The J M Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society

by Barbara Zitwer

  Aggie glanced over, compassion in her eyes. “Well, the heart wants what it wants. Or perhaps another organ.”

  “Exactly!” Joey squealed.

  Aggie shook her head, as though she were not at all surprised. “His loss, my dear. But I’m sorry he hurt you. I know what that feels like.”

  “You do?”

  Aggie nodded seriously and remained silent for several moments before speaking. “When I swam the Channel, the first time, it was the culmination of a long – relationship. He was the first person I’d see in the morning – at five am – every day, up and training in the dark and the cold, all through the winter. He was my coach, my teacher, my inspiration. He told me I could do it and I believed him. Until I learned to believe in myself.

  “In the aftermath of all the excitement, I came to realise that the man had changed. The glow in his eyes was gone. All his enthusiasm for our joint project – and for me – just evaporated. Turned out it had never been about me, or us. It had all been about him. He described for the press how he had plucked me from obscurity, a woman with no natural talent, no aptitude at all. He was Henry Higgins and I was Eliza Doolittle – a mere project, a lump of clay. Three weeks later, he found himself a new protégée.”

  Joey shook her head. “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. I used to wonder whether I married Richard to get away from him. I stopped swimming. I didn’t go into the water for years. But now I realise how much I learned from that narcissist. I learned to tell the difference between a man who loved me for himself, and a man who loved me for me. Richard didn’t care about what I did. He cared about who I was.” “But you swam the Channel two more times. What got you back into the water?”

  “My friends.”

  “The ones you swim with now?”

  Aggie smiled. “The very same.”

  Joey had assumed that Sarah and her family would be spending the whole weekend at Benbrough House, and that one way or the other, she would be folded into the plans for dinner at Aggie’s or out at a restaurant. But as soon as the pony trials were concluded, Henry and Sarah packed everyone into the Range Rover for the two-hour trip back to London. They’d spent nearly every weekend in the country since October, Sarah explained, and she and Henry had plans for Sunday in town. Joey wasn’t sure she believed her. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the abrupt departure had more to do with the tension between her and her friend.

  “I’m sorry,” Joey had whispered as Sarah turned for a goodbye hug.

  “Me, too. I’m sorry I got mad.”

  “I was trying to stay out of the way,” Joey explained. “It was a family moment. I didn’t feel I belonged in the middle of it.”

  Sarah’s bittersweet expression only grew darker. She shook her head.

  “What?” Joey pressed. “What is it?” When Sarah didn’t respond right away, Joey felt her frustration rising. “I feel like I can’t do anything right. No matter what I say, you get upset with me. Everything I do is wrong.”

  “You were always like – my sister,” Sarah said haltingly. “My one and only. And I thought I was yours. If that doesn’t qualify as family, I don’t know what does.”

  They hugged each other tightly, both aware that whatever had to be resolved between them was not going to be resolved here and now. Not with a car full of hungry, bickering children and a husband who appeared anxious to get on the road.

  “I’ll call you,” Sarah said as she stepped into the car and closed the door. Joey nodded and waved until the car was out of sight, then accepted a ride from Aggie back to Stanway House.

  Chapter 12

  On Monday morning Joey settled down to do some work on the building plans. She needed to adjust some of her drawings to take in certain changes suggested by Massimo on his last visit. And she needed to do some thinking in preparation for a trip she was making to London the following week, to meet the English management company who were handling the renovation of Stanway on behalf of the Tracy family. They’d been pressing her for resolution on the concept for the Barrie Suite. It was going to be central to their marketing scheme, the opportunity for guests to stay in the room where he might have slept.

  Happy to be able to throw herself into work as an antidote to her confusion and unhappiness about Sarah, she began to research J.M. Barrie online and also to read some of the books she had brought from New York. Joey had long loved Peter Pan, but not until now had she seriously started to understand the man behind the book. She learned that James M Barrie lived alone; he had only been married once, for a brief time. But his world was rich and filled with love and kindness and friendship. His life had truly been a brilliant design for living.

