Beach Walker – Chapter 9

Hot and Bothered

‘I’m not sure it’s a good idea,’ my eldest son’s voice intoned gravely down the line, ‘taking up ocean swimming in winter at – you know …’

After his father’s death, Josh seems to be labouring under the misapprehension that he’s the head of the family, the dispenser of sage advice and stern warnings to a feckless mother.

‘At what, love?’

‘At your time of life, Mum.’

‘And what time of life would that be exactly, Joshua Eric Davies?’

‘You know, Mum …’

‘Twilight? Five to midnight? In my dotage? My declining years?’

‘Mum …’

‘Josh, sweetie, your mother is sixty-one years old. She may be a decrepit old baggage – you clearly think so – but a splash of cold salt water isn’t going to make her curl up her toes. Not just yet.’

‘M-u-u-m …’

That’s better, Josh my darling boy. Less of the twenty-nine-year-old patriarch. More of the whiny teenager.

‘Besides,’ I continued with a good deal more confidence than I felt, ‘Leonard is a marine biologist – an expert diver, snorkeller and sea swimmer. I’m completely safe in his hands.’

I’d painted a rosy picture of Leonard: the scientist, the owner of a substantial acreage on the Bellarine Peninsula, the racehorse lover who planned an equine retirement home as his legacy. Definitely not a dentally challenged lifer who dismantled motorbike engines in his bedroom. No, not at all.

‘You know what these scientist types are like, Mum. Absent-minded. Are you sure he won’t swim off after some rare jellyfish and forget all about you?’

‘Josh, love, now you’re being silly.’

I distracted my son, deftly I thought, with enquiries after the progress of his first-to-be-born, who will be my very first grandchild. (And about time too.) I sent my love to de-facto daughter-in-law Melissa, and rang off with the excuse that I had to prepare for my swim.

‘Just be careful, Mum.’

For our first saltwater escapade, Leonard had studied the tide, wind and surf forecasts and selected the Springs beach, between Queenscliff and Point Lonsdale.

‘A sheltered beach with a nice reef fifty metres offshore. Well inside the Heads. Not much surf, hardly any current.’

‘Hardly any, as in some current?’

‘Just a bit of longshore drift, setting northwards on the flood. You’ll barely notice it. We’ll go in at slack water.’

Hmm.

We were to meet at the carpark at a quarter to four. An hour’s time. Belatedly, I realised I hadn’t asked about changing facilities. There probably wouldn’t be any. It was just a small car park: I vaguely remembered it from a recent walk.

Maybe I should change at home, then drive to Point Lonsdale in my wetsuit? It was only a ten-minute drive.

Also, what did people wear under their wetsuits? In the shop I’d worn my bra and undies. That wouldn’t do, clearly. Should I wear a swimsuit, then? Would that interfere, somehow, with the efficiency of the wetsuit? Would I end up with a massive, and possibly fatal, wedgie?

I’d seen plenty of surfers at the Beach, but I’d never paid attention to them changing. Were they all naked under the neoprene?

I had the gear, but no idea. None at all.

I did know one thing, though: I wasn’t going to embarrass myself by calling Leonard at the last minute. I could hear the ironic amusement in his voice already. I’d had one dose of male condescension already this afternoon. That was quite enough, thank you.

Decision time, Grace Davies. You’re a big girl now. Change at home; take a large beach towel and a plastic bag to protect your car’s upholstery from your damp bum on the way home.

I decided against the swimsuit. It seemed superfluous.

I couldn’t drive around looking like Catwoman’s aunt, though. At the last minute I slung a fleece jacket over my slinky black neoprene self.

Blast. Three thirty on a weekday – I hadn’t taken that into account. I got caught in school pickup traffic and, aware of the minutes trickling away, started to fret. I’m pathologically punctual, hate to be late. Preoccupied with the time, I was heading out of Ocean Grove on Shell Road before I realised the error of my ways. It was too late to turn back.

My Fiat 500 is a cute little jalopy, but my, she is stuffy. Even when it’s barely twelve degrees outside. As I drove, I could feel the glow rising from my chest to my neck to my face. I swore and turned on the aircon.

By the time I got to our rendezvous, my hair was wet and I felt aswim inside my suit, like a bag of mozzarella pickling in its own brine.

Leonard was there to greet me as I sloshed from my car.

‘Jesus, Grace,’ were his first words. ‘You’re a bit overdressed, love.’

He fussed over me, helped me to divest myself of the fleece.

‘Crack open this wetsuit,’ he muttered, tugging at the zip. ‘Give you a chance to cool down …’

‘NOOO!!’

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Next week in Beach Walker:

Chapter 10: Letting Go

Leonard takes Grace for her first sea swim.