Читать книгу 21 Miles - Jessica Hepburn - Страница 14

As I step off the plane, I feel that rush of heat that denotes holidays and happiness. But this is different. I’m on my own. I have no idea where I’m going. I’ve got goggles.

I take out my mobile phone and turn off airplane mode and Movistar tinkles ‘hello’. Apparently a couple of other people who are coming on the swimming tour are on the same flight as me. We’ve arranged to text when we arrive so we can travel together. There is no international airport on Formentera so we’ve had to fly to Ibiza, from where we’re getting a ferry.

Texts exchanged, we convene by the airport taxi rank. There are three people in addition to me. A tall couple, Mark and Teresa, and a shorter stocky guy called Andy. They are all younger than me. But they’re polite: they don’t ask my age, nor whether I’m married and have children, which is such a relief because I hate that middle-age-conversation-stopper question. They do, however, ask me why I’ve come.

‘What do you want to do that for?’ Andy scoffs.

‘Don’t you? I thought that was why we were all here.’

‘Hell no,’ he says. ‘I’ve come to lie on the beach. Do as little swimming as possible.’

‘Oh,’ I reply, taking in this news as I turn to the couple.

Teresa shakes her head: ‘Me neither, it’s much too hard, but Mark is planning to do a solo at some point. Maybe this summer if his shoulder’s up to it.’

Mark explains he had an operation on it a few months ago and will be taking things easy this week too. I’m not sure whether these revelations are good news for me or not. After all, I came here on business. Channel business. These people seem to think it’s a holiday.

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As we pull into the harbour on Formentera, I can see a man standing on the jetty. This, I deduce, must be John. He looks the way he speaks: English, jovial, outdoorsy.

‘Hello, chaps,’ he booms. ‘You made it! Good job!’

He smiles broadly and claps each of us on the back. He seems to know the others well. They call him not by his first name but by his initials, JCR, the J standing for John and the CR for his surname, Coningham-Rolls. It feels a bit familiar referring to him as an acronym so I decide that I will carry on calling him John.

John throws our things in the boot of his four-by-four and we set off. We’re staying in a house on the edge of the beach a little way up the coast. It sits at the end of an unmarked gravel track, one of three whitewashed stone properties that were built in the 1950s by three different English couples. The middle one belonged to John’s grandparents and is called Can Rolls, which translates from the Spanish into ‘House of the Rolls’. It makes me think of him coming from a family of the finest double-barrelled bakers.

The house has hardly been touched since it was built; it has no electricity and the water is heated by solar power. The open terrace at the front drops down into the sand and overlooks the most breathtakingly beautiful bay. I later learn that the spot is in fact so idyllic that the Spanish government has decided to consecrate it as a natural heritage site and has stipulated that all three houses will need to be pulled down in thirty years’ time in order to reclaim the area for nature. The properties are so eco-friendly and sympathetic to the landscape, I can’t help feeling that the government might be better placed directing its bulldozers towards the high-rises of Magaluf.

It’s already past seven in the evening when we arrive. Drinks and canapés on the terrace pre-supper are mooted. But my three travelling companions decide to take a dip in the sea first. They ask me if I’d like to come too but I politely decline, saying that I’m going to unpack. I don’t say what I’m really thinking, which is: ‘Why don’t we just get on with the drinks and canapés?’

From the window of my room, which looks out over the bay, I observe them as they stroll down to the sea, dive in and swim out to a rock that is jutting out of the water a little way away from the shore. Once there, they climb onto it and sit chatting in the setting sun. I watch in a kind of awe, realising that these people are not of my species. They are clearly at home in the sea, their strokes strong and lithe. They are the sort of people who don’t question taking a dip before supper. They don’t think about the salt on their skin or the fact that they’ll mess up their hair. They may profess not to want to swim the Channel, or even swim very much while they’re here, but they could if they wanted to. All of them. They are the sort of people who got picked for the school swimming team and have trophies on the mantelpiece and certificates on the wall.

