Under The Net - Iris Murdoch [52]
off my last garment. Lefty was already stripped. 'Keep it quiet,' he said. 'I don't want to be copped for this!' We looked at each other and smiled in the darkness. He turned to the river and began edging awkwardly down, his body diminishing into the black water. The night air touched my body with a touch which was neither warm nor cold, only very soft and unexpected. My blood buzzed behind my skin with a nervous beat. Then without a sound Lefty had followed Finn. The water took my ankles in a cold clasp. As I went down I could see from the corner of my eye Dave crouched above me like a monument. Then the water was about my neck and I shot out into the open river. The sky opened out above me like an unfurled banner, cascading with stars and blanched by the moon. The black hulls of barges darkened the water behind me and murky towers and pinnacles rose indistinctly on the other bank. I swam well out into the river. It seemed enormously wide; and as I looked up and down stream I could see on one side the dark pools under Blackfriars Bridge, and on the other the pillars of Southwark Bridge glistening under the moon. The whole expanse of water was running with light. It was like swimming in quicksilver. I looked about for Finn and Lefty, and soon saw their heads bobbing not far away. They came towards me and for a while we swam together. We had caught the tide beautifully upon the turn and there was not the least hint of a current. I was easily the best swimmer of the three. Finn swims strongly but awkwardly, wasting his power in unnecessary movements and rolling too much from side to side. Lefty swam with neatness but without vigour. I guessed that he would soon tire. I swim excellently, giving myself to the water, and I have an effortless crawl which I can keep up indefinitely. Swimming has natural affinities with Judo. Both arts depend upon one's willingness to surrender a rigid and nervous attachment to the upright position. Both bring muscles into play throughout the whole body. Both demand, over an exceptionally wide area of bodily activity, the elimination of superfluous motion. Both resemble the dynamism of water which runs through many channels to find its own level. In fact, however, once one has learnt to control one's body and overcome the primeval fear of falling which is so deep in the human consciousness, there are few physical arts and graces which are not thereby laid open to one, or at any rate made much easier of access. I am, for instance, a good dancer and a very creditable tennis player. If it were possible for anything to console me for my lack of height, these things would console me. Now the other two had gone back to the steps. I swam to one of the barges, and clung on to the cable for a while, throwing my head back to scan a panorama of blue-black sky and black and silver water, and stilling my body until the silence entered me with a rush. Then I climbed up the cable until I was free of the water, and clung to it like a white worm. Then I let go with my feet, and clambered down hand over hand lowering myself noiselessly back into the river. As my legs broke the surface I could feel a gentle and continuous pull. The tide was beginning to run out again. I made for the steps. Finn and Lefty were dressing in a state of smothered hilarity. I joined them. A tension had been released, a ritual performed. Now we should have liked to have shouted and fought. But the necessity of silence turned our energy into laughter. When I was dressed I felt warm, and nearly sober, and ravenously hungry. I searched the pockets of my mackintosh and found the biscuits and foie Bras which I had taken from Sadie. These were received with quiet acclamation. We sat upon the steps which were lengthening now as the tide receded and deposited at our feet broken crates and tin cans and a miscellany of vegetable refuse. I opened the tins of p� with my knife and made a distribution of biscuits. There was still some brandy left in the bottles other than mine; but Dave said he had had enough and resigned his rights to me. Lefty announced