Sink Or Swim

This captivating short story by Jacqui Cooper is set in Malta.

IT was Rachel’s first day in Malta, and over breakfast her son and daughter-in-law were offering suggestions as to how she could entertain herself.

“You could always go swimming,” Clare said.

“There’s a local pool?” Rachel asked.

Clare laughed and gestured towards the window and the blue Maltese sky.

“In the sea. Everyone around here does it.”

Ben, Rachel’s son, frowned.

“Isn’t the sea a bit rough today? I don’t think it would really be suitable for Mum.”

Clare shook her head. “They put up signs if the waves are too high. If there’s no sign, then it’s OK.”

Which was how, once

Ben and Clare departed for work, Rachel found herself standing at the seafront, holding on to the railing and looking down at the “swimming” hole cut into the rocky coastline.

A set of steps and a metal handrail led down into what was to her a churning sea.

But Clare was right: there were half a dozen hardy locals in the water, not exactly swimming – the rock pool was too small for that – but treading water, chatting and laughing as if this was a regular ritual.

There were no facilities, no changing-room, no toilets. Just those steps cut into the rocks and the rushing sea.

Rachel turned away. She’d grown to love her son’s new wife, but clearly Clare didn’t know her at all if she thought she would swim there.

She walked slowly back to the apartment, wondering how to fill the rest of her day.

To be honest, coming to Malta to visit Ben and Clare had been a bit of a rushed decision.

In fact, Ben had tried to put her off.

“We’re both working, Mum. And Clare’s still suffering from morning sickness. Maybe you should wait until after the baby comes.”

“Nonsense,” she’d said. “I can easily entertain myself. And I’m more than happy to lend a hand around the house so Clare can rest.”

It hadn’t been like her to be so pushy. She was not a pushy person.

That was the problem. There was a coffee shop on the ground floor of the block of flats where Ben and Clare lived.

Rachel almost went in, but it looked busy and she’d stand out, sitting on her own. There was perfectly good coffee at home anyway.

She let herself into the apartment. An apartment, not a house.

Rachel wondered if they would move in view of the pregnancy and fretted about the expense. A baby was way too soon at this stage in their careers, too.

She made herself a coffee and carried it outside. At least the apartment was on the ground floor and came with a little courtyard.

It was pretty, she had to admit. This was what she’d imagined when a promotion for Clare had led to her and Ben packing up and moving to Clare’s native Malta shortly after the wedding.

There were tubs of mature plants lining the walls, exotic and colourful, with a winding path leading to a little seating area.

Over the wall she could hear the chink of crockery and low murmur of conversation from the café garden, but the little courtyard felt cosy and private.

Except that, when she looked up, she noticed that the upper flats had balconies, so it wasn’t so private after all. Not like her garden at home.

A bird fluttered hopefully at her feet. It was the sorriest-looking pigeon she had ever seen, standing mournfully on one foot, its feathers ruffled and sparse as it cocked its head to look at her.

Rachel broke off a piece of biscuit and tossed it for the bird.

A second later the garden was full of pigeons which pushed the bedraggled one to the side, bullied out of the way.

It hopped on the periphery, hungry and defeated.

Her phone rang and the tension that had ruled her life these past few months immediately increased when she saw the caller ID.

Her new boss had no idea of boundaries. He thought nothing of calling Rachel at weekends or, like now, when she was on holiday.

For a second she fantasised about rejecting the call, of switching the phone off. But she knew she wouldn’t.

She’d be even more

Sometimes the water wasn’t as dangerous as it looked . . .

wound up, worrying about the deluge of increasingly irate messages when she eventually turned it back on again.

“Jonathan,” she said, glad he couldn’t see the anxious flush creep over her throat and neck which belied her calm tone.

“Where are the Kingsley files?” As always Jonathan jumped in right away, without so much as a greeting.

“I distinctly remember telling you I was going to need them.”

Patiently Rachel told him exactly where the files were.

“Found them,” he said and hung up.

