Second Jump
Desmond sat in a deckchair by the side of a pool.
He blinked in confusion. What had happened to the rainy day in London? It had all suddenly melted away from him. Now he was sitting beneath the shade of a striped umbrella on the patio of some cheap holiday resort. Desmond thought for a moment and then he slowly remembered.
He was at Butlins. This was the last family vacation he had taken before leaving for university. He looked down at his slender limbs and placed a hand to his soft cheeks. He was a teenager. He was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. He was clutching a copy of 'A Christmas Carol' in his hands. Desmond remembered his mother commenting that it was a very odd thing for him to be reading in the summertime. This book had been beginning of his Dickens obsession.
He didn't understand it. Why had he been sent here?
Suddenly his knees were drenched by a torrent of water from the pool. Desmond raised his eyes to see his three younger brothers standing in the shallows. They were waving and gesturing for him to put down his book, stop being such a bore and come to muck around with them in the water.
"Desmond, come on!" one of them urged.
Desmond shook his head. He was in no mood for swimming or splashing games. He was about to turn back to his reading when suddenly something caught his eye. There was a scrawny blonde kid standing nervously on the lip of the pool. His father was in the water with his arms outstretched, promising to catch him. After a brief hesitation, the boy took a deep breath and plunged into the water. He went under for a moment before his dad lifted him in his arms.
"I did it!" the kid exclaimed, astonished with himself.
Desmond smiled. There was something very familiar about this little lad. He couldn't put his finger on it. He watched the father slip his arms beneath his son's chest as he tried a few tentative strokes through the water.
"You've got it!" the man encouraged him, beaming with pride. "You're swimming, Charlie! You're swimming!!"
Desmond flinched, realising.