The Swimming Pool

David wasn’t sure if gold could be a feeling…but the sun felt golden on his face.

Despite the early hour, it was already sitting proudly in the sky. Where David was from was not so close to the equator, not so sunny. He preferred it this way.

The water was cool against his skin and contrasted nicely with the sun’s rays.

He was on lap thirteen of fifty. Which by his rigid morning routine meant he was on lap three of overhead crawl, having already completed ten laps of breaststroke; seven more overhead crawl laps would be followed by ten each of backstroke, butterfly and side crawl, five laps on each side. David believed the quotidian swim kept his mind honest and his body limber.

His lap pool was twenty-five meters by ten, and five meters deep at its central point. It had a step ladder in a corner on its northern end, the end that faced the expansive ranch-style house, and next to that a diving board. A blue tiled mosaic of sea monsters and ancient mariners decorated its floor.

Twenty-five meters was very long by residential standards. But David’s nearest neighbour was three acres of brushy hillside away, so where he lived didn’t feel particularly “residential”. He had, in fact, bought the house because of the pool. Water was good. Freshwater was best, seawater healthiest, but pool water would do.

At the tail end of his twentieth lap, just as he was preparing to twist his body around to position himself on his back, something troubled the edge of his vision. Something big and black and moving.

He stopped, mid motion, wiped the residue of chlorinated water from his eyes and watched in mild but very real shock as a man in a black suit and black sunglasses confidently walked - almost marched - to the edge of the pool, by the steps, where he stopped and stood, legs slightly spread, hands held in the fig leaf position. His head was raised somewhat, ranged above David’s; David couldn’t tell where the eyes were looking behind the shades.

The stranger didn’t speak. He didn’t even look like he was going to speak.

‘Can I help you?’ Even to David it sounded weird: why was he asking this well-dressed intruder if he could be helped? Why was he being formal? Polite, even?

There was no response from the mysterious man.

‘Ok...’ David, said, gliding towards the chrome pool steps above which the man threateningly stood. ‘I’m coming out, stand back.’ He tried to sound as casual as possible, but his heart was beating fast and dread crept into the deep recesses of his mind.

He gripped the warm rubberised banister of the steps harder than he normally would and placed his right foot on the bottom step. His eyes were fixed forward, at the blue and white tiled wall of the inner pool; he was determined not to look at the man before he had to, lest it made him mad somehow.

A moment after his left foot reached the second step and the lip of the poolside became visible, the hard sole of a pointed black leather shoe caught the side of his head and forced him backwards, off the steps altogether, to flop into the pool with a large splash. The suddenness and force of the loafered push had easily pried David’s grip from the handrail as if he only had the strength of a small boy. He was slightly dazed. The man had not kicked him as such, he had just carefully placed the sole of his shoe against the side of his head, and before David could move or protest - shoved.

And his assailant hadn’t said a word, or even made a noise. Not one David could hear, anyway.

‘What the fuck?! What the actual fuck?!’ The sudden surge of treated water stung his eyes, adding to his sense of annoyance. He swam back to the foot of the ladder, his fears about the man’s malevolence - if not quite intentions - confirmed.

‘I’m coming out; DON’T do that again. Don’t you fucking dare do that again.’ David suspected the man would do exactly that again, but this time he would at least keep his eyes on him as he exited the water, have his hands ready.

It was hard to tell from his lowered position, but the man looked significantly bigger than David; taller, broader - even in a slimming black suit - and younger. His veiny neck looked as thick as David’s thigh and his hands had a shovel quality to them…or perhaps more an excavator’s scoop quality.

When his left foot once more met the second step, the man’s polished right foot came up again, as if on cue. David caught it and with his other hand grabbed the man’s ankle before the shoe could touch his head for a second time. The ankle was meaty and felt knotted with muscles David didn’t even know a human leg contained.

