Emma Jane Dance: The Swimmer Who Tried - A North Wales Fantasy Novel

By S.D. Gripton and Sally Dillon-Snape

Emma Jane Dance is fifteen-year-oid a bullied schoolgirl, who is just beginning to develop feelings for a boy, who lives in a poverty-stricken town in North Wales, but who is an excellent swimmer. She doesn't think there is anything special about her, especially as she is unable to hold her parents' marriage together and she is just easing her way through life. Until, one day, she meets mermaids and mermen and is told she is the only remaining human with Poseidon's, God of the Oceans and Seas, genes. There is problem in the seas with the evil dead, who are buried there, and she is the only person who can solve that problem. She has only fourteen days to swim thousands of miles and speak to the wife of Poseidon, to get her to understand that mankind still exists and that the dead cannot be released. A very exciting underwater fantasy adventure

• Language: English
• Publisher: S.D. Gripton
• Release date: Mar 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215148976

S.D. Gripton

S.D. Gripton novels and real crime books are written by Dennis Snape, who is married to Sally who originate from North Wales and Manchester respectively and who met 18 years ago. I work very hard to make a reading experience a good one, with good plots and earthy language. I enjoy writing and hope readers enjoy what I have written. I thank everyone who has ever looked at at one of my books.

Book preview

Emma Jane Dance

The Swimmer Who Tried

A North Wales Fantasy Novel

By

S.D. Gripton & Sally Dillon-Snape

© Sally Dillon-Snape & Dennis Snape (2023)

The moral right of the authors is hereby asserted in accordance with The Copyright Act 1988

All characters and events in this publication other than those of fact and historical significance available in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons living and dead is purely coincidental

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher

Cover by Snape

***

Part One

The Mission

Chapter 1

The whistle blew loudly.

For spectators it was ear-shattering, as the sound reverberated around the huge, high echoing building.

Emma Jane Dance released the handles on either side of the starting block, uncurled from her crouched position, pushed off hard with her feet, arched her back, stretched out her arms, threw back her head and hit the water at speed. She gave three hard kicks of her legs, moving them in much the same motion a dolphin might make, before surfacing and reaching out with her long right arm and swinging it behind her head, pulling water towards her with power, repeating the same movement alternatively with her left arm, pulling water towards her and moving swiftly through it. She was instantly into the backstroke, kicking her feet rhythmically, her legs stretched out behind her but relaxed and she watched the ceiling of the swimming-pool pass by, mildly aware of the sound of human cheering. She did what she always did during the first fifty metres of a race, she ignored all the opposition as she concentrated on her own stroke, swinging her arms up and round, fingers not quite together but extended, rhythmic as windmills as she rolled ever-so slightly, breathing easily, water trickling over her face, eyes wide open. When she turned at the half distance that’s when she’d size up the opposition, that’s when she’d attack.

She already knew she had Janine Hasleton to one side of her, Connie Whelper to the other, the current number one and number two of school backstroke swimmers, all three of them being fifteen years of age, this being the race to decide who would be the new under-16’s British Schools Champion.

Emma was the new face, the late-beginner, not taking up swimming seriously until the age of twelve, when she’d been noticed by the local swimming coach and invited to join the swimming club. Such an honour; every kid in town wanting to be a member of the swimming club but it only had twenty-five swimmers, a mixture of boys and girls, and a water polo team made up of very large men. But in the three years since she’d been swimming seriously, she’d given it her all, she’d trained and trained and in her fifteenth year had begun to break all kinds of local club and school age-group records.

Now here she was; competing in the British Schools Championships; Under 16’s; Female; 100 metres backstroke.

She made the fifty-metre mark with an immaculate turn and surfaced in third place, now taking notice of who was ahead and who was behind. Only three of them were in contention for the victory; herself; Connie, who was leading; and Janine who was just behind.

Now was the time for real effort.

Emma began to kick her feet faster and harder, reaching further behind her, almost lifting herself out of the water as she pulled more water towards her, rolling more, moving faster through it, catching up with her competitors. Janine saw her coming and began to work harder, too, and this inspired Connie to work even harder. But Emma continued to catch them; she continued to move closer and closer, equal now with Janine, moving smoothly, the sound of the cheering louder than ever, Emma knowing her mother and father were among the noisy crowd, hoping they were cheering in unison, not bickering or snarling at each other as was the norm.

Pull harder; pull harder; kick; kick.

The words of her coach Paul McClain echoed through her head. Pull; kick.

She pulled and kicked and moved ahead of Janine.