  Among his friends was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whom he had met when they were at Edinburgh University together, long before they became famous writers. Coincidentally, they both ended up spending a great deal of time in the Cotswolds, and Doyle was on Barrie’s cricket team. One time Barrie had been commissioned to write an operetta and then had fallen ill. He was desperate and anxious to deliver the work and called his friend for help. Conan Doyle immediately came to his bedside and helped Barrie finish his commission. It was called Jane Annie, or The Good Conduct Prize. Although written by two of the greatest authors in the English language, it was an utter and complete disaster. George Bernard Shaw wrote a scathing review saying it was “ the most unblushing outburst of tomfoolery that two responsible citizens could conceivably indulge in public!” However, a few years later, Barrie, a man with a great sense of humour, repaid Doyle’s unconditional help with a special gift: a spoof of Sherlock Holmes, called The Adventure of the Two Collaborators. The plot involved two men who asked Sherlock Holmes to solve a mystery – why their operetta had not been a huge hit.

  Conan Doyle once wrote of Barrie that he was a man “about whom there is nothing small except his body”. Joey hadn’t known Barrie was so short – just five-foot-one. He must have looked himself like the boy who never grew up! The more Joey discovered about James M Barrie, the more she liked the sound of him. Barrie loved his friends and they became his family. Joey couldn’t help but think of Sarah. Would they manage to achieve what Barrie and Doyle had – friendship for ever?

  At about three o’clock, unable to read any more, Joey decided to walk over to the pond. The next thing she knew, she was piling her clothing neatly on the bench of the hut and adjusting the straps of her suit.

  She wrapped herself in a towel, pulled on her windbreaker and made her way down to the edge of the water, where all the ladies were sitting on a blanket spread out on the grass. She gently eased herself down, as Meg silently poured her a cup of tea and handed it to her. The noon sun was unseasonably warm; steam rose gently from the surface of the water.

  “No ice to break today, eh, Gala?” Joey said.

  Gala looked over and shook her head.

  Joey sipped her tea, listening to the women chat about a widower in town, someone called Mr. Walmsley, who had been seen in the company of a woman twenty years his junior.

  “Thirty!” Viv shrieked.

  “Maybe it was his niece,” Meg suggested.

  Lilia sighed in exasperation. “Honestly, Meg, sometimes I think you don’t have the sense God gave an ant.”

  “Ants are brilliant,” Meg said. “Have you ever read E.O. Wilson?”

  “I have not,” Lilia replied.

  “Well you should,” Meg said quietly. “It’ll change your opinion of ants.”

  “I don’t want my opinion changed,” Lilia responded. “I know everything I need to know about them.”

  “Which is obviously very little,” Meg chirped.

  Joey glanced around at the other women, who were smiling. She concluded that this gentle teasing must be business as usual.

  “It’s warmer today, isn’t it?” Joey said.

  “It’s like 1969,” Aggie replied, glancing around at the others. “Do you remember?”

  “Of course,” chorused Gala and Viv.

  “
It was the hottest January on record,” explained Lilia.

  “All my orchids died,” added Aggie. “One doesn’t forget a winter like that.”

  “And I, for one,” Gala announced, “am taking advantage of this splendid thaw. Nothing feels better than nothing at all. No suit for me today.”

  “Nor me,” said Viv. “Just give me a moment.”

  Joey was afraid that Gala and Viv were going to strip right then and there, but the old women hauled themselves to their feet and tottered off toward the hut.

  “I agree,” said Aggie, who did proceed to remove her suit right then and there. “Joey, dear, a day like this is a gift. You’ll notice that the water’s much warmer.”

  “But it was freezing last night,” Joey said cautiously.

  “That was last night,” said Meg, who had also begun to remove her suit. “Today is today. The pond is surprisingly shallow. It heats up quickly.”

  Gala and Viv came trotting back, wrapped only in large towels. Aggie and Meg had already shed their suits and now Lilia was peeling aside her straps. They all smiled at Joey. Was she going to strip off the ugly red tank suit and come skinny-dipping with the rest of them?

