The Girl in a Swing

a while, figure on getting down there in about an hour's time.

  Y'all take care now!'

  This last simply meant 'Cheerio'. I replied with the con168

  ventional 'You too' and, putting on our masks, we swam

  across to the mouth of the creek.

  It was shallow - in places almost too shallow to swim:

  you had to mind your chest on the bottom - and at first, too

  narrow for both of us to swim side by side. The water was

  alive with tiny, brilliantly-coloured fish, which seemed quite

  unafraid of our intrusion. Fifty yards downstream I stopped,

  lying still on the clean, sandy bed, hardly a foot under, while

  shoals of peacock-blue midgets and fluorescent tetras hung in

  the current or darted back and forth outside the glass panel,

  not three inches from my eyes. I became so much engrossed

  that I forgot to go on until Kathe, behind, gripped my ankle,

  pulled herself forward and wriggled neatly past me. I followed

  her downstream, among dense shore-tangle above and

  coloured weeds below, watching the rhythmic, easy beat of

  her legs ahead of me as the water gradually deepened to

  four or five feet.

  A few hundred yards below its source the little stream

  joins another, flowing down from the Jug Spring, to form

  the Itchetucknee river. Reaching this confluence we entered

  broader, deeper water and began swimming in earnest, borne

  on a faster current. It was wild country - what we could see

  of it for the close vegetation. There were no clearly-defined

  banks to the river, which simply disappeared on either side

  into reeds, swamp and trees. Kathe dived and I followed her

  under, to see the light-coloured bed below littered with logs,

  sunken branches, shells and patches of black, decayed leaves.

  As we surfaced I caught up with her, turning on my back,

  and she slipped her snorkel out of her mouth, put her arms

  round my neck and kissed me, her lips cold and sliding on

  my watery face. 'Under!' she said, laughing. 'Under!' and

  dived again.

  Fifteen feet down, with the first hint of pain in the sinuses

  of my forehead (later I could tolerate more depth), she embraced

  me again, twining her legs about mine and holding

  me so close that I could not swim; and thus we drifted on,

  rising slowly with the buoyancy of our bodies, until I, breathless

  sooner than she, was forced to struggle free and break

  169

  for the air. She followed me up, splashing and laughing, and

  I clasped my hands behind her neck.

  'Dear heart, how like you this?'

  'Oh, Alan, never anything so nice! I could swim for ever! I

  hope it's miles down to Lee, don't you? Oh, look, look!'

  Ahead of us a great turtle, black against the light, was

  sitting motionless on the thick, horizontal branch of an overhanging

  tree about ten feet above the river. It never moved

  as we swam across and floated by almost directly beneath it.

  Below, on our left, we came upon a little inlet, out of which

  we could feel cooler water flowing. Kathe, leaving my side,

  swam up into it and here, at no great depth, we found

  another spring, in which tiny, whorled shells and coloured

  fragments were dancing and circling in spirals in the cold

  boil. We touched bottom and stood side by side, bending

  our masks forward into the water to watch the miniature

  turmoil below. Kathe stooped for a handful of shells and

  looked at them one by one before letting them sink back.

  They wavered down slowly, reminding me of the grape pips

  in the champagne.

  'Alan, I'm going to take these silly clothes off. I hate wearing

  anything in the water. Can you look after them - tie

  them round your leg or something?'

  They would almost have gone into a matchbox. I pushed

  them inside my trunks and we set off again down what had

  become a broad flood between marshy, high-grassed shores.

  In spite of Lee's assurance I was hoping not to meet a

  gator. We saw none, but two or three hundred yards further

  on I suddenly caught sight of a white-headed, blue-grey

  heron, a good four feet tall, wading among the shallows.

  Turning to point it out to Kathe, I saw that she had vanished

  again, and dived myself.

  At first I could not make her out anywhere, for though the

  water was still clear it was now deeper than ever and there

  were any number of indistinct rocks and sunken logs. Then,

  coming upon a thick, black tree-trunk resting, on its own

  branches, across the current and clear of the bottom, I

  caught sight of her naked body, pale-brown and supple in

  the green gloom, twining in and out, above and below,

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  wriggling between the sunken tree and the bed of the river

  and emerging on the other side. We came up together, but

  the heron was no longer to be seen.

