The Swimmer Chapter One

The Swimmer

Chapter One: The Accident

Marie submerged her body in the icy water her breath catching in her throat and the skin on her arms and legs prickling. She pummelled the water her arms slicing through its surface. She propelled her body backwards and forwards through the pool swimming innumerable lengths. She elegantly hoisted herself out of the edge of the pool. She retrieved her towel from where she had tossed it over one of the wooden benches that lined the side of the pool. She roughly dried her hair with it twisting a coil of damp hair round her shoulder. Darting furtive glances around the seemingly empty pool to ensure she was really alone. She clambered out of her swimsuit that clang stubbornly to her wet body. She stared into the opaque blue depths of the pool. Staring back at her was a thin, pale young woman with prominent, silver scars tracing their way from beneath her breast to the place where her stomach grazed the top of her groin. Her reflection quivered as the water that filled the pool swayed gently. She had not heard his heavy, urgent tread as she had been consumed with her thoughts. She had been thinking of the accident and of the ugly mark it had gouged into her. She considered it every time she looked at her naked body. It had once been so strong, so brave. It had been a swimmer's body with a firm stomach and muscular legs. Now it was vulnerable and soft. She still swam, but she would never be the same. She always swam alone now too. She could not bear the way the eye was always drawn from her pretty, angular face to the scars that were etched into her body. She felt his touch before she saw or heard him. She flinched as his fingers traced a path from the tip to the base of the scars.
"You know I don't like that." She batted his hand away and swivelled around to face him. She rested her head against his broad chest listening to the calm pulse of his heartbeat.
"I think they're beautiful, I think you're beautiful."
He hooked a finger underneath her chin drawing her face up so their eyes met. He had beautiful, arresting eyes. They were pale blue as calm and serene as a cloudless, summer sky and were flecked with chips of green and brown.
"What's the matter?" His large, calloused hands brushed away tears she had not even been aware of shedding.
Suddenly conscious of her bare body she grabbed the towel she had cast aside and draped it around herself.
"For goodness sake, Marie, I've been with you since before the accident," Mike's gentle, patient voice was tinged with anger and frustration. "Your scars won't scare me away and neither will you."
His hands reached to pull away the towel, but Marie retreated a step from him avoiding his touch. She avoided meeting his gaze, but could feel the disappointment in his eyes burning into her. Angry and fearful tears burned in her eyes. They scorched like acid as they fell down her cheeks.
"What's the matter with me?" Her voice echoed as it bounced off the walls of the swimming pool. She had not meant to speak so loud or for her voice to be filled with such horror or such self-disgust. She fled from the swimming pool clutching her towel around her.
Marie stumbled onto the street her backpack hoisted onto one shoulder. She cast a look behind her at the nondescript door she had just emerged through which was flush with the nondescript building that it was granted entry and exit from. Mike had not caught up with her. She was suppressing the fear that she had pushed him too far this time. He was gentle, patient and understanding, but even such a kind man had his limits. It had been a year and she still hid, what she considered, her disfigured body from him. She yearned for the period before her accident when she flaunted her slender, womanly figure in front of men, in front of him. She had worn cropped tops that clung to her chest and skimmed her belly button. Now she had faded. Men's eyes no longer trailed her as she walked down the street. She knew it was psychological. She hid her slim body in loose tops and long, ill-fitting trousers. Their eyes could not penetrate her clothes. They could not know. She pressed her eyes to the ground, her shoulders hunched, wishing that she was invisible. She yearned to evaporate so suddenly that no-one would notice, that no-one could save her. She used to be so vibrant and carefree. Her laughter would ring through a room before anyone else's. She always smiled, as she was content and satisfied with her life. She had her swimming career and she had Mike. If only she had known that the accident was going to happen. She would have clung to every race, to every caress Mike and she had shared. She would never revel in the nakedness of her body when she was with Mike again. She wandered down the street letting her feet dictate where she went as her mind was consumed with reflection. She had become more intrusive since the accident. Somehow she found herself at the local vintage bookshop. Her fingers brushed the spines of books as she navigated the aisles of the bookshop. She relished the scent of old books which was a mingling of must and mildew. Aside from swimming she enjoyed reading. In fact 'enjoyment' was a mild description of how she felt about reading. When she was passionate about something she felt that passion wildly and unrestrainedly. His hot, salty breath brushed the nape of her neck. His hand curved her cheek.
"Fancy Marie being in a bookshop," Mike's sarcasm was not meant to taunt or mock. It was gentle. "Did you really think you could escape me that easily?"
They settled into two sagging, black, leather armchairs that sat opposite each other. Mike extended a hand to Marie which she clasped with her own hand their fingers interlacing.
"It's time to talk about what happened, Marie."
It had begun a little over a year ago in that same bookshop. She had been seated on one of those exact black armchairs her legs tucked underneath her. She had been immersed in a book whose title she could no longer recall. She felt warm, safe and comfortable. The conversation surrounding her seemed distant and hushed. He had to repeat himself several times before she realised he was talking to her.
"Yes." She had to drag herself away from the world of the book she had submerged herself in. Her mind resisted the pull of this stranger.
"Excuse me," He said once more. "I didn't mean to disturb you but I could do with some help."
She stared up at Mike for the first time. He was tall, broad and sturdy craning down at her. He had closely cropped hair, dazzling eyes and full voluptuous lips surrounded by a few days' growth of stubble. Marie stared up at him her mouth agape. A moment of awkward silence stretched between them that seemed to last considerably longer than it actually did.
"Of course," Marie said eventually. "I know this bookshop quite well."
She unfolded her long legs and got to her feet. At 5ft 9inches she was not used to men towering over her but Mike did so. She easily and swiftly aided Mike in the request he had made of her.
