A child. You can sense his confidence has grown a week on. No inflatables around his arms today. You approach slowly, taking time with breath and stroke, working to establish a smooth rhythm; leg-kick, head-dip and body-stretch. No more than three years old and legs hardly long enough to scramble onto the starting block; he is fiercely independent. On the block now and straight off into the deep end, ignoring a mother’s nervous outstretched hand. He rises to the surface gurgling and kicking as you reach the end of your first length, curl up, feet on the wall, turn and push off for the return and avoid him. You grin at his bravado. Up and down. You count your own lengths. On each odd number you share the child’s enjoyment and marvel at the skills of his brothers (five and eight maybe) who dive and underwater-swim like slippery eels. The mother guides and encourages. Selflessly she gives up her own swim to ensure the safety of the boys. Father is here today; more of a bronze showman who challenges his firstborn to swim as well as play.
When you swim in one of the three dedicated and marked out lanes, the two further lanes are given over to intensive lessons in swimming for children. One instructor is so compelling he lines up his pupils, commands them to jump in and kick towards the deeper water 25 meters away, with only a styrene foam tube held fast across their chest and under their armpits. No child seems to be afraid or fail. The three remaining swimming lanes are therefore shared between any more serious or dedicated public swimmers.
You go twice each week, Tuesdays and Fridays and recognise regulars and are not surprised when new swimmers join ‘your’ session. Loose rules apply: swim up on the right and keep right on the return. You might think logic and convention would organise a slow, medium and faster lane for personal competence choice and comfort. But no. Swimming in France is more continental, more frothy coffee and frilly hat. It is extremely lucky to be able to swim so close to home in rural France in a modern piscine municipale but there are idiosyncrasies to accommodate.
Many swimmers, men and women, join your lane wearing extra strong dabs of perfume, the scent of which takes several lengths to dissipate. It is the custom for swimmers to shake hands and kiss-greet the lifeguards before entering the water. Back-stroke swimmers seem unable to judge speed / distance and often crash into your legs then appear surprised. There is a common stroke, invented by older men, who sit on a float, kick or trail their legs but propel themselves by windmill arms both whirled together, resulting in a potential hit each time you pass each other. You learn to duck-dive. There are swimmers who rarely swim more than two lengths and then clog the shallow end in animated chatter and French gesticulation. There are those who are so narrow bodied and skilful they can flash through the water, overtaking and completing double your distance in half the time with no apparent effort. There are those who swim in the opposite direction to everybody else. And those who undertake vigorous training sessions in public time, complete with drinking water flask, session notes, stop watches, underwater earphones, flippers, training float, a knee block and snorkels. And then there are friends, normally a group of two or three women who pay to chat first and swim second. These are side-by-side swimmers who always seem surprised when you make a British point of swimming face to face up to them, trying a not-so-subtle method of showing you are here to swim those fifty lengths without stopping, counting odd and even numbers in five sets of ten without deviation and at a target speed of sixty seconds per length, give or take those few obstacles. Surprisingly any equipment is allowed apart from oxygen cylinders, as everybody and everything competes for clear water.
You are pleased for those small boys and just as pleased to see the very old boy (Tuesdays) who arrives when you are on length forty-six (thankfully for he is slow and has to be negotiated). Pleased because another week has passed and he is still alive, for he can barely walk. He takes an age to enter the pool and don his goggles and set off, not strong enough even to push off from the end. He is a short skeleton covered in loose skin, bent and hunched with arthritis. But he swims. A unique style where he propels himself with bobs rather than move his arms or his dangling legs. He slowly reaches the far end and pants to catch his breath, lets you pass, recovers and turns to bob back.
The pool is fully glazed on two sides and the low September sun casts shadows through the shrubby bushes, through the depths of water onto the shoulder of a swimmer and dances on the turquoise tiles at the bottom of the pool.