‘It’s fine in the summer, Harry,’ he remembered her telling him one late August evening as they had lain naked in each other’s arms in his flat, ‘but what about when it starts to get cold? I can’t see you breaking the ice to go for a swim! What is this swimming craze, anyway?’
‘It’s just a way of staying fit and healthy,’ he had told her, kissing her breasts. ‘Don’t you like me healthy?’
‘Sometimes/ she had answered, turning more fully towards him as he grew hard again in her hand, ‘I think you’re far too healthy!’
In fact she had been happier than at any time in more than three years. Harry was much more open now, less given to brooding, more lively and exciting. Nor was his sudden interest in sports confined to swimming. He’d also taken up self-defence and joined a small Hartlepool Judo club. After only a week his coach there had been calling him a ‘natural’ and telling him he expected big things of him. He hadn’t known, of course, that Harry had another coach – a man who had once been the Judo champion of his regiment, who now had nothing better to do than pass on all his expertise to Harry.
But as for Harry’s swimming:
He’d always considered himself a fair swimmer; now it appeared that was all he had been. At first the rest of the group were way in front of him – at least until he found himself an ex-Olympic silver medallist who had died in an automobile accident in 1960, a fact recorded on his headstone in Stockton’s St Mary’s graveyard. Harry was enthusiastically received (his plan with reservations) and his new friend joined in the fun and games with great aplomb.
Even with this sort of advantage, however, there was still the physical side to overcome. Harry might let the professional swimmer’s mind guide his technique, but it couldn’t help with his lack of muscle; only practice could do that. Nevertheless his progress was rapid.
By September the craze was underwater swimming: that is, seeing just how long he could stay underwater on one breath, and how far he could swim before surfacing. The first time he did two complete lengths of the pool submerged was a red-letter day for Harry; everyone in the place had stopped swimming to watch him. That was at the swimming baths at Seaton Carew, where afterwards an attendant had sidled up to ask him his secret. Harry had shrugged and answered:
‘It’s all in the mind. Willpower, I suppose . . .’ Which was fair enough. What he did not say was that while it had certainly been his willpower, it had not entirely been his mind . .
By the end of October Harry had let his Judo training fall off a little. His progress had been too rapid and his instructors at the club were growing wary of him. Anyway, he was satisfied that he could now look after himself perfectly well, even without ‘Sergeant’ Graham Lane’s assistance. By that time, too, he had taken up ice skating, the final discipline in his itinerary.
Brenda, herself quite capable on the ice, was astonished. She had often tried to get Harry to accompany her to the ice rink in Durham, but he had always refused. That was hardly unnatural; she knew something of how his mother had died; it was just that she believed he should face up to his fear. She couldn’t know that the fear wasn’t entirely his but his mother’s. In the end, though, Mary Keogh was made to see the sense in Harry’s preparations and at last came gladly to his aid.
At first she was frightened – the ice, the memory, the sheer horror of her death lingered still – but in a very little while she was enjoying her skating again as much as
ever she had in life. She enjoyed through Harry, and in his turn he received the benefit of her instruction; so that soon he was able to lead Brenda a merry dance across the ice – much to her amazement!
‘One thing I can definitely say about you, Harry Keogh,’ she had breathlessly told him as he expertly waltzed her round and round the rink while their breath plumed fantastically in the cold air, ‘is that there’s never a dull moment! Why, you’re an athlete!’