Authors: Catherine Forde
‘I’m fine, son. Go to sleep now.’
It was daylight when Jimmy slept. And dreamed.
He strode along his street wearing his swimming togs, a crowd following him, all the way to the Leisure Centre. First came Mrs Hughes. She led the English class in a crocodile, reading aloud from Jimmy’s essay. En route, Mum’s wee wifey pals from St Jude’s choir joined in, drowning Mrs Hughes out with their Grand Ol’ Oprey rendition of Bowie’s ‘Heroes’.
Two football teams doing Mexican waves came next, accompanied by Busty and The Tyre dressed as cheerleaders. They paraded up and down the line bearing trays of chocolate éclairs on their heads. Amidst the footballers, wreathed in clouds of cigarette smoke skulked Senga, Chantal, Maddo and Dog Breath.
The crowd swelled as it approached the Leisure Centre. Hamblin was there somewhere and all the obesity consultants Jimmy had consulted over the years in their white hospital coats. Around them danced GI Joe’s family from the middle of nowhere.
Jimmy went alone to the pool while everyone else crammed the spectators’ gallery. In the first row, dressed like royalty, sat Mum. Dad was beside her, his newspaper covering his face. Aunt Pol was next, looking anxious. And enormously pregnant. GI Joe, at her side, looked much smaller than in real life, his head disappearing into a massive dog-collar so that only his eyes and his stubbly crewcut were visible. He gave Jimmy a cheery thumbs up.
And a whistle blew.
Jimmy turned to the water as a murmur of anticipation filtered through the spectators. There were only two competitors lined up for the heat, himself and Victor Swift.
Jimmy positioned himself to dive, copying the stance of a swimmer he’d seen in a grainy photograph recently. Arms low, weighting the body towards the water. Knees bent. Primed. Ready to spring.
At the deep end, a movement distracted Jimmy. He raised his head.
The Shadow Shape was there. A filmy screen of ectoplasm stretched over Jimmy’s horizon, held at one end by Mum, the other end by Aunt Pol. It moved and writhed, semi-transparent, struggling to remain taut and whole as something bigger and far more concrete tore through it. Big Frankie Fallon. Dad.
‘Fair play to you, son!’ called the huge, red-haired man, cupping his hands to shout the length of the pool.
‘See. Telt you my maw said your auntie wasn’t your auntie,’ said Victor, diving as the whistle blew, leaving Jimmy standing.
‘I’m honestly not hungry,’ Jimmy insisted, pushing away the toast that Mum had thumped in front of him three times already. It was morning. Swimathon morning.
‘You’re not swimming on an empty stomach, is he, Pauline? You tell him. You’ll faint in the pool, Jimmy. Sink and drown. Talk sense into him. He’s as daft as you.’
Jimmy could still hear Mum muttering to herself over the roar of the bathwater.
‘She’s getting all dolled up to come and see you, Jim.’ Aunt Pol drew up a chair and sat close. ‘She’s that proud you know.’
Aunt Pol, pale, puffy-eyed, lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply before she spoke again.
‘I’m proud too. You’re the best –’ Her chin was wobbling. Tears in her eyes. She was about to break her own nae greetin’ rule that she insisted Jimmy follow even when he had every reason in the world to bawl his eyes out.
‘Eat. Mum’s right, Jim. You’ve got to eat.’
‘Can’t,’ said Jimmy, although he made an unconvincing show of chewing and chewing a single mouthful of toast. Tasted like cardboard.
How could he eat?
He was full to the brim.
Everything he’d consumed last night lay rich and heavy like a thick creamy sauce on his heart, on his mind, on his stomach.
Undigested.
And none of it was food.
The space where the Hungry Hole had yawned was crammed at last. Jimmy was so full, so bloated, that his throat ached when he gulped. But he didn’t feel satisfied yet. Everything inside needed to settle into place first. Right now his guts were churning.
His head was churning. Everything was churning.
‘Jim?’
GI Joe sounded as if he was back in South Africa, his voice was so small on the phone.
‘How’re things?’
Different.
‘OK.’
‘And your mum?’
‘Which one?’ Jimmy was surprised at how quickly – defensively – he snapped back.
There was a long pause, Jimmy sensing GI Joe’s awkwardness crackling down the phone line.
‘She’s fine.’ Jimmy softened. ‘In the bath, singing. Listen.’
