The Drowning Lesson by Jane Shemilt Page A

children to wear shoes.’
    Was that all? I’d hoped for something more. She’d reached the boys, who were now throwing punches, and was holding them firmly apart. I sat down again; I hadn’t realized we would be so isolated.
    Kabo smiled. ‘Adam told me you were going to be working too. Tell me about your research.’
    As we talked, I watched Adam in the pool with Zoë on his shoulders and Alice swimming beside them. The sun was still high; the air smelt of pine and herbs. If it hadn’t been for the flock of children who stood waist deep, silently watching, we could have been back in Provence.
    After a while everyone got out and the pool was
empty. I gave Sam to Adam, then changed and slipped into the water. I floated on my back for a while, resisting the temptation to start lapping – Kabo would think I’d gone mad. The blonde woman had stopped to talk to Adam as she waited for the children to change. Her hand was spread over Sam’s head, her fingers absently fondling his ears. I wanted to get out, pull him away. I’d experienced the same unease when strangers had handled the girls as babies, but this was the first time I’d felt it with Sam. Obscurely heartened, I turned a somersault at the deep end and pushed myself into the depths of the pool. When I surfaced, the woman had vanished. Soon after that, I got out, and heard the buses noisily starting up in the hotel car park.
    ‘Leaving already? Those poor children hardly had a moment to relax,’ I said to Kabo, as I dried my hair with a towel. Zoë was squatting by my feet to inspect a small lizard that was basking on a flagstone.
    ‘They’re headed for a football match, packing a lot into the day. You have to admire the energy.’ He smiled. ‘She left her number and an address for you.’
    Kabo handed me a scrap of paper. Inside she had written an address in Gaborone and a mobile number. ‘Keep in touch’ was scrawled in looping letters underneath. I’d forgotten how kind people could be to travellers. I tapped the contact into my phone.
    Later, I showed Adam the note.
    ‘A friend already.’ He put his arm round me. ‘Might be helpful.’
    He was right. She’d been new to this country once; she looked after children; there could be hundreds of things to ask her.
    Kabo was spending the night with his parents, who lived nearby, and he left, promising to pick us up at sunrise the next day. We walked around the garden. Banana and lemon trees were surrounded by velvety lawns. Tall gum trees stood in little groups. The spray from hidden hosepipes went backwards and forwards, darkening the papery trunks and releasing the warm scent of eucalyptus. Monkeys clambered through the branches and sprang onto the hotel roof, their young slung beneath them, clinging on with tiny fingers. Alice held Sam up, showing him the scampering animals. He seemed absorbed, reaching his hands towards them as if trying to touch them.
    The next morning everyone slept on. The water smoked in the clear air and swallows dived low over the pool as I swam up and down. The scent of pine was already strong. After breakfast, Kabo came to collect us; once we were all settled in the car, he started the engine and the hotel receded quickly behind us. The swim had been restorative; it might be a while before we had another.
    ‘Will there be a pool where we’re going, Kabo?’
    He peered at me in the mirror. ‘Kubung is a poor
district,’ he said carefully, pushing his glasses up his nose. ‘Very dry. Water is precious. I don’t think there is much to spare for swimming pools.’
    I felt ashamed of my question but Kabo was continuing: ‘The owner mentioned water behind the house. It could be a dam, I suppose.’
    A dam would be perfect, better than a swimming pool. I remembered the images Adam had emailed. There might be shade, and grass round the edge for picnics. We could swim every day. As we picked up speed, I turned to tell Alice but she had already gone to sleep. I peeled off her