Second place was not good enough for Emma; she wanted to win. Of course, Connie was thinking exactly the same thing, working equally as hard, the smoothness of the stroke making the difference; Emma moving like a knife through warm butter, Connie working at it, looking more like a mountain-climber than a swimmer, the effort she was putting into it; Emma creeping up, not far to go now, the ceiling passing by above her, no time to think, just work, work, work, pull, kick; there’s the marker, only ten metres to go, level with Connie, Janine behind, overtaken; Connie labouring, Emma breathing hard now, reaching further behind, reaching for the wall, the end of the race being imminent, reaching, reaching, level with Connie, Janine out of it, reaching, her own breathing now loud in her head, the noise of the cheering loud in her ears. Reach, reach, reach…

…reach for the wall.

She touches it, ducks under the water, surfaces with her chest rising and falling with the effort she has made, she turns immediately to face Connie, who’s crouching in the water, also breathing heavily. They don’t know who’s won, the crowd are going berserk, Janine is third but who won? Emma reaches out for Connie but she is staring only at the large screen, waiting for the slow-motion re-run, waiting, waiting…

…and there it is…

…Emma winning by two-hundredths of a second.

Winning by the width of a breath; of a hair…

…but a win nevertheless.

The new girl; three years only as a competitive swimmer, now the British Age Group Schools Champion; 100 metres backstroke; Female.

Emma Jane Dance.

That’s what it would say on the trophy when she collected it, standing with Connie and Janine, both of them being complimentary and pleasant in their loss, both hugging her, telling her to watch out next time, they were after her, they would be working harder than ever, over sixteen’s next year, moving on to adult, they would be after her. There were gentle laughs, even more gentle tears both of joy by Emma and of sadness by Janine, who’d lost her title, never even making it to second place.

And a new schools record; the fastest time ever for the stroke and distance by a schoolgirl in Britain; Connie also breaking the old record but finishing only second, knowing that in terms of written records she may as well have finished last. Her name would not be written into the records, it was the name of Emma Jane Dance that would go forward into schools’ history.

***

As she was presented with her medal and the trophy, the smile that split Emma’s face was just about the widest it had ever been. She stood in her close-fitting blue costume with her dark hair cropped; no room in swimming for long hair unless a cap was worn and Emma hated caps; eyes of very pale green, tall, lanky some said, with long arms and legs and happily, large hands and big feet, able to pull and kick away a lot of water, the ugly duckling no longer, a swan now, a champion from a town that had never had a champion before, from a school that had never had one, either. Emma was so proud when she finally met up with her mother and father. Joanne Dance coming forward first to hug and congratulate her daughter, laying a tiny kiss on her right cheek; Michael, Emma’s father, only stepping forward when his wife stepped back, both him and Emma crying as they hugged and danced, her father finally stepping back.

Emma Dance, he said, brushing away his tears as his stony-faced wife watched on, that was a wonderful race; the best race I’ve ever seen. The best ever.

Joanne Dance sniffed at such common behaviour but Emma laughed, hugging her father again. He was always so enthusiastic, she thought, though her mother often admonished him for his over-abundance of praise. You’ll have her growing up with a big head, she’d always said. She barely speaks to anyone in town now, never mind. Nowadays, he didn’t care what she said. Neither did Emma Jane very much.

It had been the best swimming race he’d ever seen and his daughter, his only child, had won it. What was the matter with shouting that from the rooftops? Nothing. Wait until he arrived at work on Monday morning in the Estate Agency, nobody would be able to shut him up, not that it was easy to shut him up in normal circumstances; Michael Dance was one of life’s talkers and so proud of his daughter it almost took his breath away, as it had when he was screaming at the top of his voice during the race. The best swimming race he’d ever seen. The very best.

The family ate a silent, strained meal in a local restaurant, Emma’s scheme to get them together not going to plan, her parents still not speaking to each other, not in the way they used to, barely at all. It was why she’d invited them to watch the race together rather than inviting her coach, the man who’d first noticed her talent, Paul McClain. It was to try and get them talking again, to see sense, to get them back together, but it seemed as if she’d failed.

They stayed at a motel on the Saturday night, three separate rooms, travelled home on Sunday; Emma listening to music on her iPad all the way, her parents not speaking at all up front. Immediate neighbours from the town were out waiting to greet them, after receiving a telephone call from Michael Dance, they were waving Welsh Dragon flags and shouting loudly as Emma climbed from dad’s dark Volkswagen car, all of them grinning, Emma carrying the trophy, lifting it high so the gathering could see, wearing the medal around her neck. The new schoolgirls’ one hundred metres backstroke champion. Would it ever get any better than this, she wondered?

