Water Skiing

21st August 2011

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing hand cream into the dry skin on my shins. My husband is lying with his head on a wooden neck roller.

‘Are you alright?’ he asks.

‘Yes’.

‘Out of ten?’

‘Two’, I find myself saying without thinking about it.

‘I thought so,’ he says.

‘How about you?’ I ask him.

‘Seven or eight,’ he says.

We’ve had a lovely day walking with dear companions deep into the Blackdown hills in Somerset. It’s only the thoughts in my head which are dragging me down. Letting myself disappear down the drain like one of my husband's lost words.

I remember learning to water ski when I was eleven or twelve - the exhilaration, the pounding joy in my solar plexus when I crossed the wake for the first time without falling off. At the moment I’m half submerged in that water, clinging on to the rope, the outboard engine of the boat roaring in my ears as I’m yanked through the white wave, my skis gone. But not letting go - not drowning either.