The J M Barrie Ladies' Swimming Society

by Barbara Zitwer

  Joey nodded.

  “Do you knit, Joey?” Viv asked.

  “Not me.”

  “It’s very meditative.”

  “If you’re good at it,” Gala put in. “I suppose it’s like cooking that way. People who are good at it find it relaxing, but people who don’t know what they’re doing turn into nervous wrecks when they have to roast a chicken.”

  Between the crackling woodstove and the hot tea, Joey was suddenly sweltering. Lily seemed happy in the company of Viv and Gala, and Joey began to think about going in for a swim. She wasn’t going to be in England much longer, and after the dispiriting events of the past couple of days, she found herself longing for the joyful exhilaration she had experienced in the freezing water.

  “I might go in for a dip,” she announced, when the conversation had reached a lull.

  “Be my guest,” said Lily, in a tone that communicated that she had no interest whatsoever in joining Joey in the water. “We’ll cheer you on from the sidelines.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” Joey teased.

  “I know exactly what I’m missing,” Lily shot back. “Double pneumonia!”

  Aggie, Lilia and Meg were still a fair distance away when Joey slipped off the dock and into the pond. Perhaps because she was prepared to be shocked by the temperature, or perhaps because of the unaccustomed warm weather they had been experiencing, her first few moments in the water were less shocking than in the past. She felt the familiar tightening of her arm and back muscles as she launched into an easy crawl, her spine lengthening and stretching out, her legs propelling her across the expanse of grey-blue. She wished she had made more time for swimming in the past two weeks and wondered whether she might join the health club with a pool when she got back to New York. It wouldn’t be the same, of course; nothing could match the thrill and joy of swimming like this. But all the pounding of running was beginning to take a toll on her knees. Swimming was an exercise you could do for life.

  Joey dived under the surface and burst into a fierce underwater breaststroke, propelling herself forward, holding her breath for as long as she could: eight frog kicks, nine, ten. Reeds moved around her in slow motion as the sun lit the water from above. She glimpsed the tiny webbed feet of a passing duck and wondered if she could do twenty kicks and arm circles without coming up for air. But on the sixteenth kick, she had to break the surface, gasping for oxygen. Turning to swim back, she saw Lily standing on the dock, smiling and waving.

  And now Lilia, Meg and Aggie were approaching the ladder, finished with their laps. Joey dived under the water again, and when she resurfaced, she saw Lilia and Aggie on the dock with Lily. Meg was just climbing up the ladder. All the joy was gone from Lily’s expression. Lilia had grabbed her granddaughter by the forearm.

  Joey mustered all her energy and swam back to the dock as fast as she could. Lilia turned to glare at her as Joey approached the ladder.

  “I’m leaving right now!” Joey heard Lily shout.

  “You stay right where you are, young lady,” Lilia snapped.

  “I came to be nice! I came to make you happy. But nothing makes you happy!” Lily sputtered. Joey had reached the ladder by now, and she hauled herself out of the water. Meg, having apparently decided to opt out of the inevitable fireworks, was making her way back to the hut. Gala and Viv had come out and now stood behind Lily on the dock.

  “Lily just wanted to see you,” Gala said.

  “This is none of your business, Gala!” Lilia snapped. “Just stay out of it!”

  She turned her fury on Joey.

  “Why don’t you just leave us all alone,” she yelled at Joey. “No one asked you to come here.”

  “I asked her, Lilia,” Aggie said calmly. “Now let’s not ruin this beautiful afternoon.”

  “What about ruining my family?” Lilia shouted. “That’s what she’s doing, poking her nose in where it doesn’t belong, waltzing right in like – like a typical American, helping herself to whatever she pleases: Stanway House, my daughter’s husband, my own granddaughter!”

  “I asked to her to bring me here, Granny! I thought you’d be happy to see me!”

  “With her? You thought I’d be happy to see you in the company of that – that tart?”

  Joey, stunned into silence, glanced at Aggie, who looked dumbfounded, and then at Viv, who looked terrified.

  Gala turned and headed purposefully back to the hut.

