The Tale of Truthwater Lake by Emma Carroll

Author:Emma Carroll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2022-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

The following week, Captain Farley moved our Saturday training session to the seaside. By now it was May, and there’d still been no word of an exact date for the swim. If it wasn’t decided soon, before the deadline to leave Syndercombe, Lena would have to go back to London. Time was running out.

The Bristol Channel coast was seven miles from the village. It wasn’t the nicest stretch of coastline, with grey shale beaches, mud flats and water the colour of rain clouds, but it presented us with challenges we’d not yet faced. Another would be swimming under the watchful eyes of Captain Farley, Mrs Lamb, who’d flown in from America, and our sponsor, the chewing gum man, Mr Wrigley, who was keen to check Nate’s progress.

At six o’clock on a damp morning, we gathered on the beach. The sea was choppy, the breeze a brisk north-westerly. Nate and I were nervous. Although I wore my costume under my clothes just in case, it was Nate they’d come to see, Nate who shivered in his black tunic and orange cap, and whose training had mostly been, these past weeks, the short bike ride to and from the gravel pits. Lena, provider of encouraging thumbs ups and cheering smiles, watched from the sidelines.

Mrs Lamb wasted no time in explaining to Mr Wrigley why Nate was such an extraordinary find.

‘He’s charming, likeable, photographs like a natural. You’ve seen the shots Sophie took,’ she said.

‘Sure,’ Mr Wrigley agreed. ‘We’ve got ourselves a proper young English gentleman, eh? People are going to love him!’

Though he looked unremarkable in a grey suit and glasses, Mr Wrigley’s American accent made it hard not to be excited by the glamour of it all. He and Mrs Lamb talked about photographs, television, magazine articles as if they were auditioning a movie star.

Eventually, almost as an afterthought, the conversation turned to the swim.

‘You’ve had the June date confirmed?’ Mrs Lamb asked Captain Farley. ‘The association’s been in touch?’

I shot him a nervous glance in case he’d heard and not told us.

The captain shook his head.

‘Really?’ Mrs Lamb was surprised and slightly annoyed. ‘Too many requests, that’s the problem. I’ve never known Channel swimming be so popular. Leave it with me. I’ll chase it up.’

Her attention then turned to Nate. ‘You’ve built up your stamina? You’ve been training?’

He assured her he’d worked very hard indeed.

‘You’ve been eating well, I see. Lots of carbohydrates,’ she remarked.

‘Yup.’ Nate gave his stomach a prod. ‘That wasn’t too hard.’

I smiled.

‘But the training on your own? How’s that going?’

Nate caught my eye. ‘Actually, I didn’t.’

‘Aha!’ Mrs Lamb glanced from Nate to me in understanding. ‘You’re the secret weapon, are you?’

I nodded, suddenly shy.

‘Nellie’s a top-notch training partner,’ Captain Farley put in. ‘They train together most of the time, and we’ve requested that she be on the pilot boat. What do you say they swim together today, as it’s their first sea session?’

Mrs Lamb’s mouth twitched: as she considered the request, I held my breath.

‘Very well,’ she said.

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