, like horses, might kick out. The countryside was wild; anything was possible.

  “Gordon,” Aggie’s voice soared above the mayhem. “It is entirely my fault. I asked Joey to meet me for a dip and completely forgot to instruct her about your gates. I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking, but Joey, who has just arrived in the country as our guest, couldn’t possibly have known.”

  The farmer’s face turned from red to near purple. “It’s common sense! Just common sense, pure and simple.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Joey echoed. She was genuinely embarrassed. How many social codes could she break in one day? “I really didn’t know.”

  Aggie grabbed Joey’s arm and steered her through the stragglers, now that the cows were gradually being herded back into the nearest field.

  “Gordon,” she said, “I must make it up to you. I have a new bloom of orchids. You must let me share them with you. I’ll come by tomorrow and drop some off.”

  To Joey’s surprise, the farmer appeared to relax. “There’s no need for that,” he said slowly, pushing the last of the cattle into the field with his stick. They were sturdy animals, Joey noticed, making a mental note of this in case of a future encounter; they didn’t seem to mind a good prodding. “But actually it’s Tillie’s birthday on Monday, you see, so that’d be all right.” He swung a metal loop over the gate, securing it tightly.

  “Then it’s settled,” said Aggie. “I’ll leave them in your potting shed. They can be your surprise. Good evening, Gordon.” Aggie had remained utterly dignified, despite her sopping hair and damp, creased clothes.

  “Evening to you.”

  “Gordon’s a dear,” Aggie whispered when they were out of earshot, “but perhaps not the type to remember his wife’s birthday. Maybe he’ll win a few points.” Aggie hurried Joey along the lane. They eventually arrived before an imposing stone structure seated deep in a grove of mature trees.

  “Benbrough House,” Joey guessed.

  Aggie smiled. “You must come in and warm up, darling. I can’t have you catching your death of cold on my behalf.”

  “Oh, I’m okay, really.”

  “Come along. I am not going to have you laid up with hypothermia. You’ve got a big job ahead of you and I, for one, am excited to hear about what you plan to do.”

  Inside, Aggie announced that she would speak to Anna about tea and fetch some dry clothes for Joey to borrow.

  “I’ll meet you in the library,” she said, pointing down a long, shadowy hall.

  “All right.”

  Joey made her way down the hallway. Quietly, she pushed open the heavy, carved door, which squeaked on its hinges, and found herself in a large, square room decorated with an old world grandeur usually reserved for museums. The ceilings were high and embellished with mouldings. The darkly varnished wooden floors were covered here and there with deeply coloured Oriental rugs. Joey was relieved to see that a fire was glowing quietly in the grate. She was freezing.

  Most striking of all were the bookcases that reached from the floor to the rafters, packed to overflowing with books old and new: paperbacks, hardbacks, some frayed and peeling at the spine. Joey made the circuit of the room, peering at travel books from all places and ages. Books on Egypt, the pyramids, the deserts, books on African jungles and the rain-forests of Borneo, and historical accounts of China and the territories beyond.

  Joey couldn’t imagine visiting this many places; she’d barely left New York. And here were shelves filled with literature, novels by Austen, Wilde, Hemingway, murder mysteries, encyclopaedias and dictionaries in numerous languages. The number of books was simply dizzying and Joey took a moment to absorb it all. She reached for a leather-bound tome.

  “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Aggie breezed into the room, carrying an armload of garments. “Here. Put these on. There’s a bathroom off the hall.”

  Joey ducked into the bathroom, peeled off her wet running clothes and dressed in what appeared to be Aggie’s tracksuit pants and a soft cashmere jersey. When she went back into the library, Aggie had pulled two armchairs up close to the crackling fire.

  “Anna’s bringing us tea,” Aggie announced, “but we’ll have a little of this first to warm the cockles.” She reached for a tumbler, one of several on a nearby tray, poured Joey a drink from the decanter on her desk and handed it to her.

  “Cheers,” she said.

  Joey sniffed the drink and sipped it. “It’s amazing.”

  “It’s a Cockburn’s Special Reserve, 1963, but don’t tell Henry. He thinks I’m saving it all for him.” Aggie’s eyes twinkled.

  And I was worried about crow’s feet? Joey thought. This woman could not be more beautiful.

  Aggie sipped her port, then hopped up abruptly like an excited child.

  “Are you into computers, dear?”

  “I guess everyone is these days.”

  “This,” announced Aggie, picking up a shiny new laptop from the desk, “was my Christmas present. Isn’t it marvellous?”

  “I love Macs,” Joey said.

  “Me too. Henry has just helped me get it all set up. The best thing is that I can get all my pictures on it,” said Aggie delightedly, opening up her photo album so Joey could see her photographs of her grandchildren. “I love to keep up with the children. I adore them all. But, I want to show you something else.”

  Aggie tapped at her computer slowly, like someone just get
ting used to a new instrument. Finally, she came to a scene of the whitest snow, spread across a small field surrounded by trees, their branches heavy with frost. In the centre was a grey pond, icy clear and deadly still. Joey knew at once that this must be the pond – the scene of this afternoon’s embarrassing incident.

  There in the photo, lined up on an ice-covered jetty, their eyes shining in the winter cold and their swim-caps pulled all the way down on their heads, were five ancient-looking women – all of them dripping wet.

  “Lilia, Viv, Gala and Meg,” said Aggie.

  “Your friends swim in the winter, too?”

  “For more than fifty years.” Aggie’s short dip made more sense now. “You must come with us sometime.”

  “I’d love to,” Joey answered politely, simultaneously thinking, not in a million years. Still, it was pretty impressive, friendships lasting fifty years, sustained in part by a shared ritual that many people would consider crazy. Joey wondered whether she and Sarah would still be friends in forty years. Their friendship seemed to have survived nearly a decade of casual neglect, but you couldn’t ignore your friends for ever, not if you wanted to have any kind of meaningful relationship. And given her recent track record with her own university room-mates, Eva, Susan and Martina, Joey was going to have to rethink some of her priorities if she wanted to grow old in the intimate company of close girlfriends.

  “You’re lucky to have such great friends,” Joey said quietly.

  “Luck has nothing to do with it, dearie. We decided to become friends and to stay friends, through thick and thin, warts and all. You’ll no doubt meet them soon. Here, this one is Lilia, Ian McCormack’s mother-in-law. He’s the caretaker at Stanway House. Have you come across him yet?”

  “Yes,” Joey said.

  “Lovely man… Sad.”

  “Sad?” Joey gazed at the older woman.

  “Ian’s wife, Lilia’s daughter Cait, was killed in a car crash.” Aggie flicked through to the next photo. “Nine or ten years ago, now. Left a little girl, and Ian.” Aggie broke off, shaking her head. “Hard. Awfully hard.”