  “Lilia.” Aggie’s voice was steady. “Calm down now. Please.”

  “Let’s all go inside and have a nice cup of tea,” Viv suggested nervously. “Or get Gala to make us her special cocoa.”

  Lilia tightly grabbed her granddaughter. “We’re leaving. Right now.”

  “No,” Joey said, finding her voice at last. “I’ll leave. I made a mistake by bringing Lily here, obviously, and I’m very sorry –”

  “You should be!” Lilia shouted. “ You are a foolish, selfish woman and I, for one, shall be very glad to see the back of you!”

  “Well I won’t!” Lily shouted. “She’s been really nice to me! Much nicer than you!”

  Lily tried to pull away from her grandmother’s grip. Lilia, forearms strong from her years of swimming, held on tight, forcing Lily to use the weight of her full body to try to break away from her grandmother’s grasp. Lily bent her knees slightly, attempting to anchor her weight, not realising that she had placed her right foot on a partially thawed patch of ice at the edge of the dock. When Lilia let go, Lily flew off balance, then tried to right herself, slipping on the ice, and toppling into the water, cracking her head on the edge of the iron ladder as she fell.

  “Lily!” screamed Lilia, as Lily seemed to arch her back against the cold and then suddenly go limp in the water.

  Adrenaline kicked in and spread like wildfire through Joey’s body. She dived into the pond, and Aggie was right behind her.

  “Call an ambulance, Viv! Hurry! She’s unconscious,” instructed Aggie, as soon as her head cleared the surface.

  “Lily!” wailed Lilia. “Lily!” The woman seemed paralysed, unable to do anything but speak the name. Hearing the noise, Gala appeared at the door of the hut and then raced to the edge of the water.

  “Get a board!” Aggie yelled. “Bring us a board.”

  Lily was breathing, but still hadn’t come to.

  “We have to stabilise her, she may have broken her neck,” Aggie whispered. “The wrong movement could paralyse her.”

  “Oh my God!” said Joey. “Lily? Lily, can you hear me?” Joey and Aggie slipped their arms under her torso and head and gently held her at the surface of the water, so she could breathe.

  “You’re okay, Lily,” Aggie said calmly. “You’ll be fine, darling. We’ll have you out of this water in a minute.”

  Viv and Gala had located a board, and they ran to the dock, placed the board on the surface of the water, and slid into the water themselves. Lilia watched from the dock, seemingly unable to move.

  “Slip it under her spine,” Aggie instructed them. They were all treading water, which made everything awkward and difficult, but soon they were able to slide the board under the water so that it supported Lily’s spine, neck and head. She still hadn’t opened her eyes.

  “Hang in there, honey,” Joey kept whispering. “You’re doing great. You’re doing fine.”

  “We have to get her out,” Aggie said. “We can’t wait for the ambulance to get here, the water’s just too cold. Joey, you get up on the dock and hold her head steady while Gala and I lift her on the board. Viv, you go help Joey.”

  Viv and Joey scrambled up the ladder as fast as they could.

  Joey saw Meg rushing from the hut, mobile phone in hand.

  “They’re on their way,” Meg shouted. “They’ll be here in a minute or two.”

  “Lilia!” Viv screamed. “We need you! Help us!”

  This seemed to snap Lilia out of her state of shock. She hurried over and knelt down between Joey and Viv on the do
ck.

  “You and I will lift her, Lilia,” Viv instructed. “Joey will keep her head stabilised.”

  Lilia didn’t speak, but she nodded. Meg knelt down, ready to help.

  Aggie and Gala floated the board so that it was right next to the dock. Joey leaned down and placed her hands on either side of Lily’s head, so it wouldn’t move from side to side when she was lifted.

  “Ready?” Aggie called, placing Lily’s arms across her chest.

  “Ready,” Joey and Viv replied.

  “Okay, on three, Gala. One, two, three!” Aggie and Gala lifted the dripping board out of the water with difficulty and Lilia, Meg and Viv took it from them, as Joey held Lily’s head stable. As they were lying the board gently on the dock, they heard the sound of an approaching siren.

  “Thank God,” Viv whispered.

