I swam a lot when I was young. I even helped my school team win a competition. My parents turned up for the event. That was a nice change. Rare treat, you could say. I don’t know what they thought of me that night. I suspect my mother was complaining the whole time, the usual stuff, wanting a chocolate biscuit with her cup of tea, and the canteen only offering plain digestives, getting all bothered by the noise of kids hollering, and parents cheering, wishing the whole world would just shush up when the races were on. My dad probably sat there, bony bum perched on hard bleachers, flaming beetroot face, the usual words muttered under his breath: for Christ sake’s, Sheila, would you give it a rest.
Trouble is, after all my glory of winning the hundred yards relay, me, the final girl on the Coleridge school team to belly flop into the water, no bloody style at all, mind you, madly splashing and kicking like a piranha’s on my heels, gob loads of bugger-it-determination fueling me to beat the grammar school kids no matter what, the frayed achievement badges on my bleach-faded swimming costume barely holding on, I didn't celebrate with my parents.
Leaving my teammates behind, most of them waiting for their mum and dad to take them home, I remember stepping out of the stuffy, damp building into a summer night, all airy and fresh, feeling the relief of school holidays fast approaching and the delightful dizziness of my win grabbing hold. Cardigan tied tight around my waist, strong shoulders, bare and soft, I sucked on a loose strand of dripping hair, as if it was a thick bendy straw, dipped in a glass of apple shampoo, with just a bitter hint of chemical aftertaste.
I met him outside the entrance to the pool, he was with a group of boys in their grey wool trousers, white pressed shirts, and red ties; a uniform I recognize from one of the nicer schools in town. Waving me over, I trotted toward him like a dumb donkey at the fair, accepting his offer to go for a walk.
He was good looking, sharp blue eyes chlorine-tinged a shade of blood red to match my own, blond, curly hair cut short, and the muscled torso of a swimmer. Feeling he was out of my league, I was shy and quiet in my neediness, misinterpreting his interest in wanting to know me as admiration for my swimming smarts. We didn’t talk much on the walk to the cemetery, as I followed slightly behind him on the narrow path, along busy Mill Road, pass the vegetarian shop with its whole wheat pizza by the slice and Barney's the cheap outdoor clothing store with its tarty sales girls to match, entering the open wrought iron gates and heading toward an area dense with gravestones and bushes.
When he found the right spot, dead quiet with no one in sight, he pulled me towards him to have a snog. And after he was done, emerged with his mouth open wide like a newly hatched frog breathing in deep the cool birthing air. Truth is, he was just a horny kid wanting to get off, and I dived right in, sinking to my knees at his command, frantically pulling on his belt buckle as he stood there cupping the back of my head in his hands, fingers tangling the dampness of my hair. And while my grammar boy panted hurriedly toward his finish line, my mum and dad were catching the bus home to Vinerary Road, eager to prop up their feet in front of the telly and eat their fish and chips.
