I couldn’t believe how quickly Thursdays came round, carrying the great gloom cloud of dread for Sandro and me. I bet Maggie never counted down the days, wincing on a Tuesday at the inevitability of Thursday and the dreaded swimming lessons. I wished I was more like her. Resourceful. Optimistic. Confident. Able to brush any obstacles out of the way with minimum drama.
Maggie had made great strides in sorting out Lupo. She was still coming round several times a week, helping Sandro to rein Lupo back in whenever he started to slip back into his boisterous behaviour. I couldn’t run to her again. She had enough on her plate adjusting to Anna sticking her nose in, getting used to having a stepdaughter and a husband, let alone keeping on top of her own son and running a business.
And even if I could rely on her for advice, it was hard to imagine anyone in the world had the solution to Sandro and his fear of water.
It didn’t help that the spare bedroom was lined with swimming cups, medals and photos of Massimo, hands raised in triumph, his dark hair hanging in wet curls.
Sandro, on the other hand, had a full blown tantrum every time I got his face wet in the bath as a baby. Massimo accused me of transmitting my own anxieties to him. ‘You make him like that, you’re always so stressed about everything’, convinced that without my negative vibes, Sandro would have been an Olympic swimming gold medallist in the making.
By the time Sandro was three, Massimo decided to take control of my stop-start attempts to teach him to swim.
‘He needs to learn before he loses his nerve all together.’ And as always Massimo was the man to ‘make it happen’. With a wave of his hand, all ‘experienced swimmer heading to the pool to show off family man credentials’, Massimo arranged lessons for Sandro every Saturday morning. The first time, I’d made the mistake of going to watch. Initially I’d felt a little burst of pride when I’d seen Massimo stroll out with our son, looking so handsome in his swim shorts, tanned and muscly, nothing like the other men splashing about in the adult pool with their paunches and tattoos. I’d watched the women in the toddler class adjust their swimming costumes and suck in their stomachs, brightening up at this novelty, a modern man joining their ranks. No doubt they were wondering which lucky wife was sipping lattes with her friends while her husband took charge of Freddy frog floats.
My pride turned to distress when Sandro started to scream as soon as he touched the water. Massimo did all the right things, tried to make a game of it, peek-a-booing and ‘Here comes the shipping’ for all he was worth. But as the other two-and three-year-olds kicked their feet, some of the braver ones even jumping off the side, the rigidity of Massimo’s smile increased in line with Sandro’s wailing.
Massimo kept scowling at me as though I was sending Sandro ‘squawk louder’ vibes. Eventually, to my relief, the swimming teacher suggested they try again next week and Massimo carried Sandro out, waving a laughing goodbye to all the mothers whose faces suffered the loss of animation I’d seen so many times before: Massimo frowning off back to the footbath deprived them of a focal point, leaving them bumbling about like earwigs plunged into the light after months under a flowerpot.
Massimo refused to concede defeat even though the mere suggestion of a towel being rolled into a bag was enough to have Sandro cling to my leg with, ‘No swim, Mummy, no swim, stay home, stay home.’ Nonetheless, Massimo remained relentless in his optimism that Sandro would soon be clutching a raft of Duckling Award certificates.
Three months in and an excruciating floating poo incident later, Massimo’s swimming pool bonhomie disappeared down the drain with all the verruca plasters and hair. In its place was blame that I’d spoiled the boy and it was up to me to sort him out. For the next few years, I mollified Massimo by Googling articles about Olympic swimmers who didn’t begin swimming until they started school. I’d made a huge deal about the British gold medal winner at the Rio Olympics who had been so scared of water he used to stand up in the bath. But as Massimo was so fond of telling me, the Farinellis weren’t lily-livered. They had grit, determination and probably world-dominance in their genes. When Francesca showed Massimo her latest trophy, he couldn’t quite manage a ‘well done’ without making some reference to how he thought Sandro was going to have a swimmer’s build, that when he was a bit older they’d make a formidable team.
And now Sandro was seven, Massimo’s patience had run out.
However, I still wasn’t ready for the traumatic palaver that defined every Thursday afternoon’s swimming lessons. I cajoled and dragged Sandro along, dread rising on his face the nearer we got to the leisure centre. If he managed to get into the water at all, he’d cling rigidly to the side, little rumbles of terror leaching out of his throat while the teacher shouted at him to ‘Kick, kick, kick’. More often than not, he wouldn’t get into the pool at all, just stand on the side, silent tears slipping down his face, while I watched helplessly from the balcony above. So many times I’d nearly raced down and called a halt to the whole bloody charade but I knew the relief would be short-lived if I did it without Massimo’s agreement.
So the next time Massimo was talking about our annual trip to Italy, I took the opportunity to suggest that we should perhaps abandon swimming lessons for the time being and try again in August, when we’d be on holiday in the sunshine and he might be motivated to learn so he could join in with Sam and Francesca.
The chatty ‘Maybe this year we could try and get tickets to the Palio?’ husband vanished instantly. He slammed his hand on the table. ‘Do you know how I learnt to swim? My dad pushed me in the deep end a few times. I soon learnt to keep my head above water so I didn’t drink half of the pool. And trust me, if Sandro doesn’t pull his finger out and start putting some effort in, I’ll be doing the same in Italy this summer.’
As always I’d made things worse by trying to help. Now, I not only had the insurmountable problem of persuading Sandro to continue his lessons but a deadline for success as well.
As a result, that Thursday when Maggie came walking up the road, Sandro was sitting on the kerb, his face buried in the swimming bag on his knee. ‘Please don’t make me go, please don’t make me go, please don’t make me go.’
I was kneeling next to him, drilling into every last resource to find the magic sentence to make Sandro summon up the courage to get into that hated pool. If I didn’t insist he went, Massimo would think up a horrendous reprisal that would make an afternoon at the leisure centre look like an outing to the funfair: ‘That boy’s got to learn to do as he’s told!’