  She guessed she was. A little self-consciously, she slipped off her suit and joined the procession of pale naked females heading for the water.

  “Don’t give us another fright today,” Meg cautioned, as they slid off the dock and into the water. “Fifteen minutes at the most.”

  “Okay,” Joey said, before sliding underwater.

  They had all been right. The water was so much warmer that it was hard to believe she was swimming in the same place. Ribbons of warmth and pockets of heat caressed her body as she swam through the cool pond. Again, she felt rejuvenated and clear. Her skin began to tingle and grow taut, and waves of pure energy flooded her body, as though the pond was electric and was somehow recharging her.

  Her forearms and legs felt strong as she swam the crawl. She slid underwater, opening her eyes in the murky brown, pulling herself through the alternating waves of warmth and cool. When she surfaced, the sun was bright above her. She floated on her back, staring up at the cloudless sky, and felt suffused with a great sense of peace and calm.

  Out of nowhere, she thought of her mother.

  She’s here, Joey felt, with utter certainty. Mount Carmel Cemetery, with its rusty iron fence and sad little plastic bouquets left by people without the means to keep the graves adorned with real flowers, suddenly seemed irrelevant. Her mother was here, with her, and with the sun and the wind, the water and the sweet, bracing air.

  Joey turned over and scanned the surface of the water. Aggie, Lilia, Meg, Gala and Viv were splashing each other like children at play. She swam toward them, these five ancient women who had been, up until a few days ago, complete strangers to her. How could she explain the effect they had had and how important they now felt to her? It made no sense at all.

  She was a working girl from New York. She wasn’t religious or philosophical. Her thinking was logical, concrete, as sturdy and enduring as the skyscrapers of her hometown. If someone had said the word angel to her, claiming that their life had been somehow “touched by angels”, Joey would have laughed in their face. Until now.

  “Isn’t it great?” shouted Aggie as Joey swam toward her.

  “You’re sure there aren’t any men around here?” Joey called.

  “No men. Ever!” Gala said. “We’re freeee!” Gala dived under the water and soon appeared by Joey’s side.

  Joey nodded eagerly. As an American, Joey had always taken freedom for granted. The word would have special significance for Gala.

  Lilia had been swimming toward them. “Not everyone wants to be free of men, Gala,” she said. “Many women feel comfortable being taken care of, being a helpmate to the man they love.”

  “Maybe so,” replied Meg. “It’s certainly an easier choice, in some ways. Freedom can be lonely. One pays a high price to maintain one’s independence.”

  “A higher price than to relinquish it?” asked Viv.

  They were all treading water. Joey thought it would make far more sense to continue this conversation on land, but she wasn’t going to be the one to suggest it.

  “Think of our families,” Aggie said reasonably. “If every woman did exactly as she pleased, there’d be no families, no children.”

  “Oh yes, there would!” Meg maintained. “There’d be millions of children! And no one to take care of them! Their mothers would be off making more!” She laughed wickedly.

  “Well, that’s what men do, isn’t it? Sow the seed and leave the rest to us ladies? Not all men, of course, but down through history…” Aggie said.

  “Richard wasn’t like that,” Gala put in.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Aggie replied. “He would have done anything for me, and I would have done anything for him.”

  “Anything?” Meg piped up, “Anything? That sounds like enslavement to me!”

  “Meg!” Aggie cried. “I never was and never would be a slave to anyone, family or friend, in deeds or opinions!” Aggie shot Meg a baffled look. “How could you think that of me?”

  “You’re certainly a slave to your work, Meg.” Lilia pointed out. “So where’s your freedom?”

  Meg laughed, refusing to be offended. “I freely choose to be a slave to my work. So there!”

  Joey had been watching and listening, but she wasn’t going to wade into this hornets’ nest. These girls really kicked it around!

  “Are you married, Joey?” Viv asked suddenly.

  Joey shook her head.

  “Not yet,” Aggie said kindly.

  “I work pretty long hours,” Joey explained, hoping to change the subject.