Rachel took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders. How she loathed the man.

No matter how much she told herself Jonathan just had a different way of working, deep down she didn’t believe a word of it.

How she missed her old boss, who had been kindness personified and more than happy with the way Rachel did things.

“It’s difficult when you have a boss like that,” a disembodied voice said and Rachel jumped, her sudden movement scattering the pigeons.

“Up here.”

Shading her eyes, she looked up.

A woman was sitting on the first-floor balcony, smoking a cigarette and drinking from a huge mug. “Yes,” Rachel agreed. “I had a boss like that once. He was a bully.”

The courtyard didn’t feel the same now she knew she had company.

“Sorry. I have something to do. I must go in now,” she said, because leaving without an explanation would be impolite.

Picking up her coffee to finish indoors, she noticed the scruffy pigeon huddled on the path.

It looked about as bruised and battered as she felt.

The next day Rachel went for a walk around the neighbourhood, then impulsively turned into the coffee shop instead of going home – an extravagance maybe, but worth it to know she wasn’t being watched.

She was wasting her time, because when she carried her tray through to the garden at the back of the café, the first person she saw was the woman from upstairs, who cheerfully beckoned her over.

There was no polite way to refuse.

“So how do you like Malta?” the woman asked.

“It’s beautiful,” Rachel replied dutifully, though in truth she found it hot and dusty with far too much construction.

“How much have you seen of the island?”

“Er, not much,” she admitted. “My son is working through the day.” Her companion smiled. “Malta isn’t exactly huge. In fact, it’s almost impossible to get lost. You can easily get around by bus.”

True, but she was here to spend time with Ben, wasn’t she?

“I’m Mia,” the woman stated.

“Rachel.”

“Tell me where you want to go and I’ll help you,” Mia offered.

“Thank you. Maybe another day.” Rachel spotted a pigeon, either another sorry specimen or the same one from yesterday.

She broke off a piece of croissant and tossed it. Exactly the same thing happened as yesterday. A flock of fat pigeons swooped down and stole the croissant right from under its beak.

For good measure they gave it a few pecks along the way.

“You must be very excited about the baby,” Mia remarked.

“Yes.” Rachel sighed.

“But they are going to be so far away.”

“There’s always Zoom.” “I know. But the baby will be raised speaking Malti. I won’t even be able to communicate with him or her.”

Mia rolled her eyes.

“You think that’s tough? My grandchildren are in Japan. I barely see them and I have little hope of learning the language.

“It doesn’t stop us playing Peekaboo. Besides, they’re bilingual and Clare and Ben’s baby will be, too, I should imagine.”

Of course it would be. Ben would see to that.

“I suppose.” Rachel broke off another piece of croissant.

This time she dropped it close to her foot and shooed away the bullying pigeons. The tatty one was the only one bold enough – or hungry enough – to approach, and she kept the others at bay while it ate.

“You need some colour in your cheeks,” Mia said. “Have you been ill?”

Ben had taken one look at her at the airport and asked the same thing, but Rachel was unused to quite so much candour from a stranger.

“I’m fine.”

“Stress, then,” Mia declared confidently. “It’s a terrible thing. People always underestimate its effect.

“Luckily I know exactly what to do about it. Let’s go swimming.”

Swimming? No way. “I can’t, I’m afraid. I’ve just had something to eat.”

“The birds ate most of it,” Mia pointed out.

Rachel was searching for another objection when her phone rang.

Her heart sank. Even Jonathan’s ringtone sounded impatient.

“You don’t have to answer that,” Mia told her quietly.

But Rachel knew she did. The second she stood up to take the call, the pigeon flock descended and her pigeon was mobbed once more as she listened to Jonathan’s harangue.

“The meeting is in your online diary,” she said when she could finally get a word in.

“I’ve locked myself out of it.”

Rachel closed her eyes. “I’ll send you the backup.”

“Now?”

She glanced at Mia and hesitated.

“Rachel?” he demanded. She took a deep breath. “Sorry. It’ll have to be later. I’m just about to go swimming.”

