Oasis of calm
Jeremy Clarke
At the local swimming-pool, various sessions throughout the week are reserved for the exclusive use of women, schoolchildren, naturists, beginners, GP referrals, naturist GP referrals, youths, water-polo players and early risers. Because I happen to be none of these things, the only sessions open to me until recently were the so-called public swimming sessions, which can be a bit like Clacton on an August bank holiday before the war.
It’s been many years since a birthday conferred extra rights and privileges on me. But now that I’ve turned 50 years of age, I qualify to enter the pool during a lunchtime slot in the new swim timetable called ‘50 plus’. Naturally, I wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole. A vital, active, young-at-heart person like me doesn’t need cosseting in some feeble council-sponsored equivalent of burial at sea. I continued instead to fight my way up and down the pool during the public swimming sessions, regarding the shaded squares on the swim timetable signifying ‘50 plus’ with contempt. Lane swimming at my local pool gives me more satisfaction than anything else I can think of at the moment. I haven’t swum regularly for some years and it’s great to be back. Fully clothed and on dry land I’m nigh on useless. Underwater in pink Calvin Klein racing trunks and pale-blue Speedo Pacific goggles I’m lithe, purposeful and effective. I love the water in the very literal sense that every stroke is a loving embrace; which is the secret, I think, if you’ll forgive the didacticism, of powerful, economical and graceful swimming. Accomplished swimmers caress the element; the less accomplished fight it. I’m working on backstroke at the moment, and after hundreds of lengths am now as familiar with the steel girders supporting the underside of the prefabricated aluminium roof of the swimming-pool as I am with the damp places on my bedroom ceiling.
At public swim sessions, two swimming lanes are roped off from the rest of the pool: one for fast swimmers, one for slow. Both lanes are always busy with traffic. By and large front crawlers thrash up and down the fast lane: breaststrokers bob up and down in the slow lane. My backstroke is at present slightly too fast for the slow lane, and slightly too slow for the fast lane, which inconveniences everyone. ‘You’re in the wrong lane!’ I’m told, whichever lane I’m in. I might even get the odd deliberate kick. Lane swimmers can be surprisingly rude and aggressive.
One day last week I turned up a bit too early for the scheduled public swim and happened to look through the window between the pool and the reception area. A 50-plus session was just ending. There was one woman in the pool, swimming very gently. Her languid breaststroke barely disturbed the surface tension of the water.
It’s a lovely pool when it isn’t overcrowded. The water is cleaned by ultraviolet light instead of chlorine. The surface of the pool is level with the surrounding apron, which is always pleasing to the eye. One side of the building is plate-glass from floor to ceiling. On the other side of the glass is a line of young sycamore trees and beyond these a view of a pretty estuary. In the morning the sun penetrates tree and glass and lights the tiles at the bottom of the pool. It was that time of the morning. In sunlight the pool was pellucid. The woman swam contentedly through the bright, still water. Compared with the pandemonium and turbulence and sheer pent-up aggression of the lane swimmers at an average public swimming session, ‘50 plus’ was an oasis of transcendental calm. I must be mad, I realised, to stick with public swimming when I could be enjoying the pool when it was as empty as that.
The next time I went to the pool it was for the 50-plus session. ‘Swim, please,’ I said, presenting my membership card to the woman behind the desk. She should have said, ‘Sorry, sir, over-50s only for this session, I’m afraid.’ To which I was going to suavely reply, ‘But, honey, I am over 50.’ That was how I was hoping it would go. In reality she swiped my card and slapped it down in front of me without saying a word.
I had the pool, which is 25 metres by 12, entirely to myself. It was lovely. I was congratulating myself on my good fortune, lack of prejudice and flexibility, when I somehow managed to fracture my little toe by accidentally kicking a sharp edge of the metal stepladder at the deep end, and was in so much pain for a while I nearly drowned. The attendant, who was virtually paralysed with boredom, failed to notice.
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