While still gripping the man’s ankle with his right hand, David continued hauling himself up with his left. His right foot was on the third, second-to last-step, when those excavator hands lowered, as though God himself was reaching down, and before he could even shout another expletive at his attacker, David was underwater again, watching the man in black, shimmering through the liquid barrier temporarily separating them, with the yellow sun high over his hulking shoulders.

…

‘Who the fuck are you?’ David was standing in the shallow end, by the steps, but not daring to try to mount them again. The pool’s shallowest parts were four foot deep and came up to David’s chest.

The man didn’t answer. His face didn’t move. His eyes were invisible behind the sunglasses. His body language was unreadable; not aggressive, nor passive, but something in between. It made him even more intimidating to David.

‘Listen. Mate. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, or who you think I am, but I can guarantee you’ve got the wrong guy, you’re at the wrong house.’ Nothing. ‘Will you let me out of this pool?’

‘No, sir, I’m afraid I can’t do that.’ Despite wanting a verbal response, it still surprised David that he actually got one after the creepy muteness. He was beginning to think the man couldn’t actually talk. Or at least couldn’t hear. Hi accent was flat, region-less. His voice was baritone with a lot of timber.

‘Why not? Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t just keep me in here.’

The man’s opaque vow of silence had returned.

‘Tell me who…. Who’s doing this? Who’s paying you? It’s someone from the office, isn’t it - some shitty prank? They thought it would be funny? They’re here with you, hiding? Or maybe filming it…whatever, either way, I don’t care anymore. Joke’s over, time for you to go. Time for you to piss off, mate. Nothing personal, of course.’

The three-meter-long diving board hovered above David’s head. It was the only place in the pool that offered any shade from the sun which was getting progressively hotter by the passing minute.

‘Fuck this.’ David swan as fast as he could down the pool until he hit the far wall. Without skipping a beat, and using his body’s momentum, he put his hands on the slippery edge and hauled himself upwards, reaching out for the hard surface with his right foot.

And then he was underwater again.

How the hell had the man moved so fast? David hadn’t heard him running along the pool as he swam. Nor had he noticed him when he came up. He was just…there, all of a sudden, ready to push David back into the pool as if he weighted nothing at all.

David stood up and looked at the man. He hadn’t even broken a sweat running around the pool, on a roasting hot day, in his suit. His face remained placid and there was no evidence of any exertion, no redness, no flush.

‘Now what? Huh? So you’re not letting me out of the pool - now fucking what? I know you can talk…now’s not the time for the silent treatment. Why are you doing this?’ David already knew this line of questioning was pointless and wasn’t going to get him anywhere, but he didn’t know what else to do. What else to say.

He tried the west side of the pool, about halfway down, shooting his body as fast as he could, torpedo like, and attempting to fling himself over the edge with all his might. It failed. The man caught him mid-air and sent him back from whence he came. David wasn’t bothered though; he suspected he might get him, but now it was a short distance to the east side of the pool for David and twenty-five meters, plus the width of the pool end, for the man in the black suit. No way could he get there in time to stop his watery prisoner. David wasn’t sure exactly what he was going to do once out of the pool, all he knew was that he needed to stay out of his assailant’s grip, and generally as far away from him as possible. The house was an option, though he could be cornered there. Running as fast as he could into the bushy overgrowth was a better plan, despite the bloody mess it would make of his bare feet.

But first he needed to get out of the pool. His arms felt heavy as he put his palms on the pool’s edge and hauled his body out in a cascade of droplets. Both feet were finally on the sun-warmed tiles and he was free. Out of the pool and free.

He would have sworn on his own grave that the man was nowhere near him when he got out of the pool. He couldn’t have been. He was too far and it was to awkward a distance for even the fastest man on earth to cover in four times that time. And the man was big and lumpy, and wearing dress shoes and trousers. Not a sprinters body, not a sprinters outfit. Yet, there he was, looking gigantic and terrifying in front of David’s eyes, a full head taller, blocking out the light with his mass.

David was sent back into the pool with such force he sank all the way to the bottom, his back bouncing of the solid surface, off the tiled face of a dragon bearing its long teeth.

