The sun was hot. Hot enough to notice. Hot enough to hurt. As usual, I felt nauseous in the car. My Auntie Laura was driving, jaunty and upbeat as always. My mom was next to her in the front, sitting behind huge dark sunglasses. My best friend in the world–Tara–and I were eight and on our way to our first ballet camp at Araluen, in the hills outside Perth.
I loved ballet; adored it. I begged not ever to have to miss class. Even on days hotter than today, when there was a “heat advisory” on and the government said we should all stay indoors, I begged to go.
Each week, my poor mum would grumble as she drove me, like a chauffeur, she said, across the bridge and over the river to Madame’s class. As the car crossed the river and the afternoon sun reflected sharply off the water, I would be lulled into a kind of meditation. I would look at the black swans and imagine that a ballet would one day be choreographed especially for me.
Madame Amalia De Trommler. German ballet mistress. Under her exacting tutelage, I imagined, I would be admitted to the Australian Ballet School, seen on stage, and soon thereafter become a movie star. I worked so hard for her; I could live on one compliment from Madame for a year. I was so dedicated that my mum used to say Madame had stolen me from her.
That year Tara and I were old enough to go to Madame’s ballet camp. Classes every day. What difficult bliss. Much as I loved ballet, I was terrified of being away from home. I’d never spent more than a single night away. But if Madame was teaching ballet, I was damn well going to be there. And there was to be even more than ballet. There were to be Perth celebrities! A radio star teaching storytelling and a famous, deaf mime teaching movement. We were to stay in dorms. I looked forward to it because my sister had gone off to boarding school a few years back, where she lived in a dorm. I wanted to be brave and adventurous like her. And of course, since this was Australia, there would be an outdoor pool. I loved swimming almost as much as ballet; in swimming, there was no spotlight, but there was my own lane.
“I feel sick,” I said. My mother sighed and groaned, “you feel sick.” I always felt sick. Motion sickness and homesickness. I nibbled Counter biscuits to settle my stomach. Small, airy, crunchy, crumbly. They helped if I didn’t eat too many or too few.
At home, my dad would put smoked oysters from the tin on them, and we’d eat them in one bite. Those and watermelon, by the backyard pool. We’d be shivering on a 110-degree day because we’d been swimming all day long. We would wrap our huge fluffy towels around us like blankets; so lovely and rough. We’d shuck oysters, cut watermelon raggedly open, and my dad would smash huge crabs under his heel, laying it all out on the day’s newspaper. To this we’d add vinegar, sometimes white vinegar–cool and astringent–and sometimes brown–with day-old Italian bread, earthy and chewy.
But here at ballet camp, I did not swim. I merely dangled my feet in the water. I had run up the hill to the pool the first afternoon all giggles and relief at the thought of letting the water touch me all over and cool me down. But I had stopped short when I saw so many kids already there. I had to share the pool with so many? I was used to it being just me and Tara. I started to cry. Everyone teased me for not being able to swim. I assumed they were being vacuously malicious. I let them believe I didn’t know how to swim because it was better than telling them that I was afraid of them; that I didn’t know how to play.
So I sucked back my tears, swallowed my disappointment, and went to sit in the shade; smiling as if I had a small, happy secret. I suppose I did. I could swim better than any one of them. Tara told them so, but they didn’t believe her. Madame sneered at me and her lover, Dina, just stared. Dina was a big fat woman with short, dark, slicked-back hair and pale skin.
I sat and savored the smell of the gum trees; the astringency made me feel alert and clean; it still does. I started to breathe more deeply, and started to enjoy the true blue of the open sky, and the warm breeze that somehow smelled of sand.
One day, Dina came to my bunk and ordered me into my swimsuit. Madame must have sent her to take me for a private swim. A reward for fabulous ballet skills; I was the best dancer in the class, after all. She marched me to the pool. I skippered ahead so she couldn’t see the teeny smile on my face. I was a happy little Vegemite, alright. The pool to myself!