  These underwater tree-trunk acrobatics proved great sport,

  safe enough for sound swimmers, and we began to emulate

  each other, catching hold of the branches sticking up from

  the big logs and pulling ourselves down to pass backwards

  and forwards, over and under, peering into unexpected holes

  and venturing beneath overhanging shelves of rock. Kathe

  could go deeper than I, and several times, thrusting herself

  upward at the last breathless moment, shot past me in a

  stream of bubbles to shatter the bright, translucent ceiling

  above. Once, five or six big garfish, swimming slowly together,

  each as long as my arm and smoothly sinuous, approached

  her, exactly like cows in a meadow, to see for themselves

  what this intruder might be. She was not in the least

  afraid, but paused for them to come round her; and as she

  swam on, arms by her sides and webbed vans beating

  smoothly behind, they turned and went down with her for

  a few yards, so that she seemed like some naiad in a painting,

  attended by a grotesque shoal of piscine companions.

  We were now, I saw, coming to a reach where the river

  narrowed again. On our right lay an overgrown bluff of

  rock about twenty feet high, with a little, sandy beach, no

  more than a few yards wide, at its foot. I thought it would

  be pleasant to stop here for ten minutes before going on to

  finish the swim, and as Kathe surfaced again, in a kind of

  bay of almost still water about twenty yards ahead, I was

  just about to call to her when suddenly she screamed, 'Alan!

  Alan!' in obvious terror.

  I was alongside her in seconds. She seemed utterly beside

  herself. I had to support her or she would have sunk. She

  clutched my shoulders, breathless and trembling, and for a

  few moments I thought she was going to faint.

  'Kathe, for God's sake, what is it? Have you hurt yourself?

  Is it cramp, or what?'

  Heaven send it was no worse than that, I thought. Once, in

  the shop, an elderly customer had been seized with an

  attack which turned out to be kidney stone. I had always

  171

  hoped never to see anything like that again. And we were

  in the middle
of a roadless, pathless swamp.

  She only clung to me, crying with what seemed to be fear

  rather than pain.

  'Kathe, tell me! Come on, tell me what it is! Did you see

  a gator? Lee says they're perfectly harmless.'

  With an effort she collected herself, pressing one fist beneath

  her jaw.to clench her chattering teeth. Then she

  gasped, 'Body, Alan!'

  'What?'

  'There's a body down there! A little - little - 0 God!

  Save me!'

  Oh, hell! I thought, foreseeing all the dreary business that

  this would mean. We'd have to report it. And we'd have to

  give evidence, presumably. How long would they keep us?

  Could they keep us? Probably they could.

  'Well, darling, I'd better go down and have a look, I suppose.

  Just straight down here, is it? I know it's nasty, but

  try not to upset yourself. I tell you what - you go across to

  that little beach there and lie in the sun, and I'll be over in

  half a minute.'

  I hoped it wouldn't be too horrible, but was afraid it probably

  would be, for as I had learned, Kathe had a pretty

  strong stomach and wasn't easily upset. As soon as I had

  watched her pull herself out on the sand, I dived.

  Although the river was deep, I could see all round me

  fairly plainly; but could make out nothing except the sunken

  trees, the rocks and weeds. Yet how could she have been

  mistaken about a thing like this? I came up, swam across a

  few yards and went down again.

  Almost at once, I saw what she must have seen. It certainly

  gave me a turn for a moment. Close to the bottom a

  large, yellow log, stripped of most of its bark, was lying

  caught in a tangle of darker twigs and branches. It was perhaps

  three feet long and, seen from above, bore a distinct

  likeness to the naked body of a child. Some of the larger

  knots in the wood even resembled features. I went lower and

  tried to shift it, but it was stuck fast.

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  Filled with the greatest relief, I swam over to the bluff

  and came out.

  'Kathe, it's all right! Listen, darling, I saw it and it's not

  a body, it's just an old log. I promise you. You can come with

  me, if you like, and have another look for yourself. But there's

  no doubt about it at all. Absolutely none, so don't worry any

  more.'

