RTÉ Short Story Competition: The Other Órla by Emer O'Toole

About The Other Órla, Emer says: "It's about how we, as women, can make ourselves small to please others... It is also a story about things we did when we were young that haunt us."

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Hanging out with the other Órla was like boot camp: you'd to be climbing walls, building obstacle courses. She was gladiatorial.

In primary school, she was good at running – could beat all the boys – but by the time we were in secondary she was serious about swimming. She went to the pool in town every morning and was away at the weekends, winning medals.

Hormones hit me before they hit the other Órla. She would’ve been happy with scuffed knees a while longer, but I dragged her into the mire. We both had crushes on Dave. And crushes doesn’t cut it: we were obsessed with him. We wrote each other notes in class about his eyes and hair; we made up a song.

We knew what actresses he fancied, what music he was into. We knew his star sign, his rising sign, his Chinese zodiac. We could recite his phone number, though we’d never called it.

And we knew things Dave wouldn’t have wanted us to know. Like, he studied but pretended he didn’t. He’d a thing for Miss McGreevy. He rubbed the back of his neck when he was nervous. He liked to be helpful. And he hated to lose.

We’d Chemistry and Irish with Dave, and we were always inventing excuses to speak to him, analyzing the resulting interactions. Then, one spring day of Leaving Cert year, something miraculous happened.

Dave walked over to our desk, asked the other Órla if our Bunsen burner was working, and invited us to his Mam’s 50th birthday.

"You know my Mam?" he said.

We did know his Mam.

"It’s her birthday, not this Saturday, the one after, and I’ve to invite four friends, but they can’t all be boys, because she says there’s nothing festive about 17-year-old boys – that’s a joke, like – so I’ve to invite two girls, but Mam doesn’t like Siobhán and Emma, don’t tell them."

We would not tell them.

"And she likes ye, she says. Maybe because ye’re The Órlas. Like, ye’ve a gimmick. Jarlath and Shaughs are coming. I don’t know if it’ll be any good. You probably have swimming."

His palm threatened to erode him from scalp to shoulder.

Órla said there was no swimming and I said we’d ask our parents. We let Dave light the Bunsen burner and carried out our desalination experiment with quaking hearts.

The other Órla said he invited us because he liked me, and I said he invited us because he liked the other Órla. The night of the party she wore an elegant black dress belonging to her mother and I hated her for it.

The Allens were well off, but their house wasn’t showy from the road. It was just a normal enough house, nicely painted, tidy looking. Órla and I had last been there when Dave turned six. We remembered art that took up a whole wall, wood floors before everyone got wood floors.

But it was the back garden that was most profoundly impressed on our imaginations. It was like something from an English country house-turned-spa. The patio was all tall plants, wicker woven furniture, buddha statues. There was a gravel path, a fire pit. And the most astonishing adornment of all was revealed when the conservatory doors pulled back, a warm, clean smell rose up, and you realized that the Allens had an honest-to-Jesus swimming pool.

Dave’s Mam met us at the door, made a fuss of our presents. Dave stood behind her, hand on neck. She ushered us through to the kitchen and introduced us to tippling adults, who all got a kick out of the gimmick. "But which beautiful Órla is Dave’s girlfriend?" asked an uncle. Órla and I giggled; Dave turned purple.

"Come on," he said, "Jarlath and Shaughs are here already."

Backs to the open conservatory doors, framed against geometric landscaping, Jarlath and Shaughs were sitting, skinny in their trunks, feet in the pool, drinking beer. Adults were dotted in polite congregations on the patio outside.

"Show us a swimming trick there, Órla," said Shaughs or Jarlath.

"She’s not a seal," said Dave.

"D’you’ve no fancy dives or anything, no?" Jarlath or Shaughs persisted.

Órla shook her head, shy.

"How many lengths could you do without coming up for air?" asked Shaughs or Jarlath.

The pool was maybe half the size of the one in town. Órla surveyed it.

"Nine or ten," she said.

Dave looked skeptical. "Show us."

We’d our swimsuits under our clothes, so Órla took off her heels and zipped down the black dress. The boys stared and adult men tried not to until she slipped into the water.

"My make-up, though," she said, gliding to the shallow end.

She disappeared into the medium in which she was mythic, an arrow of sinew, a minnow glinting, everyone watching the sprint of her body, the flick of her tail, once, twice, three times, four, look at, Jays, is she, would you, that’s ama…, ’til surfacing, gasping, back of her hand across the eyes to open them, mascara streaked, victorious, and still – here was the clincher – still shy.

I looked at Dave. He was barely breathing.

By school on Monday, they were together – climbing trees like kids, kissing in the branches like not kids.

I could’ve told you she’d mess it up.

Just after exams, a bunch of us signed on for lifeguard training. It’d look well on our CVs, and a summer being paid to hang out at the pool in town sounded alright.

Everyone took it seriously. There were no jokes about shifting the CPR dummy, no slagging Dara Sullivan for his swollen nipples, and even Siobhán – who, mostly to piss off her Mam, didn’t shave – escaped the social critiques of Jarlath and Shaughs.

