The J M Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society

by Barbara Zitwer

  Joey heard Aggie’s voice and turned to see her waving from the bank, the others at her side. They were motioning for her to return to shore. But Joey didn’t feel like coming in yet; she fought a fleeting wave of annoyance as she turned and began to swim toward the shore. First they badger her to get in, and then, the minute she’s in, they’re badgering her to get out!

  “Time to come OUT, Joey. Now!” Aggie yelled.

  Meg jumped to her feet. “Now! Hurry. You could lose a hand!”

  Joey didn’t hear their words, but she sensed their anxiety and understood that it was urgent – no, extremely urgent! – that she get out of the water right away. Could there be a shark? No, that was crazy: this was a pond, not the ocean. But something was wrong. She started to feel panicky as she struggled to reach the shore.

  She was suddenly dead tired. She seemed to be in a dream, trying desperately to make progress with limbs that would barely move.

  All of the women were clustered on the dock when she finally placed one foot on the ladder and reached for the rails. To her dismay, Joey found that neither arm nor foot responded to her will. Looking down, the foot she had attempted to place on the stepladder was hanging uselessly in the water. She reached for the rails, but her arms grazed the metal with all the force of a gentle caress. Somewhere, in the distant nerve endings of her fingers, she felt the metal of the pole, but even as she tried to close her hands around it, she found herself pitching backward into the water.

  This, she realised, was not right. She now could feel absolutely nothing.

  “Aggie,” she gasped, in a voice that came out in shivers. She had no control at all. Everything was backwards. Her face muscles contracted whenever she tried to speak, but in her arms and her legs, she could feel nothing.

  “Aggie! Help me!”

  At once, the women were organised like an aqua-rescue team. Aggie and Lilia in the water, Gala and Viv prepared to receive Joey on the dock and Meg on her way to the hut for blankets and towels. Within moments, Joey was safely in the clutches of strong arms, and then she was on the wooden platform. Together, the women all but carried Joey to the hut, and sat her down on one of the benches.

  Meg wrapped her in warm towels. As the women fussed and chattered around her, Joey found it hard to concentrate. She felt removed, but also almost exhilarated with exhaustion. As she sat before the burning stove, a slow tingling sensation started creeping up her toes, then her feet, then her legs. “That stinging,” Meg said, as Joey shook out her hands, “is just the nerve endings. It means everything has survived, and your limbs and all your digits are still healthy. That’s how they test for frostbite. If your fingers and toes didn’t sting, they’d be headed for the chopping block.”

  Aggie wrapped another blanket around her shoulders. “It was a grand thing to do, my dear, staying in that long.”

  “It was a foolish thing to do,” Lilia added curtly, handing Joey a cup of tea. “You could have died if we hadn’t got you out when we did!”

  “I didn’t know,” Joey whispered. “I had no idea. It felt – wonderful.”

  “Let’s not be overly dramatic, Lilia,” Gala said. “We should have warned her. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s ours.”

  Viv handed Joey the lid of a flask. “Drink this, darling. It’ll do you the world of good.”

  Joey took a sip of hot whisky. God, did it feel good. Gradually, her skin and muscles were reawakening in the soothing warmth.

  “I’m sorry,’ Joey said. “I didn’t know.”

  “And that is our fault, not yours,” Aggie decreed.

  “It was completely amazing,” Joey whispered. “It was like – nothing I’ve ever felt.”

  Aggie nodded.

  “We know,” Meg agreed, and the others nodded in unison.

  Joey gazed at each in turn, wondering how they could be so calm in the face of the profound experience she now shared with them. “It’s the most extraordinary sensation I think I have ever had.”

  “No it isn’t, dear,” Aggie said evenly.

  “It is!” Joey insisted. “You need to keep this a secret! Or tell the whole world! I’m not sure which.”

  The women giggled and smiled.

  “We’ll keep that under consideration,” Lilia announced.

  “We’ll take a vote,” Meg added.

