Wild Words Competition Winner: Helen Chambers

The winning story from the Winter Solstice Competition 2021…

Martha Turns the Tide

‘Once upon a time, you looked that good,’ Davy had said, squinting through the sunshine at the skin-ny women on their paddle-boards, skimming across the surface like water-skater insects in front of the quay.

Martha waited in vain for him to add that anyway, he loved her squidgy bits.

These insect-women had taut stomachs, rippling with muscles, and the breeze rippled the wa-ter beneath their paddle-boards. Their bronzed limbs were oiled and smooth, with a sunlit sheen. Mar-tha had rubbed at her scuffed-leather arms, wondering if it would help if she smeared them with cream. Then she tugged her elastic-waisted dress down in an attempt to hide her sturdy calves.

Last night, during the wakeful white hours, she’d felt submerged in the artexed whirlpools on the ceiling, whilst alongside her Davy snored, instead of throwing her a life-raft.

So, today, glum in the stifling heat which had lasted ten long days, she followed the river path away from town across the marshes, towards the grey sea, pondering on the drowning of her future. Once sure she was alone, Martha sat heavily on the shingled mud of the riverbank and wept. The scrubby samphire blurred into grey through her tears.

Love without hope, she sniffed. No point me trying anymore. He doesn’t care.

Pulling herself awkwardly to her feet, Martha lumbered and squelched across the muddy shoreline to the water’s edge. Her dress snagged on the skeleton of a bramble branch, but on she staggered regardless, letting the fabric stretch until it tore and the branch whipped away, a limp pen-nant of scrappy cotton drooping from its thorny limb. Shivering, she limped into the brackish water, wincing as it crept up her calves and her feet sank into the mud. The shock of the cold made her pause, then, gathering her remaining strength, she plunged forwards, overbalancing and toppling face-first into the water. The thought that her dress was clinging damply in all the wrong places, even when it no longer mattered, added to her despondency.

When she could no longer hold her breath, Martha resurfaced, gasping at the cold. Against all her desires, instinct kept her afloat. Resigned to a long drawn-out demise, she decided to swim now that she was in the water. She circled some moored boats, her head bobbing like a buoy, and then struck out for deeper water.

For a while, she twisted onto her back and floated, contemplating the sky. Even the clouds were skinny scrapings. Martha drifted with the tide, the river widening, the land falling away.

Flowing water caressed her skin the way Davy once had. A sun-warmed patch reminded her of her mother pouring warm water into the garden paddling pool to take the chill off. Oh, mum, she thought, provoking further tears.

Perhaps she’d simply wash out to sea, drift with the tide, until she could swim no longer.

Shouts splashed through her daydreams. Martha turned to upright, treading water and looking around. A shoal of porpoises were swimming towards her, blue and grey, lifting up and out of the water with grace and poise, dragging fluorescent buoys behind them. When they swam closer, she realised they were in fact humans, wearing swimming caps and with trailing marker floats attached to their waists.

‘Hello there!’ called a grey-hatted man with a walrus moustache and perfect white teeth. ‘Coming to join our school?’

‘Well, I ….’

‘Swimmers, move aside for this lady,’ he called over his shoulder and flashed past in a me-chanical front crawl, arms slicing water like knives, legs scissoring below the surface, causing barely a ripple.

Martha gaped in bewildered confusion, looking left and right as the swimmers powered past, their wake rocking her gently.

‘You’re late!’ snapped a stern-faced woman in a black swim-cap. ‘Next time, be at the town jetty forty minutes before high tide!’

‘But I didn’t …’ Martha spluttered, and realised no-one was listening. She stretched into a slow breast stroke behind them, straining her chin above the surface to keep them in sight.

‘Come on dear, I’ll swim beside you. Tell me all about it.’ Waiting for her was a smiling woman in a pink and purple flowery swim-cap, which showered drips as she turned her head. They swam side by side. Martha’s words flowed out of her, as she told the flowery woman about Davy’s snide silences, his pitying glances and the ghosts of their empty nursery.

When they reached the town jetty, Davy was standing in the sunshine, watching the skinny women again.

‘Where’ve you been Martha? I’ve looked everywhere!’

Martha took a deep breath and called him to jump in with her. He hesitated, staring in disbe-lief. She saw again the young man who’d promised her the stars, the young man she’d believed. The young man who made her heart flutter when he smiled. And now she saw the old man he’d become: lined, limp and haunted.

Finally, he peeled off his T-shirt, revealing a flabby torso, and dived into the water wearing just trousers. The porpoise swimmers whooped and cheered as he surfaced beside her, coughing and blinking. He reached out to embrace her, and even the skinny women wobbled their boards in slap-ping applause on the water. Martha beamed and hugged him back.

But then she pushed him away to arm’s length and said, ‘I’ve saved myself, Davy. Now what shall we do about you?’

On Writing the Story…

Martha’s story began, in the way of many, as a glimmer in the back of my mind. We’d been having an unusually hot spell here in East Anglia, and I’d been walking - very early - along the river estuary. Towards the end of my walk, I watched as an older, larger woman wearing a floral swimming cap strode over the mud, waded into the river, then swam purposefully between the moored yachts and sailing boats before striking out along the river. I watched in awe, and the image stayed with me.

She was Martha ‘after’ her transformation. I wondered about her backstory.

The prompt: Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you (David Whyte) hinted to me at an unhappy home life for my protagonist, so the idea of Martha and husband Davy stuck in an unhappy rut began to take more clarity.

I’m an occasional, intermittent and (definitely) fair-weather sea swimmer, and know the powerful feeling of the heightening of all my senses after immersing myself in cold, outdoor water. So I decided that Martha needed to go into the water at her lowest point.

After helpful feedback discussion with Bridget (my prize) I realise that the story would have been stronger had I clarified that Martha wasn’t suicidal, merely that she didn’t know what to do and hoped that someone would save her, work it out for her. She hadn’t thought through her actions. So her reported speech with the woman in the flowery swimming hat maybe would have benefited from being direct speech, where she could have expressed her unhappiness and lack of direction more clearly.

I’m at my happiest outdoors, especially walking along the beautiful river estuaries of East Suffolk and North East Essex, where I live. I wanted to bring a sense of place to Martha’s story from my own knowledge, and imagined the reason for Martha and Davy’s unhappiness and their inability to discuss it.

The ending took more work: initial drafts felt saccharine as I had Davy ‘rescue’ Martha. I needed to convey to the reader that she was hopeful, that Martha was working things out for herself and not relying on Davy to be her saviour. And that after the story ends, she’d probably join the swimming group and rebuild some self-confidence.

I loved working on it. I hope that my ‘Martha’ inspiration still swims regularly in all weathers.

To read more of my stories, visit my website: https://helenchamberswriter.wordpress.com/