"Would you like to go for coffee?" A crimson blush flushed across her cheeks at he voiced his request, a request that had probably started millions of relationships. It certainly started theirs.
"Of course," She replied eagerly, hungrily. "I would love to."
Their comfortable, serene, happy life unfolded from that brief meeting in a bookshop and they thought that it would continue to unfold forever. They thought that their love would never end, that nothing to tarnish or taint it.
Mike gave her the car. It was a 1986 Cadillac Deviller. It was too grand, too austere a gift especially as Mike and her had only known each other a matter of weeks. She ran her hand along its sleek, shiny, black side. It was the most beautiful, elegant car she had ever set eyes upon let alone owned. She encircled her arms around Mike's neck drawing him down to her. It was evident she was a reckless driver. She was reckless in everything. She was a reckless swimmer. She pushed herself too hard. She took too many risks. She was too cautious now. She did not take risks. Did Mike still love her? She was not the woman he had met in that bookshop all those months ago. He had an endearing lop-sided smile that he flashed at her as he handed her the car keys. The accident did not happen that first drive though it easily could have.
It was a night out like any other. The long, messy, blonde hair that he loved to rake his fingers through was pinned up coils spilling free and falling into her eyes. She was wearing a dress that ended at her thighs to reveal her long, brown, firm legs and that hugged her lean body. Mike's hand was planted in the small of her back steering her through the club which was vibrating with dancing, conversation and drinking. Marie was teetering on her high heeled shoes threatening to fall onto the hard, sticky floor.
"Let go of me, Mike, I'm fine." Marie's words were so slurred looking back at that night she was surprised he understood her.
Mike seized her minute handbag and retrieved her car keys from it. It would not be the first time she had attempted to drive drunk. She darted for the keys aware of the advantage Mike had over her considering his height, build and sobriety.
"It's for your own good, Marie, you would regret it in the morning if anything happened."
"Who are you to tell me what to do?"
"I'm the man who loves you and who knows you the best."
"Okay all that's true," Marie admitted propping herself up against a brisk wall. "But I want to live, Mike, I want to take risks and throw caution to the wind."
Mike caught her as she threw her arms up stumbling forward. He drew her to him enveloping her in the warm, musky scent of his body. She could feel his hard, muscular body pressing against her.
"I love you, Mike." The words tumbled out unbidden.
"I love you too." Reflecting back on those marvellous, magical words Mike had said to her that night, as she reflected on everything she could recall of that night, she thought when Mike said her loved her it meant more than when she had said she loved him. Of course she had meant it. He had been sober though. His mind had been clear and ordered. She could be sly when she was drunk. She did not drink anymore. If she did she would suffer painful, vivid, horrific flashbacks of the accident and everything that had led to and followed it. She lulled Mike by stroking his strong, handsome face while groping for the keys that dangled from his fingers. She grasped for them her dingers closing on them. She fled from him while his mind processed that the car keys were gone.
"Don't do it, Marie." He warned assuming his serious, commanding stance where he furrowed his brow, planted his feet slightly apart and placed his hands on his hips.
It was too late. She was in the car. Her hands were on the steering wheel ready to drive. A mischievous smile was stretched across her face. She pushed the car as hard and as fast as she could. She noticed it as the car swerved from one lane to the next but dismissed it in the drunken haze that muddled her mind. An accident would never happen to her. She had driven drunk before and nothing had happened. She unwound the car window the wind lashing her face as she propelled the car faster and faster. The lights of the lorry flashed illuminating the inside of the car and momentarily blinding her. The honk of the lorry's horn filled her head making it more difficult for her disordered mind to think clearly. She swerved off the road. She grasped at anything for purchase as the car tumbled over and over and over. The last thing she felt was a shard of glass slitting her torso as the world became dimmer and darker.
The world was hazy and distorted as she awoke. Her head throbbed painfully. She could feel the drip in her hand and could hear the machines she was attached to beeping. The cuts that extended from beneath her chest to the tip of her groin pulsed. They were bandaged and would be so for a while. It would be a few weeks before she had the nerve and the courage to look at her naked body and the scars that were scorched across it. She could feel Mike stroking her hair that was sprawled across her pillow. It was an absent touch. It was the touch of someone who does not know how to handle a situation and it trying to be useful. She did not look at him immediately, but she recognised his warm, dry touch.
"Hello," Marie said her voice hoarse from not being used for a while. "How long have I been out of it?"
"Shush, it's okay. Just rest."
They remained like this for an unknown expanse of time. Mike perched on the edge of a red, plastic chair while Marie lay in bed too spent to speak or listen to him. At some point Marie drifted into an uneasy nightmare of flashing lights, shards of glass and the jingle of car keys dangling from a finger. She awoke from her troubled dreams as if she was emerging from beneath deep, icy water. He coiled his hand around hers squeezing with a firm yet gentle pressure. She knew then that he would never leave her despite the scars and despite how much they would change her. He had meant it when he had said he loved her. Her eyes fluttered open forgetting for a moment the alcohol, the car keys, the swerving car and the scars.
They married shortly after that in a small, dingy hospital chapel with two random strangers as witnesses. Of course she lost her license, as if she would ever drive again, and was given a considerable fine. Neither of them had any family to invite to the ceremony. She mused that maybe that was why the two of them were drawn so strongly, so irrepressibly to each other. They were each other's family. He was not much of a reader but he enjoyed watching her curl up on an armchair at the foot of their bed sucked into the landscape of whatever book she was reading. He knew she was disturbed with guilt about what could have happened in that accident, It could have been so much worse, and with despair and nostalgia about her floundering swimming career. She could not talk about it, but it simmered unspoken between them. She knew she should have listened to him and he knew she should have too.