"THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN"

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22620, 7 January 1937, Page 2

"THE WAY THINGS HAPPEN"

BY HUGH MOF.P.XSOX

Ever since Rob could remember he had hated water. He belonged to that type-of person defined by James Joyce as an "aquaphobe." That person who is sail intense individualist to the point of mistrusting water all his life, refusing to bathe until society compels it at the point of ostracism, mistrusting also apparent crystal-clear, logical patterns of thought; preferring to look ujion the muddied turbulence of mountain streams, trusting the murky mysticism in the gloom of.old cathedrals. But Hob's lather had soon cured his son of this "childishness." When Hobs father had been nearly drowned trying to rescue his medical school classmate, after their canoe capsized in the icy waters of that Rocky Mountain lake, he made a vow. His fellow student couldn't swim, and Hob s father, though a strapping athlete in those days and college swimming champion, was nearly dragged down, too; that fel low had got a strangle hold on his neck. He had never forgotten the look ot terror in that man's eyes—like a wild animal —as he released Ins grip and slipped into those bottomless green waters for the third time. Poor devil, they never recovered his body. And the next thing Hob's father remembered, he opened his eyes to see a forest ranger bending over him, pumping his legs back and forth in an attempt at artificial respiration as he lay shivering on the rocky shore. "Better get you to a doctor," he panted. "I don't need any doctor." answered' Rob's father, shivering. He drew a long breath of keen air. Lucky the sun was high in the sky —but it was still cold at 6000 feet. He took another deep breath. "No water got in my lungs—at least not much. J guess I just made the ■shore." By the time he had walked the four miles back to the survey camp the icy chill had thawed lioin his system though his teeth were '-till chattering. That was from fright though. His body shook convulsively as he told the cook —the other men were out on the job—of the tragedy. The ranger volunteered to ride into the nearest town and telegraph the parents of the drowned student. "His mother didn't want him to come out on this survey party this summer, either," Rob's father recalled. "Said she was scared to have him so far away from home —funny the way things happen sometimes." The cook in his dirty survey clothes nodded in awesome assent. It was the same night when he was warm at last, lying in his bunk, that Rob's father made his vow. "When i marry Joanna —maybe 1 won't, but if J do—and if I had a son, or we have one. the first thing he does is learn to swim." , He did marry Joanna —there was no maybe—and they did have a son. Joanna died giving birth to her son. But Rob had learned to swim, almost as soon as he had learned to walk, it seemed. Strange, Rob had become a good swimmer; not a racing champion like his father, pictured in the funny long bathing suit. That picture now hung on the wall of Rob's room in the same college; he didn't like competitive sport any more than he did water. But in his vague and murky way Rob managed to get things done with surprising facility, if he had to. He could swim a mile, if he had to.

