Short Story: Swimming Against The Tide

Short Story: Swimming Against The Tide

‘Jump Cyn, the water’s lovely, jump girl, jump.’

Cynthia stood still, gripping the peeling rails of the pier, the gentle breeze cooling her damp brow, as she watched her two brothers laughing and splashing each other in the blue sea beneath her. She turned her head and noticed the children, laughing and licking ice cream while chasing the braver seagulls that were swooping down for fallen crumbs.

‘Come on old girl. You know you want to,’ Johnny her elder brother called over, the unmistakable stutter that he could mostly control, but not when he was upset or excited.

Cynthia slipped off her sandals and climbed over the bottom rail, crouching low to get underneath the top one. She stood for a single moment, arms above her head, ready to dive, remembering her technique and the many medals she had won for both platform and springboard in competitions around the country. On her toes now, one, two........

Her husband grabbed her tiny waist, as he helped her back through the white bars. He knelt down, strapping her shoes back on her feet and led her away. She looked back just once, but her brothers had disappeared from sight.

- - - - -

‘Hello, Mum, I’ve brought Ryan to see you.’ Jane kissed her mother’s soft cheek and put her baby on his grandmother’s lap. Cynthia made no effort to hold the boy, but she looked at him, and he gave her, in return, a toothless smile of recognition.

Ryan started to struggle after a minute or so and Jane lifted him off and put him over her shoulder so he could see the lights on the TV behind him. Cynthia gazed at her daughter.

Jane looked back, longing to see something in her mother’s face, some sign of pleasure, recognition or love. Instead she wore an expressionless mask with a far-away look in her eyes.

‘How are you Mum? Are they looking after you? Dad misses you so much you know.’ Jane found this the hardest thing of all. The one-sided conversation. She no longer waited for her mother to reply, she just talked about anything and everything, gave her mother gossip that would go no further and news that would once have interested her.

Her father walked in, his thin hair windswept. ‘Nearest parking space was about a mile away,’ he complained. He put his face in front of his wife; she gazed at him with dull eyes. ‘Oh, love, is everything alright?’ his usually strong voice trembled. Vince held his wife’s hand whilefather and daughter chatted away. They stopped when they realised Cynthia was staring out of the window. The gardener was digging the soil and getting plants out of a box.

‘Mum’s watching him.’ Jane was pleased. Her mother always loved growing flowers, fruit and vegetables. Her parent’s garden was tiny but it was a joy to behold in the summer months, ablaze with colour.

However, Cynthia’s attention wasn’t focused on the gardener; it was far off, in distant lands, remembering the pyramids in Egypt, the fjords of Norway, the pulsing streets of Naples. She and Vince had loved their holidays, had travelled extensively all over Europe and beyond. She was walking on the sand again, barefoot, the heat burning her toes. She remembered hearing the sound of the whales for the first time, the haunting melody that had never left her. She sat, sipping an ice cold beer in a tiny cafe, traffic screeching to a halt, voices shouting. She had been alive. So very alive.

Her husband kissed her hand and she wanted to smile at him. Tell him how much he meant to her. But her body, no, it wasn’t her body, this body wouldn’t respond. There were no words. They had been stolen from her. She wished she could hug her daughter, she could see her pain, and she needed to comfort her. Her arms wouldn’t respond. Most of all she craved to cuddle Ryan, her first grandchild. She would bury her face in his hair, smell the delicious baby scent, spoil him as only a grandmother can. Or could have done. She was unable to do it.

Her visitors left, unwilling to go but relieved all the same. Along with the other residents, Cynthia was fed, her food chopped up into tiny pieces and a nursing assistant shovelled it, spoonful by spoonful, into her mouth. She chewed. The mouth that couldn’t laugh or kiss, could chew. The throat that refused to give way to words could swallow. Funny how the body will try to survive at all costs, thought Cynthia, even though the heart and soul have given up.

The carers brushed her hair, cleaned her teeth, and washed her body. Some were very kind; some were extremely quick at their work. If they got it done fast enough they could have an extra five minutes outside with a cigarette. Cynthia didn’t mind either way.

One day she became ill. The doctor examined her. Her husband and daughter were by her bedside, but Ryan wasn’t. The little boy stayed at home with his own father.

‘There is nothing physically wrong with her,’ said the doctor, consulting his notes and then his watch; in another hour he would be on his way to the golf course.

‘Let me jump!’ said Cynthia suddenly. Her daughter gasped and everybody turned and looked at her.

‘You spoke, love, you spoke. Talk to me again. Speak to me love.’ Vince’s eyes were damp.

Cynthia had nothing else to say.

There was the sound of sobbing further down the corridor, quiet, desperate, sobbing. Somebody else joined in but instead of crying started laughing, madly. Shrieking. The shriek turned into a caw, a squawk. Cynthia watched as two seagulls landed next to her, and bickered between themselves for the discarded crust of a sandwich.

Dr. Moore didn’t get the urgent second call to ask him to return to his patient. It went to his partner as he was approaching the fifth green by then.

‘Come on Cyn, have a swim with us.’ Richard’s voice. He and Johnnie were beckoning from the sea which lapped gently below.

She removed her sandals and stepped over the lower rail and nimbly ducked down under the top one. Arms up, pressed against her ears, she pointed her fingers and lifted herself onto her toes for the dive. Out of the corner of her eye she saw her husband. He smiled thinly and winked at her. ‘I love you.’ His words hit the water as she did. And, her body belonging to her once again, swam strongly alongside her two brothers who had both died in the Second World War.

She pulled her head out of the water and turned to wave at her husband, but he was no longer standing on the pier, he was sitting next to a bed, on which a small body lay lifeless, his shoulders hunched, tears streaming down his cheeks.