New strategy.

He came up making noise. A lot of noise. Screaming as loud as he could. So intent was he to be heard by someone - anyone - his rageful shouting began when he was still underwater and a whirlpool of angry bubbles preceded his breach.

HELP! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP! I’M BEING HELD PRISIONER! SOMEONE CALL THE POLICE! PLEASE! HELP ME! I’M IN THE POOL! CALL THE POLICE, TELL THEM I’M IN THE POOL! 1812 ANGEL BOULEVARD! SOMEONE! PLEASE!

His vocal cords scratched and threatened to tear.

The man didn’t flinch. Didn’t try to stop his protestations. Obviously didn’t feel threatened by them. Maybe he was right not to be as the house was pretty isolated, but noise travelled far in those hills and the main road was less than a hundred yards from his front door. Maybe someone driving by would have the windows rolled down. Maybe. He didn’t know his neighbours, if they could even be called that. Didn’t know their names or the first things about them. He turned his head south and directed some of his screams that way. The city was down there, miles and miles below and away, a hazy fata morgana of glass and steel and smog. It looked so far away to David. Further than it ever had. A far away, uncaring place.

Eventually he shut up. He hated the sound of his own desperate pleas for help so he was almost grateful his voice box’s protests had finally won him over. The man still didn’t seem bothered at all. Placid, stoic, silent, just…there. He was assertively standing where he had last halted David’s exit, like a nightclub bouncer, face still pointed just slightly over David’s head, and still without a bead of sweat, despite the morning closing in on a midsummer’s midday of what must have been one hundred degrees.

Work.

He was late for work. Of course, he was the boss, so being late didn’t matter in that sense, but he would be missed by the office, his absence noted: emails would come first, then texts, followed by calls, and then eventually visits. Yes - it was only a matter of time. He didn’t have to panic; help was inevitably on its way.

Unless…

Brian.

His employees were the very ones doing all of this. He had suspected a prank from the start. Not a burglary, a prank. Burglars - even ones robbing the homes of millionaires - didn’t dress like his uninvited guest. His PA - Lucy - had the codes to the gate and a key to the front door. She could have gotten the man in, but she was never going to be the brains behind the escapades…that was all Brian. Brian would do this. Only Brian would be both smart enough and stupid enough to think this would be a good idea. Lucy would have done anything for Brian, and Brian knew it; he could have gotten the codes and keys off her, either directly or with subterfuge, depending on how well he fucked her.

But why, Brain? Why?

…

‘Brian did this? Brian put you up to this?’

The name Brian elicited no observable response on the man’s face or in his body language. And, of course, no spoken response either.

‘Look — this has obviously gotten out of hand…I know this is just a dumb prank Brian hired you for.

‘You should give up acting or whatever it is you do and really consider competitive running. I think you’d be good at it.’

‘I’m thirsty. Could you get me some water? I promise I won’t try to bail out when you’re gone. Besides, I think we both know you could catch me no problem.’

‘Listen, do I have to be in the pool? I get that you have to keep me here…but surely not in the pool. Why the fucking pool, of all places?’

‘I’ve got a twenty-five-thousand-dollar sofa in there, in front a 80-inch, 8K, surround-sound TV. Wouldn’t you much rather hold me in there, where it’s a bit less hot?’ And less wet, he thought. ‘We could watch a few movies or something, till the prank was over.’

Hours ticked by and the sun waned into the horizon, dipping low and fizzing, turning the whole sky into an effervesce glow of blues and oranges.

He had spent most of the afternoon deciding on numerous and intricate ways he was going to murder Brian. And maybe Lucy, but mostly Brian. He was going to kill him slowly, of course - painfully - and then fire him, leave his pink slip on his grave

He was getting very thirsty. And hungry. But mostly thirsty. He couldn’t bear to gulp the pool water (almost an hour of non-stop pleading with his prison guard had elicited exactly zero responses) and was pretty sure it would make him sick if he tried, but he could put a wet finger in his mouth and along his lips from time to time to keep the horrible parch at bay. It was not a taste he thought he would ever get used to.