When he was a little fellow his .father had to spank him time and again at the local Y.M.C.A. in front of all the other boys, in that steamy greenish swimming room. At first he howlingly refused to go near the water with its tiles showing-clear at its bottom. He hated the clearness with which he could see those white squares swaying up at him through the transparent green. It was cn the first hot day of the summer after Hob finished his junior year at college that he and his girl went out to Jones beach. His father came, too, sitting in the back seat of the car. It was too early yet for them to go to their summer cottage hidden away in the Catskill mountains, but it was too hot to stay in sweltering New York. Hundreds of people had also sought the cooling surf; hundreds more lay on the sand getting their first tan of the year and looking out to the open sea off Long Island. Rob didn't want to go. At a safe distance. he liked to watch the tides coming »r going, when he could be all by himself and feel the fathomless power of the sea. But he didn't like heat or crowds —and even if he had liked swimming, the sea at this time of the year was ice cold. He had gone ehieHy to please Betty, golden-haired and blue eyed: just the kind of a girl to capture a freshman heart. They were in the same year in college and the three years they had gone together were proof to their cynical student friends that a college romance could be the real thing. Rob's father went along to escape the heat and to get away from the strain of work; but he also went along to gratify his secret pride in having made Rob learn to swim, although he would never have admitted this. He wouldn't go in himself now—getting too old for that sort of thing, and he didn't want to be in the way. He was young once himself. He remembered the survey camp and his feilow student. Rob and Betty were walking toward him in their bathing suits hand in hand, picking their way gingerly over the blistering cream-coloured sand, barefooted. "Pretty girl, Betty," thought Rob's father. Her powder blue bathing suit set off her eyes and light curls. But she was already tucking her hair under a bine rubber bathing cap, which made a smart ensemble with her petite figure. "I remember when Joanna was like that," he mused, noting the eagerness in Betty's eyes. She was walking a few paces ahead of Hob, leading him along. "Just the kind of girl for Rob," thought the father. "Spur him on." It was not that Rob lacked vitality. But this kind of trip smothered any enthusiasm. He followed almost reluctantly, looking slighter of build in his black bathing suit. His hair and eyes looked even darker against his white skin, which was yet unburned by summer sun. Hob was always noted at college for his sombre clothes, avoiding the stripes and checks so popular among his fellow students. "Grand day for a swim," voiced his father as they reached him reclining under a striped beach parasol. "I'll say it is," cried Betty, swinging Hob's hand in her enthusiasm. Rob had determined he was not going in the water. "It's all right if you like swimming." said Rol> with a half smile. His father frowned at the seeming reappearance of childishness. "Betty'll think you're a fine fellow if you forsake her'now," remarked the father, trying to appear casual, but underneath feeling his old parental sternness rising. "Oh, Rob will come in all right, when I get hold of him," added Betty with gay confidence. "You've got hold of me now," parried Rob, pulling at the small hand he was holding. He tried to accompany his remarks with a smile that would hide a strange choking feeling boring inside him. To his surprise Betty jerked her hand away from him. She looked at him half quizzically, half concerned. Rob smiled weakly. "Well don't think I'm going to be the pleading maiden," commented Betty, proceeding again to adjust her blue bathing cap.

A SHORT STORY

( COPYRIGHT)

