Kenwood Women’ Bathing Pond, Hampstead Heath. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, Licensed beneath CCO 2.0.
It was the full-body ache of our hangovers and the cigarette smoke stagnating in our hair that compelled us towards the pond. We have been sat within the particles of a home social gathering, on a settee that had not too long ago doubled as an ashtray, when Janique stated we must always go for a swim. I instructed the Kenwood Women’ Pond, which is freed from males and harsh chemical substances.
There are 5 ponds in a row on the jap fringe of Hampstead Heath. They run (from south to north): the Highgate No. 1 Pond, the Highgate Males’s Pond, the Mannequin Boating Pond, the Hen Sanctuary Pond, and, lastly, set barely aside from the others and sheltered by timber, the Kenwood Women’ Pond. It’s accessed by a protracted path, behind a gate with an indication that reads WOMEN ONLY / MEN NOT ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT. There are two holding pens off to the aspect of the trail, one for chaining bicycles, the opposite for chaining canines. There isn’t any pen for younger kids, who usually are not (not like canines and bicycles) allowed previous even the primary gate. As we walked by the park, I regaled my North American companion with the pond’s lore:
The ladies’s pond is “a transporting haven” with a “wholesomely escapist high quality” (Sharlene Teo). To swim in its “clear, glassy,” (Ava Wong Davies) “velvety water” (Esther Freud) is to “enter a brand new state” (Lou Stoppard)! (All of this comes from the 2019 essay assortment On the Pond: Swimming on the Hampstead Women’ Pond, by which every bit accommodates the verb to glide.)
We arrived on the meadow, which, I assured Janique, is a haven of nakedness. On this specific afternoon, as we sat within the solar to alter, I observed that I used to be the one one that was truly bare.
As we made our strategy to the water in our swimming costumes (the ladies are forbidden from swimming nude, or in our underwear), we heard the distinct voice of a veteran lifeguard, shouting to a bunch, altering on the dock: “GIRLS! GIRLS! Don’t change over there! There’s a pervert who hides within the bushes wanking and we don’t need to give him anything to juice over!”
I turned to Janique and provided a nervous smile. I had failed to say the pervert, however she appeared unfazed. On the dock, the women had wrapped themselves of their towels and have been heading sheepishly into the bathe block to complete altering. We lowered ourselves into the murky water.
The Women’ Pond is supposed to be taken in pairs, in breaststroke, at a leisurely tempo. This isn’t true of the Males’s Pond, which appears at all times to be full of companionless swimming caps darting about in a splashy entrance crawl. Our pond is slower, a spot to speak and to pay attention:
“It’s eighteen levels within the pond at the moment … it was twenty final week.”
“Have you ever obtained these particular swimming footwear for winter?” “No, not but.”
“Oh yeah, you simply pop one in and shove it over.” “I didn’t assume it was that straightforward.”
“And you recognize what she was about to fucking do! She was about to depart that lovely Greek island vacation and fly again to Gatwick, at God is aware of what hour, to cycle on a FUCKING LIME BIKE to that cunt Simon’s home for a FUCKING HOUSE PARTY and he DOESN’T EVEN FUCKING LIKE HER.” The outraged lady’s companion made varied sympathetic mewing sounds. We pushed on.
“Have you ever ever flown someplace for a person who doesn’t love you?” Janique requested, as soon as we have been out of earshot. “Yep,” I replied.
For some time after that, we swam in silence. Two upturned Band-Aids float previous. They have been adopted by an aged lady swimming rapidly. Her hair was stored dry by a plastic bag from Ryman, the favored chain that sells stationery. The bag was inflexible, poking excessive above the water like a pharaoh’s crown. She had mounted it to her scalp with duct tape.
The ladies reemerged as we swam again towards the dock. There have been three of them:
“I’ve determined I’m going to get my first ever bikini wax after I return to uni.”
“Do they wax your ass?”
“That’s not a bikini wax, that’s an ass wax, they’re completely different.”
“I’ve such unhealthy physique hair.”
“You’ll be able to’t have unhealthy physique hair.”
“Yeah you’ll be able to, I do. I advised my mum and he or she stated, ‘I’ve by no means had that drawback!’ Like, thanks, lady.”
“Nicely, I’m getting my mustache lasered off.”
“Do you wax your pits?”
One craned her neck to smell her proper armpit. “God, I stink.”
Janique and I added ours to the queue of joggling heads making an attempt to exit the pond—treading water, inching ahead, ready patiently for the lady forward to disengage utterly from the steps earlier than grabbing on to the rope-covered railings. An ideal spherical backside whooshed out of the water in entrance of me. Hooked up to it was a graying HRT patch, which was nearly hanging on.
We padded to the bathe block to rinse the algae off of our our bodies. Tiny dots of it acquire in intricate constellations throughout your breasts; bikini tops catch the stuff like a web. Within the showers, postswim dialog was light.
“Ooh, I’ve obtained a ticket to see that beautiful Mark Rylance in a play tonight.”
“Beth, did you pack that thermos filled with tea?”
“We have been considering of going away as soon as Ben’s settled into his new faculty.”
A voice interrupted from exterior. “Mary, did I go away my swimming leg in there?” The showering girls hushed. Positive sufficient, there was a prosthetic leg leaning towards the wall, beneath the towel hook. “Acquired it! It’s proper right here!” Mary grabbed the leg and the chatter resumed.
As we left, the lady on the kiosk referred to as up the trail to a bunch of recent arrivals. “ALL RIGHT LADIES, JUST TO WARN YOU, WE’VE GOT MAINTENANCE GOING ON—THERE’LL BE SOME MEN COMING IN. THAT’S RIGHT, THERE’LL BE MEN IN OUR POND.”
Molly Pepper Steemson is a author, editor and occasional sommelier from London.