  'Bist DM sicker - ganz sicker?'

  'I am absolutely sure. I touched it.'

  With a sob, she stood up and flung herself into my arms,

  crying, 'Oh, Alan, I'm so glad! Oh, thank you, thank you!'

  Her wet shoulders were smooth under my hands, her

  breasts pressed against my chest as she kissed me. Without

  reflection or hesitation I drew her down on the sand and

  within moments, unthinking and unpausing, thrust into her.

  No words passed between us, Kathe only crying, 'Ah! Ah!

  -' close to my ear at each movement. I could feel her

  nails, like a spray of bramble, but blunter and harder, across

  the flesh of my back. There was no caressing and no control

  on either part, but at the end Kathe pressed her mouth to

  mine, arching upward and shuddering until I could barely

  keep her beneath me. I came to myself to feel her thighs

  falling away from me, falling apart, subsiding gently like a

  deep drift of leaves as my body sank down between them.

  She kissed my forehead and then, whispering, drew one

  finger gently down my spine. 'See what I mean?'

  I was in tears, and answered only, 'Yes. Yes.'

  'Do stay where you are. It's so nice.'

  A little time passed. The river flowed on beside us. I became

  drowsy and had almost forgotten Florida and the swimming,

  when suddenly we were both startled by a sound of

  splashing and voices quite close at hand. I rolled quickly

  over, sat up and saw, about forty yards upstream, two young

  men floating down on inner tubes, in which they were sitting,

  arms and legs hanging over the circumferences, as

  though in hip-baths. They had seen us, and as I turned on

  my belly one of them, a big fellow with a bushy moustache,

  made a remark to his companion which - though I don't

  173

  think he meant it to be - was audible across the intervening

  water.

  What happened then might seem a shade hard to believe;

  but happen it did. Kathe, unhurriedly and deliberately,

  stood up, legs slightly apart and arms at her sides, facing

  the river, her thighs streaked with sand and her body still

  flushed here and there, and gazed at them with a kind of

  grave, contemptuous assessment. In their ridiculous position,

  wedged into the ugly black tubes, they seemed to dwindle,

  staring up at her literally open-mouthed. Then the moustached

  one said, 'I sure am real sorry, ma'am. I apologize'

  (actually, he said 'apolojars') and, willy-nilly, they drifted

  on and out of sight.

  It put me in mind of the porters at Heathrow. These unlucky

  young men had done us no harm and spoiled nothing.

  I felt sorry for them. Getting to my knees, I rinsed the sand

  out of Kathe's mask and handed her her bikini.

  'Did y'all have a good time?' inquired Lee Dubose when

  we reached the lower park twenty minutes later.

  Kathe kissed him on both cheeks. 'You are a nice chap,

  Lee,' she said, 'bloke - guy - Bursche. Thank you so much! I

  am looking forward to dinner, aren't you? Let's make it a

  really good one!'

  She lay asleep in the humid, sub-tropical night, eyes and

  lips lightly closed; her breathing inaudible, gentle and

  rhythmic as the ripple of a calm sea fringing a beach. In

  sleep, I thought, her beauty acquired a new quality. When

  she was awake it subsisted, like that of an ash-tree or a

  kestrel, not only in her appearance but also in her whole response

  to the surrounding world - to sun, wind, sounds and

  other creatures. Asleep, she resembled rather some marvellous,

  antral mineral - topaz or amethyst - no longer possessing

  her waking function of response, yet involuntarily

  returning beauty to another's gaze as the mineral, glittering,

  displays its secret colour when light is shone upon it. Yet

  for some reason her sleep - this personal sleep of hers was

  not like that of ordinary people, since it seemed not

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  J

  oblivion, but rather a kind of inward contemplation. What

  lay within that still sea whispering along the sand? She had

  descended into the sea-garden of sleep to be by herself, like

  a queen who has dismissed her companions the better to

  ponder, alone, upon high matters in which - for the time

  being, at all events - they can play no part. Awake, she was

  a tumbling, sliding stream, sometimes clear and revealing

  what lay beneath its surface, sometimes concealing it by

  reflecting what lay without. But her sleep hid her as green

  ivy covers a stone - still, mantling, tenacious. My passion, I

  knew, contained an element - of fear? of awe? - which, because

  I did not myself understand it, disturb
ed even while it

  excited me.

