The Night Swimmer (35 page)

I never swim in the ocean or any other natural body of water. I spend a lot of time in the pool here in Phoenix, swimming endless laps at the YMCA, listening to the dull crunch and hum of my body under the blazing sun.

In America everyone seems to be shouting at each other through a globe of thin glass, a muted, distant feeling. Everyone seems so angry and suddenly vital, but you can't hear what anyone is saying. I go for a lot of walks through our part of the city. The lights are dimmer, fewer people on the streets, and in the evenings the bored waiters lean against the windows and smooth their aprons.

I have a job at the community college teaching literature classes, but it is only a matter of time before I am fired. The faces and gazes of the students, which used to be like figures in a painting, now come off the page, right at me. They really see me. I assign them nothing but Cheever, and they respond with some curiosity but mostly indifference. I ask them to write about their experiences with the stories, but they have realized that I don't care if they ever turn anything in, so I get little. Despite this, they all show up for every class. I don't know why they come. I mostly have them read passages aloud, which they seem to enjoy. I read aloud too, and I cry sometimes. I am not ashamed of this.

Fred's father gave me all the money anyway. I was floating in the pool one afternoon when the shadow of his plane came rippling over the water in a dark flash. I knew it was him before I even opened my eyes. I watched it go into a steep bank, circling around, a little red plane with jaunty white stripes on low-slung wings, like an old crop duster. I stood up and waved as Hamilton Bulkington came low over the apartment buildings and palm trees. By the time I dried off and changed clothes he was waiting in the lobby of our building, wearing a rumpled suit and carrying his valise, a deep set of creases above his eyes and a damaging turn of mouth. He was the closest thing to Fred left on the earth. I held him for a long time, and he patted my back and murmured into my hair.

I'm sorry, Elly, I'm so sorry.

I know that he wasn't apologizing to me, but to his son.

I didn't want the money, but he pleaded with me, saying Fred would want me to have it. Of course that is true, so I accepted it.

Ham took off an hour later, coming by to circle the pool with artful dips, and then he put the nose of the plane into the blue sky and climbed into that open space until he was just a speck of dust.

Back in the apartment at dinner I put out plates, knives, forks, spoons, napkins, and fill our glasses with ice water. Beatrice cooks pasta tossed with spinach and olive oil and sprinkles our plates with cheese. She wants to name the baby Antonio, for no real reason other than she thinks it sounds romantic, like someone in a novel.

Beatrice is due this April. I can feel it happening already. I am tending some kind of powerful love, working it like a small fire. I have all the money set up in an account in his name, waiting for him. He will never know want or the need to leave, he will always be able to stay right where he is, where he belongs. When we sit on the couch watching TV, I put my hands on Beatrice's belly and wait for him to move. I can feel him in there, spinning and dreaming, swimming in the sea that never ends. I cannot wait to hold him in my arms.

My parents call me occasionally, and leave long messages on voice mail, but they know I'm all right. It's not like I'm making a new life for myself in Arizona. It's more like a half-life, part of a life I already
had, but it is my own. Today, in this new life, my love rises like the trunk of a great silver oak, crashing into the sky with the sound of the sea.

Sometimes I have dreams of St. Kieran, in his wool cowl and thorns, standing waist deep in the ocean. I am floating before him, like I am already dead, the night sky spread above us. For an instant he looks like Fred, and every time I have a straining moment of hope, but then his face clouds into that of a stranger, a man who has been dead for hundreds of years. St. Kieran puts his rough hands on my stomach, touching me gently, and the moon winks out and I know that I will float like this forever.

*  *  *

This is the only story I will ever tell.

M
uch of my research for this book consisted of time spent gamboling around Cape Clear, Sherkin Island, Baltimore, Skibereen, and surrounding areas, hanging out in pubs, talking with locals, taking lots of long walks. I also used many books, including
Cape Clear Island: Its People and Landscape,
by Eamon Lankford,
The Natural History of Cape Clear Island,
by J. T. R. Sharrock,
Swimming to Antarctica
and other books by the great Lynne Cox, Charles Sprawson's beautiful literary history of swimming
Haunts of the Black Masseur,
the books of Chuck Kruger, as well as several well-worn maps of Clear and Roaringwater Bay. I appreciate the general welcoming spirit of the denizens of Clear and their forgiving nature as I often blundered through their pastures and paddocks in my island roaming. Special thanks to the Cape Clear Island Co-Operative, An Siopa Beag (best food on the island), Ard na Gaoithe and Eileen Leonard, Ciarán Danny Mike's Pub, Cotter's Pub (best pint on the island), the gracious Mary O'Driscoll, a friend to all the writers and artists that blow through, Joe Aston and Gannet's Way on Sherkin Island, the Harpercraft store, Club Cleire, and especially Ed Harper's goat farm. Ed can tell you everything you need to know about raising, breeding, and milking goats, and a lot of other things besides.

I was fortunate to meet (and race with) the legendary open-water swimmer Ned Denison, of County Cork, who supplied me with various bits about swimming in the waters off Ireland. Thanks to him
and all the Cork Co. swimmers I spoke with during my participation in the Beginish Island Swim. I also received valuable training and coaching help from the Dallas JCC Masters Team, Scott Eder, and Brian Loncar Racing in Dallas. As far as I can determine, no one has ever swum from Cape Clear to Fastnet and back.

Good parts of this novel were written at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony, and I am grateful for my time at these wonderful places. I would like to thank J. L. Torres, Michael Carrino, Bruce Butterfield, and the English Department of SUNY Plattsburgh. Kjell and the racing crew of the J/105
Freya
on Lake Champlain, and Phil, Amber, Ty, Amy, and all the rest who taught me to sail, and to Roland for taking a total unknown rookie out Soling class racing. Also thank you to the Arts and Humanities Department at the University of Texas at Dallas for their support of my research.

