Christmas Day Morning
It’s only cold water. That’s all. After the shitshow of this year, cold water is nothing. Nothing, Dominica tells herself, as she peels the Velcro closed on her neoprene gloves and strides off towards the sea, her size ten boots making a loud trudging sound over the pebbles. She’s glad she’s made it here and forced her sorry carcass out of bed, although it was a close-run thing. But, as usual, Helga’s message on the Sea-Gals WhatsApp chat had persuaded her. It’s tradition, Helga had written. No excuses.
She knows she owes Helga and Tor an appearance this morning. They’re the ones who’ve looked out for her this year. Separately, they’ve both asked her to spend today with them, knowing it’s her first Christmas without Chris, but she’s politely declined their kind offers. She wants to be alone to wallow in her grief, although she vows now that she’s going to tidy up the tissue-strewn pit of their bedroom. Chris would have a fit if he could see it.
Along the beach there are little groups dotted as far as the eye can see in both directions, most people dressed for the cold, but many of them stripping off. With the drop in church attendance, maybe the sea is the new religion. It’s certainly a draw. Everyone is facing the water and the mood of celebration is palpable. She can hear the pop of a champagne cork (10 a.m. is a little early, but it’s Christmas Day, after all), whilst a young guy contemplatively skins up on the top of the largest concrete groyne. There’s a bagpiper in a kilt walking on the next beach and the reedy sound wafts over to where Dominica stands along with a tang of spliff smoke.
It used to make the national news: the nutters taking the plunge in the sea on Christmas morning, but cold water swimming has become all the rage and now the world and his wife have taken it up.
But who can blame them? Dominica thinks. There’s been bugger all else to do.
There are plenty of little flocks of swimmers already in the water, lots of them in woolly hats. A couple of show-offs are front-crawling further out, dragging their red tow floats behind them. She’d love to be able to swim like those Amazons out there in these winter months, but if she goes too far out of her depth, she gets a bit panicky. She knows that the sea is not to be taken for granted – even on a calm day like today. And, besides, she’s not fit enough to swim like that. Not any more. Not after a year of sitting on her arse eating biscuits.
Until the pandemic hit, Dominica had never been idle – not once during her fifty-six years. That’s probably because her parents had instilled a rock-solid work ethic in her and a belief that the colour of her skin meant she needed to prove herself twice as much. As an operations manager for a large travel company, she’s been the consummate multi-tasker, but with the skies emptied and holidays cancelled, her whole department has been put on furlough. At least, in some ways, it’s a blessing. She could never have coped with a job and losing Chris at the same time.
She’s dreading going back and knows that, any day now, there’ll be an email from management with the phased return-to-work plan. Her team – once thirty strong – was cut down in lockdown and she knows that a lot of her colleagues will have had a tough time too, but she dreads their reunion. She already knows that she won’t be able to stand the questions… the pity, how at least one of them will almost certainly dredge up a competing story of someone they know who died of Covid too. That’s the thing that gets her the most. That her Chris, with his bright eyes, booming laugh and bear hugs, has been reduced to a grim statistic for other people to comment on and chew over.
Over by the other groyne, some teens scamper across the stones in bright bikinis, squealing. Everyone is supposed to be socially distancing, but somehow the government’s rules don’t seem so pressing here at the water’s edge. She used to get angry about joggers breathing and shoppers crowding the pavements with their masks on their chins, but after what happened to Chris, she doesn’t waste her energy any more. The world is already full of judgers and snitchers without her joining their ranks. What’s the point when the worst has already happened? Besides, it’s natural for people to interpret the rules and bend them to their own making. As Chris always used to say: people are like water… they’ll always find a way.
Dominica arrives next to Tor, who is ahead of her at the water’s edge; Helga is coming now too from where she’s slung her things on the pile of their stuff by the groyne and Dominica waves to her. As usual, Helga’s dressed in her baggy blue swimming costume and retro swimming cap with a chin strap. She doesn’t give a monkeys about her saggy wrinkly thighs being on show, unlike Dominica, who is body-conscious even now.
They make an odd tribe, Dominica thinks, feeling a surge of affection for these unlikely friends. There are other swimming gangs she could have joined. The women from her old yoga class swim regularly, but Dominica wanted to swim without their concerned expressions. She’d happened to arrive at the beach at the same time as Helga and Tor a few times, and, before she knew it, they’d formed a flockette of their own.
Tor is in her late thirties and is wearing a Santa hat in honour of the occasion, her bright-purple hair, some of which has turned into dreadlocks, poking out from beneath it. Dominica puts her arm around Tor’s skinny tattooed shoulder and gives her an affectionate squeeze.
‘Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu,’ Tor mutters, as the bubbly surf gobbles at her toes. ‘It’s so c … c … cold.’
