Childhood’s End

“Which bed do you want?”, Hannah said excitedly as we entered the crowded, wood-panelled dormitory together. 

I squinted in the deluge of sunlight that lay claim to the room through a large bay window on the far side. England in the height of summer has a distinct stuffiness to it, I thought, all moth balls and dust. It was hard to think of this place operating as a school during term time. It felt at odds with the spirit of youth somehow – old and tired. 

Hannah was talking breathlessly to a girl I recognised from school. She was older than us, gangly and flat-chested, with an air of ‘I’m too good for this place’ about her. Catching at their conversation, I heard her telling Hannah – a sulky look on her long face – that she was missing a swimming gala to be here at summer camp. What must it be like, I thought, being so good at everything that you have to pick and choose? Ever since my parents divorced, no one seemed to care where I was – and when I was where I was supposed to be, I never felt like I was adding much. I was a wisp of a girl, hardly there at all.

Beside Gangly was a girl quite the opposite in appearance – small and pinched looking. Her face reminded me of the Russian doll my grandparents had gifted me a few years back – bowed lips and apple cheeks, but small, mean eyes, a bit like a pig. I never really liked that doll. There was something deeply unsettling about popping her open at the waist and seeing a slightly smaller version of the same face waiting there in the darkness, staring up at me. 

“We were just wondering what to do with our free time today”, Hannah said, trying to involve me in the conversation now.

I looked at the other two girls, neither of whom looked back at me. Gangly sighed impatiently, arms folded, her face turned to the window as if she were contemplating jumping out of it. Pinched looked down at the screen of her Nokia 3310. I was desperate for a mobile phone, that mobile phone, but my mum didn’t exactly share my enthusiasm. “Where would I get the money for something like that?” she’d said the last time I’d asked, her attention firmly on the television as she folded laundry. “Besides, you’re far too young! Who on earth would you call?”. I thought about my dad, abroad somewhere with the glamorous blonde he’d left mum for. She was right, I had no one to call.

“There’s a swimming pool?”, Hannah suggested, looking eagerly at the two older girls. They said nothing. 

***

It feels strange that Hannah and I haven’t seen each other in so long. The ebbs and flows of friendship don’t surprise me as an adult, but as a child I really did think Hannah and I would be in each other’s lives forever. We planned for it, talking about the street we’d live on together, her house just down the road from mine. When Hannah pictured this future, she always described a red door and white picket fence – a slightly obnoxious combination, I thought, although I didn’t tell her this at the time.

I wouldn’t describe Hannah as adventurous, even though she had all the traits of a child who could be exactly that. She was curious and athletic, always hanging upside down from the branches of trees, her t-shirt down over her face, her exposed belly heaving with laughter. She could outrun me easily, and yet she never tired of racing off ahead, her long blonde limbs moving effortlessly as I stumbled to keep up. There was something so desperate about Hannah’s need to prove herself, I thought years later. She was the kind of person who had to spend all she had to believe that what she had was real. 

The swimming pool was busy that day, deafeningly so given its cathedral-like acoustics. I’ve always liked this about swimming pools. They feel so loud when you’re sat on the side adjusting your goggles, and yet so otherworldly once you’ve moved beneath the water’s surface. The closeness of that silence is what’s always struck me. When you’re in it, it feels all-encompassing.

How long had we been swimming before we decided to get out? I say ‘we’, but I actually mean me. What started as a competition to see who could hold their breath the longest ended in me diving to the pool floor solo. Each time I reached the bottom, I looked up at my fellow swimmers, their headless torsos and fluttering limbs beating across the pool’s glassy surface. 

The truth is I don’t know how long it was before I realised Hannah, Gangly and Pinched were no longer in the water, that they were sitting on the little seats at the pool’s edge, giggling together. Hannah seemed enthralled, lost in Gangly’s retelling of some story, her body imitating the older girl: hunched, arms crossed. I couldn’t tell if she saw me making my way to the showers, but I realised – with the stirring of something I was unable to name – that I really hoped she hadn’t. 

What I do remember is that the showers were single-sex cubicles. My mum had only recently consented to me taking showers at home – growing up I’d always shared a bath with my brother. I liked the privacy of it. The lock on the bathroom door was the only lock in our entire house, and turning the key made me feel as if I were keeping the world at bay, however briefly. 

I took off my swimsuit – Mum said I didn’t have the body for a bikini yet – and reached around the door for a hook. Then, turning the little wheel to administer the flow of water, I looked up at the shower head, closing my eyes to enjoy the cooling sensation on my still slightly sunburnt skin. Was I thinking about Hannah? My guess is I probably was, although it’s hard to isolate the way I felt in that moment from what happened next. 

I didn’t hear them coming, but in the absence of my swimsuit and towel, I knew they’d been there. I could see them creeping up to the door, supressing a giggle, the hiss of the shower masking the sound of their bare feet on the wet tiles. They’d been right there, just the other side of the door, a party of thieves absconding with the jewel of my dignity. I knew I had to make it back to my locker, which was open given no one would lend me the necessary 20p to close it properly. I knew this, and yet to begin with I did nothing. I stood in my little box, willing it to transport me elsewhere, like the TARDIS did for Doctor Who. It didn't work. I found myself firmly rooted in this dimension.

It’s not that the journey back to my locker was a long one, it’s that the journeys we don’t want to make always feel long. Edging towards the lockers, naked, I soon realised I’d reached the point of no return. I was equidistant, I couldn’t turn back. 

It wasn’t until I spotted a disembodied foot – long and pale, with blue-painted toenails – that I stopped moving. Gangly emerged, her face no longer wearing the sulky, half-vacant expression she had on earlier. What sat behind her eyes now was very much alive, and she was smiling. Smiling a terrible smile. 

For a moment, there was silence, and then something stirred in the shadows. I’m not sure how many girls there were – the sound of their laughter seemed to take on a life of its own, magnified by the pool walls. It’s a sound that has stalked me down the years – heavy and yet weightless, inescapable in its formlessness. I remember the confusion I felt, unsure whether to cover my pubic area or breasts, having recently become aware of the latter despite puberty still being a way off. And I remember her being there. Our eyes met and I knew then that she’d done this. Everything we had, and everything we dreamt of having, fell away – the red door and the white picket fence faded from view. There was no taking back what had passed between us, we were forever changed. Blinking, cast out from a childhood that was once ours, we faced the liminality of adolescence alone.