  “We will not,” opined Viv, pouring a little more hot whisky into the cup and handing it to Joey. Joey sipped it gratefully, its warmth spreading within her. She gazed around, and for a moment she saw in the women around her the twenty-year-olds they once had been: brash and beautiful, proud, vain, anxious to live passionately and with purpose, desperate to love and to be loved.

  Had life favoured them with luck? Yes and no. One could hardly call internment in a concentration camp a stroke of luck. One could only label the loss of a child, even a grown child, a stark and utter tragedy. But they had loved, these beautiful, proud, ancient women, and they had been loved. That was something, Joey thought.

  Maybe the most important thing.

  Aggie threaded her arm through Joey’s as they walked across the great field.

  Behind them, Viv, Gala, Meg and Lilia weaved their way through the frozen grasses.

  “Thank you, all of you,” Joey said, stopping at the edge of the field. “I haven’t felt this good in – maybe ever.”

  “How sad!” Viv quipped, mimicking a glum face. “You need to be having more fun!”

  Aggie gave Joey’s arm a squeeze.

  “Look at her skin,” Meg said. “She’s just glowing.”

  “I’m hooked,” Joey responded. “I really am. I can’t wait to do it again. Are you there every day?”

  “Rain or shine,” Aggie replied.

  “Or snow!” Viv said brightly. “It rarely amounts to much.”

  “Then – maybe I’ll see you – tomorrow,” Joey suggested gently. She hoped to hear a chorus of “Yes, please, join us!” but Lilia seemed to be ignoring her and Gala was distracted by some mallards winging their way over the distant hedgerows.

  “Lovely, darling,” Aggie said. “Shall I give you a lift to Stanway House?”

  Joey’s first impulse was to refuse, but she felt chilled and a little shaky. The sensation had returned to her arms and legs, but she didn’t have the energy to run home and certainly didn’t relish the idea of making her way back to the house, wearing only her lightweight running clothes. She glanced around at the women and wondered whether they were going home to husbands, companions or empty houses. The thought that they might be facing long evenings alone caused her to blurt out impulsively:

  “I have an idea. Could I take you all to dinner? If you don’t already have plans, I mean. I’d love to repay your kindness and – well, I’m pretty sure I owe you my life.”

  “You don’t owe us a thing,” Lilia snapped.

  “I never eat in restaurants,” Gala announced. “I don’t trust other people’s cooking.”

  “You don’t trust other people, period,” Meg replied.

  “I most certainly do,” Gala said grandly.

  Meg shook her head. “I don’t tend to eat proper dinner any more. I don’t feel it’s good for the constitution. I have tea and two seven-minute eggs at half six, hot chocolate before bed, and a ploughman’s breakfast, every morning.”

  “Thank you for the full report,” Viv teased, a note of irony in her voice. “Would you care to tell us how you sugar your tea?”

  “I don’t,” Meg crowed with satisfaction. “You know that.”

  “As you can see, we’d probably kill each other if we spent any more time together,” Viv confided with a grin.

  Lilia snorted, “Speak for yourself.”

  “You’ll come again,” Viv said confidently to Joey. “We can do our visiting by the water.”

  She seemed to be speaking for all of them, as they nodded and waved and trudged toward their waiting cars, parked at skewed angles just off the road. It was late afternoon and the gathering darkness made it feel, o
nce again, like mid-winter. Joey slid in beside Aggie and was grateful when the car began to warm.

  Chapter 11

  Saturday dawned clear and cold. Sarah and her family had arrived from London late the previous night. Perhaps wanting to avoid any further missed connections, Sarah had called Joey at about ten the night before to finalise plans for their morning together. A leisurely lunch wasn’t going to be possible, given the schedule of the pony club rally, but they’d have a good two or three hours in the morning to visit a couple of places Sarah really wanted Joey to see.

  Joey would just as soon have whiled away the morning in a cosy village café, drinking coffee together, but Sarah seemed determined to play the role of tour guide. Maybe, thought Joey, Sarah wanted to prove that she still cared about things other than the feeding of four little Howards.

