The Lido

When I first saw Tom, he was lying belly up in the local outdoor swimming pool. In fact, one didn’t see much more than the rounded surface of his stomach peering out of the gently moving water. He would have given the appearance of a corpse had it not been for the occasional movement of his arms in half-hearted back strokes, followed by panicky, loud breathing. He had been doing the length of the pool for so long that a small crowd of little children were gathered halfway down the pool, taking bets as to whether he’d make it to the end.

“Hi. Do you mind?” he asked pointing at and at the same time already sitting down on the only chair available at the poolside café.
“Not at all,” I replied, looking up from the Evening Standard’s ES magazine that I had been reading in bursts since Friday. I had had a busy Saturday, what with Michelle’s hen party, and hadn’t even looked at the Sunday Times I’d picked up from the newsagent’s that morning. The big pile of sections and magazines sulkily stared up at me from the table top.

He had startlingly blue eyes, an azure so clear that stood out of a plump, smiley face. His baby smooth skin was marked by bright red, irregular marks down his legs where he had been sun burnt the day before.
“I fell asleep over there yesterday,” he said following my eyes and pointing to a tree on the other side. I could see that the way the branches were arranged left gaps through which hot, bright light shone, like spotlights.

“Oh, I see. I have some after sun lotion if you’d like some,” I offered, reaching into my bag.
“Thanks but I’m alright now. Can I get you something? A latte, coke, glass of wine?” he asked as he got up to go to the bar.
“No thank you,” I replied gesturing at my half-full tall latte.

I looked up from the travel section of the Sunday Times which I had been leafing through as Tom sat down. He smiled from behind a tray laden with a full English breakfast, a side plate of two croissants, a banana, a latte and a big glass of juice.

“Brunch,” he said in the way of an explanation.

“Enjoy,” I smiled back, returning to my reading.

The whole thing was as unlikely as anything. We coincided at the pool a couple of days later. We were both on holiday. I hadn’t settled on a foreign holiday destination as yet. I was planning to look at the last minute deals. He wasn’t bothered about going away. It turned out we liked the same sort of music – funk and soul, the same bars, had even been to the same school. He had been a couple of years ahead.

We got on well enough and met over the next week. We went away to Cyprus for week and had a fabulous time exploring the island, eating meze and drinking ouzo. After the holiday period, we continued to see each other.

A couple of years later, Tom was doing his lazy backstroke again in the outdoor pool. Not far away, in the dappled sunshine, underneath the corner tree, I was saying to one year old Emily, “Look Em, there goes daddy,” while she giggled, wet bubbles covering her mouth, startling blue eyes smiling out of a cute round face.