Jimmy carried the phone to the bathroom door to give GI Joe the full flavour of Mum’s swoopy ‘Amazing Grace’.
‘She’s happy if she’s singing. But we’re in a queue out here,’ explained Jimmy. ‘Legs crossed.’
Relief blasted through GI Joe’s laughter.
‘So you’re still swimming? Don’t want me to phone Barry and cancel?’
‘And let my granny down?’ Jimmy spoke very quietly into the receiver, trying out the relationship for size. Now GI Joe would know everything was out in the open. Better all the same that he wasn’t here to see the flush it brought to Jimmy’s face.
‘Polly. How’s she doing?’
‘Ask her yourself, Joey,’ said Jimmy throwing the handset at Aunt Pol so she couldn’t dive into the bathroom before him when Mum opened the door in a cloud of steam.
‘Joey. For you, Polly,’ he said, feeling as he made a quick cuppa for Mum, that whatever had gone on between Aunt Pol and GI Joe was just one layer of the onion too much for Jimmy to peel away as yet.
‘We’re all getting there though,’ murmured Jimmy to himself waiting for the kettle to boil. For a moment he closed his eyes. The sound of Mum’s singing blended with the sound of Aunt Pol chortling deep into the phone. Jimmy smiled.
Chapter
25
Titbits
‘Pauline was eight months gone before we knew anything.’
Mum sounded miles away, but only because her head was buried in her wardrobe as she rummaged among her clothes.
‘Sit down, son,’ she’d said. ‘In case we don’t get the chance later.’
Then she plunged among her coat hangers, talking above the clatter. Maybe the only way she could do this, Jimmy realised. Turned away from him, busying herself with other things, pretending they were more important. Defense mechanism.
‘I must have been blind, not seeing Pauline getting stout. One night I called the doctor out because her back was hurting and she couldn’t settle. She takes one look and whips her into maternity.’
‘Aunt Pol didn’t know she was pregnant? You’re joking.’
Mum withdrew from the wardrobe and sighed, looking, not directly at Jimmy, but at his reflection in her dressing table mirror.
‘Happens. Still happens. Daft lassies. Concealed pregnancy they call it. A guilty secret, Dad said. Fair knocked his stuffing out. His wee girl. Clever. Set for the Uni. Law she was going to do. Suddenly we’re standing over a hospital bed looking at her with a baby in her arms. Fifteen. Helpless. You go into shock.’
Of course, thought Jimmy. That explained the single photograph GI Joe had studied with such interest. Explained why Dad spent the next twelve years – his
last
twelve years – hiding behind a newspaper blocking the sight of Jimmy out. Mum’s anxiety in that photograph, watching Aunt Pol holding Jimmy in her arms as if he was a grenade that was about to explode. That made sense too.
And
the blank terror in Aunt Pol’s eyes:
What have I done?
No wonder everyone – apart from himself – looked freaked.
‘Never met the – him – your father.’ Mum made the words ‘your father’ sound distasteful, twisting her mouth into a grimace as she applied pink lipstick carefully. She kept her mouth half open, moving her lips slightly as if she was rehearsing her next statement. Through the mirror Jimmy watched her intently.
Their eyes locked. Mum’s hard, seeing back into memory. Then, under Jimmy’s scrutiny, they softened.
Snap.
She closed her mouth. Blotted her lips with a tissue, stifling other things she could say. But didn’t.
She sighed.
‘Your dad was back to Ireland before you came along. Pauline couldn’t get in touch with him. So she said. Dad was all for having the police because Pauline was a minor – fifteen – but Pauline swore your dad thought she was eighteen. Father Patrick was involved, of course. He said we’d have to have you adopted unless we pretended you were mine. Och, it was all mess.’
Mum’s shoulders slumped beneath the weight of the secret she had kept all these years. Under her fresh powder and lipstick, Jimmy noticed her age for the first time: the soft wrinkles pouching her face, the droop of her jowl. He’d never thought her old before. She’d always just been Mum. The best.
A wave of affection swept Jimmy, and his arms went round his mum. He squeezed her tight.
‘You’re glamorous for an old granny,’ he said.
Together they sat, shoulder to shoulder, not speaking as they examined each other in the mirror.
‘You know, you’re right. I’m not bad for my age.’ Mum stood up first, dusted herself down. She sounded like Aunt Pol, thought Jimmy. When she grinned and stroked Jimmy’s cheek, she even looked like Aunt Pol. Jimmy had never spotted the resemblance before.