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The following day, after breakfast, the whole group convenes for a briefing. John gives us an overview of the week, which basically seems to consist of upping our time and distance each day. He also gives us a safety briefing. Hypothermia and jellyfish are both mentioned. He then suggests we go round in turn and say what our ambitions for the week are. Since arriving and seeing all the other people here I have felt myself growing increasingly anxious about the whole thing. I am starting to realise that open-water swimming is a whole different ball game to doing a few laps in the pool. Not that there’s a ball involved, but you know what I mean – breaststroke legs just aren’t going to cut it. These people know what they’re doing. I don’t. So when it’s my turn, the only answer I feel I can give is that I hope I’m not going to hold everyone back.

Afterwards John takes me to one side and asks if I’m OK and I confess my nervousness. ‘Could I just do breaststroke?’ I ask. ‘I’m not sure I’m ready to tackle too much crawl along with everything else you seem to have to deal with out there.’

‘Of course,’ he replies, ‘take it slowly.’ And then in his best booming voice, he shouts: ‘Right chaps, ready to go in fifteen minutes! Get changed and don’t forget to put suncream on and get vased up.’

‘Vased up?’ I mouth to Teresa, baffled.

‘Vaseline,’ she says. ‘Under your straps so your costume doesn’t rub.’

I nod, a whole new world opening up to me, and then head upstairs to get changed.

One by one everyone congregates on the terrace. Costumes, hats and goggles on. Suncream and Vaseline applied. Someone kindly gives me some earplugs and says it helps with the cold. I take them gratefully. We file down to the water’s edge. It’s a beautiful day and the sea is blue and sparkling but the beach is deserted and we have it to ourselves.

John calls us into a group: ‘Right chaps, as this is our first swim, we’re just going to take it easy. Twenty minutes maximum. Jessica, you start by swimming over to the rock and back. Let’s take a look at your breaststroke.’

I tell myself I’ll be fine. Twenty minutes of breaststroke, surely that’s doable. We all start to wade into the water. The first touch on my toes is cold yet almost inviting. But as I walk further in, the sharpness of the water strikes full force and I know that this is the moment when you have to commit or lose your nerve. I fall forwards into the waves and a rush of ice surrounds me. The sky may be blue but there’s a reason no one is on this beautiful beach: it’s the beginning of April and the water’s fucking freezing. (Apologies for the ‘f’ word. I did think of using the word ‘flipping’, it would still have made for nice alliteration, but I’m afraid it just doesn’t cover it.) I start to swim, breaststroke arms and legs but with my head above the water while I acclimatise. After a few strokes I force myself to duck under and the cold envelops me further.

‘Good job, Hepburn,’ I hear John shout. ‘Over to the rock and back.’

I’m not aware of the others; they have disappeared from view. All I am conscious of is me and the cold. I plough on, knowing that the only way to get used to it is to keep swimming. The rock is only a little way off but it seems to take me ages to reach it; as I get closer the water shallows around the coral and it’s difficult to avoid scraping my knees. I turn round and head back to the shore, where John is standing at the water’s edge.

‘Well done,’ he says. ‘That’s a nice breaststroke you’ve got there. Now let’s have a look at your crawl.’

‘What?’ I splutter. This isn’t what we agreed.

‘How are you finding the cold?’ John asks.

‘Agony.’

‘Well, you better get to France quickly then. Crawl’s the only way to do that.’

‘OK, I’ll give it a go. How much longer have we got?’

‘You’ve done ten minutes. Just swim to the end of the beach and back and then you can get out.’

‘Ten minutes? Is that all?’

‘Off you go. Keep swimming, otherwise you’ll get cold. This is Can Rolls, remember, not Can’t Hepburn.’

I set off with only one thought in my mind. I don’t think I can manage fifteen minutes in water this cold, let alone fifteen hours. This Channel thing is big. It’s bigger than I ever imagined.