He had tried escaping a few more times. Once on the diving board where the man nearly crushed his fingers under his heel as he gripped it. For his second attempt, he had reached up and grabbed the man around both his massive legs and tried to drag back down into the water. He had reasoned that by the time the man regathered his composure, he could already be out of the pool, moving away from it, quickly. When he tugged at the man’s solid lower legs, there was no give whatsoever. He may as well have been trying to uproot a great redwood tree, just by pulling on it. The man hadn’t tried to stop him or shaken him off, he just stood there looking down at David until he grew exhausted, like a parent watching a needy toddler thrown a temper tantrum.

He’d peed a couple of times, but now he needed to shit.

‘I need to shit. Are you going to make me shit in the pool?’

Of course he was. But David was going to make him pay…

David missed the man’s face with his throw: it hit him square in the chest - at the junction of his black tie and his suit jacket - bounced off and hit the ground. The man didn’t try to dodge the throw and didn’t react at all when the foul thing hit him.

‘Nothing? Nothing? What kind of sick fucking psycho are you?’

The men stepped to one side, away from the turd, and resumed his silent vigil over David.

…

‘I can pay. You know I can pay. I can wire you fifty thousand dollars this very moment, if you’ll go in the house and get me my phone. Fuck it — One hundred thousand. Whatever Brian is paying you — I know it’s not even going to touch that kind of money.’

‘You want one of my cars? Porsche or Jag? Take whichever one you want. I promise I won’t file a police report, it’s all yours. I mean, you can have the Audi too if you want it, but I’m guessing you’d prefer one of the pricier ones.’

‘Mate, every second I spend in here, it’s all just going to add to your sentence. I don’t know exactly what Brian said to you, how he explained the gag and how no one would get in trouble and how I’d be a good sport about the whole thing, blah, blah, blah…but I can promise you, you have been given very bad information. But it’s not too late.’

A sheer starless darkness fell, and the twinkling city below was the only source of light in David’s world.

He dashed and dived in the dark, taking advantage of the reduced visibility, the camouflage offered by the dark, trying to confound the man, send him the wrong way. But when he finally made his northern corner exit, he was one again pushed back into the water, by huge invisible hands.

His body was exhausted. His mind was even more so. And he suspected that the theory that had so consumed his day wasn’t even true…

‘Do you know who Brian is?’

‘No, sir.’

Fuck.

…

David’s second day in the pool brought him no more answers and no more freedom

The man hadn’t left. The man hadn’t slept. The man hadn’t had to use the bathroom. The man hadn’t eaten anything. The man hadn’t drunk anything. The man hadn’t coughed, sneezed, cleared his throat or burped. The man was not a man at all. At least not a man David had ever met.

‘I wished I had never met you.’

David had slept a bit, leaning against the wall in the shallow end. But his slumbering body, aware of the mortal danger of water all around, kept waking him with heart-jumping starts every few minutes. He tried floating and sleeping, to see if that would work: his body rolled over in its demi-sleep and he swallowed a mouthful.

He still couldn’t quite believe it was all happening. Every time he woke from his short sleeping spurts, for a moment between dreamland and reality, he thought it had all, been a nightmare. A silly nightmare, cooked up by his overheated body on a sweltering summer’s night.

David spent most of the day under the white diving board, the only shade against the sun’s tyranny. His shoulders, arms and chest were bright red and beginning to blister. His face and neck felt hot too. He felt a bit unwell, lightheaded and nauseous. He assumed it was a combination of heatstroke, dehydration, hunger and exhaustion. A lethal combination.

He thought about his phone, resting on the imported Carrera marble island in the kitchen, probably out of a charge by now

‘What’s your name?’ David asked after a morning of silence, hiding beneath the diving board, feeling progressively unwell.

‘Do you have a family?’