We arrived at the gate. My feet were burning from the baking hot path we’d taken up the hill. Dina ordered me in. I stepped down the steps slowly, savoring the shivery cold. The water is always cold in Western Australia and some people like to get in with one fun and shocking jump. I got to that as a teenager, but at eight, I liked to hop up and down a bit on each step, splash myself; watch the sun kiss the droplets; laugh.
She ordered me in again. Suddenly I needed to pee. Cooling down always did that. I tried to step back up and out. Just a quick pee and then I’d swim for as long as she’d let me.
“Get back down.”
“I need to go to the bathroom.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
“I need to pee.”
“Get in that pool.”
“Please let me out, Dina, I need to pee.”
“You are getting in that pool.”
I needed to pee. I splashed her so she would move back. I was so alarmed at myself for daring to do it that I stood taut and missed my chance to get by her as she stepped back. We stood there looking at one another. Then I reasoned that if could show that I was mature and sensible, and not a ‘fraidy cat little homesick crybaby, she would listen.
“I’ll get back in the pool when I have gone to the bathroom. I’m looking forward to a swim but I need to pee.” Calm, measured, strong.
“No, you don’t.”
She thought I was lying. To avoid a swim? My world fractured. She believed that I could not swim and she was forcing me into the water. Suddenly I was terrified. This swim was not a reward for me, but a sadistic thrill for her and Madame. The gum trees crackled in the sun, sounding ready to explode in the heat. I smelled the heavy steam that the asphalt had sent up from the water I had splashed at her. I watched the haze shimmer. I breathed it deeply in. I could think of nothing to do but pee right there on the step, looking into her eyes.
“You disgusting, dirty girl.”
“I needed to go to the toilet! I wasn’t lying. Let me out.”
I don’t know why I thought proving to her that I wasn’t lying would prompt her to show mercy. I started to cry. Why was she so cruel?
Then I realized that yes, I had relieved myself and yes, I felt relieved, and yes, actually, I wanted a swim. It was blazing hot and she was not going to get in the pool with me.
Halfway up the first lap, I heard her say, “you can swim.” Yes, you bitch. I can swim. I swam the Australian Crawl slowly as my mind wandered and the water started to wash away my fear. One arm over my head, the other arm over my head, little rhythmic flips of my feet, my belly flat and keeping me afloat. I was enjoying myself until she started screaming like a banshee.
“Swim! Swim!”
I was surprised into panic and I swam as fast as I could for a few laps, responding to her urgings and trying to please her; becoming hysterical and breathing in water. Then I remembered, I was safe in the water.
I slowed down. Yes, I was safe in the water, but how long could I stay here? At some point I would get tired. Better now than later, then. I splashed her. Harder than before and I was ready this time. As she jumped back I climbed out and ran past her. She grabbed me just before I could grab the wire of the fence and fling myself over it.
She threw me back viciously into the water. I felt my breath leave my body as I hit the water very hard. Real panic now, and fatigue, too. I came up gasping and grabbed the side of the pool. She walked around and stood over me, blocking the glare of the sun with her shadow. I looked up at her, wondering what she wanted to say. She stood on my fingers.
I swam to the other side then. I hung on, gathering some strength. She walked around to me; I pushed off just as she arrived and went to the other side. Ah. This could work. She would come all the way around, and just before she stepped on my fingers I would swim to the other side. In this way I enjoyed the pool and got a lot of rest, too. I started laughing at her.
I’m not sure how long it lasted; the afternoon wore on and on. This side, that side; this side, that side. The shade of the gum trees shifted over the water and the heat seeped out of the sky. Then I started to shiver. I had solved the fatigue issue, but now I was getting cold.
I pretended to breathe in some water. Then I stayed under for a bit, came up, gasped, went under again and came floating up face-down. “Stay, stay, stay,” I told myself. When I couldn’t keep my face in the water for one more second, I lifted my head as quietly as I could. She was almost out the gate! She hadn’t heard me come up. She was leaving. But just then she gave one last look over her shoulder. She came screaming back. “You little bitch! Swim!”
I trod water, wondering where she was going. In a few minutes, she returned with Madame, who smiled and laughed as she peeped her head around the pool gate and beckoned for me to get out. I heard Dina say, apologetically, “she can swim.” Madame nodded and they walked back down the hill together.