  By the time Joey heard the crunch of Sarah’s tyres on the gravel out front, she had been up for over two hours. She had taken Tink for a long ramble in the woods behind Stanway House, a jaunt enlivened by Tink’s pursuit of several squirrels who’d been unwise enough to dart into sight.

  On hearing Sarah’s knock, Joey hurried down the winding staircase and pulled open the heavy front door. Sarah was smart in wellingtons, soft wool trousers and a green Barbour jacket. She wore a faint dash of mauve lipstick that brought some colour to her cheeks.

  “You cut your hair!” Joey screeched.

  “You like it?” Sarah asked uncertainly.

  “It looks fantastic..” And it did. While Sarah hadn’t gone so far as to add any tint or streaking, the shoulder-length bob was gracefully layered in waves around her face. “Turn around,” Joey ordered.

  Sarah turned, a little self-consciously.

  “I love it, honey. It really looks great.”

  “I was so embarrassed.”

  “About what?”

  “The nest.” Sarah looked hurt.

  “I’m so sorry. I should never have said that.”

  “No. You should have! That’s what real friends do. So, as you can see, I’ve made a bit of an effort.”

  As though to cut off any further discussion of this obviously painful moment, Sarah stepped into the hallway and glanced around. “This is where Aggie was married, you know.”

  “She was? Here?”

  “Well, in the estate chapel. But the reception was in this room here.”

  Sarah led Joey across the stone expanse and into a large room lined with mullioned windows.

  Joey gazed around and could instantly imagine it all – hundreds of candles flickering in the candelabra and sconces, the strains of chamber music echoing through the cavernous space.

  “They used to have Manorial courts here, too,” Sarah said quietly.

  Joey moved about the space, her running shoes squeaking on the floor. It was majestic. She could easily imagine Aggie gliding around the room in a beautiful dress, rays of sunlight catching the motes of dust high above.

  “People think it’s bad luck, though.”

  “What is?” Joey asked.

  “Getting married here.”

  “Really?” This wasn’t good news. The Apex Group, she knew, were hoping to market Stanway House as the perfect place for a wedding. They’d drawn up all sorts of packages, from renting the entire manor and the services of its staff for the weekend, to having a simple ceremony and reception in one of the smaller rooms. Smaller being a relative term.

  “Why?” Joey asked.

  “There’ve been a lot of weird stories. Like this one couple, who got married here some years ago. They were friends of Alasdair Tracy. The bride’s first husband was killed in a car crash and she met this new guy. It was a gorgeous day. The sun was out and the guests were scattered across the lawn with their champagne glasses, then, right at the end of the reception, the bride looked out towards the fountain, where everyone was gathered, and she saw the ghost of her dead husband. Just standing there, silent and watching. She ran through the crowd, but by the time she got to where he was standing, he’d disappeared. And ever afterwards she was convinced he was living with her and her new husband, always in their house. It was like there were three of them in the marriage.”

  Joey looked pensive, but, despite her best efforts, began to laugh.

  “You don’t actually believe that,” she said.

  “I most certainly do!” Sarah replied.

  “Aggie swam the Channel?” Joey cried in disbelief. She and Sarah had left the car by the side of the road and were making their way along a path that led to a thicket of trees.

  “She didn’t tell you? She was seventeen. She’s done it twice since then.”

  That explains some things, Joey thought. Now if that had been Joey, she mused, she would have been broadcasting her achievement from the rooftops.

  “For their first anniversary,” Sarah went on, a little out of breath, “Richard – that was her husband – hired a yacht and had them taken across the Channel, along the exact route Aggie followed when she swam it.”

  “That’s so romantic.”

  “He was. Runs in the family.”

  They ducked under an arch formed by trees and brambles, and emerged onto open ground. Sarah pointed to a spot on the top of a nearby hill.

  A great Gothic tower composed of grey stone stretched up from the earth. Even from this distance, Joey could tell that it was at least three storeys high. Turrets adorned its jagged parapet, and from one, a colourful flag fluttered gaily.

