Within minutes, he slowed to a limp, the pain in his right leg crippling. Every time his feet touched the sand, searing pain shot through his joints. He bit down on his lip and tried to continue, but the pain, the breathlessness, proved too much. At this rate, was he even going to be able to take part in the march himself? Tricia’s voice filled his head. You’ve made a show of us again. If he became too banged up to lead his own march … It didn’t bear thinking about. Defeated, he dropped onto the sand.
As the waves rose and fell, Michael’s long-ago pleas niggled. Don’t let me go. Then, when Billy had pulled Michael from beneath the water, how the boy had slapped and raged at him. Get away from me. Billy groaned out loud. His right knee and ankle felt as if someone were going at them with a knife. His breath came in short, tight streams. A cormorant dove into the glittering water, and then rose victorious, a blue-silver fish in its beak. Billy looked to the sky and out over the blanket of sea, at the almost impossible blues and greens, the world beating on, brilliant and glorious.
He struggled to remove his shoes and socks. After a messy effort, he got back up to standing. He removed tiny Michael from his trousers pocket and placed him inside his shoe, under the ball of his socks. He rolled his trousers legs up to his bumpy knees and limped to the water’s edge, the broken shells and sharp stones nipping at the soles of his feet. His toes tested the water, its chill making him shudder and roll his shoulders to his ears.
He pushed on, till the freezing water climbed past his knees. His waist. His chest. Almost out of his depth, he flipped onto his back and floated, the salt water lapping at his ears and mouth. His arms and legs scissored the water as fast as they could, fighting the chill. Seaweed touched his face. He chased away images of the brown-green tendrils tightening around his neck and tried to relax. As his limbs cut the water, he marveled at the sudden absence of pain, at the laws of suspension. Even as his teeth chattered and the Atlantic snapped at him, he remained floating. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so light.
*
A couple of days later, Billy stood in front of the Sports Center in town. As awful as it had felt to attend the AA meeting a while back, it was nothing next to his walking into this place now, about to sign up for a swimming pool membership, and then strip almost naked in public. He’d decided to give up his torturous efforts at walking, and his sad aspirations to build to jogging and then running. Instead, he planned to swim in the pool every day—much kinder, gentler exercise. The downside was that he’d likely meet people he knew while he was letting it all hang out. He reminded himself how surprisingly freeing the photo shoot with Denis had proved. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, either.
He stopped at the front desk to register, still unable to rein in his breathing. Then he plodded to the changing room—the space teeming with men and boys in various states of undress. He crossed the room, trying to ignore people’s double takes and the wall-to-wall mirrors. He recognized a couple of faces, one lad from the factory and one older man from the chemist where Tricia worked, but he pretended not to know them.
He located an empty locker down the back, parked himself on the damp bench, and kicked off his shoes. After a struggle to reach his feet, he peeled off his socks. When he went to pull off his sweatshirt, though, he couldn’t do it. Too many eyes. He moved across the wet, cold tiles in bare feet and entered the toilet stall, eying the wet patches on the floor with suspicion. He sidestepped the dubious spills and stripped down to his supersized navy boxer swim trunks. Then he waited.
As soon as the chatter and activity outside lulled, he lurched free of the small space. There in the corner, the weighing scale beckoned. Curiosity beat out mortification and he climbed aboard, this professional scale likely more accurate than his one at home. He waited for the numbers to settle, feeling watched. He stepped off and back on, to be sure. Three hundred and sixty-one pounds. He had lost a total of forty pounds. The number echoed inside him, biblical. He hiked up his arms and pumped the air.
The sense of triumph dissipated as soon as he emerged from the changing room and into the noisy, chemical-seeped pool area. Already the reek of chlorine annoyed his eyes and nostrils. He pushed on, his feet slapping over the sopping-wet tiles as fast as he could move. He would gladly take the cover of the poisonous pool over standing here in front of everyone, with so much of him showing.
At the water’s edge, he hesitated, trying to decide how best to enter. The metal stairs didn’t seem substantial enough to support his bulk. He held his breath and stepped off the wet, paved deck, dropping into the shallow end. He recovered from the chill shock of entry and the blindness of the gargantuan splash he’d made, only to hear the shrill sound of the lifeguard’s whistle. “No jumping!” Everyone turned to look.