‘I’m going to name you Cunt.’

‘Cunt, do you have a family?’

‘What time is it, Cunt.’

‘You’re a real cunt, you know that, Cunt?’

He tried swimming to the far end of the pool, not for any reason other than to stretch out his aching joints and muscles. It was hard going. His energy levels were at the bottom of the red bar. He eventually made it over, side crawling like a lifeguard dragging a heavy corpse back to shore. Except he was his own heavy corpse. Of course, Cunt was there waiting for him. He didn’t even bother to contemplate on the implausibility of the thing anymore and in his slight delirium he started to laugh.

‘You know what, Cunt. You’re not really a cunt at all — you’re actually an interesting guy, and I know your mother gave you a real name, and I know you’re never going to tell me what that is, so I’m going to call you Simon. You don’t look anything like Simon, but I’ve decided that is now your name.’

‘Who’s Simon, you ask? Oh, he’s my brother. My younger brother. Or he was my brother. Or he still is, I guess — you don’t really lose someone like that, put them into past tense, even if they put themselves there. Yeah, he died. Hey, thanks for asking, Simon, and sorry about all that cunt stuff earlier. A bit of a stressful time, you know? Anyway, yeah, drugs. It was drugs. Started with booze when he was a teenager and just kind of evolved from there. Only took ten years from his first Jager bomb to his final speedball. Ten years — doesn’t seem so long really. I didn’t speak to him for the last two years. I was as silent with him as you are with me. It wasn’t even that I couldn’t bear to watch him self-destruct or anything somewhat noble like that. I just found him annoying and a bit embarrassing. I just wanted him to go away and leave me alone. And I guess that’s exactly what he did in the end. So looks like I got what I wanted. He was the better brother, I suppose you could say, despite his faults. Anyway, enough about my life, Simon. Tell me more about yours. Tell me something about yours. Please?’

David floated away. Floated for the rest of the day, let the sun roast his torso as it pleased. In the late afternoon he dry-heaved in one corner for a bit, before going back under the diving board again.

No one will come for me.

No one. I have no one.

No family.

No friends.

Maybe Brian.

Maybe Brian will come for me.

Or Lucy.

No. Not them either.

‘Will you save me if I go under, Simon? If I drown? Will you jump in in your nice suit and drag me out? Or is that why you’re hear? To witness my death? To facilitate it?’

“Simon” looked in his direction, Looked right at him, for just a second. Or at least David thought he did. His vision was blurring.

‘The cleaner!’ His excitement dissolved as quickly as it had arrived.

‘She’s not coming is she?’

‘No, sir. She won’t be coming.’

‘Why do you speak sometimes but not other times?’

A hawk flew in and landed on a long branch overlooking the house.

‘Am I going to die here, Simon?’

The hawk cried out and took off from its temporary perch, passing in front of the setting sun.

…

The third day of David’s captivity announced itself with a dazzling fiery intensity in the sky he could hardly appreciate in his deteriorating state.

Simon stood in perpetuity like a statue made of black granite. And David knew Simon would always stand there. That he would never leave and that he would never relent.

‘I guess there’s really only one thing I can do, Simon.’ His mouth was so dry he could barely talk; his lips cracked with the effort and his tongue was coarse sandpaper. ‘Where was I? Backstroke, right? Oh - don’t know why I’m asking you. You couldn’t possibly know. I think I was at twenty-one, maybe, or twenty-two. Let’s say twenty-two, shall we? No, that’s cheating. Back to twenty. Let’s go back to twenty — start the set over. Seems better that way — I always hated that feeling of cheating out on a rep or a set. It’s best to play it safe, Simon. Wouldn’t you agree, Simon?. Yes, I can tell you agree. I’m beginning to learn how to read you, Simon. It took a while, but I’m there now.’

David turned his aching, blistering, burnt, desiccated body up, towards the cloudless sky and floated, painfully raising his arms and windmilling his way down the pool.

Twenty-nine more laps to go.