  “I’ll get blankets,” Gala cried, hurrying up the ladder and stumbling off toward the hut.

  Joey reached for a towel that was on the dock, and used it to apply a little pressure to the gaping wound in Lily’s scalp. She didn’t want to press too hard, but now that Lily was out of the water, the cold temperature of which had temporarily staunched the flow of blood, Lily was bleeding profusely. After what felt like hours, Joey looked up to see paramedics hurrying toward them, carrying a back-board on top of a stretcher.

  Joey must have been in shock herself, because she resisted turning Lily over to the paramedics. They had to pull her hands gently away from Lily’s head wound.

  “No,” Joey said. She didn’t want anyone but her and Lilia and the other ladies to hold Lily’s fate in their hands.

  “It’s okay, Ma’am,” said the paramedic. “We’ll take good care of her.”

  They carefully placed Lily’s head in a brace, cupped an oxygen mask over her mouth and nose and applied a gauze bandage to her head. Then they lifted Lily and the board straight onto the stretcher. Because the terrain was rocky and uneven, they carried rather than wheeled the stretcher up along the path into the woods and out of sight.

  Lilia, ashen-faced and with Viv’s woollen coat draped over her shoulders, went with them, to ride with Lily in the back of the ambulance. The others would follow as soon as they were dressed.

  “Where are they taking her?” Joey asked, as the women hurried up the path to the hut to dress.

  “Broadway General,” Viv replied.

  “How far away is it?”

  “Ten, fifteen minutes.”

  “Call Andrew, Meg,” Gala said.

  “I’ve already called him. He’s in the hospital, he’s going downstairs to meet the ambulance.”

  “Meg’s son is head of surgery,” Aggie explained.

  “Do you think she’ll need surgery?” Joey asked. “Oh my God.” Joey was peeling off her suit now, and struggling to pull dry clothes onto her damp limbs.

  “They’ll have to watch for a brain bleed,” Meg said solemnly.

  “What’s that?” Joey said.

  “It’s when the brain hits against the inside of the skull. The blow can tear blood vessels, and then you bleed right into the brain.” Meg shook her head, imagining the worst.

  Joey suddenly felt light-headed. Lily’s skin had felt so warm between her hands. Her eyelids were creased with tiny blue veins, like an infant’s. Please let her be okay.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, now,” said Gala.

  “No one’s jumping to conclusions,” countered Viv sourly.

  “It could be nothing worse than a knock on the head,” Gala continued.

  “It’s all my fault,” Joey said, “If I hadn’t brought her –”

  “It was an accident,” Gala snapped. “She slipped on a patch of ice. It could happen to anyone, any time.”

  “We should call Ian,” Joey said. “Somebody has to call Ian.”

  “I’m sure they have,” Aggie said gently.

  “Lilia’s in a state of shock,” Joey said, reaching into her jacket pocket for her phone. As she dialled Ian’s number, she found herself praying that he was home.

  “Pick up, pick up,” she intoned, as the phone rang, three, four, five times.

  “Hello?” she finally heard him say.

  “Ian, it’s Joey.”

  She hadn’t rehearsed what she was going to say next, but there was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Ian,” she whispered. “There’s been an accident. Lily’s being taken to the hospital, Broadway General.”

  There was a little cry of anguish on the other end of the line. “What kind of accident?”

  “She slipped and fell into the lake – banged her head. She’s in good hands, gone in an ambulance with Lilia.”

  “I’m on my way,” Ian said, and then the line went dead.

  Chapter 23

  By the time they reached the hospital, Ian had arrived and had been taken into the emergency ward, where a doctor was already evaluating Lily. Upon receiving his mother’s frantic phone call, Meg’s son Andrew had briefed A&E, and the trauma team had met the ambulance. As horrible as the situation was, at least they had done all the right things at the pond, and within half an hour of being injured, Lily was being tended to by the best doctors in the hospital.

  Aggie and Joey approached the charge nurse with the pile of Lilia’s clothing.

  “What are these?” the distracted nurse inquired.

