Swimming Home

by Mary-Rose MacColl

  And then, when Louisa collected the post that evening, there it was, a letter, postmarked Cairns, not Thursday Island, addressed to Catherine. It was marked urgent, and so Louisa decided to open it.

  Dear Catherine,

  I am writing with very bad news. Michael is in trouble. We’ve been in Cairns for the last month. As I said in my last letter, he went down a couple of months ago to get work with some other boys from here. He was wanting to earn enough money to get over to you and find out what’s going on.

  But he’s been accused of something. Someone held up a store in Samsonvale and they killed the owner. It wasn’t Michael. I know it wasn’t. But because he’d moved there with a group of boys, they’ve arrested them all and one of them has confessed.

  Michael says none of them did anything and you know he wouldn’t do that. But the charge is murder, Waapi. And he’s old enough to be hanged.

  There’s no one I can turn to but you. I don’t know any solicitors but Dr Harry’s, and he’s said he can’t help us without money. He says you will help us, being your father’s daughter. I’ve never missed Dr Harry more than in these weeks.

  Yours with love,

  Florence

  Louisa read the letter a second and then a third time. The boy had been charged with a criminal offence. The letter would have taken at least a month to get to London, and Louisa had no idea what might have transpired since Florence wrote. Michael might already have been tried, for all she knew.

  He’d been trying to earn the money to come to London, the letter said, to come to London to see Catherine, who hadn’t written. Except Catherine had written. She’d written three letters, all of which were in Louisa’s possession, along with Michael’s and Florence’s letters to Catherine. With a sick feeling, Louisa knew that if he had stolen in order to come to Catherine, if he’d killed another human being, she, Louisa, was responsible. She remembered the boy, that lovely smile. She had never meant for something like this to happen. She’d just wanted Catherine to be happy in London.

  She went into the kitchen, poured herself a glass of scotch and downed it. She knew if Catherine read the letter she would not only want to help them, she would go to them on the very next ship. Had Louisa misread Michael’s first letter, misunderstood the connection between them? Were they indeed siblings, as Alexander had suspected all along? Joined in their bodies? Perhaps the Islanders saw relationships differently.

  She wished now she’d just given Catherine the letters and let events take their course. Catherine would probably be forgetting the island in any event. She had a new life. She had the Channel swim coming up and after that, Louisa was sure, she’d return to school.

  It had started as a small wrong, hiding one letter. But now it was so much more than that. Louisa put this new letter back in the envelope, went to her room and put the envelope in the drawer with the others.

  Part IV

  29

  ‘HAVE YOU TWO MET?’

  ‘No, we haven’t,’ Harry Quick said. ‘And I’d remember.’ He grinned at her. God, he must look a fool, he thought. He was trying not to stare. Flowers, she gave off a scent of sweet f lowers. The evening had fallen but it was still warm. He pulled at his bow tie, collar, then saw the creeper vine behind her. The smell was the vine, not the girl. Still, he couldn’t keep his eyes from her. He felt light-headed.

  His hair was in his eyes, he knew, but he couldn’t summon his hand to push it back. He stared. Her green eyes seemed more cat-like than human. She wore a red dress. His eyes followed the dress, which fell over her hips like water. Silk, it must be silk. She was watching him. He met her eye.

  The other man smiled, taking his arm from around her waist reluctantly. ‘Careful, Quick. She’s a first-class shot.’ He’d invited Harry to a ‘little party at the house.’ The house was a mansion on Charles Street, high on the hill overlooking the city and the harbour beyond. He was in a tuxedo, his dark hair just starting to grey at the sides, those grey eyes that looked right through a person. Wisdom, Harry had thought when they first met. The man had wisdom.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said, trying to get Harry’s attention. ‘She’s in the Maryland Shooters’ Association.’

  She still hadn’t spoken. She regarded Harry and it was the way she held his gaze. She was not to be toyed with, or made a fool. She looked at her companion.

  ‘This is the doctor?’ Her voice made her sound younger than he’d thought she was at first; it was a schoolgirl’s voice. ‘It’s so nice you could come tonight. Did you say your name was Harry?’