Could it?

Never in a million years could she have guessed that her swimming skills would be put to good use…

…when she tried to save the whole world from a terrible end.

***

Aled wants us, you and me, to move into the apartment above the pub.

What? No. No way. And there is no us. I am not moving into what you, jokingly call, the apartment above the pub, it’s tiny and it’s out of the question.

Joanne and Emma were sitting in the lounge of the house, the rent of which Michael Dance had paid for over twenty-five years, it was the place where Emma had been born in the back bedroom when an ambulance couldn’t get to the birthing mother soon enough. Dr Feltesham; wearing his old brown suit and black shoes, one black sock, one blue, a necktie so tight it almost strangled him, as bald and as skinny as a rib, already way past retiring age, was the way Dad described him; rushing round breathlessly to aid in the birth and doing a brilliant job.

Don’t speak to me with that attitude, young lady. If I decide to move, you’re moving in with me, make no mistake. I’m your legal guardian, you will do what you’re told.

Mother, you are already at the gossip centre of the whole town, the one woman who works at the pub who is stupid enough to want to move in with the lecherous Aled Kingsley, the unknown rich stranger who is not Welsh; someone who has been privately educated in some fancy English school, whose father gave him a pub to play with, and barmaids aplenty to entertain him, barmaids just like you.

Joanne Dance jumped up from the lounge chair in which she was sitting with every intention of slapping her daughter but when Emma jumped up, too, that option was taken away from her, not least because Emma was at least six inches taller than her mother and in possession of wide, square, swimmers’ shoulders; not a child to be easily slapped. Especially not by a woman who revelled in her femininity, in her petiteness and slimness, wearing her sleek dark hair way down past her shoulders, her face made up perfectly, even as she sat indoors watching television on a Sunday evening with her daughter.

Not that her days and evenings were normally so boring.

Normally she worked at one of only two pubs in the town; the successful one, the other one rumoured to be in danger of imminent closure; where she was one of three pretty barmaids who toiled behind the bar for Aled Kingsley, the gorgeously tall, rich landlord who, for the most part, stood at the bar drinking chilled water and telling tales of his youth that fascinated not only the barmaids but the older residents. Aled insisted on black and white uniforms for his staff, white blouses, black skirts, something the customers, or punters as Aled called them, loved to see. When she was serving behind the bar and the pub was full, Joanne felt like a pop star, a mildly aging pop star to be sure, being forty years of age this year, but a pop star nevertheless. Men constantly smiled at her from the other side of the bar, men she’d known all her life, men who’d barely taken any notice of her until Aled had given her a job behind his bar; stopping her outside the post office one Monday morning, asking if she’d like to work for him, Joanne saying yes immediately, which upset Michael, her husband, who was well aware of Kingsley’s, reputation. Aled laughing at him and all his concerns.

Joanne’s work at the pub had almost instant consequences though. In a matter of weeks, she was presumed to be in a relationship with Aled, something she never denied but something she did not confirm, and something like that could not be kept secret from the three thousand souls who lived in Tengarth, a town on the North West coast of Wales; a windy wet place with few visitors and a whole population who wished they lived somewhere else.

The rumours led to Michael endlessly arguing with his wife and finally moving out of the family home, his wife threatening to sue him for every penny he had, her words ringing in his ears. Michael decamped to a rented apartment in the inland town where he worked, where he now lived a solitary, lonely existence, except for the occasional visits from his only daughter. Michael now living only for his work, for Emma’s love and her talent for swimming.

If I say we go to live above the pub, we go, Joanne insisted as she stared up at her daughter.

I won’t go there; I hate the place, I hate Aled Kingsley. If you decide to leave this house, I will go and live with dad.

He only has one bedroom in the hovel in which he lives.

I’ll sleep on the couch.

He has no couch; I’ve just told you; he lives in a hovel.

I will live with dad. Don’t you think it’s bad enough for me with the whole town knowing that you are my mother and you are in a relationship with Aled Kingsley, sleeping with him; just another in a probable long line. You’ve wrecked everything by your obsession with him; his own marriage has been destroyed, so he’s telling everyone, though I have never set eyes upon a wife and have not yet learned her name. I believe she is a fiction made up by him to make him seem more interesting. Your own marriage to a decent man who adored you is wrecked beyond repair, and all for a man who tells everyone he’s six years younger than you. It’s disgusting.