The instructor, Nick, was a college man home for the summer. He wore an engagement ring and was purported to be marrying a Trinity med student. We all wanted to impress him – especially Siobhán, who thought a fella with an engagement ring was almost as revolutionary as her legs.

It was my turn to play drowning victim and Dave’s to demonstrate the front approach. He spun me face up and got the rescue tube past my shoulders. Then he’d to swim a length supporting my head. This part, he wasn’t landing: my nose was submerged most of the time. I snuck breaths whenever I surfaced and just about made it.

"How did that feel, Órla?" asked Nick. "Good!" I said. Dave smiled at me. "It looked like your chin was low," Nick said. "I don’t think so," I replied. "Nice job, Dave," said Nick.

I caught Órla’s eye. You cannot still be playing this game, it said.

Next day, Órla was the dummy and Dave made the same mistake. Before he could swim his length, she wriggled free. "My nose was under water," she said.

"Try again," called Nick from the tower.

Same manoeuvre, same result, same protest. "Maybe with the belt lower?" said Órla, treading water. Annoyance flicked across Dave’s face. "I had it yesterday," he said.

His form less confident, he spun her, placed the belt, and swam his length. "Perfect!" said Órla. Dave didn’t respond. Later, at McDonalds, he didn’t get her a McFlurry.

It was Saturday, the final day of training. We’d written the theory test first thing, and the rest of the morning and afternoon was devoted to practicals. The timed lengths and endurance tests went off fine. Then, Nick wanted to give us a last demo of the core manoeuvres before lunch.

Siobhán was playing dead, delighted to be in the arms of the only vaguely egalitarian male she’d ever met. And maybe it was hopes for her future – for the superior romantic prospects she’d find at UCD – that made her break character. "Nick, your ring!" she said. His face fell, but – consummate professional – he finished the rescue before looking at his hand.

There was nothing more affecting, to our teenage company, than a grown man who looked like he might cry. We peered into the pool, competing to find where the band might be suckered to a filter.

"I see it," said Dave, diving to pull at a glint from a grate. He was under for the bones of two minutes before shooting up for air. "It’s almost through," he said, "careful or it’ll end up in the drain."

Nick went down, resurfaced in near panic.

"I’ll go again," said Dave.

Though she dove from the tower, she entered the water as a lap against the lakeshore, her element swallowing her, satisfied; the pool was so still we could watch the weave of her fingers, could see her hand find its angle, index curling under the gold to stroke it free, could see how she cradled the promise in the hollow of her palm ’til it ignited an arc up out of the water and returned to its keeper.

She forgot to look shy.

I knew she couldn’t survive it.

He told her he didn’t want to get serious with anyone before college. She cried in my bedroom as we dissected the break-up. "He’ll probably go after you now," she said. But he avoided us both.

We all qualified as lifeguards. Nick was in charge of the roster at the pool, and he obliged The Órlas by putting us on the same shift when he could.

It was a great summer: if we weren’t on duty we were messing around by the lake. There was no shortage of boys to pick us up when we punched out. Órla seemed to forget about Dave, went quiet if I talked about him, so I didn’t.

One day I’d to call in sick and Dave was the stand-by. Órla visited me on her way home – brought a box of Maltesers and a copy of Cosmo.

"I know this is going to sound like sour grapes," she said, "like, he dumped me, so now I think he’s a dick or whatever. But seriously."

Two young lads had been fighting and Órla dove to break it up. Afterwards, Dave told her she’d moved too soon: he’d had his eye on the situation because it was in his half of the pool.

"His half of the pool," she said, "I don’t remember the 'stay in your half of the pool’ rule, do you?"

I did not.

So when she rang the next week to complain that Nick wanted her to cover for Emma, but Dave was working, I said I’d do it.

He arrived as I was opening up, asked how the summer was going. I knew from Siobhán that he’d been at the lake the night before and had taken Melissa Hughes for some kind of walk. He rubbed the back of his neck when I told him he’d a nice colour, and smiled across the pool from his tower to mine before slipping behind sunglasses.

When someone’s drowning, it’s not like TV. There’s no splashing, no screaming. It looks like nothing at all.

I stared at Dave, beautiful on high, his body alert but a droop to his chin.

When someone is drowning their mouth hovers at the surface and they bob, vertical. They could be treading water, until you notice that their legs aren’t moving and there’s hair in their eyes.

Dave’s sunglasses were the mirrored kind, reflecting the window opposite him and the bodies below.

Maybe drowning eyes are closed, or glassy, maybe drowning hands gently grasp at a ladder that isn’t there. It’s quiet.

I glanced at the pace clock, trained my gaze on the blue and white wall opposite me, glanced at the clock again. I held my breath until I had to let it go. Dave didn’t move.

Why is our instinct, when faced with death by water, to curl in on ourselves as though our lives are secrets only we can guard?

Dave’s whistle blew. He jumped; I followed.

Emer O'Toole is from Galway, and now lives in Montréal, where she teaches Irish theatre, film, and performance at Concordia University. She's written lots of non-fiction, including academia and newspaper commentary. Her book Girls Will Be Girls (Orion: 2015), a funny, accessible introduction to gender theory, has been translated into six languages. Emer is new to writing fiction, and is hoping to find a home for her recently completed first novel.