Voices from the past - 1932

My latest submission to my college creative writing group :)

For anyone who can be bothered to read all of this, this is a 'voice' taken from an old news magazine called 'The Guisborian' which was produced for the grammar school (Guisborough Grammer School) before it changed into what it is now, my college, Prior Pursglove College. For our latest creative writing project we were provided with a range of copies of the Guisborian and it was our task to gather inspiration for a voice from the articles we found. My own piece was taken from a 1932 article about the boys from the school being allowed to bathe in Gisborough hall pond by permission of Lord Gisborough, which as you could imagine, would never happen these days!

Ledley was a cumbersome lad for seventeen.  I had to dig my fingers and my nails into his skin and ribs in order to gain any sort of leverage as I hauled him, lifeless, sodden, up the bank. As I dragged him away from the water, his back grazed on the thirsty summer earth and mired a trail behind him. His skin was a sheen; a drunken wax under the sun. The trees were a blur, my ears whirred and my heart beat through my chest - All I could think about was getting him away from that water.

I could drag no further and dropped him to the floor. His torso thumped against the ground, the jolt forced the water out of his lungs. His eyes didn’t even flicker, but his head threw back and he gave a great shivering rasp of breath. I was doing much the same; it felt like I hadn’t had air for a good five minutes at least.

 I looked up for the tiniest moment; spongy tanned dots began to join the blur, but they measured no meaning to my frantic mind. I couldn’t have realised, but people were starting to notice that something had gone awry.

 

Arithmetic has never been my best subject and on that day it was the only thing keeping me from plunging my stifled head into the crisp water of Lord Gisborough’s pond. The master, Mr Swayne had done his best to hinder me by sitting me by the window which was shut, the sun radiating doubly onto where I was sitting. I don’t know how I could bare it. Knowing my lack of concentration Swayne (the pain) would pick me to provide answers.

I knew none. And following my third utterance of ‘I’m afraid I don’t know, Sir’ the blackboard rubber was hurled at my face. I moved slightly and watched as it missed the tip of my nose by half an inch, thumping against the wall with an undignified cough of dust. Evading that article had become a skill of mine and I put this skill into regular practice.

 

The water was glorious. Some of the boys swam lengths horizontally; having to stop and turn around to swim back again as there was no wall to kick back off from and so on. Others huddled round and watched half of the cricket team take turns to duck poor Philip Morley under the water. I didn’t intervene. Nor did Mr Harper who seemed distant, I wasn’t taught by him but apparently he was gentle for a Biologist. Most of the pond populous was around the large metal pump that served a separate reservoir on the other side of the pond bank. It curved round in awkward organisation and resembled part, of what one would imagine, is found in the hull of a submarine.

Most of those fellows were walking along it to hurl themselves back-first, straight into the depths. It was almost like a competition to see who could disrupt the water the most, firing themselves, cannonballs one after the other into the deepest spots, then wrestling to be the first to breathe again. We all looked peculiar with our tanned faces and pasty bodies from having to wear top-buttoned shirts all year round.  I spotted Ledley with them and decided to join. I scoffed to myself because he and a lad I didn’t recognise were about to throw Gibson, the smallest boy in our house from the highest part of the pump. Gibson was always a grinning mix of canniness and naivety, the six foot-plus drop and uneven ground bed was his for the taking. I rolled my eyes; no doubt Ledley had reassured him.

They swung him, Ledley at the ankles, one…two…and airborne. He went quite far, I suppose because he is very small and Ledley and chum are frightfully big. He seemed to pause timelessly in the air for a moment before plummeting into the water’s surface. He yelped in delight as he fell, at the rush in his belly and the subsequent respect he would earn for not being a girl about the whole experience. I thought then, that if he survived that I should like to give it a try. He made a clumsy splash but it wasn’t unimpressive. I winced as Ledley’s friend followed him with an awful dive that I felt, even from where I stood. He was followed shortly by Ledley himself performing an almost acrobatic slice into the depths, just to make a mockery out of him.

Earnest Ledley is my greatest friend. He plays on the rugby team, he can answer every question posed to him by Mr Swayne and he’s an excellent painter. I’m not allowed to tell anyone about that though, it’s a secret. He said it will stay a secret unless he goes to university. Apparently people our age won’t understand and he’ll be branded a Pansy. I chortled at the whole idea when he said this to me; no one would dare call him a pansy.

Our first real meeting was one night, the November before last. My father had been admitted to hospital earlier that evening; three drunken gypsies had climbed over our garden fence, broken our back windows and door and barged in demanding our heirlooms and taunting my sisters. They and my mother were petrified but me and my father had done our best to get them out. I made sure that the taunting one hurt the most. Another one did the same to my father.