"When 1 was your age I wo D |,| n ,. have allowed a pretty girl like B»n t-o make fun of me," said Rob's f a He had tc say it. "She wouldn't W" $ needed to; but times have change? suppose." "Oh, I'm not making fun." proWij I Betty, with a little laugh. | Hob's strange choking feeling rosej* I his throat. He felt his father was trying I to be superior. * 1 "I don't notice jou showing g signs of going near the water," g remarked to his father, .outwardly gjjji ing but also feeling a certain stubby ness coming r.o the surface, in instinctive response to his father s veiled jitg i "When you're my age .you'll hare', valid excuse," said his father. Hob felt the cut of this remark * Betty loosed his hand and looked jj the two of them, amused. "Just lft 9 small boys." she thought. "You can still talk a lot about jo® swimming prowess in college days," on Hob, anger colouring his f 2c « "when you did the 100 in 52 flat." At this remark something snapped is. side his father. He forgot where he wy and who was there. The vision of 4 howling youngster refusing to swim in the old Y pool came to his mind. All the years that he seemed to hare p u » in curing his boy of this childish and womanish hatred of water seemed & dissolve; all the time he had spent in fulfilling h:s vow; to make bis son and only child swim before anything else, a vow that wa:s inextricably bound up in his mind with his wife's death and which had grown to be a_ passion and central object in his life. Now in a flasi of anger all this seemed to have gor» for naught. "You are going into the water, whether Betty wants you or not," is said tensely, and Hob recognised that : old sternness that had cowed him to many years ago. Betty knew that tla father was angry: his eyes gave hia away. She was so taken aback she could sav nothing. She had never seen him like this before, though she had seen him a lot of times in the three yean she had known Hob, often coining to their home and acting as the lady of the house when the maid was away. " I am not going in," Rob answered simply but w:tn a voice so strained h frightened Betty. She felt she had to say something: " Oh Rob", if that's the way you feel—" The father interrupted. He jumped to his feet. The people on the beach a few yards away turned to iook. He stepped up to his son and looking down into his face he stormed: " What you need is a good spanking —yes, a spanking; as 1 used to giv« you wh<-n you were a child and refused to learn to swim. Anyone would think you were a tiro, year-old ..." Hob didn't hear the rest. All he sa» was a sickly vision of that green pool at the oid " Y " with its white tiles rising at him. nauseating him; and the vision of a huge man. his father, beating him while dozens of boys looked on. Again that awful surge of humiliation swept over him. This time it was worse. He thought he had forgotten that it existed and now it vuis sweeping up at him out of the past again—for his father had stripped his sou! bare in front of Betty. She bad known nothing of this. The next thing he knew he had grabbed Betty's hand and he was'running, he knew not where, dragged her protestingly with him. But she could not stop him nor release herself from hii vice-like grip. Rob felt as if there a stone m his throat and he eoul&jjj help the tears coming to his eyes. | For a moment Rob's father watched them flee. Then, still shaking in ik anger, not noticing the eyes that wefe turned upon him, he threw himself on the sand and lay on his back, staring at the red and yellow stripes in tb large parasol above him. It was the sudden sense of hush about him that brought him back to his surroundings . . . the colours in the parasol began to imprint themselves upon his brain . . . red . . . blue . . - ve'low ..." Think he was a two-year* old It all happened before anybody reahsed it. Commotion in the water... people shouting . . . the siren screaming . . . lifeguards running. "What's happened?'' people wen shouting. By that seemingly magis telepathy in times of accident cr tragedy, the word got round. " Yes, an accident; somebodri drowned—a man and woman —I cidn4 see no woman." A crowd knotted on the shore. Lifeguards were bringing in the limp body of a man. slight and dark-haired. It waJ Rob. They laid him senseless on the sands near the rolling waves. He was not breathing and deathly white. " There was a girl with him." panted one of the lifeguards. " Must have gone down like a stone —they can't find her." The crowd which packed around in the heat, peering at Rob's motionless form, hearing this, drew back with a common gasp, as jf they all caught their breath together. They turned and looked out to sea, and saw only a boat and two men frantically rowing around and around, searching, where before there had been hundreds of people. A lifeguard stoo(>ed over and ripped Rob's black suit off. " Stand back there." shouted the other, pushing the suffocating wall of people back. " Give him some air.' " He looks pretty bad," commented the other guard, staring at Rob's face, now greenish in colour. " How'd it happen?" asks somebody- " How do we know," barked the lifeguard, leaning over to start artificial respiration. He took another look Rob's limp figure, face lolling to ose side, and shook his head. " Stand back there." „„ " there a doctor in the crowd? his mate called., ' " Yes," answered a man pushing h® way through. " I'll do what I can - The doctor took one look at the peeled off his coat in the heat, and witli" out a word set to work. He gav£" quick orders to the guard* " HatU>his arm out—that's right. The doctor began to work with tW bent logs of the motionless figure. B® pushed the knees up to the stoma® then drew them out again. . Beads of sweat stood out on j" doctor's forehead. He continued J JIS motions, rhythmically, giving ,P reClsC ' subdued orders. ,1. The figure lying on the beach wiu staring eyes wheezed a dirty bro' ff ioani from his mouth. There was ® other response. It was like working, ' dry pump, with a stream of dirty bro , water oozing out and just the rattle the rigid frame—like working a nuiC" 1 with no spark of life. . An hour later the doctor was D; * gard and soaking with per? pi rat' The limp figure was still there. * j' of the crowd had deserted, save a women who had fainted. -"J. The doctor stood up, his f ace . t **'"L " He's goue." ho remarked la 1 cally. # " That girl must have got a strai»„ hold on him when she got panic*"' someone volunteered. j,,, A uniformed policeman fougn „ way through the crush. Inside the he turned to the crowd. jg " Can anyone identify this man asked them fof There was a second's silence sav the monotonous roll of the waves- " 1 can," said the doctor. .'He'l The crowd stared as one man my son." , Ho fell on his knees. Hie su high in the sky. Words t ,o,inl f . n of, numbed brain; they formed a sen forcing itself into his conscjousnes " Funny the way things Wf® sometimes."