‘You OK, though?’ Dominica checks. She knows how much Tor has suffered with her diagnosis. It’s not fair on the poor kid. Dominica is always so impressed with her positive attitude and fortitude.
‘Yep,’ Tor says, the green diamanté in her nose glinting. ‘I’m glad I’m here. Lotte threatened to come, but she’s hungover.’
Dominica can imagine it. She’s met Lotte, Tor’s Dutch girlfriend, a few times and she’s quite a force of nature. She gets the impression that Tor likes coming to the beach for a bit of peace and quiet.
‘Come on,’ Helga declares, in her funny accent – half Danish, half cockney – marching past them. ‘Stop dallying, you two. Get in.’
In a couple of strides, Helga’s surrendering gracefully to the water, bending her knees, her shoulders sinking. She sighs, as if the sea is a lover welcoming her with a caress. She flips onto her back, her face radiant. She might be the other side of seventy, but, in the water, Helga looks about seven. Her feet pop up as she floats, her arms out to her sides like a quirky otter. Dominica sees her focusing on the bandstand and knows she’s working out which way the current is running from the pull on her body in the water. She’s a stickler for water safety.
Dominica walks forward with Tor, concentrating on making sure she doesn’t hold her breath, but it’s a shock nonetheless, bringing her fuzzy brain into focus, like a camera lens. The beach, the land, every thought she had up until just moments ago, is in the past. There’s only now. She’s tried meditation, but this works much better for calming her scrambled thoughts. A plunge in the sea pushes her mental reset button like nothing else.
She knows that the trick is to get her hands in, so she walks in deeper, her fingertips under the surface, her gloves filling with cold water. She’s aware now of the sound of the sea and the sucking shush of the backwash.
The water, which had seemed a clear green from the shore, is tea-coloured up close. A wall of milky builder’s brew is coming closer now, rearing up in her vision, and she stands firm, letting the wave sweep her up in its path, lifting her off her feet.
And she’s in.
She sighs out through her mouth, like a woman in labour, going through her natural reaction to gasp as the cold hits her spine. She can just see the black shadows of her gloves as she breaststrokes out towards the glittering horizon. The waves are bouncy and the exposed bit of neck at the base of her hair line tingles like a high-top drum. She’s aware of her skin – the whole of it – stinging.
Chris, oh Chris, how you’d love this, she thinks, noticing the tears rising, but she’s resigned to them. On land, she feels that she’s a vessel full of unshed tears that might spring a leak at any time and buckle, but here, where the water inside collides with the water outside, she feels more solid than she has done for days.
She carefully puts her face under the surface, not wanting to get her bobble hat – or her hair – wet. She likes the feeling of violent, masochistic brain freeze, and she takes the opportunity to open her mouth and scream as loudly as she can, knowing that only the sea will know this secret and the others won’t hear.
She comes up, the salt taste of the water filling her mouth and nose, the cold seeping into her bloodstream like the delicious relief of a drug.
Pull yourself together, she tells herself. It’s been ten months since Chris died. Ten months to find a reason to carry on.
She turns back towards Helga and Tor but she sees that there’s a man swimming in between and she realises it’s Bill.
‘Dominica! I thought it was you.’ He’s with two other men who look like twins with their beards and red swimming caps, like Santa’s little swimmers. ‘How have you been?’
‘Oh, you know, getting there,’ she replies with a weak smile. She can tell that he’s genuinely concerned. His kind face is as engaging as ever.
‘We’d love to have you back. Any time you’re ready?’
She nods. She’s often thought of Bill and the team and how the phone lines must be jammed with a queue of desperate people. She can’t help feeling that she’s let him down, but she hasn’t been able to face going back.
‘Well, keep in touch. Happy Christmas.’ He gives her a salute and a cheerful grin.
‘Who was he?’ Helga asks, in her usual direct way.
‘Bill. My supervisor at the Samaritans.’
‘I don’t know how you do it. Other people’s problems …’ Helga shudders.
‘You’re not nearly as mean as you make out,’ Dominica tells her.
‘They say that the path to happiness is by helping other people,’ Tor says, flipping over the bobble on her Santa hat so it avoids the wave.
‘Yeah, well, you’re a saint, Tor, let’s not forget,’ Helga says.
‘Oh, bah humbug,’ Dominica teases her.
‘Seriously, Dominica,’ Tor says, ‘you should do it again. You’re the best listener I know.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
‘The geese, look, look,’ Helga calls, and Dominica turns to see her pointing upwards then follows her gaze. Two geese fly together at speed just overhead, their bellies impossibly white against the blue sky. A pair.
Helga watches Dominica staring at them as they disappear towards the horizon. ‘They’ll be off to find their flock,’ she says, reassuringly, and Dominica nods.