  “That’s amazing,” Joey said.

  “Over two hundred years old.”

  “Looks as solid as a rock.” Joey scrambled up the hill. “It amazes me how well these builders understood their materials, the physics of the job, the stresses of exposed locations like this. They were geniuses.”

  Sarah hurried to catch up with her. “Henry brought me here just a couple of weeks after I arrived,” she said. “It was up there –” she paused, pointing to the tower – “that I knew I was in love with him. And with England.”

  “Who built it?” Joey asked as they reached the heavy vaulted door.

  “The sixth Earl of Coventry.”

  To Joey’s surprise, they were able to push the door inward and enter the tower.

  “They just leave it open like this?” Joey asked.

  “Aggie made a call. Officially, it’s closed until April.”

  “What was it used for?” Joey asked. “A lookout?”

  “The Earl’s fiancée lived some miles away,” Sarah explained. “During their engagement, he built it so he could burn a fire on the roof that she would be able to see from her house. It was his way of letting her know that he was thinking about her.”

  Joey stared up at the ancient stone, the polished wood. Sarah headed for the curving interior stairway that would bring them to the top of the tower and Joey followed.

  “And while she’s a county away,” Joey said, “locked up in her father’s house, gazing off at the fires, he’s right here having a final fling, whooping it up with all the fair young maidens.”

  Sarah stopped on the stairs and turned, narrowing her eyes.

  “You are such a cynic.”

  “No, I’m not,” Joey smiled.

  “You’ve been living in New York too long.”

  “You’ve been living in Camelot too long!”

  Sarah gave Joey a wry grin then led her up the rest of the stairs and into a large, beautifully furnished room.

  “This,” Sarah said grandly, “is the Morris room.” She headed straight for the doorway on the far side, “Named after William Morris, the writer and designer. He used the place as a country retreat, did some of his best work here. You should see his designs, he was one of the greatest Pre-Raphaelite –”

  “I know who William Morris is, Sarah,” Joey said, struggling to contain a hint of annoyance.

  “You do?”

  “I did go to design school. You can buy note cards of his motifs in virtually any stationery store. They still use his wallpaper patterns.”<
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  “Right, sorry…” Sarah reached the doorway that opened onto a balcony. She beckoned Joey over. “Look, you can see the whole county from here.”

  Joey crossed the room and stood in the doorway. Bends and dips of land stretched out before her, green fields and trees with crimson leaves, rolling streams bisecting the landscape and what, from this height, looked like toy towns nestled neatly between the hills.

  “Nice, huh?” Sarah threaded her arm through Joey’s and drew her close. “Henry brought me right to this balcony. I’d been here a couple of weeks; I was really missing New York, missing you.”

  The wind stung their cheeks and made Joey’s eyes water as she gazed out across the fields.

  “I missed you, too,” she said, acutely aware of what an understatement this was. From the time that Joey was four years old, when she and her parents moved into her current apartment, Sarah had been like Joey’s other half. Except for the two weeks every summer that Joey spent at camp and the two that Sarah spent on the Delaware shore, they were rarely apart.

  After Joey inherited the apartment, Sarah all but moved in, cooking them delicious casseroles that filled the place with the smell of home. And after Sarah left for London, for good the last time, Joey had drifted tearfully around her silent flat for days, inconsolable. Losing Sarah had been almost as hard and disorienting as losing her mother.

  “We stood right here,” Sarah said. “Henry told me the story of the lovesick Earl and I asked him, ‘Would you do the same for me, Hens?’”

  “You didn’t!” Joey said wryly. “You should never ask a man something like that. Either he’ll lie, or he’ll give you an answer you don’t want to hear.”

  “Would you shut up and listen?”

  Joey grinned, turning her face back to the wind.

  “‘No,’ he said, just like that. ‘No, I wouldn’t – ’”

  “I told you,” Joey crowed.

  “‘Because I refuse to be that far away from you. Ever. Don’t go back to New York, please. Stay. And marry me.’”

  Joey shook her head and grinned.