Chapter 19

It turned out that Margaret stayed for the whole time that Jim and Ellie were in the pool and she seemed to be getting on well with Isa and Joe. The four of us who had been swimming made our way to the rooms where we could change and shower. When we returned Isa had made us all, including the adults, hot chocolate and offered us a plate of biscuits.

As they got up to leave, Margaret turned to Jim and Ellie and asked,

"Have you two got plans for this afternoon?"

We thought you might drop us off somewhere in town and we could get some lunch and do some window shopping," Ellie replied.

"We could meet you later and join you," Katie said. "Would that be okay with you Peter?" She then asked.

I nodded my head and indicated that this would be fine with me as I felt we should try and help cement the relationship between Jim and Ellie.

"You could all have lunch here unless Margaret has to hurry off somewhere,"

Isa offered. "If you have to go Margaret, Joe or I could run the kids into town."

"I feel that we are putting you to a lot of trouble," Margaret stated.

"Not at all," Isa replied, "It is nice when you can get to know the parents of our children's friends. We had a nice time bringing in the New Year with the parents of some of their other swim friends. In fact that reminds me that I have to fix a date for having them over here."

In the end Margaret agreed to stay and then ran us all into town. It was agreed that she would pick up Joe and Ellie around four and Isa would pick up Katy and I. By the time we all set off for town Isa had fixed a date for inviting all the parents including Jim's mum and Margaret along with her husband. It was agreed that if the others could come she would confirm it with her.

We spent the afternoon with Jim and Ellie and by the time we stopped for coffee at Starbucks, Ellie seemed to have come out of her shell and was talking freely with us. It was obvious to me and Katy that she was really smitten with her new boyfriend and had agreed to come and watch us at the county meet.

Towards the end of February all four of us who had been picked turned out for the county against our neighbouring county A surprising number of people from the school turned up to cheer us on. As well as the parents of the four of us who were swimming, several other parents turned up, including Charlie's, Bobbie's and Ellie's mum and dad. All of us were swimming in two events. John was also there representing our county in my event.

I came second to him in the one hundred butterfly event but reversed the positions in the two hundred. Katy came second in both her events while Jim won both his and Di had a second and third. She was disappointed because she had just lost the first of her races by a touch and there had been another very close finish in her second race also with less than half a second separating all three swimmers.

When the meet was over we met up with all of the parents including Jim's mum and Ellie's mum and dad. Mr Mclean, it seemed, had picked up Jim and his mum to bring them to the completion and he now invited us all to his place for coffee. So all of us, as instructed, followed him in his car to their house. As we followed them through the electric gates and up the drive we arrived at very impressive mansion which, although we could not see the extent of them in the darkness had fair acreage of gardens. I think all of us were a bit overawed, but I thought with a smile, "No swimming pool."

I noticed that over our coffee and eats which had been served up by a maid, Mr and Mrs McLean went out of their way to make Jim's mum feel at home in these very posh surroundings. She also seemed more at ease in these surroundings than I had expected. I felt that this was a good sign that they were also being very accepting of Jim as Ellie's boyfriend despite the lowly background from which he came. I learned afterwards that this was not their first visit to the home of his girl friend as they had both been invited to dinner on the Sunday before our Tuesday Competition but Jim had not mentioned it.

Before we left that evening Joe and Isa issued an invitation to all the parents to meet with us on the Saturday afternoon and to stay for dinner in the evening. Everyone accepted, though Mr McLean said he would come along a little later than the rest as he was taking part in a gold completion that day and as it was a doubles competition he could not let his partner down. Margaret and Ellie however would arrive at the same time as the others. Because of what happened at New Year time it now seemed likely to me that the parents of our group of friends were themselves going to become friends and that this might become a regular practice.

The gathering on the Saturday went off splendidly. Some of the adults had even brought along their swim things and joined us in the pool for a time. Fortunately it was one of those mild February days when the sun came out in the afternoon and the usual East Coast wind was spectacularly absent. As the day progressed, I noticed that Isa and Margaret seemed to be getting along really well and Ellie's mum shared in the work load of catering for all our guests.

