Page 29 of The Night Shift
‘Indeed.’ She pulled his other hand until only both their heads remained bobbing above the surface. This close to her, he could see the freckles scattered across her nose, the pale pink of her cheeks, the impish turn of her mouth as she smiled at him. A few strands of hair poked out from her navy swimming hat and added to the elfin quality of her features. She looked delicate, like fine china, like a naughty porcelain elf.
‘We’d better get moving,’ she said, breaking his gaze. ‘Don’t be trying any Olympic front crawl, it’s like the breathing, slow and steady.’ She turned and checked that he was okay before she disappeared under the surface of the water and bobbed up a metre away, her fingers cresting the wave of a graceful breaststroke.
‘You don’t have to get your head under,’ she said cheerfully. ‘It might feel a bit much for your first time.’
Gus pushed himself forward from the floor, his head held rigid and resolute above the water; even pride couldn’t force his chin beneath the surface just yet. He managed a couple of strokes but felt like an ageing diva trying to preserve a face full of make-up as he extended his neck away from the cold. The rest of his body was now starting to feel warm– well, maybe not warm but a temperature more compatible with life anyway– so he risked lowering his jaw, keeping his sightline on Violet’s booted feet as they met and separated a metre in front of him. She turned her head to check he was following her and resumed her swim, cutting through the water with barely a splash, her long legs stretching out to their full extent before she drew in her knees, splayed her feet and kicked back, the small bow wave catching Gus’s chin. ‘You’d better not wee in the pool,’ he shouted over to her. ‘I’m right behind you, immediately downstream.’
He could hear the laughter in her voice as she replied.
‘Might warm things up a bit,’ she said and turned her head to look behind her again. ‘I’ll swim ahead now I know you’re not going to drown. We’ll keep an eye on the time. Don’t want to be in for too long.’
‘No danger of that,’ said Gus cheerfully. ‘My body’s not going to let me forget it wants out of this scenario as soon as possible.’ But as he said this he realised that it wasn’t true. His chest no longer felt tight, his limbs felt warm, heavy but powerful as they sliced through the pool. And the splash of water against his cheeks no longer felt painful, more refreshing. He risked two strokes of front crawl that brought him back to touching distance of Violet’s feet so he reached out and tweaked one of her toes.
‘Hey!’ she laughed, kicking back at him. ‘I said no racing, remember? Slow and steady. I was trying to give you some space.’
‘I can’t help it if my body is a machine,’ he said. ‘Maybe I’ll reconsider my SAS application now. I’m clearly a natural.’
He could see the rise and fall of her shoulders as she laughed. ‘Less talking, more swimming from you,’ she said. ‘Seeing as you’re such a natural.’ And reaching the end of the pool she executed a perfect rolling turn and dived beneath him so that he could see the entire length of her body gliding past in the opposite direction as she skimmed the pool floor.
‘Now who’s showing off,’ he called as he reached the edge. He stopped to catch his breath and looked back down the pool, watching Violet continue her clean leisurely strokes to the shallow end. He realised in that moment that he was enjoying himself. In spite of the cold, and the fact that he was in the middle of a week of nights, and to all intents and purposes living a lie, he was actually really enjoying himself. He felt invigorated, just as Violet had said he would. His core temperature had stabilised, his pulse rate had slowed and he felt both physically spent and wide awake. He also realised, as Violet yet again checked over her shoulder to make sure he was okay, that he had forgotten what it felt like to be looked after. Usually, it was his job to make other people feel safe and secure, to reassure them that everything was going to be alright. His professional demeanour tended to extend into his personal life with every effort made to put people at ease by remaining calm and unflappable. But he hadn’t been unflappable as he’d entered the water, he had been very much flappable. And Violet had seen it, sensed it and not drawn attention to it. She had simply told him to breathe, let him know she was there and that he was safe. He wasn’t sure he could think of the last time anyone had done that.
Violet
Violet towelled herself dry in the changing rooms, nodding and sharing limited hellos with the women around her. The older lady from yesterday was back.