I am indebted, as always, to the short stories, novels, and journals of the great John Cheever.

I would like to thank once again my agent, Alex Glass, and Trident Media Group, and I am so fortunate to work with the best editor in NYC, Alexis Gargagliano. Thanks to all the folks at Scribner for their support, my longtime readers Mike Mannon and Seth Tucker, and lastly my wife, Stacy, who spent the last eight years hearing me talk endlessly about this place and this story.

Reading Group Guide

The Night Swimmer

Questions for Discussion

1. At the beginning of
The Night Swimmer,
Elly says that when she looks back at her time in Ireland she is ashamed. Why does Elly believe she is to blame for what happened? Do you think the blame should rest entirely on her? How do feelings of guilt and shame motivate the characters in
The Night Swimmer
?

2. Elly reflects on the early days of her marriage:
“By the time we were married I would begin to miss Fred almost the instant he would leave my sight. . . . Fred had such passion for me, for everything. I fed on it and became addicted to it.”
Discuss the nature of Fred and Elly's relationship. Do you think it is healthy? Why do you think their relationship is so intense? What ultimately draws them to each other?

3. What were your initial reactions to Fred? Do you find him sympathetic? Likable? When describing him in graduate school, Elly portrays him as being quarrelsome and grandiose. Can you understand why Elly fell in love with him? Why or why not? Discuss the change in his personality after they moved to Ireland. Was he losing his mind? Or was there something else influencing his behavior?

4. During a swim, Elly describes a sudden longing for Fred:
“for the feel of his body on mine, his arms around me, and as I ascended through the water my loneliness felt like a place of habitation, a comfortable room that I could enter and stay. It was as if I was inside my own loneliness.”
Discuss this passage. Can there be true comfort in loneliness? How does loneliness define the characters in
The Night Swimmer
? Consider Fred, O'Boyle, Sebastian, and Dinny in your response.

5. Elly says that her endless swimming is a distraction from the state of her marriage:
“I would drag myself out of the water and shudder with exhaustion, and in those moments I forgot that my marriage was coming apart, the layers peeling away like pieces of a broken satellite reentering the earth's atmosphere.”
What were the first indications that their marriage was falling apart?

6. Did you suspect Miranda's true identity? Did you find her story and actions plausible? Why or why not?

7. Discuss the feud between Highgate and the Corrigans. What do you think is at the core of this long-standing dispute? Is it purely economic, as Patrick thinks? Or are there other deeper, more complex reasons?

8. Who is the young girl that Elly sees climbing the lighthouse at Fastnet? How does this passage introduce a supernatural element to
The Night Swimmer
? Did this plot point affect your interpretation of other events in the novel? Why or why not?

9. Other than wanting a grandchild, what were Ham's motivations for drawing up the contract he presents to Fred and Elly?

10. The novel's epigraphs are quotes from
The Journals of John Cheever
,
and Elly frequently references the author throughout the course of the narrative. Are you familiar with any of John Cheever's work? What do you think draws Elly to his writing? Consider Elly's explanation in the following passage:
“Cheever's value to me is not merely as a storyteller but also as a model of the difficulties of navigating morality in an immoral world.”
Discuss the significance of this passage in regards to the overall tone of
The Night Swimmer
and to Elly as a character.

11. What does Sebastian represent to Elly? What does she get from him and their relationship that she does not get from her marriage with Fred?

12. Parent-child relationships play a subtle yet prevalent role in the novel. Consider the following advice Elly's mother gives to Elly about motherhood:
“Some women are mothers, and some women have children. I was no mother. I was just a woman who had children. . . . [Y]ou will likely have to confront this yourself at some point.”
Do you agree with this sentiment? How do Elly's own views on motherhood and having a child change over the course of the novel?

13. Discuss the passage in which O'Boyle tells Elly the story of his mother. What is the significance of the writing found on the wall near her body? How does this information impact Elly and Highgate's connections to the island? How does this passage foreshadow future events in the novel?

14. In what ways does O'Boyle betray Elly's trust? Were you surpised by his actions? Why do you think he befriends her despite his connection to the Corrigans? What is his connection with Ariel?

15. Although it's not explicitly described in detail, what can you surmise about what happened to Beatrice when she and Elly were in high school? Although we don't learn much about Elly's reaction to this incident, how do you think it affected her? Discuss the significance of the passage about Elly's performance at swim practice the day after Beatrice is followed by the three boys.

16. 
“This is the only story I will ever tell.”
Discuss your reactions to the conclusion of
The Night Swimmer
. Do you have any unanswered questions?

Enhance Your Book Club

1. Matt Bondurant kept a blog about the research he did for
The Night Swimmer
and about
his own experiences in the competitive world of open-water swimming. Visit
mattbondurant.blogspot.com
to read his posts about writing the novel and to watch video of him competing in open-water swim races. Do his descriptions of swimming remind you of any passages from
The Night Swimmer
?

2. To view photos and to learn more about the town of Baltimore in West Cork, home to the fictional Nightjar Pub, visit
www.baltimore.ie
. How do the pictures compare to the descriptions you read in
The Night Swimmer
? Discuss your reactions with your book club members.

3. If
The Night Swimmer
piqued your interest in open-water swimming, consider reading Lynne Cox's memoir,
Swimming to Antarctica: Tales of a Long-Distance Swimmer
. Cox is referenced throughout
The Night Swimmer
and her story is truly fascinating. Like Elly, she thrives in frigid water and has completed swims around the globe that no one else has come close to accomplishing.