The Turtle Pond

When I was eight years old I fell into a very large, very deep, very high sided pond housing half a dozen turtles. I couldn't swim. The only person around at the time was my faithful best friend, who legged it as soon as she heard the splash. (We were both under strict instructions not to go near the place, and my death was a small price to pay to avoid early bedtimes and no pocket money.)

Eight years is not a lot of life, so it flashed before my eyes very quickly, leaving me lots of time to contemplate my situation. I knew that the pond contained a mysterious Deeper Part in the middle where, it was rumoured, the Mother of All Turtles lay in wait for the unwary. I could only hope I would drown before she found me. I knew that even if I was rescued, I would die, because the water was green and slimy and contained more deadly diseases per fluid ounce than a Porton Down thermos. A choking death by Bubonic Plague was, moreover, preferable to my liberal 1960s parents being Very Disappointed, wanting to know Why and insisting on Talking It Through.

The viscous green water closed over my head and I could hear Mama Turtle snapping at my heels.

As I took my last look at the receding world, a heavy black object splashed into the water above my head and a muffled voice shouted something incomprehensible. I watched with interest. Was this part of the drowning process? Was this the way the angels came and got you from a watery grave?

My brain had given up on life and was contentedly sinking into oblivion, but my limbs were still connected to some atavistic instinct determined to preserve the main organism. My hands reached up and grasped the black object.

It was a man's boot, and attached to it was a man's leg, and above that were two hands, which grasped my arm and started to haul me out. It bloody hurt and I yelled like mad and wondered what he would hold on to when my arm left its socket.

I don't know how he got me up the concrete side and onto the ground; I was substantial child, soaking wet and screaming with fear, and he must have been exceedingly determined. I remember looking up from the ground and seeing his face, contorted with concern and relief, peering at me. Next to him were three young children, looking utterly bewildered, and a lady in full hijab, whose eyes looked stricken.

I remember getting up from the ground with one thought in my mind - running home. They tried to stop me and I became even more hysterical. I was English, living in their country and, in true neo-imperialist fashion, spoke no Arabic beyond hallo, thank you, and Coca Cola please. The man eventually picked me up bodily and, following my garbled instructions, carried me to my house, five minutes away.

I don’t remember much of the ensuing few minutes, but my mother later told me that my confused and aghast father, in true neo-imperialist fashion, offered the Arab man money for saving my life. He got a pretty dusty response, and a lecture, in fractured English, about negligent parents who let their children play unattended near deep water. Over the next few hours I was rushed to hospital, had a rubber tube stuck down my throat to make me sick and was treated to assorted needles in my backside. By that evening I was safe at home in bed, perfectly all right after my experience, and anticipating the following day with dread; I knew my parents’ shock and relief would dissipate overnight, to be replaced with unmitigated Disappointment in the morning.

My friend came off even worse than I did. She had gone home and said nothing about any of it. When it transpired she had left me to drown without even bothering to let anyone know there might be a problem, her father took a belt to her. She did me a favour; my mother was so horrified at her punishment she lost all enthusiasm for whatever she had previously planned for me, and I ended up just being confined to quarters for a week.

Meanwhile, the man who had saved my life had disappeared back into his own, doubtless with a few rich words to say about the stupid bloody Englishman who couldn’t look after his own daughter and thought Arabs put a price on saving the life of a child.

Fast forward twenty five years. I am in the early stages of my first pregnancy. Together with the aversion to milk, the passion for gherkins and the vivid dreams that take me into another world every night, I have become obsessed with the idea of finding the man who saved me from drowning.

I had been a pretty high achiever throughout my life, but throughout prizegivings and degree ceremonies had never given a thought to my saviour. The incident was rarely mentioned, except as a slight anecdote to accompany general family reminiscences. But with the experience of new life growing inside me came a revelation that everything I had ever done was thanks to him, and that I owed him not only my life, but my child’s as well.

I interrogated my parents. They had no idea who he was. After the offer of money he had taken himself off in a bit of a huff. The incident had occurred within the first year of our six year stay in the country, so it was entirely possible that I had seen him and his family numerous times over the next five years and ignored him. This thought drove me frantic. I thought about contacting the country’s embassy. What would I say? Would any now elderly gentleman who remembered saving an English girl from drowning in 1962 please get in touch? Don’t be daft, said my partner. They’ll think there’s a reward and you’ll get all sorts of nutters. It’s that sort of racist attitude, I yelled, that made him go off in a huff in the first place. It’s not racist, said my partner. I wouldn’t put an ad in our local rag asking for that, precisely because you’d get all sorts of nutters. It’s racist to think Arabs can’t have their eye on the main chance like everybody else.

I thought about hiring a private detective. What with? asked my partner. We’ve got a baby coming. You’re a part time student and I’m an NHS nurse. How the hell are we going to afford a private detective to make international enquiries?

Let it go, said my partner. And what, I demanded dramatically, would have happened if he had let me go? OK, said my partner. Don’t let it go. Hire a detective. Spend all our money. And if you do find him or his kids and they’re in shit street, then what are you going to do? Offer to pay his hospital bills? Fund his grandchildren’s education? Or say, Oh, right, nice to meet you again. That was pleasant. Just wanted you to know I’ve had a good life, and thanks to you I‘m pregnant, thank you very much. And if he’s rich, if he’s one of the Gulf millionaires, he’s going to think it’s a bit of coincidence you’re trying to find him just when you’re going to have a baby.

I let it go. A few weeks later I was into another phase of pregnancy: the aversion to milk and the predilection for gherkins vanished, as did the dreams - and my terrible need to find my saviour.

The Turtle Pond incident receded back into family anecdote. Subsequent pregnancies did not lead to a renewal of either the dreams or the desire to find the man. I am now fifty two years old, my children are more or less grown up, and I am finding, again, a nagging desire to find this person who made it all possible. He may well be dead now, but the thought that I will never even know his name does, actually, keep me awake nights. That and the acknowledgement that the entire situation is a result of racism; had he been European, my parents would have sought him out.

So, if anyone out there reads this, and can supply details only those who were there could know (such as the country it happened in)…leave me a personal message. I need to intrude on your life once more, to say Sorry, and Thanks.