  He nodded. ‘And you?’

  ‘Julia,’ she said. ‘So lovely to meet a friend of Lear’s.’

  Harry’s confusion must have shown on his face.

  ‘Me rather than the king,’ Manfred Lear Black said.

  ‘Julia,’ Harry said to Black later that night.

  ‘Hmmm?’

  ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘I thought she was younger. Is she at college?’

  ‘Brown.’

  He nearly revealed his feelings to Black, but something stopped him.

  ‘So you’re cousins?’

  Black nodded. ‘Her father is my mother’s brother.’

  ‘Good.’

  He found her on the terrace on the bottom lawn, which looked out to a lake house. ‘What are you doing down here by yourself?’ he said, a little drunk on champagne.

  ‘I’m trying to hide,’ she said. ‘My father wants me to propose a toast.’ She wiped her eyes. Harry had the impression she’d been crying.

  ‘A toast to what?’

  ‘To Lear. For his birthday.’

  ‘And you don’t want to.’

  ‘No.’ She turned to look at him. The moonlight was coming across to them as a thick shimmering line on the lake. ‘You’re a doctor. You could propose the toast.’

  ‘How would that qualify me?’ he said. ‘The hip bone’s connected to the leg bone …’ he sang.

  She smiled, gestured with her hand. ‘Oh, I don’t know. Just … let’s sit on the grass and we won’t be seen from the house and we won’t have to do anything they want.’

  So they did. Harry was in Baltimore for one more night. She was on her way back to university. If he was going to act, he had to act.

  Two hours later, he’d proposed, and she’d said yes.

  30

  CAP GRIS-NEZ, WHERE SWIMMERS WERE ALREADY ensconced for the season, was like a gentle smile. They’d had a rough crossing but as they came down the hill to the sea the Channel was quiet. They’d left England early in the morning of a perfectly calm day too. But about an hour into the journey, a storm had come up, creating a huge swell. The ferry was tossed around. In the worst of the weather, Catherine, who was immune to seasickness, had stood outside watching the water. The rain hit her face and ran down the oilskin coat a crew member had lent her. It was mighty, she thought; a living thing.

  ‘The old girl didn’t like us,’ Andrew said. He’d been sick for the first half of the journey but was better once the sea calmed. ‘You can’t be thinking you’ll swim it?’ he said to her when he came out on deck near Calais.

  ‘Apparently,’ she said. ‘I think it will be easier on a body than on a boat.’ Louisa had wanted to know if Catherine really wanted to attempt the Channel. With all the talk of how challenging it was, how it was a mental as well as physical test, of endurance, of courage, of strength, Catherine had become more nervous. Of course I want to do it, she’d said to her aunt, thinking of Mr Black, who’d been so good to her. She wanted to make him proud. But the journey across was enough to make her pause.

  They took the train to Boulogne and taxis from there to Gris-Nez, an unassuming place with two inns, a few houses, not even a store. The beach was defined by the headland at one end and rocks that jutted out at the other. The headland did look a little like a gris nez, a grey nose, smelling the sea.

  The cape was the closest land point to Dover in England, twenty-one mil
es away. Some swimmers still tried to go the other way, starting in Dover to finish in France, but the tides were kinder in this direction for the end of the swim. It was less distance for a swimmer than the Battery to Sandy Hook, Catherine knew, except that you could never plot a straight course. The water, now a deep blue, could be treachery or mischief, depending how the seas that ran into the English Channel were feeling on the day. They’d take you north or south at will. Trudy Ederle was within sight of Dover the year before when they pulled her from the water. The Channel had turned sour, and no matter how hard she swam, she could not make headway.

  Had it not been for the swimmers who came every summer, the Cape would hardly have a visitor. The day Catherine arrived the sky was a pale blue with a few clouds on the far horizon and she could see the coastline stretch away and disappear into the haze. The water was softly kissing the shoals below and it reminded Catherine of the island suddenly. She felt the pull of home.

