It has been, she reflects while entering the leisure centre with a towel rolled beneath her arm, about ten years since she last swam. Can that be right? Ten years? Well, yes it must be, because she hasn’t been swimming since the children arrived. I mean, she has been in a swimming pool with the kids, of course, of course. But then she never actually gets a chance to swim. And she used to be such a graceful swimmer in her youth. Even into her twenties, she would regularly visit the pool, and knock out 40 lengths, alternating between backstroke, breaststroke and crawl. People often commented on the elegance of her stroke - creating not a ripple as she powered through the water. So it is with no small excitement that she receives her locker token from the reception desk and makes her way to the changing rooms. All this is different, she notes. The changing rooms used to be over there, she decides. Settling on the middle of three cubicles, she undresses methodically, placing the removed clothing in a neat pile. She unrolls her towel to reveal a threadbare one-piece costume that she has had for years. I’ll need to buy a new costume, she resolves. Finally, having wrestled with the locker, and fastened the key to her wrist, she walks through the showers area to the pool. No footbath, she notices. Whatever happened to footbaths? They always seemed rather insanitary anyway.
Wasting no time, she makes her way to the closest corner of the pool, and jumps feet-first into the water. The water temperature immediately surrounds her, and for a moment it is amniotic - she is suspended, at one with the pool. Then she surfaces, inhales, and kicks against the turquoise tiles to propel herself forwards into a breaststroke. About halfway along her first length, she thinks: this is hurting my thighs. This never used to hurt. Towards the end of her second length she realises that she is wheezing – gulping for breath. She reaches the end of the pool and awards herself a rest. She checks the time on the oversized wall clock: 8.15. Okay. Let’s aim for 20 lengths, she thinks.
Fingers cramped together, arms outstretched, then pushed out to the side, and then cupped into her torso as her legs thrust her forward and arms shoot out ahead. Suddenly, she has found her rhythm, and once again she is seventeen years old. As she glides through the water she feels the sunshine and the admiring eyes of the spectators on her back. As she approaches the end of the pool, she folds under herself, pulling off a perfect turn and shooting like a torpedo through the water, leaving a wake behind her. Now, she is nine years old and competing for the county in a regional championship. On a raised platform to her side her dad is jumping to his feet, shouting her name and cheering.
Lost in her reminiscence, she lifts her head from the water, mistimes her breath, and inhales a glug of the chemical-tasting water, right down to her lungs. She grabs the side of the pool, coughing, spluttering and wheezing. Once she has calmed down and regained her breath, she glances around the pool to see if anyone noticed. The other swimmers are gallant enough to look away, but she knows that they have seen her faux-pas, because she once again inhabits the shape of a 40-year-old mother in a tatty red bathing suit.
That’s about 20 lengths, she concludes, and exits the pool.
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