This time Joanne decided to slap her daughter but again failed when Emma caught her swinging wrist and gripped it hard.

If you ever hit me, mother, I will hit you back then we’ll see who wins shall we? I am not going to live in the pub with you and Aled Kingsley, get that into your thick head.

Emma released the grip she had on her mother’s wrist and stormed from the room, slamming the lounge door behind her, climbing the stairs to her room, striding in, locking the door, sitting on a small chair in front of her laptop, dropping her head, crying softly.

How is it, she thought, that good times have to be cancelled out by bad ones; one day I win a race, the next day my mother wants me to move into a pub owned by her creepy boyfriend; one extreme to another in almost the blink of an eye? She would die before she went to live at the pub with Aled Kingsley no matter what her mother said. She undressed, pulled on her pj’s, climbed into bed, curled into a ball and slept fitfully, hearing her mother moving around the house, listening at her locked door, interfering in her life.

***

Monday morning arrived, as it always did, with Emma full of trepidation for the day and the week ahead. Would The Gang let her be now that she was a champion, would they cease their endless bullying, something that had been going on ever since she’d first entered High School at the age of eleven? Five of them, not the prettiest girls in school, not the brightest, not the biggest, but they were collectively capable of great mental torture, sometimes even physical torture. Being tall for her age, lanky, with her strange coloured eyes, big hands and feet, Emma had been targeted from the moment she’d stepped through the school gates. She’d reported the bullying only once, to her PE Teacher, a tall male who understood nothing of young girls who told her to man up and fight fire with fire. Thanks Mr Williams, thanks for your help.

Felicity; Beverly; Sharon; Karan and Jules; collectively The Gang, an identity they revelled in, walking corridors shoulder to shoulder, forcing younger pupils out of the way, even the boys, older students politely waiting for them to pass, the five sitting next to one another in lessons, never having broken up their friendship during their years at various schools, senior pupils now, never going to university, not caring, no ambition in them, only intent in getting a job at a High Street store, the job suiting them all down to the ground, or they would apply to the local Supermarket, anywhere that would put money in their pockets, none of the girls able to wait until they could drink alcohol legally; they’d already been drunk at parties and loved the feeling. It was who they were.

Emma’s bullies.

Three of the five didn’t even come up to her shoulder but they were still capable of generating genuine fear in her, making her hand over what dinner money she had; she had often gone without food for the day, the lanky girl who could swim a bit; an easy target for The Gang.

Emma silenced the alarm that rang quietly at 06:00 a.m. climbed out of bed, dressed herself in a pale blue swimming costume and dark blue tracksuit, creeping downstairs so as not to wake her mother, picking up a large towel, slipping white trainers onto her feet, shoving the towel into the shoulder-bag that contained her underwear, letting herself out the house, carrying the trophy she’d won, to show her coach. She semi-jogged to the pool, where Paul McClain awaited her, her coach since she’d taken swimming seriously, a considerable county swimmer himself in his younger years but forty now, losing his hair a little bit and gaining a belly.

He rose from his bed even earlier than Emma was already at the swimming pool when she arrived. He hugged her when she approached as he told her of the pride he’d felt at her victory, how proud he was of her personally when she let him hold the trophy, Paul grinning widely. She thanked him for successfully coaching her, they high-fived, before he placed the trophy poolside and Emma slipped out of her trainers and tracksuit and was ready to swim, ready to follow Paul’s instructions. She dived into the heated water and began her early morning training session under his watchful eye.

It was what she did every morning except Sunday; in the pool by no later than 06:30, out at 07:30, home before eight, hot porridge with honey that once upon a time awaited her, along with a bottle of chilled water and vitamin tablets which were laid out each morning by her father; Emma making her own porridge now, laying out her own tablets since he’d departed, eating heartily before leaving for school at 08:20, arriving within ten minutes to begin another learning day.

This Monday morning was going to be more difficult than normal because the Headmistress had posted a note through the door asking Emma to bring to school both the trophy and the medal for other pupils to see. Emma knew she was going to be triply mocked for that; she knew The Gang would attempt to rip the trophy from her large hands; she knew they would try to damage it and belittle her achievements. She knew they would steal the medal if they could; she would not be a swimming champion in her school, not to The Gang, she would only be a victim.

Mother used to drop her off each morning with a smile and a kiss, saying ‘Have a nice day with your friends’ not knowing, or caring, that her daughter barely had any friends at school, too busy swimming to make friends or to attend parties or be invited to movies or to anyone’s house, too busy trying to better her abilities in a swimming pool. Mother had no idea of the sacrifices an athlete of any kind had to make to become successful, to keep the dream of winning alive, to excel in one’s chosen sport. And all that was before Aled Kingsley arrived in town; before she became involved with him. It was lonely and hard enough in life to survive without the complexity of him wanting to become involved with her as some kind of step-father.