  Catherine’s party was booked at the Hotel du Phare on the hill above the bay, named for the lighthouse that stood at the end of the grey nose. The three-storey hotel was tired, with rickety stairs and creaking windows, no electricity or running water. It was run by a couple who’d made a business of accommodating swimmers and reporters every year. They closed in the winter and opened now when the swimmers intent on conquering the Channel came in. The larger Hotel la Sirene, halfway across the bay and just above the beach, was more popular, but Catherine was glad to be somewhere she might have privacy—the reporters would stay at the other hotel.

  The Ederles had gone from Calais to Paris, which left Catherine on her own at the Cape for now. Helen Wainwright, the third WSA swimmer, had pulled out at the last minute with a broken arm. Trudy was doing interviews. The English papers said she was the only one of the swimmers who’d even come close to swimming the Channel before. She was particularly disparaging about Lillian Cannon, for some reason, claiming Lillian wasn’t a strong enough swimmer. She didn’t mention Catherine at all—perhaps she thought Catherine wasn’t even in the running.

  Catherine had been secretly overjoyed when Helen Wainwright pulled out, hoping that Aileen might join them in her place. She’d felt a bit lonely on the ferry coming across, even though Andrew was with her. But given the choice, Aileen had opted instead to prepare for university. Catherine was disappointed her friend wouldn’t be with her. It also made her realise that the choice she’d made, to come here to swim, might mean she’d never get back to school, and school was why she’d left the island in the first place.

  She’d tried to talk to Andrew about it. ‘Louisa’s right,’ she said. ‘I should be at school. That’s why I came to London.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t think too much about that now,’ Andrew replied. ‘Mr Black says you can run your own school once you swim the Channel.’

  So far, Catherine had been swimming as an amateur, which meant she could not earn any money. After the Channel swim, though, she could turn professional. Andrew said there would be sponsors who’d pay for her name. ‘They get you to stand there next to the cars they’re selling or wear the clothes.’

  ‘I don’t think I’d much like that,’ she said.

  Andrew had become so much more worldly since going to America. ‘What about you?’ she asked. ‘What will you do next?’

  He looked at her. ‘Yes. What about me?’ he said. ‘Mama is very keen on a girl my brother knew. We had a big family discussion about it when I went home.’

  ‘A girl your brother knew?’

  ‘A nice English girl.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Ah, Catherine.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Are we just in the wrong place at the wrong time?’ He looked at her. ‘You aunt keeps telling me how young you are, and I know that’s true. In a couple of years it won’t make any difference between us. Would you want to come back to America with me, do you think?’

  She had a strange feeling then, the same feeling she’d had when he kissed her in New York. She knew that, if she wanted him to, he’d kiss her again. But she wasn’t sure she did want him to. She didn’t answer him.

  He nodded. ‘I see,’ he said sadly. ‘When Donald …’ He smiled tightly. ‘He was the brave son.’

  ‘So, do you like this girl?’ Catherine said.

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘I do.’ He looked awfully sad, though, Catherine thought.

  The wind had freshened again. Andrew said he’d stay in the hotel and read a book, but Catherine walked to the top of the promontory and looked out across the water. Andrew had been like a big brother to Catherine and yet, when he’d kissed her, she’d felt different with him. Aileen had thought Catherine must have a crush on Andrew—who wouldn’t? Aileen said—and perhaps she did. But he wasn’t the sort of person she felt at home with. The only boy she’d really felt at home with was Michael. Did she feel about Michael the way she felt about Andrew? Did that mean she did have a crush on Andrew? She didn’t know. If she could combine how thrilled she’d felt when Andrew kissed her with how safe she felt with Michael, she’d have Aileen’s notion of a beau.

  She thought of Mr Black suddenly. Of course he wasn’t her beau, but there was something about him that felt safe. She wanted to please him, didn’t want to disappoint him. He reminded her of her father, she realised, and she felt sad.

  She looked out towards England, towards home. Was it home now? On a clear day, you’d see the cliffs of Dover. The smell of the sea filled her with happiness. She was shivering with the cold—the breeze blew straight through her coat—but happy to be back near the water.

  The next morning, she woke early, intending to go down to the beach on her own. The weather was settled and the sky was a perfect pale blue. She’d wanted to spend some time by herself, get a feel for the water before Mr Burgess, her coach, arrived.