‘Saw you with the new chap,’ she said, smiling in Violet’s direction. ‘Husband or boyfriend?’
Violet pointed to herself just to check the woman was talking to her, not that there was anyone else on her side of the changing room but it struck her as a little forward to ask such a question of a perfect stranger. The woman nodded as if to say,yes, you, dear.
‘Oh no,’ said Violet. ‘He’s not my– uhm– you know– boyfriend. He’s just a colleague.’
The woman raised her eyebrows as she reached around between her shoulders and zipped up her suit from behind. ‘A colleague,’ she said. ‘I see.’ She sounded somehow unconvinced, and Violet found herself volunteering more information, not something she would normally do.
‘We’ve just finished a night shift,’ she said. ‘I find the swimming helps me sleep so…’
‘So, he thought he’d come with you, did he?’ The woman smiled to herself ‘I’ll bet he did.’ She rummaged around in her bag for a moment as Violet towelled her hair. Most of it was dry from being under the swimming hat but the nape of her neck remained damp and a bit chilly.
‘He’s very easy on the eye, isn’t he, your colleague?’ the woman said casually, pulling her neoprene boots out of the bag. ‘Not that any of us care what people look like here, of course. And I’m not sure one is even allowed to make those sorts of comments generally these days. Do men mind being objectified? My grandchildren would probably tell me I’ve committed some cardinal sin against political correctness and body-shaming.’ She eased herself down on the bench. ‘Although, they’d also likely be astonished that I’d even notice a good-looking chap at all, at my age!’
Violet didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t even sure that any conversational involvement was necessary from her point of view but she was keen to change topic. ‘Are they staying with you for the holidays?’ she asked, remembering the woman’s comment from yesterday.
‘Yes, just for a few days.’ The older woman’s voice was fond. ‘I love them all dearly but the younger ones are quite exhausting and the teenagers are terribly intolerant of anybody who’s not completely on their wavelength. I’ve been asked why my coffee isn’t fair trade, why I haven’t got an electric car, and whether I can get them a vegan alternative to the turkey dinner, and they’ve only been awake for about four hours between them, so they’ve managed to cram a lot of judgement in during that time!’ She wrestled on one of her boots. ‘Oof, these things are a bugger to get on, aren’t they?’ She laughed. ‘Even worse to get off when your fingers are all numb though. I’ve sometimes thought I might just wander home in them, save myself the effort!’
‘Yes,’ Violet laughed as she slipped into her fleecy tracksuit bottoms and a pair of thick woolly socks. ‘I’m always relieved when I get the boots off.’ She wrapped her suit up in her towel and squeezed them into her bag. ‘Well,’ she said. ‘I’ll be off. Enjoy your swim.’
‘You taking that handsome man for a drink of something to warm him up?’ the woman said. ‘He’ll need it if that was his first time cold-water swimming.’
‘I– uhm– maybe?’ Violet hadn’t given much thought as to where she and Gus might go next. Well, she might have given itsomethought to be fair. In fact, if she was honest, she’d been thinking of little else since she got out of the pool.
‘The café just around the corner’s open today,’ the woman continued. ‘Not all of them are, this close to Christmas, but I noticed as I walked past this morning, they’ve got a lovely selection of cakes in the window and it’s terribly cosy.’ She gave Violet a look to suggest that she’d be out of her mind not to take a gorgeous man like Gus somewhere terribly cosy for a few hours.
‘Oh, he probably wants to head off, get some sleep,’ said Violet, swinging her bag onto her shoulder. ‘I’m not sure we’ll bother but thanks anyway.’
The woman snorted. ‘I saw the way he was looking at you out there in the pool,’ she said. ‘He’ll not be heading off in a hurry, believe me.’
‘Oh, right.’ Violet paused in the doorway. She didn’t know how to tell this woman that she’d got it wrong, that Gus had a fiancée who, in all likelihood, he was desperate to get home to. It was none of her business and she just wished she’d shut up. She’d obviously entirely misconstrued the entire outing and was daydreaming up some romantic notion of Violet and Gus gazing adoringly at each other over a shared mug of hot chocolate.
* * *