Later on I was despaired. Mother was at the hospital so I told my sisters to go to bed and keep each other company. And then there was me, labouring at the door by the dim kitchen light. I was going to stay there keeping watch in case they came back and at the same time, try to fix their damage. It really wasn’t working on my own. And If I’m honest, I was scared.

A voice boomed out beyond the fence. I jumped to my feet grabbing my father’s old hammer and peered out into the garden ready to see the gypsies’ faces coming towards me again. They didn’t come and it took me a little while to distinguish that the voice had sounded terribly normal.

“What happened to you, old thing?”

It was of course Ledley walking with his Dog near the allotments that ran adjacent to my back garden. Relieved that I recognised him, I bade him in where he insisted on helping me. It took all night and we were friends from there on. Ledley has since seen the benefit of my mother’s gratitude. I’m certain he has softened around the middle since she started spoiling him.

 

I started making my way towards them. About twelve of the ‘Cannonball boys’ had followed the three and caused a tidal wave of disruption where they had entered. I couldn’t tell whether any of them had surfaced, I imagined that it must have been a sea of bodies below the surface, all scrapping at each other to try and break into the atmosphere.  Bubbles, feet, dirty browns and sun-soaked teals. A tangle of bantered chaos where everyone has their own suffocating struggle, their own panic and then their own thirst to do it all again when they find the bank. The sludgy bed disturbed, toenails abrading others’ backs, heads caught under knees - Sheer, unwitting struggle.

One by one they popped up like moles from the earth. Shaking their heads and drawing the reward of their struggle to their empty-chasm lungs. I recognised some faces, I disliked others, I spotted Gibson among them, I spotted Ledley’s friend and continued to wade in anticipation of Ledley’s own return.  He would be last, of course, he would always make the most of an opportunity to show off and hanging at the pond bed was a perfect opportunity to prove his lung capacity. Lingering like a shark.

I was quite close. Some of the first jumpers were taking another plunge as the water became too deep for me. I let out a backwards gasp, lowering the rest of my body into the pond, adjusting to the shock of the differing temperatures. Ledley was still messing around underwater when I reached them. I half suspected him to rise up and drag me under as a joke so I was on my guard. He was bigger than me, but I was faster.

Still no sign, I considered that he might actually have got out of the water and I just did not see him. He wasn’t at the pump, nor the west bank. The cricket team had dispersed, he wasn’t with them. Mr Harper still stood in the same spot looking blank. Where was he? He must be under the water still, but how?

I took a breath and made a stroke under water. Eyes clouding; my field of vision was about as long as my arm. My hands disappeared to fog with every stroke I took. Emerging for breath my heart was pounding from spending my lungful of oxygen. I felt something else, butterflies. I was starting to get worried; he’d been under the water for far too long. I shouted for him. No one took any notice and there was no reply from the man himself. I took another breath, plunging myself to the bottom. My ears caved in on themselves making my head pulse under the pressure. It was deep here, the bed was rocky and there were weeds everywhere. Searching with my hands more than my useless eyes I found nothing but slimy pond weed which made me want to wretch.

I could stay there no longer. Meeting the air with a gargantuan gasp, I stole another to keep me under once more. Staying still this time, I propelled myself in circles and squinted my useless eyes against the murk. Perhaps the sun would reveal a hint of him somewhere. Perhaps he was about to swim towards me out of the fog.

Another breath, another plunge. I hung in the water searching uselessly. Something was resting itself clammily against the back of my knee. I shivered and moved away from it, this pond weed was making my stomach turn. It didn’t feel like pond weed though, so I investigated. I turned. And with the disappearance of my hand to my stroke came the appearance of a face.

This time, I burst through the surface of the water out of shock not breathlessness. I took a cavernous breath and went straight to his aid. He hung there suspended, his body trying to be buoyant, the pond bed arguing otherwise. His face was almost angelic and his arms high above his head; he was blue-lipped and porcelain skinned. I slid my arms under his and kicked with all my might but nothing became of it. Surely he must have kicked too. Surely if anyone was going to kick his way out of this, Ledley would have been able to?

More kicking. No use. Another breath. More kicking. It was useless, I could tell. My mind was buzzing with panic.  Using his body to pull myself to the bottom, my ears caved once more. I scratched and pulled and scraped at the weed; my fear would not, could not, let me wretch. Not now. I scratched his skin too, peeling at the weed with all the strength I could muster under water. But my air was gone, I was getting desperate; I resolved one last tug and he was finally released. It took my body’s last ounce of urgency for air, grabbing around his chest, I kicked away with the only half-life I could raise.

Author's Note

If you read all of that...I love you forever.