  The term “battleaxe” bubbled up into Joey’s consciousness. In the woman’s defense, Joey thought, one probably needed a stern constitution to deal with what came through the emergency ward doors.

  “Dry clothes,” Aggie replied. “For the grandmother of the girl who was just brought in, Lily McCormack.”

  “What does she need with dry clothes?”

  ‘We were swimming,” Joey answered. “She’s only got a bathing suit on under that coat.”

  “Swimming?”

  “At the pond behind Gordon Robinson’s farm,” Aggie explained.

  “In January?” the nurse exclaimed, taking the pile of clothes gingerly, as though she suspected that they might infect her with the sort of madness that would lead otherwise sane people to go swimming outdoors in the middle of winter. Joey didn’t mean to be unkind, but it occurred to her that the ruddy, heavyset charge nurse could do with a little swimming herself.

  Joey and Aggie joined Meg and Gala in the waiting room. It was just like every other hospital waiting room Joey had ever spent time in, except that there was no television mounted up by the ceiling. The tables were piled with well-thumbed, out of date magazines: Golf Weekly, Woman’s Own, Hello. The chairs were bolted together in groups of three and the stale, overheated air smelled of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant. Gala, Meg and Viv sat down in a row. Joey felt Aggie’s hand in hers, leading her over to another group of chairs along the far wall. They sat down.

  “Just so we’re crystal clear here,” said Aggie firmly, “none of this is your fault.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought Lily to the pond.”

  “Bringing her to the pond isn’t what made this happen. An impulsive teenager slightly prone to melodrama slipped on a patch of ice. That’s what made this happen.” Joey shook her head, desolate. Just then, a tall, sandy-haired man in scrubs pushed through the doors marked “No Entry”.

  “Andrew!” Meg flew to her feet and the man walked over and put his arm around her.

  “Hello, Mum,” he said.

  “How is she?” Gala blurted out.

  Andrew walked over to where Gala, Meg and Viv had been sitting. Joey and Aggie stood nearby.

  Andrew took a deep breath and eyed them warily. Joey and Aggie exchanged nervous glances.

  “She’s in good hands,” Andrew began. Looking around at all of them, his gaze stopped at Joey; he was obviously wondering who she was.

  “This is Joey Rubin,” Aggie explained. “She’s a new friend of ours. She’s overseeing the restoration at Stanway House.”

  “Pleasure,” Andrew said, nodding.

  “Nice to meet you,”
Joey replied.

  “Normally I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you anything, but Ian gave me permission,” Andrew said. “Lily took quite a hit. There are rough waters ahead.”

  “Dear Lord,” Viv whispered.

  Andrew’s words seemed very far away. Joey suddenly felt as though she were watching the whole scene from outside of herself, her breathing slow, her ears filled with cotton. She wondered if she were going to faint, so she sat down and took a few deep breaths, hugging her knees.

  “She’s a ten on the Glasgow Coma Scale,” Andrew continued.

  Joey’s stomach lurched at the mention of the word coma.

  “What does that mean, darling?” Meg asked.

  “Under eight indicates a very severe injury, with the possibility of lasting brain damage, or – worse. Ten is in the middle of the moderate range. The higher the score, the better. Points are assigned according to how long a person stays unconscious, and then, when they wake, whether they can speak, answer questions, whether they withdraw from pain, obey commands for movement. How dilated their pupils are.”

  “Does she have a concussion?” Gala asked.

  “Most definitely. But many concussions aren’t all that serious. The real question is whether the impact caused any tearing of the veins that supply the brain with blood, and how much, if any, bruising occurred to the brain tissue itself.”

  “How can you tell?” Joey asked.

  “It plays out over time, usually about seventy-two hours. The first twenty-four are the most critical, though. If the brain has been injured, it swells, just like an ankle will swell if you hurt it. But since there’s so little room inside the skull, swelling can cut off the brain’s blood supply by compressing the veins. We don’t want that to happen. Also, we have to watch for signs of intracranial bleeding. If she bleeds and clots, we’ll have to get in there and remove the clot. Fortunately, we’re well equipped here to monitor Lily for all these things.”