The silent scream

Yesterday at the pool, I watched a young child sink beneath the water.  While my brain was telling me children don’t drown before one’s eyes in a crowded pool, he sank, swiftly and silently.

     I had taken Seffy and Savannah to the pool and they took off to the deep end.  I was supposed to be following the black line, lap after lap, but I was sitting on the retaining wall near the gym, lapping up the happy ambience.

     The pool was crowded, it being the basketball finals or some such. From the stadium there was the dull thudding of the ball against the hoop board, the constant trill of the ref’s whistle and explosive cheering.  I delighted in the happy whelps and shouts of children splashing in the pool.  There was a rainbow of colourful togs and shirts and shorts.  The late afternoon sun was working its sleepy magic on me.

     It was unusual, me relaxing at the pool. I am very serious about my swimming and would normally have had ten laps, at least, under my Speedo togs.

     Two young boys were walking along the edge of the pool, obviously competent swimmers for there wasn’t an adult or older child in sight.

     For some reason, perhaps it was my drowsy state, I became nostalgic, I was reminded of the first and only time Tony and I went to swim laps when we started courting.  We goggled up and set off, Tony streaking ahead of me.  I admired his speed.  Of course, he was a competent swimmer, he was a Torres Strait Islander and a crayfisherman.  He spent all day diving.  However, after the halfway mark, he struggled then stalled.

     “Are you all right?”  I asked, confused. 

     “I’m a crayfisherman,” he said.  “I can swim solwata all day.  But I can’t do laps.”

     He explained Islanders could swim, but they weren't taught lessons the way white people teach their kids.  They learn to survive in the water because it's in their genes.

     I smiled, thinking about those early days.

     My attention was back on the present as one of those two young boys pushed the other in.

      Obviously they were playing.

     The whistle blew form the stadium.  Cheers erupted. I turned towards the kiosk.  People were milling around, buying snacks.  A mother was leaving, pushing a pram and coaxing a very tired toddler towards the exit. At the start of the lapping lane, a fellow pool devotee lowered himself into the water and fitted his goggles.  A young man yelled at a child to throw him the ball.  A couple were pushing a baby in a giant Floatie, making gooey faces at her. 

     The noises and splashes floated together like a soft, billowing sheet and cloaked me in contentment.

     My dreamy gaze was back on the children playing in front of me.  The young boy who’d been pushed in was still, his head just above the water, his arms out as if crucified. My intuition screamed something was not right, but my rational mind told me children don’t drown without putting up a fight.  Surely, he would be shouting for help. His arms would be flailing, the water white with splashes.

     Water had risen over the boy’s nose.

     No one noticed.

     His eyes were darting around, filled with a terror I’d never seen.  They found mine and screamed to me in silence.

      The happy background noises were suddenly muted as my head was filled with rush of something, like strong wind. I was up and took the eight or so strides to the edge of the pool. 

     The boy’s eyes held my stare, even when he was looking at me from under the water.  By the time I grabbed his hand, his head was completely submerged, so fast is the drowning process. And so silent and still.

     He was close enough to the edge for me to grab his arm and haul him onto the concrete path. I scanned the pool for someone who should have been with him.  I tried to comfort him as I led him to his mother I had seen sitting near the baby pool, across the six lanes.  The boy's ten year old uncle rushed over as I delivered the boy to his mother.
     "Lucky you were watching," said the fellow lapper as I was walking away.

     I returned to my spot near the gym and began trembling violently.  I assumed this also was shock. I wanted to cry, but my brain told me this wasn’t the place and to pull myself together.  Instead I chewed a fingernail.