“For heaven’s sake, Rachel –”

“May I remind you I’m on holiday? I’ll send it as soon as I can.”

Ten minutes later Rachel

“Luckily I know exactly what to do. Let’s go swimming”

found herself once more at the swimming hole. The waves, if anything, were worse than yesterday.

“We can’t possibly swim here!”

“Of course we can,” Mia said cheerfully. “My grandmother swam here every day until she was ninety.”

Mia had instructed her to change at home, so Rachel had her costume on. Now all she had to do was pull her cotton sundress over her head and walk down to the water.

There was no smooth sandy beach, just an undignified clamber over the rocks.

“Keep your shoes on,” Mia instructed.

There was a handrail leading down to the sea and some metal steps to help bathers get in and out of the water, just like the ones you’d get in a swimming pool.

They stood aside to let some swimmers out, Mia exchanging a few cheery words with them before turning to Rachel.

“The first ten seconds are the worst, I promise.” Then she leapt in.

Rachel followed much more slowly, inching down the steps.

From above, the waves had looked terrifying, but, once in, the force of them against her skin was actually more invigorating than scary.

The water wasn’t as cold as she’d thought it would be, either.

A wave, bigger than all the rest, hit her full on and she went under.

Panic set in, but a second later her feet hit the bottom and she pushed up, heart racing, salt water in her mouth and eyes, until she could see the sky above and breathe again.

She was exhilarated. Suddenly she remembered taking Ben to the beach when he was little, encouraging him to be brave and telling him that the water was fine.

And it was fine here, too. Bracing, with an edge of recklessness she wasn’t used to, but fine.

“It’s good?” Mia asked. To her surprise, Rachel found herself nodding and grinning.

Treading water, she looked out at the horizon and thought of Jonathan, grumbling and pacing, and laughed aloud, feeling lighter than she had in a long time.

Later, when she eventually phoned him back, her boss had sounded annoyed at being interrupted and told her with customary abruptness that he’d sorted his diary.

So he wasn’t helpless after all. Just lazy.

Rachel filed the

To her surprise, Rachel found herself nodding and grinning

knowledge away.

After that she and Mia swam every day, and every day she felt better.

She grew stronger, too, no longer knocked and buffeted by the waves, but learning to ride them.

She took fewer of Jonathan’s calls, which was partly deliberate as she was busy most days, but also because he made fewer calls, as if her one refusal had drawn a line.

A line she now admitted she should have drawn much sooner.

When Ben and Clare were at work, Mia showed her the island and soon Rachel began to appreciate the stark beauty of the countryside, the incredible architecture of the buildings.

When Mia wasn’t available, Rachel took the bus – at first just into Valletta, but then longer and longer trips, not fretting about what could go wrong, but taking pleasure in the knowledge that if anything did, she would cope.

She became a regular in the café, preferring to spend time there now than alone in the flat, chatting with the locals who were curious about Clare’s new mother-in-law.

And it was there, feeding her pigeon for the last time before her flight home, that she took stock of her life.

Ben marrying and moving away so soon after the wedding had been difficult. For so long after her divorce it had been just the two of them against the world.

When he’d brought Clare home to meet her, Rachel had immediately liked the outgoing young woman who was just right for her rather introspective son.

Even so, the speed with which they had married and moved abroad had caught her off guard.

She’d already been feeling unsettled when Jonathan had arrived at work with his new broom, making her feel incompetent and useless.

She’d been floundering for a while, but thanks to Mia she knew the waves weren’t always as bad as they looked.

When she got back she’d speak to Jonathan and sort things out.

If they couldn’t, she had options. Other jobs. Other countries, even.

Rachel threw some crumbs of shortbread for her pigeon as a special farewell treat, though Ben had agreed to keep an eye on him until her next visit.

He wasn’t so henpecked now. His feathers were growing back and acquiring a sheen.

He’d simply needed someone to take him under their wing.

Just like Rachel.

The End.