The Marble Collector

24

I’m driving and I can’t breathe. My chest feels tight and my muscles are tense and I’m about to shout at anybody who so much as looks at me the wrong way, and whoever makes the slightest mistake on the road will get it. I’m racing to confront Dad and I know this is a bad idea. He remembers nothing, I know we are to be gentle with him, no aggressive pushing on matters he simply can’t remember as it will upset him, but I am raging. It seems everybody knew about this woman and these marbles apart from me and Mum. His own family. It took the arrival of a box of marbles to learn this? What else is there about Dad, about everything in my life, that I don’t know?

I park in the car park and clamber out. The car park is quiet, it’s after nine p.m., not many visitors now that they’ve returned home for their Friday night out, or their Friday night in.

I race through the front doors, and as I wind my way through the corridors I slow down, my chest heaving with the effort of holding back an emotion I don’t want to release. What am I doing? I can’t go into Dad like this, it will worry him, upset him, set him back, stress him. I’m not even sure I can talk. I slow down to a stop. I smell chlorine. It’s comforting. I have lived in the water since I was a child. I liked that it was my own world, I could float and drift and not have to speak to anybody, explain anything, just swim beneath the surface. It was always my escape. It still is now.

I’ve slowed down but my mind is still racing, it’s getting darker and the moon is visible, perfectly round and full, keeping an eye on me as I’ve gone about my day, on this most peculiar day. And the biggest thought of all which occurs to me now is this: am I this closed, inside person that Aidan tells me I am because my dad was somehow shadowy and secretive? Did I get this trait from him? Though I never picked up on it when I was younger, never thought of Dad as shadowy and never considered myself as closed, until Aidan started mentioning it. Perhaps it’s true that you never know yourself until someone else truly knows you. Today’s mission stopped being about looking for missing marbles early on, it grew to become a quest to look for the man who owned them. I didn’t know that it would mean eventually looking at myself. And I don’t like what I’ve found. I don’t like any of these discoveries. I can’t breathe.

I stop walking altogether and instead turn and make my way towards the swimming pool. Through the viewing pane of glass I can see that it’s empty; of course, nobody swimming at this time, and physio all finished for the day. It’s 8.5 metres long, the tiles beneath are blue, the tiles on the wall are blue, with a wave effect in shades of blue mosaics. I pull the door open and the chlorine hits me.

I hear somebody call out. I’m not supposed to be in here. I can hear footsteps behind me. I speed up. They speed up. More footsteps. Then someone calls my name. I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe. My chest is tight. I think of Dad, I think of Hamish, I think of the marbles and the secret woman. I think of Aidan and me. I kick off my shoes. I rip off my cardigan. I dive in. I escape. And I breathe.

I don’t want to ever come back up. I stay close to the floor of the pool, feeling weightless and free, the tension gone. I don’t have to think, my body relaxes, my heart rate reduces. I see the legs and feet of others by the edge of the pool, shimmering like mirages, like I’m the only real thing here. I hear the water in my ears, smell the chlorine, love how my hair tickles my skin, feeling like velvet as it moves with me. I tumble and twirl around the pool floor, perhaps looking like a beached whale, but feeling like a ballerina, graceful as can be. I don’t know how long I’ve been under. Over a minute, maybe two, but I’m feeling the need to go to the surface to get some air, just a quick gulp and then under again. This is what I love about being in a pool, this is my territory, I’m safe here.

I hear the sound of clapping or slapping and look around to see a hand slapping the water like they’re calling a dolphin.

I whoosh to the surface.

Gerry, the kind porter, is looking at me with worry, concern, confusion, like I’ve completely freaked out and lost the plot. Mathew from security is halfway between amused and angry, but Nurse Lea is smiling.

I’ve attracted quite the crowd at the viewing pane. No sign of my dad, thankfully. I float on my back.

‘Come on, Sabrina,’ Lea says, reaching out her hand.

I’m tempted to pull her in with me.

The moon made me do it.

But I don’t. Instead I climb out, a sopping mess.

‘Feel better?’ she asks, wrapping a towel around me.

‘Much.’