Very few friends then; funnily enough only one good friend and he was a boy, someone she’d known from her early years in primary school.

Thomas Carrington.

Tom.

***

He was equal in height to her, with mousy coloured hair, brown eyes, and he was moving out of shyness at Junior School into popularity at Senior, him being another pupil who was bullied regularly except he was bullied by boys’ who pushed and pulled him around, sometimes knocking him over, taking his money just as The Gang took Emma’s. Only when they were together, Emma and Thomas standing shoulder to shoulder, were they safe. For some reason they were never bullied either by the boys or the girls when they were together, perhaps it was their combined height that protected them.

Tom was not a boyfriend in any kind of emotional way; though emotion and thoughts of kissing were beginning to gather in the recesses of Emma’s mind; he was just a boy who was her friend, a boy from her local primary and junior schools moving up with her to the High School.

Their town, Tengarth, stood on the rugged northwest coast of Wales, nestling on the coast near the sea, close to the rolling waves, but there was talk and rumour of the High School closing and pupils being moved inland. In the early days at their new school, Emma and Tom had clung to each other, sometimes literally, at the fear they felt amongst so many older pupils, many of whom they knew, but many they didn’t, who behaved differently at school, forming gangs and such, but they’d found their feet eventually, Tom adjusting faster than Emma because he excelled in his lessons, he was a clever boy, something he’d only recently learned, he was popular with his classmates, if not with everyone else in the school and he was making quite a few friends. Emma was the opposite of him, quieter, more studious, having to work to learn, nothing coming naturally to her, no inbred talent for learning, only hard work and concentration bringing her results, only swimming coming naturally; swimming being her only talent.

When she arrived at school with the trophy grasped tightly in her right hand, it wasn’t necessary for her to look around for The Gang, they were already waiting for her just inside the gates, grinning a collective smile, standing close together, five against the world, be that world good or bad. Emma sighed and glanced around, looking for Tom and not seeing him.

"What’ve you got there then?’ Filly asked; Felicity being generally regarded as the leader of The Gang.

It’s a swimming trophy, Emma replied, as she moved through them gripping the trophy in both hands, The Gang splitting to let her through, two on each side, one to the rear.

Can I see it? Jules asked; all five of them having the same coloured hair, dyed blonde; the school trying to get their parents to stop them from dying their hair and failing.

I have to take it to the Headmistress, Emma said, as she continued walking, looking at the ground as she moved forward, knowing better than to stare at any of the five.

"I have to take it to the Headmistress," Beverly mimicked, laughing loudly, the others joining in that laughter.

I want to see it, I want to see what’s written on it, Filly continued, reaching out to grab its silvery base.

Emma snatched it away from her.

It’s for winning the one hundred metres backstroke race at the schools’ championship, she said.

What schools?’ Karan asked. Local schools, county schools, what?"

British schools, Emma replied.

Wha!!’ Sharon shouted loudly. British schools? You trying to tell us you won a trophy against all the other schools in Britain?"

Yes, that’s what I’m saying, Sharon.

"I don’t believe you,’ Filly stated, as she made another grab for the tall trophy.

Once again Emma protected it, folding her arms around it, pulling it to her blazered chest, all the buttons done up as was school policy, unless you were a member of The Gang.

I want it! Filly snarled as four of The Gang grabbed the back of Emma’s blazer, one of them grabbing at the ribbon holding the medal around her neck as they pulled at her arms and Felicity made a final grab for the trophy.

Ah, you’ve brought the trophy, Emma, Headmistress Witherspoon said, as she stood on the bottom step of four that led to the main doors to the building.

Emma had no idea that she’d walked the complete length of the playground to be so close to the school building, to the steps, so fearful had she been of The Gang, only staring at the ground, knowing they would grab the trophy and stamp on it if they could and they were just about to do something like that when the Headmistress intervened.

Yes, Headmistress, Emma said smoothly, stepping away from The Gang, who moved away either side of the Head, through the doors and into the building, Filly turning to point a finger at Emma, letting her know they would get her later. But for now, Emma felt safe.

Headmistress Witherspoon took the trophy from Emma. held it up in front of her face, reading the inscription, smiling, lifting the medal that hung around Emma’s neck.

"The whole school is incredibly proud of