| The Drowning Child | ||
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In
Hong Kong, in 1976, there was an abundance of swimming opportunities
for a seven year old girl. In the British expat world in which my
parents thrived, each social occasion was accompanied by a pool
of some kind.
At one couple's house this would be the overcrowded pool in their block of flats complex. At another family's place I would swim in the kidney-shaped pool in their back yard. At the social club there was a pool with jagged edges, and when I fell off the diving board one day I scraped my arm and thought I was dying underwater, not knowing which way was up or down. Then there was the green algae pool in the woods, where someone had forgotten to treat the water but where we swam anyway. There was always the beach, too, which you could argue is a pool of another kind, and the pool at Victoria Barracks as well. Pools everywhere, segregated pools, rarely pools in which Chinese and white expat kids swam together. I can't remember the occasion but perhaps once a year we went on a long car journey to a mansion out in the countryside. The house was big, with grand and cool rooms. In the grounds was a small zoo, a black bear stood in a cage, pawing at us through the bars. It looked like a man in a bear suit to me, a man in a bear suit with his penis hanging out. I couldn't believe its realness, my parents dragged me away. That poor bear. There was a barbecue, drinks for the adults and...a pool for us. We'd brought our swimsuits and were in there faster than you could mix yourself a gin and tonic. And I was there in the sunlight, swimming like a fish, racing, turning and diving. A little girl watched me, a little baby girl in a nappy, unsteady on her legs, no one there watching her, no adult. She wobbled and stared and wobbled some more and then she fell in with a tiny splash. My own little girl brain could not imagine what I had seen. I couldn't understand that the baby might be in trouble. I didn't know about babies. As I imagined her climbing out of the pool and shaking herself out, she started to sink instead. I dashed over and pulled her up and onto the side, and there she was, screaming, and her dad came and picked her up and took her away and said nothing to me, even though I had maybe saved a life. And that was the end of that tiny drama. |
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