Page 50 of The Riviera House Swap
‘We didn’t,’ Sabine admitted. ‘But it is so important to take the chance! You told me you longed to do it. So why not this morning!’
Nina could think of a few reasons, but none of them could be expressed without several curse words. ‘Um,’ she said.
‘So come on! Up! Up! Up!’ Sabine cried, clapping her hands and reminding Nina of a particularly driven PE teacher at school.
She found herself climbing out of bed, self-conscious in her small T-shirt and knickers, and picking up a pair of jogging bottoms from where she’d slung them on a chair.
‘Right. Five minutes. Coffee,’ Sabine said, sternly. Then she gave a cheeky wink and disappeared from view.
Nina had to use all her self-resolve not to collapse back into the bed and pull the duvet over her face.You’re a grown adult!she told herself sternly.You are allowed to say no to things!But whether it was her tendency to people please, Sabine’s forthright instructive persuasion or the fact she had made a promise to herself to try something new, she found herself instead rifling through her drawer for her swimming costume. She found it – shrivelled and black and slightly worse for wear – tucked behind a pair of warm socks and slipped into it. Then pulled on jogging bottoms, a T-shirt and a thick hoody, laced up her trainers and looked in the mirror.
She looked exactly as she suspected she’d look. Dishevelled. Doomed.
But taking a breath, she turned and made her way downstairs.It’ll be a good anecdote, she reminded herself,if I survive.
Moments later, they were in the VW, chugging down to the front. The van smelled of petrol and cigarettes, its seat sank beneath Nina’s bottom and she could feel stiff, unyielding springs under the upholstery. Sabine was chatting away, but only twenty minutes into her day, Nina found it hard to concentrate. Instead, she took in the sights of early morning Cagnes-sur-Mer – lights sprinkled in windows, a few cars moving along the road in the semi-darkness. The shops and cafés on the front were mostly illuminated, but still closed. It was only six o’clock after all.
That was the problem, she thought. She’d said she might like to try cold water swimming. But she hadn’t said anything about six o’clock in the bloody morning. Was this part of it? Was the early hour meant to enhance the confidence-boosting properties of an icy swim? At least there’d be no one else on the beach, she supposed.
In almost no time, Sabine stamped on the brake and expertly guided the van into a car parking space on the front. They’d driven to a sandy stretch of beach close to the main promenade. At least, Nina thought, she’d been spared the prospect of pebbles. She hardly recognised her surroundings in the dark – was this the beach she’d walked to, or another one entirely? And was it really safe to swim in the sea when you barely knew where you were on dry land?
‘Which beach is this?’ she asked Sabine.
‘Ah, it is La Plage du Grand Large,’ her friend replied.
‘A big large?’ Nina said, wondering whether the name had been chosen to honour the bottoms of women like her, dragged to the beach to humiliate or freeze themselves in the ocean.
‘Ha yes,’ Sabine said, smiling. ‘Because the sea stretches for miles.’
‘I know how he feels.’
Sabine gave her a smile and pulled on the handbrake noisily. ‘Come’ she said. ‘Bring your towel.’
At this time of the morning, the air was bitingly cold, blowing in from the surface of the sea and reminding Nina that although sometimes in the day it felt quite summery, it really was the cusp of autumn. Sabine seemed undeterred, striding towards the water’s edge, smiling. ‘Ah, I have forgotten how amazing this can be!’ she said.
She lay her towel on the sand and, then sat on it and took off her shoes, placing them on each side of the towel. ‘For the wind,’ she said. Then she stripped off her top and trousers as if it was a summer’s day and she couldn’t wait to be rid of their pesky warmth.
Nina slowly copied her, removing her trainers, jogging bottoms and finally her hoody. Then looked properly at her friend and gasped.
Sabine was now entirely naked.
‘Oh,’ her friend said, as if just having an ordinary, casual conversation, not standing in front of someone on a chilly beach in the semi-darkness entirely naked. ‘You have decided to wear a costume. I find it is more free with nothing at all.’
‘Er, I think I prefer this,’ Nina said, covering herself with her arms as if Sabine might at any minute encourage her to rip the suit free and run into the sea as naked as a newborn. ‘This time at least.’
Sabine shrugged, then turned and ran to the shallows, splashing in as if they were a clement temperature until she was up to her thighs. Then she turned. ‘Come! Nina!’ she said. ‘It is truly wonderful!’
Unconvinced and already about as cold as it was possible to get, Nina followed – stepping into the tiny ripples at the edge of the sea and finding the water to be far from wonderful. Deadly would be a better description.
But she’d said she’d do it. And she’d promised herself that she’d be brave and bold and all the things you say when you’re feeling at one with the world and a couple of red wines down. So she pushed each foot forward, grimacing as the water lapped at her shins.
In front, her naked friend seemed to have no such sensibilities and was already waist deep (which in some ways was a relief) and splashing in the water like a toddler on holiday.
Nina had read articles extolling the benefits of cold water swimming. It would improve her mood! Her immune system! Help her to burn calories! She would feel exhilarated! Cleansed! Invigorated! Fit! So far, she seemed simply to be in danger of hyperthermia and in need of the largest cup of hot… anything she’d ever had. But it was now or never. She’d made it this far and she couldn’t imagine ever putting herself through it again. She didn’t want to be the person who fell at the final hurdle. So somehow, she managed to step a few more paces and push herself forward and…
…and she was swimming! As her arms moved through the water, she realised that some sort of defence had kicked in in her body and she no longer felt the extremity of the cold. She felt fresh, and while not invigorated, she hadn’t died of the shock – so better than she’d thought she’d be.
Sabine was ahead, doing a gentle breaststroke and watching the edges of the clouds begin to lighten as the sun finally dragged itself from slumber and began its slow ascent towards its place in the autumn sky. She glanced back at Nina. ‘See!’ she said. ‘You love it!’