  “That’s no excuse,” Gala put in. “You know what Freud said, everyone needs both work and love.”

  “Freud said no such thing!” Viv protested.

  “He most certainly did!” Gala said grandly.

  “I was going out with someone,” Joey said softly, “but it didn’t work out.”

  “His fault or yours?” Meg asked bluntly.

  “I don’t know,” Joey replied. “I guess I didn’t make him happy. Or happy enough.”

  “No one can make another person happy,” Viv opined, “if they’re not happy within themselves. That’s why so many marriages fail.”

  “Is it?” asked Meg with a grin. “How about that – you’ve got it all figured out! You should write a book.”

  “I should!” said Viv cheerfully.

  “I agree with her,” Gala said.

  “I’m not saying that married people can’t be happy together, can’t bring joy to each other and comfort and security, but no person can cure another human being’s fundamental unhappiness.”

  “What if people are unhappy because they’re lonely?” Aggie asked. “And then they get together and they’re not lonely any more. Hasn’t one person cured the other’s unhappiness?”

  “That’s not the same thing,” Gala said.

  “Yes it is,” Aggie insisted.

  Viv shook her head. “I’m talking about deep-seated unhappiness within oneself. That’s not the same as loneliness.”

  “Speaking of lonely,” Gala sputtered, “I hear you’re staying at Stanway House. Have you met the caretaker?”

  Aggie shot Gala a warning glance, but Gala seemed oblivious.

  “You mean Ian?” Joey asked.

  “Handsome man, isn’t he?” Gala went on. “And that Lily is a beauty. Just like her grandmother.”

  Joey turned to look at Lilia, whose face was like stone.

  “Now there is a man who seems lonely,” Gala said gently. “Maybe –”

  “Ian is married,” Lilia whispered. She turned suddenly and made her way to the ladder and climbed out of the water.

  “Was married, Lilia. It’s been seven years. You have to remember that.”

  Lilia paused at the top of the steps. She seemed barely able to speak. “You don’t need to remind me how
long it’s been. I’m aware of every day I live in this world without my daughter.”

  “No, don’t go!” shouted Gala. “Please. I’m sorry.”

  Lilia turned and stared, her naked flesh white and stark. “You can be so hard sometimes, Gala. I know it’s what helped you to survive the trials in your life… But why do you turn it on your friends?”

  “I want Ian to be happy again,” Gala cried. “I want you to be happy.”

  “That will never happen,” Lilia said. “For me, or for Ian.”

  “He can be. So can you. I let go of my ghosts.”

  “Then you’re a stronger person than I am,” Lilia said resignedly, scooping up her towel and heading for the hut.

  Gala scrambled out of the water.

  “Let her go, Gala,” Aggie said quietly.

  But Gala wasn’t listening. She moved toward Lilia as quickly as her old legs would carry her and threw her arms around her just as her friend reached the entrance to the hut. Gala pulled her into a tight embrace. Resisting at first, Lilia finally softened, and buried her face in Gala’s shoulder.

  Chapter 13

  The high, shrill whine was like nothing Joey had ever heard. Dusk was closing in and Joey was walking Tink by the woods that bordered the park behind Stanway House. She had let the dog off her leash, slightly against her better judgment – she didn’t trust her not to run off, excited by sounds and scents far more primal and commanding than the ones she routinely encountered in New York, but equally she couldn’t resist giving her the chance to sniff and dig at the edge of the woods.

  She heard the horrible whining and wondered what it could possibly be. She assumed it was some kind of animal in distress, but it never occurred to Joey that it could be Tink. Then Joey saw her at the edge of the woods, pawing at her snout, whimpering. Joey raced toward her.

  Tink seemed oblivious to her presence when Joey knelt beside her. She was bleeding, from her nose, and snout, letting out the most pitiful wail Joey had every heard. Her head was caught in what looked like a roll of barbed wire. Joey was paralysed for a moment, sick with fear and revulsion. Coaxing Tink, she set about pulling her free of the thick metal thorns.