The Lifeguard

And suddenly we were beholden to this man, the older lifeguard at the pool. He picked Emily out of the crowd, saw her floating face down amongst all that reflected sunlight. He saw her in the clutter of bodies and the high pitched mayhem of childrens' voices. I am utterly ashamed to say that I was distracted by my phone while this was happening. It started with a work-related email. Then a message from a friend. Then a link to something else. You get swept away so easily these days. Insidious how this little device diverts us away from what is important.

Anyway, when I looked up, the lifeguard was already pulling Emily out of the water and a crowd was gathering around on the wet concrete. I came forward, through the rubberneckers, my panic sharpening as all parents will do when they slowly realise their child is the centre of the gathering drama. I was terrified and furious and sickened with myself. I should have been watching. Then again Emily is a good swimmer. It is difficult to reconcile these things. Especially when you consider what could have happened.

The lifeguard saved her. He performed CPR while I stood there freaking out. The pool water came out of her lungs as she began gulping for air, sputtering and shaking. It was amazing. This man, this lifeguard, had literally brought my daughter back from the dead. While it was happening, the whole thing felt like an out of body experience for me because I was powerless to do anything. All that paternal instinct was crashing through me and I was powerless.

I invited the lifeguard over to our house for dinner. I had to do something, right? I made pulled pork on brioche buns with salad. Em's favourite. This would have never happened if Em hadn't strayed out of her depth and become surrounded by all those overexcited older girls. Behind the sunglasses, the floppy safari hat and the zinc sun protection, the lifeguard was a fairly conventional looking middle-aged man. He was bald. Not exactly in great shape. Didn't they have strenuous tests for lifeguards? To maintain a fairly rigorous level of fitness? There was something a little off about him. His eyes were always skittering off into the corners of the room. Or up to the ceiling to contemplate the crown moulding. As soon as he arrived he was in the way, hovering in doorways as if waiting for permission to enter the room. Given the chance to talk, he didn't spare any time launching into his conspiracy theories. He didn't have anything personal to say, even when we tried to steer the conversation back to the topic of his life. He did have a hell of a lot to say about the Twin Towers coming down, ISIS, the CIA, the Freemasons...to name but a few. The tenuous links were exhausting. And according to the lifeguard, everything was subject to suspicion. No matter how innocent or innocuous it seemed. Everything was controlled beneath the surface by the tentacles of this conspiracy. So our little thank you dinner took an unpleasant turn right about the time I brought the food to the table. This was not the kind of thing I want my six-year-old daughter listening to. The abundant ugliness of this world would find her soon enough. I had no intention of speeding that process up.

Anyway, we got through dinner. Eating and drinking helped because he stopped talking for awhile. But then he wouldn't leave. He just sat there even after we'd cleared away the plates. Even after Peter and I started unhinged our jaws yawning and moaning about getting up early the following morning for work. Maybe this was all my fault? I had wanted this man to fit into a nice neat box. I wanted him to be a hero. But he was too puggy and thick-lipped to fit comfortably into that container. He pressed up grotesquely against the glass and spilled out over the sides. Underneath it all, I was still so angry with myself. How had I become so distracted? And why couldn't it have been one of the younger lifeguards? If it had been, I'm sure this scene would have been far more palatable. Far more wholesome. Why couldn't it have been one of the nice, clean-cut university students you saw down there? One of those guys with straight teeth and a positive attitude?

I did not want Emily to associate an act of heroism with someone like this. Someone who was so narrow-minded, so paranoid about everything. Someone who never smiled or laughed. Someone with no real personality. Just a list of statistics and theories to justify his isolated existence. Finally, I had to make Pater say something. By that point, we'd migrated into the kitchen and we were having one of those whispered but highly animated conversation while he remained rooted to the spot, at the table.

It was a great relief when the lifeguard finally left. We continued to go to the pool on hot days after school, paying our money, buying ice creams and going in through the turnstile. And there he was. The lifeguard would drift over to where we'd set up and start talking. His eyes blank behind his mirrored sunglasses, his mouth going up and down. At first, I didn't really know how to handle it. I wanted to relax. I didn't want to hear about explosives being detonated by shadowy government agencies. Then I began to gently but firmly redefine the boundaries and push him away. I put my phone or a magazine up as a shield. I'd look up periodically and say, what? I'm sorry...I'm not following you. A normal person would have picked up on these clues. Not this guy. Anyway, when that failed, I made a complaint to the centre management. An email. I told Peter about it in the mirror one night as I applied moisturiser to my throat, saying, when you think about it we don't owe this man anything. I mean he was doing his job, wasn't he? And after the complaint was made, the lifeguard backed off. A sharp word from his supervisor pushed him back into the anonymous playdough of faces and bodies at the pool. You have these little emergencies but then things tend to correct themselves. An order is re-established. Life goes on.