Graham Swift - Learning to Swim - And Other Stories

I watched them work on all that afternoon and the next morning. They reached the tricky point where they had to turn the angle of the hole so that they could start to dig horizontally towards the wall. Why were they doing it? Was it a game? Had they transformed the playground, in their minds, into some prison camp, patrolled by armed guards and watch-dogs? Their task was too strenuous for a game, surely. And yet, if it wasn’t a game, it was absurd: They were trying to escape from a place they had entered — and could leave — at their own free will. Suddenly, I wanted them to succeed.

“Look Clancy—” I said. Clancy had come in from work. She had a carton of yoghurt with her. She sat down, ripped off the foil and began eating without speaking. “—a tunnel.”

Clancy looked out of the window. “What tunnel?” All she could see was a pile of earth in the playground.

She licked at her yoghurt, bending her face over it.

“A tunnel. The kids are digging a tunnel in the playground.”

“That’s a stupid thing to do.”

I didn’t explain. We didn’t talk much to each other in the evenings now. It seemed an effort.

For several days I watched them dig. I forgot my hands, my irritation, my uselessness. From where I sat, I could see the goal of their labours — the patch of grass to the right of the wall — whereas they could not. I surveyed their exertions like a god. But there was much that I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see how far the tunnel had progressed — all I could see was the expanding heaps of earth and, every few minutes, a boy emerging from the entrance hole, gasping and smeared with soil, and another taking his place. I began to have fears for them. Might the whole thing cave in? Had they dug deep enough to go beneath the foundations of the wall? How were they managing to breathe and to extract the earth as they dug? But now and then I would glimpse things that reassured me: odd bits of wood — fragments of desks and the torn-down lavatories — being used for shoring, lengths of hose-pipe, a torch, plastic bags on the ends of cords. On the asphalt over the estimated line of the tunnel they marked out a broad lane in chalk where, clearly, no one was to stand. Their ingenuity, their determination enthralled me. I remembered the pigeon they had kicked round the playground. But I worried about other things that might still thwart them. Might they run into a gas main and be forced to stop? Might they simply give up from exhaustion? And if they overcame all this, might the council men or the demolition workers arrive before they had time to finish? The more I thought of all these things, the more it seemed that their escape was real: that there was a conspiracy of forces against them and some counter-force in the boys themselves.

I did not want to imagine them failing.

I said to Clancy: “My hands will be better soon.”

“Oh — really. That’s good.”

“It could have been worse. Think of all the worse things that could have happened.”

“That’s right — look on the bright side.”

We were quite apart now, wrapped in ourselves. Clancy spent all her time sweating in the pizza house or brooding over her uncle and his absent letters, and I spent all my time obsessed by the tunnel.

It was nearing the middle of August. The sun kept shining. The evening papers Clancy sometimes brought home spoke of droughts and water restrictions. People were complaining of the fine weather. They would have complained just as much if the summer had been wet. On the little triangular plot by the school the thin grass had turned a straw colour and the earth was hard and cracked. I kept watch on this patch of ground now. At any moment I expected the tunnellers to break surface. In the corner of the playground the diggers seemed to be getting excited. The nearer the moment came, the more I exaggerated the dangers of discovery and I willed the council men to delay one more day. I thought of the difficulty of digging up, entombed by earth, against the hard, baked top-soil.

And then, one afternoon, it happened. It seemed odd that it should happen, just like that, without fanfares and announcements. Suddenly, a segment of cracked soil lifted like a lid, only about five feet from the outer face of the wall. A trowel poked upwards, and a hand, and then, after a pause in which the earth lid rocked and crumbled, a head thrust into the air in a cloud of dust. It wore an expression of serene joy as if it had surfaced in a new world. It lay perched for some time on the ground, as if it had no body, panting and grining. Then it let out a cry of triumph. I watched the head drag out shoulders and arms, and a body behind it; and then the four on the other side of the wall disappear one by one into the hole and re-appear, struggling out, on the grass triangle. No one seemed to see them — the traffic went by heedlessly, the bulldozers whined and growled. It was as if they had been transformed and were invisible. They brushed themselves down and — like climbers on a mountain peak — shook each other’s hands. And then, they simply ran off — down the adjacent side street, past the boarded up shops and the empty terraces — covered in earth, clasping each other and flinging their fists ecstatically into the air.

Clancy came in about an hour later.

“Clancy,” I said, “Clancy, I want to tell you something—” But she was waving an envelope at me, a long white envelope with black print on it. Her face was strangely agitated, as if she might be either pleased or upset.

“Look,” she said.

“Clancy, Clancy—”

“Look at this.”

She took the letter out of the envelope and placed it in front of me. It bore the heading of a firm of solicitors in Ipswich. The letter began with condolences and mentioned the “sad death” of Clancy’s uncle, as if this were something that Clancy should already be aware of, and then went on to speak of “our late client’s special and confidential instructions.” The gist of it was that Clancy’s uncle was dead and Clancy had been left the larger part of his money and property, subject to its being held in trust till she was twenty-one. There were vague, guarded statements about the exact scope of the legacy and a reference to “outstanding settlements,” but a meeting with Clancy was sought as soon as possible.

“Well — what do you think?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Sorry about your uncle.”

We looked at each other without speaking. I didn’t know what else to say. I took Clancy’s hand in my own, half-healed, scabrous hand.

I said: “Clancy, it’s your day off tomorrow. Let’s go out. Let’s go out and get a train to somewhere in the country, and talk.”

THE DAY THEY LET ME out of the hospital I went for a long walk round the streets. People looked very remote and sorry for themselves. I noticed there was scarcely anyone who didn’t show some sign of strain, of fear, of worry. And I seemed somehow superior to them, as if they were dwarf people and I was bigger and taller and had a better view than they. And, very occasionally, just here and there, there seemed to be other taller, clearer-sighted people who seemed capable, if they wished, of taking charge of all the others, of directing them and consoling them.

Then I went back the next day, as I’d promised, to say goodbye to Dr. Azim, who’d been called away on the day they discharged me. I said to him, “I want to tell you how much I’m grateful for what you’ve done. And I want to say how much I admire the work of you and your staff.” He smiled and looked flattered. I continued my farewell speech. “I see now,” I said, “where I went wrong. It’s all very clear. You have to be one of those who cares for others rather than one of those whom others care for. It’s simple.” Then I said, “I’ve been happy here.” And Dr. Azim beamed, and shook hands with me when I left. And I knew then that one day I must occupy some hospitable and protective role like his.