  One arm lay easily across her belly and below, within its

  fleece of dark hair, her secret part - not secret to me pouted

  gently, moist and faintly glistening from our lovemaking.

  Her feet, no longer treading the ground or beating

  the water for her pleasure, rested apart, one and one, the

  soles and insteps still soft and puckered from their long immersion

  in the warm river. The night around us had only

  an imperfect tranquillity, its darkness diluted and weakened

  not by honest stars but by street-lighting, its silence muddied

  by the hum of the air-conditioner, by distant traffic

  and the incessant croaking of frogs. Kathe's sleep, remote

  and calm as moonlight, transcended this imperfection and

  shed a radiance upon it - or at all events upon me, content

  to lie awake and gaze at her. For I was reluctant to lay

  aside my joy, even though I knew it would be waiting beside

  me in the moment of waking.

  After a time my desire returned and I, hesitant to disturb

  her as one might feel reluctant to pursue one's own intrusive

  way past an otter on the bank of a pool or a blackcap in

  full song, lay down beside her, meaning to contain myself in

  sleep. And I had almost succeeded - for the long swim had

  tired me no less than her - when she, not asleep, not awake,

  yet aware of me and my longing, turned on her side, moaning

  gently and clasping me about with one arm and one leg

  as we united. Thus embraced, I lay still in perfect contentment,

  desiring nothing more, and so remained, unspeaking.

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  This coupling, warm, wet and soft as a sponge, seeking

  neither progress nor conclusion, was dream-like, timeless. I

  cannot even recall whether it went its full course - I believe

  it closed in sleep. Next morning I asked Kathe, but she,

  laughing, replied that she could remember nothing of it.

  'I think you must be what they call a sleeping partner,

  darling,' she said. 'It wasn't properly explained in the English

  idioms book, and I always wondered what it meant. Go

  and put the shower on, nice and tepid. I feel like one of those

  hot fudge sundaes!"

  I dwelt now in pleasure as a fish lives in water. To fall asleep

  was pleasure; to wake, to stretch, to pass the salt, to walk

  down the street was to be conscious of exquisite pleasure. It

  was of no importance where we went or what we did, since

  merely to exist was delight. To speak was a pleasure equalled

  only by silence. It did not really matter whether we were

  actually making love or not, since it had now been revealed

  to me that making love and not making love were complementary,

  heads and tails of the same shining penny. Sometimes

  I wept to express my joy, sometimes I burst out laughing

  from frustration at the impossibility of expressing it.

  Since wherever we might happen to be was the centre of the

  world, there was no need to exercise our will in going anywhere

  or doing anything. Things simply appeared or occurred

  as we floated among them, buoyant, smooth and idle as

  bubbles. Like babies or the very old, we slept and woke unthinkingly

  by day or night, following the inclinations stealing

  over us like the wind in long grass.

  Yet go places we did. We swam the Itchetucknee again,

  starting this time from the deep Jug Spring, where blind white

  fish - so the Scuba divers told us - live in perpetual darkness

  in a cavern forty feet down. We drove east to little St

  Augustine, the oldest town in the States, founded by Pedro

  de Aviles in 1565 (and very properly burned by Drake in

  1586). We walked on the shores of Great Orange Lake, carpeted

  like a tapestry meadow with strands of brilliantly

  coloured phlox drummondii growing wild, and watched a

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  chameleon change colour on a branch. We drove west to the

  delta of the Sewanee River, a maze of green channels between

  tracts of reeds and grassland, alive at dusk with little,

  leaping fish; and there watched a huge, red sun sink into the

  Gulf of Mexico. How long ago it seems!

  One hot, still evening of early June we came to Cedar Key,

  a shabby, corrugated-iron-roofed little township, lying like

  a washed-ashore oil drum on the Gulf coast, where poor

  whites, fishing for food, squatted side-by-side with blacks

  on the jetty and a bearded, free-loading painter straight out

  of Tennessee Williams chatted us up in the bar as he drank

  my whisky.