  Catherine and Louisa had met Mr Burgess in London. He was the second person ever to swim the Channel, and Mr Black had engaged him and paid his fee. ‘He’s the best,’ Mr Black had said. ‘Can’t have my girl with some idiot.’

  He was a compact man with steel-grey hair and a grey beard, light blue eyes and dark leathery skin, as if he’d seen too many days at sea. Catherine felt comfortable with him. Very straight, Louisa said. He’ll be fine.

  ‘If you know your swimming, Catherine, I know the Channel,’ Burgess had said. He’d tried to swim across eleven times before succeeding. ‘So I know it better than most men do.’ He had a full-throated laugh.

  ‘I know my swimming, Mr Burgess,’ Catherine had said, relieved he wouldn’t be trying to change her stroke like Mr Handley had. Catherine knew that all five swimmers who’d conquered the Channel to date, including Burgess, had swum the trudgeon, a stroke Mr Handley had shown them that looked odd and was even more odd when you tried to swim it. It was a sort of scissor kick with frog arms. In America, many of the girls had started swimming by learning the trudgeon. It wasn’t until Mr Handley took over coaching that they swam a crawl. But Catherine had always swum a crawl, even if it wasn’t quite how Mr Handley wanted her to do it. She still kicked two beats for each stroke, or sometimes four, but never six.

  Catherine walked down a little path to the sea now. She reached the beach in five minutes but Andrew and the other newspapermen were already down there.

  ‘How you feeling, Catherine?’ one of them yelled.

  She smiled the way Andrew had said she should. ‘I’m feeling like swimming,’ she said.

  Andrew had said they’d leave her alone now that she was signed to Mr Black’s newspaper. Even in London, they’d started pestering her about this swim. The English papers had caught on to the fact that there was a challenger, and they all wanted to know what Catherine thought about what Gertrude Ederle was saying. Catherine replied that it wouldn’t be up to Gertrude Ederle, and it wouldn’t be up to Catherine Quick. ‘The Channel makes its own mind up,’ she said. ‘There’s no telling what will happen.’ But then they wrote that she was challenging Gertrude Ederle. Maybe Trudy didn’t say the things
they attributed to her either. Maybe they just made them up.

  When Catherine read the stories about herself in the paper and saw the pictures, it was as if they weren’t really writing about her, Catherine. It was as if they meant another person altogether, a person she didn’t know, a person she might not like very much.

  According to the newspapers, one of them would be the first woman to swim the Channel. Mercedes Gleitze was planning her attempt from the English side. There were other swimmers too, and the newspapers couldn’t get enough of them—or, at least, couldn’t get enough of some of them. Another American, Clarabelle Barrett, for instance, was a strong contender, but she was never in the newspaper. Clarabelle came from a wealthy New York family, and had been an early WSA swimmer. When her father died, she’d had to leave the WSA to turn professional and care for her mother. ‘One of our great losses,’ Charlotte had said. Now she taught swimming in schools. Clarabelle was the only one of them attempting the Channel on her own, with no funding for a trainer or even a pilot boat. She had no newspaper sponsorship, and her friends had lent her money to make the trip to France. The newspapers ignored her. Andrew said she was ‘not what we want on page three’.

  Aileen had told Catherine that Clarabelle was the swimmer with the most chance of success. She’d swum across Long Island Sound in May, when the water was freezing. She did look like a champion, Catherine thought when they met in France. She was taller than Catherine, over six feet. She had long auburn hair, which she wore tied back. At thirty-four she was older than the other WSA swimmers. She hated the photographers more than Catherine did. And they left her alone mostly, Catherine noticed. ‘Because she doesn’t look like you,’ Andrew said, and smiled. ‘She’s big and scary.’

  Clarabelle wasn’t swimming for fame, and there was no one like Mr Black or Gertrude Ederle’s father encouraging her either. She wanted money because she wanted to become a professional singer. When her father had been alive, he’d paid for her to learn to sing, but after his death there was no money left for singing lessons. She’d seen the stories on the Channel swimmers and had decided she should at least try. She’d been training all year. She was desperate to succeed, and it made Catherine want success for her.