The Deep End on Thursday

Ellis chose the adult swimming class because the advertisement said no experience necessary. It failed to mention that, at fifty-six, he would need the courage to wear the shorts he had purchased online.

They were orange. In the changing-room mirror they seemed visible from space.

He wrapped himself in a towel and entered the pool area, where a woman in a dark blue swimsuit was negotiating with the shallow end.

“I know you’re not going anywhere,” she told the water. “I’m trying to be reasonable.”

She noticed him watching.

“It’s a private discussion.”

“Of course.”

“Excellent shorts.”

“That feels unnecessarily personal.”

She smiled. Her name was Bea. She was fifty-three, managed the accounts for a furniture company and had promised her granddaughter she would go into the sea on their holiday next summer. Ellis had enrolled because his doctor recommended exercise and because he was tired of inventing reasons to sit beside swimming pools.

Their instructor, Nadine, asked everyone what they hoped to learn. One man wanted to improve his breathing. A woman wanted to swim a length. When his turn came, Ellis said, “Enough to stop pretending I prefer watching.”

Bea looked at him, then down at the water.

The first lesson involved putting their faces in. Ellis managed one ear. Bea managed both cheeks and emerged with an expression of such outrage that he laughed before he could help it.

“I was assured this would be dignified,” she said.

“By whom?”

“Nobody. That may have been the problem.”

Afterwards they stood by the vending machine with wet hair, comparing their small achievements. She had blown bubbles. He had briefly trusted the edge enough to let go with one hand.

“Same time next week?” she asked.

“Unless I escape the country.”

“Bring me back a towel.”

He thought about her on the bus home. His wife had died four years earlier. Since then, other people had been careful around him, even when he wanted them to be ridiculous. Bea had made fun of his shorts within a minute of meeting him. He found himself grateful.

By the fourth Thursday they were sharing the lane nearest the steps. They encouraged one another without pretending progress was equal. Bea could float on her back. Ellis could move several metres holding a foam board, although he remained convinced it was plotting against him.

They began having tea in the leisure centre café. Bea disliked the thick mugs but approved of the cheap toast. Ellis learned that she had been divorced for eleven years, that her daughter lived an hour away and that she had once considered joining a walking group before discovering its members began at dawn.

“I wanted companionship,” she said. “Not an expedition.”

He told her about his wife, June, who had swum beautifully. On holidays he took photographs of her entering the water. In nearly every picture she was looking back at him.

“Did she want you to learn?” Bea asked.

“Sometimes. She stopped asking.”

“That must feel complicated now.”

He appreciated that she did not tell him June would be proud. Bea had never met her. Instead she buttered another piece of toast and let him think.

One evening Bea mentioned an open practice session on Sundays. Would he like to go? He said yes, then spent three days wondering whether she had invited him because she enjoyed his company or because nobody else understood why a foam board could inspire distrust.

His son, who called on Saturday, said, “You could ask her out.”

“We’re going swimming.”

“People do sometimes like each other in more than one location.”

“Your generation has made everything exhausting.”

On Sunday, Ellis arrived early. Bea was already there, wearing a bright yellow cap that gave her the appearance of a determined candle.

They practised in the shallow water, within reach of the side. Nadine had explained what was safe to attempt without her; they stayed with those exercises. Bea floated. Ellis moved forward on his front and discovered that, for three strokes, he was swimming.

He stood up, astonished. Bea clapped once.

“Again,” she said.

He managed four strokes. Afterwards, at the café, he asked whether she wanted dinner on a day when neither of them smelled of chlorine.

Her answer came so quickly that he wondered how long she had been waiting.

Their first date was at a restaurant where the tables were too close together. They learned the entire history of a stranger’s kitchen renovation while trying to discuss their own lives. At the end of the evening they stood beside the bus stop and agreed the food had been good and the extractor fan dispute surprisingly gripping.

Then Bea took his hand.

“I’m having a nice time,” she said. “You look as though you’re waiting for an inspection.”

“I haven’t done this for a while.”

“Neither have I.”

“You’re better at it.”

“I have a very convincing coat.”

He kissed her cheek. She turned slightly and kissed him properly. His bus arrived, waited and left without him.

In December the leisure centre announced a celebration for the adult classes. Learners could demonstrate a new skill to family and friends. Participation was optional. Ellis immediately imagined swimming a length while his son watched. He told Bea they should do it together.

Her face changed so briefly that he almost missed it.

“I don’t think so.”

“We have six weeks.”

“You should do it if you want.”