March saw Katie and me getting down to revising for our exams. These were not as important as next year when we would be sitting our standard grades. At my age of sixteen I should have been sitting them this year, but since I had been held back a year because of my accident I would be sitting them at the same time as Katy. Because of this, from being the youngest in my year I was now the oldest.

It was also Katy's much heralded, and in some ways argued about, fifteenth birthday. This fell on the seventeenth of March, which of course was Saint Patrick's Day. As it was a Friday, it was decided that we should hold a party to mark the occasion on the Saturday, the day after St Patrick's Day. All the usual suspects were invited including John and Alice. I did not realise it as Isa had said nothing to indicate it, but Ellie's mum had also been invited. Not only that, she had picked up Joe and his mum on the way to the party. When they arrived, it became clear that they were there because they had volunteered to help Isa with the catering for the party.

Once again we were lucky with the weather. It was a sunny and the temperature must have been near a record high for March reaching sixteen degrees Celsius. This was positively balmy for the time of year and the next day's newspapers told us that Edinburgh had one of the highest temperatures in Europe on that day. You have to live in Scotland for some time to appreciate our preoccupation with the weather. When the rest of Britain, especially from below Birmingham, basks in the sunshine, Scots can be chilled to the bone by the cold or washed away by the rain.

The party went well and to our surprise Joe, Isa, Margaret and Jim's mum actually joined us in the pool for a while. Being a horny teenager I got a chance to enjoy Margaret's figure and then to our surprise, Jim's mum, who was no slouch in the looks department either, much to our surprise started doing laps with her son and was giving him a run for his money. It turned out that she had swum in her youth and that she worked as a cleaner for one of the big private Edinburgh sport's centres and a free membership was one of her perks so she kept herself pretty fit.

When the rest of our guests had been picked up Margaret, and Moira, Jim's mum, stayed behind to help get the place back in order and Katy, Jim, Ellie and I gave them a hand. This meant it did not take long and we sat down to a final cup of coffee and biscuits. It turned out that Joe and Isa were members of the gym where Moira worked but they had not come across her. Moira had smiled and told them that they would need to get up early to do that as she worked the early shift, and even though she sometimes stayed on to swim she was home before they were likely to appear at the club.

Margaret hearing that Joe and Isa were members perked up and said,

"I have been putting on a few pounds recently," she told us, "maybe I should think about working out too. I used to belong to a gym and every year I would start out full of determination and then fall away. As a result I let my membership lapse."

"If your figure is anything to go by," Joe told her gallantly, "Then in that sense, it doesn't look like you have anything to worry about, but from a health perspective it is worth trying to keep fit."

"Why thank you sir," Margaret said with a smile, "It is good for a woman's morale to receive such a nice compliment from a handsome man."

"If you two are done complementing each other," Isa said with a laugh, "can I make a suggestion?

"Oh I think Joe and I are finished acknowledging how good we look to each other," Margaret said with a giggle, "so I am open to any suggestion you care to come up with Isa."

"What I was going to propose," Isa said, giggling herself, "Is that perhaps you would like to come along to the gym one evening and I would sign you in and you could make up your mind if you wanted to try it again."

She paused and then looked over at Moira.

"Since you are already a member Moira," she continued, "Perhaps you would like to join us. Margaret or I could pick you up and we could have a drink or a coffee afterwards."

Moira was obviously taken by surprised that Isa had included her in the invitation and it showed on her face.

"I don't want to put you two out by having to come and collect me," she said with a bit of a stammer.

"If you want to share a girl's night out with a friend," Margaret told her with a giggle, "It is no trouble to pick one of them up.

"In fact I have an even better idea," Isa said with a laugh, "Why don't I pick both of you up for our evening out so that you two could put on some of the calories we have removed by having a relaxing drink at the end. I won't indulge because I have a precious cargo on board," she said pointing to her tummy which was not yet giving much of an indication that she was pregnant.