THE SWIMMER
First light was breaking well, as last mornings on earth should, soft and embracing, a morning full of promise and generosity she thought, as she undressed at the water’s edge, clothes folded into a tidy pile. Her one-piece swimsuit was already on, plain and modest as they were back when it had been new, although now frayed a little at the straps and under the arms. But it was the one she’d worn at the tryouts for the Mexico Olympics, when she’d been at her peak, but missed the cut for the eight hundred metres by eight-tenths of a second. So, it was somehow right to go out in it, go out with a small splash. But no audience this time.
She would’ve been about mid-sixties, but still had the air of the athlete about her, still tight, long lean legs, hard shoulders, from the long-distance events she had settled for, and the regular swimming regime after that, most mornings and all seasons. And even after the chemo, when she had found the simple pleasure of her solitary cut through the water had deserted her, and only the spartan taste of the regime itself remained.
She told herself it wasn’t about breast cancer, or even about the money, it was the sense of betrayal that had been the final trigger. The betrayal of a man who had put himself about as a friend, who had taken her modest savings and – yes, along with many other’s modest savings – manipulated them away, and so well that the court case produced nothing but lawyer’s fees, and the indignity of standing there, giving evidence, with no hair, not even eyebrows.
After she was told The Beast had turned up in her liver, the decision to do this had been easy, even came as a relief, and now that the claptrap of her life had been made tidy, and there was no-one she even needed to leave a note for, she had taken her time and waited for the right kind of morning. A morning like this.
The sea was calm, long lazy rollers flopping onto the beach with a sigh, seagulls stirring, but too early yet even for the dog walkers, the beach strollers, the joggers. There would never be a more perfect day.
She pulled on her cap, the one she thought always made her look like a Jantzen ad from the Sixties, stepped into the shallows, then with that wonderfully exhilarating, first air-gulping dive, cut into the next swell, and struck out in a steady rhythm, in a straight line away from the land and all it contained.
Her mind quickly settled into the kind of peace – the addictive peace – of that place, the one she always found in long distances, with time and all thought suspended, where her constant fear of sharks could be numbed away, where there was simply her body and the hypnotic sound of the water mumbling past her cap.
She eventually felt the end coming, lungs aching, muscles beginning to wane, but pushed on steadily, a little more and a little more, to be sure there was no returning, could hear her own breath sucking deeply with each side turn of her head, the world now only the sea and the rhythm.
“Are you alright there love?”
It took quite a few strokes before she even became aware of him, catching the image of the man and his tinny in the freeze-frames of each breath to the side. But even then she kept her stroke steady.
“I mean, you’re a long way out y’know.”
“Go . . . away . . .”, pushing her words out a piece at a time, but now aware of the idling of the outboard somewhere behind her. He came closer, leaned over.
“Whatta reckon y’ doin’ then?”
“I’m . . . having . . . a swim . . .”
“Geez lady, I can see that. Whatta y’ doin’ out here?”
“I’m swimming . . . to fucking . . . New Zealand . . .”
“What?! Don’t be bloody stupid, y’r not even goin’ the right way!”
“What the . . . FUCK . . . has it got . . . t’do with . . . YOU?”
“Look, get in the boat eh? Y’could drown y’self way out here.”
“Will you . . . bloody . . . piss OFF!”
“Sorry love, no way I’m goin’ back in an’ leavin’ ...”, and the motor died and he suddenly leaned down and grabbed her under the armpit as the tinny hung awkwardly and fishing gear rattled about, and only then did her rhythm collapse as she tried to shrug him off.
“This’s got . . . nothing to DO with . . . you”, but his other arm came over and he hauled her half way in and she could feel a rage of indignation rising as her lungs heaved for air, and she swung blindly and felt her hand connect with either his ear or his nose.
“Get in this fucken boat you mad bitch!!”, and she saw the big fist coming and for an instant lights flickered in her head and she heard something that sounded like a bass drum being belted and for a while after that there was only half light, and the steady whine of the outboard and the soft whump whump whump of the swell on the metal hull.
He shut off and helped her over the side into the shallows, and she could even see her neat pile of clothes in the distance, and a strange sadness welled up in her throat. It was the same sadness as when Frank had walked out, so many years ago, like stepping into that terrible emptiness all over again.
“Right, y’can be fish food t’morra if y’want...”, and he seemed to be speaking as gently as he knew how, “...but have a think about it eh? - see if you feel the same – y’know – in the morning.”
She found herself nodding like a chastised schoolgirl, but he seemed to be waiting for an answer.
“Alright?”
She nodded.
“Yes. Alright.”
“Good...”, but he hesitated still. He smiled then, not much of a smile, but it changed his face, and only then did she actually see him. He was quite an old man, unshaven, creases at the eyes deep from a lifetime of squinting into the sun and the sea. He reached out and squeezed her shoulder.
“Give it another shot eh?”, and with that he yanked the outboard into life and was gone.
Sarah Davis lived for eight more months, just her and a scraggy dog she adopted from the animal rescue people about a week after she returned from her swim to New Zealand. They were soon inseparable, and the two of them became early morning regulars on the beach, and dogs being dogs, mine and hers drew us together, and while they chased gulls along the shallows we would often stand a while, stand and look out to sea, and together consider the nature of dogs, and God, and old fishermen.
© T. R. Edmonds 2016
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