DESSERTS
Chapter
26
Merman
GI Joe was pacing up and down outside the Leisure Centre when Jimmy arrived with Aunt Pol and Mum.
‘Just enjoy yourself today, Jim,’ he advised, as they parted at the changing rooms. ‘You’ve proved yourself already learning to swim. Never mind winning.’
Aye, that’ll be right, thought Jimmy, as he lined up with the other competitors at the poolside.
Never mind winning
! All very noble. Now that he was here, having put in all those hours of training, did he ever want to win this race?
After all, he would
never
have dreamed he’d be in this situation: a competitor.
Next to Victor. With a girlfriend good enough to eat rooting for him alongside Coach in the spectator’s gallery, her dancing eyes never leaving him.
Not to mention the eyes of the five blokes from other swimming clubs, all go-faster goggles and six packs with attitude. They looked along the starting line, clocking the new lardy lad. Sizing him up.
Taking in the height: What was he? Six one? Two?
The new aerodynamic into-the-wood haircut: Crikey! Well mean.
The belly: Massive. Solid, mind.
The breadth: Shoulders like a medieval battering ram.
The reach: Long, powerful-looking arms positioned for the dive.
Five blokes and Victor.
All looking.
Looking worried.
Splash!
A whistle blast and they were off. Jimmy, a torpedo, breaking the surface of the water well ahead of all the other competitors.
Never mind winning, GI Joe tells me after all the training I’ve put in. Never won squat. Not one certificate for effort in class . . .
Ripple ripple ripple.
Fused together, Jimmy’s legs became a merman’s tail powering him through the water.
Crash!
Jimmy’s arms were plunging pistons driven by the might of his shoulders. As he reared up, gulping air like some huge sea-creature before his next stroke, he heard cheers, and whistles, and yells echoing around his head.
For him. What a sound!
Jimmy was halfway through the race already, approaching the wall at the deep end. He wouldn’t surface again until he was a third of the way down the home strait. There was no need to be above the water any more to sense the effect his performance was having on the spectators’ gallery. He could feel the atmosphere, the charge of it, crackling the water like static. Yells echoed around him, but there was no time to stop. Freeze the moment. Check if people really were on their feet –
Whoa
!
Look at that huge bloke go
!
No time to see Mum and Aunt Pol clinging to each other, willing Jimmy to win, their hearts beating as hard as his own.
Ellie, fists clenched, chanting, ‘Jim, Jim, Jim, Jim
. . .
’
No time to grin at GI Joe’s screech:
‘COME ON THE BIG MAN.’
Things were very close. As Jimmy flipped for the tumble-turn, Victor was on his merman’s tail snapping like a crocodile. For one infinitesimal moment as Jimmy passed him, their eyes met under the water. No other witnesses.
That look of disbelief in Victor’s eyes; his realisation that big, fat, useless Smelly Kelly, who five weeks ago couldn’t have swum his way out of a trickle of Maddo’s piss, was taking the mick here,
that
was better than winning, thought Jimmy, butterflying all the way to the end of the race as though his wings were jet-propelled.
He finished at least a body-length clear of Victor. The six packs still frothed like milkshakes halfway up the pool.
‘That’s our club record smashed,’ Barry Dyer screamed as Jimmy’s eyes searched the spectators for Mum and Aunt Pol and Ellie. ‘Both of you. First and second. You’re not even fit yet, Jim, and that was a PB for you, Victor. Great going, lads!’
Victor ignored Barry, spitting out a jet of water. His mouth moved constantly, although the only words Jimmy could make out over a booming tannoy were, ‘
. . .
beaten by that fat loser.’
Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it for our Scotstown Boys’ team. A new club record for 100m butterfly in a sensational demonstration race, won by their new team member . . . Big Jim Kelly!
Spectators were clapping even before the announcement was finished. Aunt Pol had her hands cupped over her mouth and was whooping at the top of her voice. Next to her, GI Joe, punching the air with both hands and yelling in that vein-bulging way of his, looked positively demure. Everyone seemed to be standing up, except Mum, who was dabbing her eyes – and Ellie, who was dabbing her glasses.
So this is what winning tastes like, thought Jimmy, as he scanned the crowd. Must have felt like this for my dad.
It had been a while since Jimmy had felt the swoop of hunger in his belly, but now a tiny pocket of emptiness opened inside him.
Instinctively, he glanced up at the deep end of the pool.