The Lost Swimmer (36 page)

Burton and Maria accompanied me, having carried out their threat to stay for a while. We had lunch with Sally and Rachel on campus, overlooking the diamond-bright bay. Spring was just around the corner, and there was a perfume and excitement in the air. When I entered my office, I found an email from the Vice-Chancellor.

•  •  •

‘Welcome back, Rebecca,' said Patrick, waving me over to a plush leather chair. His office was even higher up than Priscilla's glowing den in the silver tsunami building on the coast.

‘I want you to know how sorry I am. Stephen was a very decent man. I was in Sydney, otherwise I would have been at the funeral.'

I nodded, trying to stop from welling up.
And Stephen was not as decent as you thought, Vice-Chancellor, or did you know? Secret men's business?

‘Priscilla has decided to stay in Paris and take up a position lecturing at the Sorbonne.' Patrick paused. I tried to plaster a neutral smile on my face, angry at the very thought of her – and deeply relieved she wouldn't be back.

‘Priscilla says you've shown a great deal of courage and integrity and that your colleagues think highly of your leadership. She's suggested that you'd make an excellent Dean.'
So, Priscilla was trying to buy forgiveness
.

‘I agree with her,' Patrick continued. ‘Just not yet. But I do hope you'll stay on as Head and work with the new appointment. I've reviewed the Faculty and identified it as an area for expansion. Your School will be in surplus once we've recovered the money from Melinda's real-estate ventures.' I imagined laughing with Stephen about the absurd irony and my throat caught.

As I walked back across campus, watching the sea dance in a shimmer of tiny diamonds, it struck me that everything was transitional, cyclical. Change comes in like the tide, sweeping everything in its path.

•  •  •

The evening was unseasonably warm. Late in the afternoon as the last, long rays of sun dipped beneath the hill, I drove down to the beach with Big Boy and pulled on an old wetsuit of Erin's, leaving Maria and Burton to argue about dinner in the mellow, reassuring glow of the kitchen.

Big Boy rushed headlong into the waves, chasing seagulls.

Mustering all my courage, I ran after him, wading out through the swell and then surging forward in clean strokes. I was amazed I remembered how to swim; a thrill ran through me as my body floated over the crest of a wave, its spearmint clarity cool and refreshing. I dived as the ocean crashed about me. Coming up for air, I screamed at the top of my lungs and the surf embraced me with a thunderous roar of its own.

A strong rip sucked me out towards the horizon as memories of Stephen and my father brought hot, salty tears to mingle with the salty water. For a moment I saw Stephen's vibrant brown eyes wrinkled with laughter, his white teeth catching the sun as he ducked and rose in the translucent green, his strong, tanned shoulders ready for anything. I yelled at him like a madwoman, bellowing into the heaving air.

‘How could you have risked everything?'

‘How could you abandon us?'

I saw my father dive to touch the sand and bring up seaweed, dark and thick, which he threw high into the deepening sky.

‘Why did you go out that day? You're a fisherman – you know the sea,' I screamed over the thumping breakers.

I cursed them both, shouting foul words of fury, howling until my voice was hoarse.

I turned and swam and kicked and breathed until I'd caught a crystal wave and its force carried me with a fierce energy towards the shoreline.

As it broke I tumbled through the frothy, swirling white and emerged, eyes stinging, lungs burning, and saw Big Boy lunging at the water's edge, barking furiously, tail wagging like a demented feather duster.

I headed out again into deep water, swimming once my feet could no longer touch the sand that heaved and shifted below. I caught another wave, and then another. The misty sun dropped into the sea, blazing pink, setting the clouds alight. The surf pounded, echoing against the vivid ochre cliffs.

I swam until my skin was wrinkled, pale, and stars began to prick the soft velvet sky.

My heartfelt thanks go to the brilliantly gifted Roberta Ivers, Managing Editor at Simon and Schuster Australia, who has guided the way with her astute suggestions and insight. Without her I would not be here. Her notes shaped and improved the manuscript at every turn, and she has taught me so much as a writer. She has made the process of bringing
The Lost Swimmer
to fruition a joy. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my wonderful publisher Larissa Edwards, for her encouragement and belief in picking up this book as my debut novel.

Thanks, too, to editor Claire de Medici, who cleverly tightened the manuscript and focused the themes, and made it so much better. And thanks to Carol Warwick, Senior Marketing and Publicity Manager, for her amazing efforts and advice, and to all the team at Simon and Schuster for their hard work behind the scenes that has been so crucial to the book's release.

I would also like to thank my patient readers of drafts: Jenny Sweeney and Katie Edwards, childhood friends who have helped me on the journey through all these years and have given such skillful comments and enormous support; and Julie Wells, Carmel Reilly, Rivka Hartman, Rajyashree Pandey, Myles and Kathy Vinecombe and Mary Damousi for their feedback and encouragement. For her enthusiasm, comments, and always dropping in at exactly the right moment to really help, I thank Kerry Landman.

Annette Blonski needs a big thank you for suggesting I follow my love of literature and write novels. So too does my late father Dick Turner for making the same observation, and my late mother Margaret Turner who supported my writing efforts from my earliest years, including furnishing me with a set of
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
, and having the foresight to give me a teenage Christmas present of typing lessons, both of which proved to be inestimably useful.

For their professional help along the way I would like to thank Nicola O'Shea, whose feedback was truly valuable, Iain McCalman for his advice and generosity, Chips Sowerwine and Susan Foley for their help regarding archives in Paris (all mistakes are my own), Warwick Anderson for his medical guidance regarding broken ribs (again, all mistakes are definitely mine), Andrea Rizzi for his assistance regarding Italian police, Mary Tomsic for her cheerful administrative help, and Phillipa McGuinness for her positively fateful suggestion of editors.

