YOU NEVER REGRET A SWIM

Daily sea swimming represented a precious link to Tara’s past, but now it had come to an abrupt and unwelcome halt

Tara sat gazing at the mirror-flat sea and a crushing sense of disappointment washed over her. It was a brisk October day in Jersey, but the sun was out, and the bay looked perfect for swimming in.

It had started as a way to force herself out of bed in the mornings, adopting her mother’s daily sea-swimming habit. She’d found it painfully cold at first, but then, after that initial, breath-stealing sting, she’d feel reinvigorated, invincible. If she was capable of putting her head into water that cold, she was capable of facing another day in a too-quiet house.

‘There are two things you’ll never regret doing – bringing a child into this world and going for a swim.’ It was one of her mother’s favourite sayings. Now in her mid-40s, Tara had probably left it too late to do the first of these, but going for a swim – that she could do. Well, she could if she hadn’t ripped her calf on a rock yesterday. She’d had to interrupt Bryony’s ‘Yoga and Yodelling’ session to ask for a lift to A&E. Four stitches, and strict instructions from the doctor not to get them wet.

‘Not going in?’ came a voice from behind her.

Callum Everest, fellow sea swimmer, was standing on the slipway, his towel slung over one shoulder. She knew him by sight; everyone knew everyone in Jersey. She and Callum often acknowledged each other with a friendly nod or a wave as they passed each other on the slipway, but this was the first time he had ever initiated a conversation.

‘Not today,’ Tara said wearily, and Callum paused beside her. He was dressed in electric blue board shorts and a scruffy grey woollen jumper. He had a warm, weathered face and the muscular body of a much younger man. She enjoyed watching him outpace the teenagers who sometimes challenged him to a race across the bay. He turned towards her, as though waiting for her to say more.

‘Bashed up my leg,’ she said, pointing to the dressing on her calf. ‘I can’t get it wet.’

‘Oh no, you’ll break your run,’ he said, his brow furrowing in concern. ‘You’ve been in every day this year, haven’t you?’

‘How did you know that?’ Tara asked and then watched his neck grow red. He was right. She had been in every day since her mother died, all 283 days.

‘Bryony might have mentioned something,’ he muttered, rubbing a hand along his stubbled jaw. Bryony lived in the pink house on the way up the hill. She saw all the comings and goings at

Anne Port, and was friendly with everyone. Though Tara was surprised to hear she had been a topic of conversation.

As he laid down his towel and pulled off his jumper, their brief conversation felt as though it had already come to an end. Tara wasn’t good at the easy camaraderie that people like Bryony or her mother could adopt with virtual strangers. Subconsciously, Tara often looked out for Callum when she went swimming. She hoped to see him and now, presented with the opportunity to actually talk to him, she was monosyllabic, tongue-tied.

‘My mother swam every day.’ She blurted out the words, just as Callum had started to walk away. ‘She used to say “You never regret a swim”.

That’s why I started going, to stay connected somehow.’

‘Well, she did love a saying, your mum,’ said Callum, turning back with a smile that dimpled his cheeks and creased the laughter lines around his eyes.

‘You knew her?’ Tara asked, surprised. ‘I sold her eggs from my chickens when I was a kid. She liked me to stop for a chat and at least three chocolate biscuits.’ Callum raised his eyes to the sky. ‘I remember her having a lot of sayings about chickens and eggs,’ he paused, ‘and, strangely, chocolate biscuits too.’

‘She was always bribing people with biscuits to stay and chat. The postman said he put on about ten pounds when Mum learnt how to order her cross-stitch supplies online,’ Tara shook her head, biting her lip to suppress the grin.

‘See, you don’t need to go into the sea. Maybe today a chocolate Hobnob is all you need to feel connected to her.’ He pressed a hand onto her shoulder and she felt herself fighting back a sudden wave of tears.

‘I like that. Mum would have cross-stitched those words of wisdom onto a pillow.’

She reached up to give his hand a squeeze of appreciation, and then once she’d let go of his hand, she watched his solid brown calves stride purposefully down towards the water. She knew from Bryony that since Callum’s wife had died he didn’t socialise much either. He had declined Bryony’s invitations to both ‘Sherry and Charades’ night and her infamous ‘Bruschetta and Bellinis

Book Club’.

Before reaching the sea, he paused, turning back around.

‘What constitutes going in, for it to count?’

Tara hugged her arms around herself, touched that he was still worried about her swimming streak. She shrugged, ‘I don’t know, getting my head under, I suppose.’

‘Well, we can do that. I’ll carry you in?’ ‘Oh no, I…’ Tara felt herself tense.

The idea of Callum carrying her anywhere, let alone in her swimsuit, was too much to countenance. But then something stopped her – a gust of wind blowing across the bay, a clear recollection of her mother’s voice –

‘You never regret a swim’.

‘What if you trip?’ she asked. She didn’t think she’d been lifted by a man since childhood. Would he find her too heavy, too cumbersome?

This was not a good idea.

‘Trust me…’ he said, eyes glinting. He waited as she got changed, then they walked down to the water’s edge together, laughing at the elegant plastic bag Tara had wrapped around her foot to ‘guard against splashes’. Before she could prepare herself, Callum swept her up in one deft movement. She felt cold air on bare skin, his heart pounding against her chest, his breath warm against her shoulder.

She couldn’t believe she was doing this. Let alone with a man she hardly knew. He walked her out to waist-high water and gently lowered her back into the sea, her injured leg pointing skyward. His arms felt steady, unwavering. She held her nose and plunged her head backwards, beneath the water. She came up, gasping, her long red hair trailing behind her like a mermaid.

‘Too cold?’ Callum laughed.

‘No… refreshing.’ She panted and he laughed. His whole face lit up when he laughed. Tara gave an exaggerated shiver, then said, ‘“All in the mind”,

Mum would say.’

They locked eyes then and she saw something in his look, a shared knowledge of what it means to lose someone, to be the one left behind.

He didn’t put her down until they’d got back to the slip.

‘How many days until the dressing comes off?’ he asked, reaching out for her towel and wrapping it around her. ‘Five,’ she said.

‘I’ll see you back here tomorrow then,’ he said.

She shook her head, ‘Oh, you don’t need to do that,’ she said.

‘I’d like to. If you want me to.’ He looked nervous all of a sudden.

‘I’ll bring coffee,’ she said.

‘I’ll bring the chocolate biscuits,’ he replied with a wink, and Tara felt a glow of warmth she hadn’t felt in years. Perhaps the house would not feel so quiet now she had something to look forward to.

✢ Just Haven’t Met You Yet by

Sophie Cousens (£7.99, PB Cornerstone) is out now.