He mistook her refusal for fear that needed encouragement. Over the next fortnight he mentioned the event several times. He suggested they practise more. He offered to meet before work. Each time she became less enthusiastic about swimming at all.

One Thursday she did not come. Her message said she had a headache. The following Sunday she cancelled practice.

When they met for dinner, he asked whether he had done something wrong.

“You’ve made it a project,” she said.

“Learning is a project.”

“Not everything I do needs a finish line.”

He put his fork down. “I thought I was helping.”

“I know.”

The kindness in her voice embarrassed him more than anger would have.

She explained that her former husband had been generous with plans for her improvement. Her posture, her confidence, her driving, her reluctance to speak at parties: all of it had become something they were working on. When she protested, he said he believed in her.

“I’m not saying you’re him,” she added. “I’m telling you why I hate being persuaded after I’ve answered.”

Ellis wanted to explain that his intentions were different. Instead he remembered how often he had repeated the word together, using affection to make her refusal harder.

“I heard you say no,” he said. “Then I behaved as though you hadn’t.”

She nodded.

They finished dinner, talking about other things, but the evening did not recover. At the bus stop she kissed him lightly and went home.

The next day he wrote a message, deleted most of it and sent three sentences. He was sorry for pushing. He would stop. He hoped she would come back to class for her own reasons, whether or not they continued seeing each other.

Her reply arrived that evening. Thank you. See you Thursday.

At the next lesson, Nadine separated their exercises. Ellis worked towards a length. Bea practised standing up from a float without grabbing the side. For the first time he noticed how difficult that movement was for her, and how pleased she looked when she managed it.

He did not clap. When she met his eye, he smiled. She smiled back.

In the changing room afterwards, another learner asked whether Bea was still coming on Sundays. Ellis started to answer for her, then stopped and said he didn’t know. Such a small correction, made where she could not even hear it, left him feeling oddly exposed. He had liked becoming part of a pair. He was beginning to see how quickly he had confused that pleasure with knowing what the other person ought to want.

Before leaving, he booked a practice session for himself. The empty space beside his name on the booking screen looked less like rejection once he had actually paid for it.

They had tea afterwards. He asked about her granddaughter. She asked whether he had invited his son to the celebration. He said he hadn’t decided.

“You want him there,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Then invite him. You don’t have to give up wanting something because I want something else.”

He looked at her across the table. “Would you like to watch?”

She took a bite of toast, considering.

“Yes. Watching sounds lovely.”

On the evening of the celebration, Ellis found his son and Bea sitting together near the windows. His son had brought a small towel because he assumed one would be needed. Bea had brought no advice at all.

Ellis entered the water. The far end seemed an unreasonable distance away. He began carefully, concentrating on breathing, the movement of his arms, the bubbles passing his cheek. Halfway along, someone splashed in the next lane. He lost his rhythm, swallowed water and reached for the side.

For a moment he wanted to climb out and declare the whole enterprise foolish. Then he looked back. He had already travelled farther than he once believed possible.

He rested, nodded to Nadine and started again. He reached the end slowly. It was not an uninterrupted length, and he knew the difference. He also knew he had crossed the pool under his own power.

His son was standing. Bea was smiling beneath the large clock. Ellis felt a sudden, generous happiness that did not ask him to compare this evening with any evening before it.

Afterwards his son hugged him while he was still damp.

“Those shorts,” he said, “are a serious commitment.”

“Your father is a man of taste,” Bea replied.

In the spring they booked a weekend at the coast. Two rooms at first, because that felt comfortable, then one after a frank conversation that left them both laughing with relief. They planned meals and walks. Neither mentioned swimming.

On the second afternoon Bea stopped at the beach steps. The water lay flat beneath a pale sky. She held her shoes in one hand.

“I think I’d like to go down.”

Ellis waited while she chose where to leave the bag. They walked into the shallows together. She stopped at her knees, breathing sharply at the cold.

“That’s enough,” she said.

“All right.”

He stood beside her. Children were collecting shells farther along the shore. A dog shook itself near a picnic blanket and was roundly criticised by its owners. Nothing required either of them to be brave for an audience.

Bea slipped her hand into his.

“You could swim,” she said. “If you’d like.”

He considered the water, then her face.

“In a minute.”

They stayed where they were until the cold made them laugh, then went back for their towels. Later he swam a short distance in the supervised swimming area while she sat in the sun. When he returned, she had saved him a biscuit.

He ate it sitting beside her, his orange shorts bright against the sand.