A huge thanks to Mary Beard for permission to use quotes from her inspiring book
Pompeii, The Life of a Roman Town
(Profile Books Ltd, London, 2008) –
‘If you bugger the
accensus
, you burn your prick,'
and
‘I wish I could be a ring on your finger for an hour, no more . . ..'

I also acknowledge the many bookshops that I have frequented. Many of my favourite authors I discovered while browsing, or came recommended to me by the knowledgeable owners and staff of the beautiful book-lined stores.

And finally, my love and thanks go to my fellow traveller, history professor extraordinaire Joy Damousi, for her inestimable inspiration, invaluable advice and boundless support and optimism through the writing of this book.

Ann Turner 2015

1 Rebecca Wilding recalls the words of a fifth-century BC Greek philosopher – ‘that you could travel a thousand miles and never notice anything'. She refutes this by noting that ‘surely powers of observation would eventually take hold?' How does this connect with events throughout the book and is observation purely subjective depending on situation and mindset?

2 What is the significance of the title
The Lost Swimmer
? Does it have more than one interpretation?

3 What is the significance of the landscape, both urban and natural, in
The Lost Swimmer
? The book traverses the Australian coastline, heads to Greece and Crete, the Amalfi Coast, Venice and Paris – is it a reflection of the different characters and does each place reveal a new secret about the characters as they travel? These places also have romantic connotations. Could these places be replaced with any other parts of the world or is the setting crucial to how the story unfolds?

4 The sea is an important element of
The Lost Swimmer
and it could almost be considered a character. What is its nature and does it affect the characters? If it does, how do the different characters interact with it?

5 Professor Rebecca Wilding is an archaeologist. She sifts through the physical evidence of history to piece together the past. Is she able to use her professional skills objectively to reveal what is happening with her marriage and her husband?

6 What is the significance of the comet? How does this scene set up a sense of foreboding and deepen the feeling that something is not quite right in Rebecca's usually stable world? What other events in the novel add to this sense of foreboding or suggestion that something bad is going to happen? How does this add to the atmosphere or mood of the novel?

7 The story is told from Rebecca's perspective so it is always her point of view. Can her point of view be trusted, and as a reader do you ever doubt her or feel less than sympathetic to her situation – both at the university and while she is travelling?

8 Loss of trust is one of the themes explored in
The Lost Swimmer
, but this is also juxtaposed with the theme of forgiveness. How do these two ideas play out? Does it lead the characters to some kind of redemption or self-realisation at the end of the novel?

9 What is the significance of the scene when Rebecca's dog, Big Boy, attacks Bonnie's joey and then turns on his owner? Does this scene signify a shift in the direction of
The Lost Swimmer
? Bonnie and her joey appear again towards the end of the novel – is this a symbol of another shift in the story?

10 Betrayal is another theme woven through
The Lost Swimmer
. How does this add to the thriller element of the novel? Does it feel as if all the characters have a secret to hide or are covering up their own agenda or motives as to why they are behaving the way they do? In what ways does this theme of betrayal play out within the novel?

11 
The Lost Swimmer
is an emotional thriller throwing up clues, scenarios and behaviours of characters. People and events are not always what they seem. Are some of these clues red herrings or do they all lead to the final conclusion?

12 The visit to the Grotta Verdi introduce Rebecca and Stephen to the crazed boatman, the White Spider. What is the relevance of the reference to Charon and how does this feed into the tension and mystery that unfolds?

13 Stephen's disappearance heightens the tension that echoes throughout the novel and it throws up many questions for Rebecca and about Rebecca. How do you feel she deals with the secrets that are revealed to her and her reaction to Stephen's fate?

14 The ending of
The Lost Swimmer
is surprising in many ways due to the twists and turns of the plot. Does it create more questions to be answered or considered?

If you enjoyed
The Lost Swimmer
, you'll love Ann Turner's new novel
Out of the Ice
, coming soon to a bookstore near you in 2016. Read on for a sneak peek at the first thrilling chapter.

‘Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back.'
Unknown

P
enguins the size of small children, plump black and white bodies, robust little wings, propelled out of the sea and flew high on to the pack ice, chattering wildly beneath an Antarctic sky so vast and pale and clear it looked like it might shatter at any moment. The air was freezing but there was no wind, so I hauled off my polar-fleece jacket and shivered in my T-shirt, relishing the freedom after being indoors at base. Through the long winter months when the sun was just a lonely glow beneath the horizon I'd taken a stint as Station Leader, making sure the machinery and skeleton staff of plumbers, engineers, carpenters, doctor and cook kept whirring along. It was exhilarating to be back in the field, drinking in the sparkling light.

The Adélie penguins waddled across a bare outcrop and through a gap in a temporary fence housing a small metal weighbridge, where each bird was automatically weighed. They crossed to the rookery on the stony hill behind, calling for their partners in a piercing shrill, creating an impenetrable wall of noise. I watched in awe as mate recognised mate, rubbing soft white chests together, tipping back their smooth black heads and stretching beaks to the sun, crying notes of pure joy. Mutualling – a heartfelt greeting after months at sea. They had reached the end of their long, annual migration. Spring was finally here.

Migratory. We were all migratory. I felt a deep melancholy as I witnessed the mass display of affection. Adélie penguins mate for life, something I'd yet to achieve. I was thirty-nine and single again. I had no one to come home to: unless you counted my mother, which I did not. And unlike me, Adélies are house proud, building nests of stones. There was much pecking as birds tried to steal each other's pebbles, rushing in and plucking them up, dashing away, getting chased.