Authors: Catherine Forde
What would he think if he saw me? Would he be proud?
I wish he was here. I wish he’d always been here.
‘Hey, cheer up, Jimmy,’ said Barry Dyer, ‘look round. Remember how this feels – and get used to it.’ He seized Jimmy’s nearest arm, raised it aloft. A victory pennant.
Unnoticed, beneath a fresh wave of applause, Victor slipped out of the pool.
Chapter
27
Sticks and stones
‘You’re gorgeous,’ Jimmy crooned under his breath, stealing a final glimpse of Ellie, as she edged her way along the gallery behind Aunt Pol. She wouldn’t be outside to meet him when he changed because she had a piano lesson, but before she left him she had leaned over the spectator’s barrier to squeeze both his wet hands after the race and tell him he was her superhero. Sweet music! Her glasses had been completely steamed up, Jimmy chortled to himself. ‘See you later,’ she’d said. Even sweeter music! No wonder he swung through the changing room doors like a gladiator.
‘Wasnae right, swimming us against a whale. I couldnae get round his arse to overtake him. See the tidal wave when he dived in?
Help
!
Help
!
I’m suffocating. There’s no room in here any more.’
Victor’s damsel-in-distress voice instantly severed Jimmy from his joy. He slunk into the showers aware of one or two swimmers exchanging wry smiles at his expense. But no one laughed.
‘There should be a law against flab like that, man. Doesn’t his blubber make you boke?’
Sticks and stones’ll break my bones but names’ll never hurt me, thought Jimmy, mentally chanting the mantra that Aunt Pol had taught him.
And when I’m dead and in my grave, you’ll be sorry for what you called me.
Not quite so easy to follow this advice when Victor’s insults were sloughing off Jimmy’s fit new skin like an acid, exposing the same old Fat Boy Fat underneath.
‘Heard this one? What d’you get if you cross a pig with a set of swimming trunks?’
Victor’s hand gestured towards Jimmy. ‘A PIG, right? – with a pair of ba’-crushin’ lycra swimming togs?’
Only the sound of running water broke the silence. ‘Easy.
That’s
what you get.’ Victor hollered raucously, stabbing his finger through the steam.
Victor’s humourless laughter ricocheted around the showers, but nobody else joined in. One swimmer nodded towards Jimmy as he left the showers, saying to his mate, ‘Why’s the big man taking a slagging from that plonker?’
‘I know, creamed the pants off him in the pool,’ said the other, ‘He shouldnae take snash like that.’
Another six pack, towelling his hair, cocked his head at Victor. ‘He might be fat, man, but he shafted you big style.’
Five remaining six packs murmured their assent.
‘Beat me?’
Victor’s voice rose in incredulity. ‘Beat me? You jokin’ man. Pah!’ He spat at Jimmy’s feet. Sneered.
‘That was all a set-up out there. I let fat boy win.’ He lowered his voice. ‘See, both his mammys were up there rootin’ for him. Couldnae have razzed the saddo in front of them.’
BAM!
Two of the six packs had to dive into empty showers to avoid being bulldozed as Jimmy slammed through them like an international scrum forward. Grabbing Victor’s neck with one hand, Jimmy switched the shower above his head to cold and turned the spray on Victor. Full.
‘Let me win, did you? Fancy swimming our race over again? Right here, right now?’
Jimmy could feel Victor’s Adam’s apple quiver under the pressure of his fingers. He loosened his grip.
‘Ready? I’ll take you on in the water any time, Victor.’ He worried Victor’s neck when he didn’t answer, staring hard into Victor’s pale blue eyes. They blinked back, cowed, pupils reflecting another hulking face. Angry. Ugly with aggression. Jimmy’s own.
Jimmy pushed the image of his angry self away in disgust, reeling Victor off-balance so he slipped and slid, all jaggy knees and knobbly elbows, down the wall to the floor like a slick of shampoo.
‘Hey, break it up, big man. He’s no’ worth it.’
The biggest of the six packs stepped apprehensively between Jimmy and Victor, forming a barrier with his arms to restrain Jimmy from the shivering specimen struggling to his feet under a cascade of cold water.
‘Game over,’ said the six pack, and Jimmy recalled Hamblin, the PE teacher, saying the very same thing. Not five weeks ago as he held one boy back from attacking another.
This time, the roles were reversed.
Chapter
28
Awright?
‘Awright?’ asked Aunt Pol.
Everyone kept asking Jimmy that today, as if he was an invalid or something.
It was the first thing Barry Dyer said when he grabbed Jimmy outside the changing cubicles and thumped him in the chest in delight.
‘Y’awright, Jim?’
I was till you punched a hole in my ribcage, thought Jimmy, a heavy shrug the best response he could muster. The sweetness of his victory had been tainted by the violent way in which he had gone ape at Victor in the showers, leaving the taste of self-disgust in his mouth. That wasn’t me back there, he thought.
Barry, however, was too excited about something to notice Jimmy’s mood.
‘You dark horse, you,’ Barry was saying, finger and thumb poised to pinch Jimmy’s cheek. Jimmy stepped back in time. ‘I knew it!
Knew
you reminded me of Frankie Fallon.’ Barry contented himself with flexing his huge index finger under Jimmy’s nose. ‘Here’s me thinking I was hallucinating; you looking like that, and swimming the way you do.’
‘Who told you?’
Jimmy couldn’t
believe
his ears, Barry’s words knocking the stuffing out of him more than any thump to the chest. Hadn’t
begun
to get his head round any of this real dad business and here was his flipping swimming coach discussing it as though it was the weather!
‘Was it him? Did he tell you?’ Jimmy pointed accusingly at GI Joe, chatting at the reception desk with Mum and Aunt Pol. Must’ve been him, thought Jimmy. ‘Blabbermouth.’
‘You don’t mean Father over there?’ Barry Dyer looked even more upset than Mum did when Jimmy or Aunt Pol came out with something irreverent. He covered Jimmy’s stabbing finger.
‘Father never said a word about you,’ he whispered. ‘Even when I asked him if he believed in reincarnation. Told him you were the spit of this big Irish junior I remembered. “Fallon was the name,” I says. “Swear to God that could be him in that pool.” And Father Joe says to me, “I’m a priest; don’t do reincarnation. And, anyway, Jim’s himself. His own man; a one-off.”’
Barry gave Jimmy a brace of matching shoulder punches.
‘That young lady told me Frankie Fallon was your dad,’ Barry said, blushing slightly as he spoke. He was pointing, not at Aunt Pol, but at Mum.
‘Awright, Jim?’ Now GI Joe wanted to know. ‘Because you’ve got a face like fizz on you. Things OK?’ He was nodding towards the showers.
‘Sorted,’ said Jimmy. ‘Victor doing his usual. But ach –’ Jimmy’s swiped the air as though he was knocking away a pesky midgie.
‘Something else up, Jim?’
Jimmy stalled, shoulders slumping. Blurted before he could stop himself. ‘All this business about my dad.’ He was watching Mum and Aunt Pol laughing with Barry.
‘Getting to you now? You want to know more about him?’ asked GI Joe.
Jimmy shrugged.
‘Dunno. Dunno what I want to know.’
‘You’ve a lot to get your head round, Jim. It’ll take time.’
‘Everything’s so
different,
’ Jimmy mumbled, watching Mum and Aunt Pol throw their heads back to laugh at something Barry said. He’d never seen them behave like this before. So chilled. Aunt Pol with her arm around Mum’s shoulder shaking her teasingly. Mum primping her hair slightly for what could only be Barry’s benefit.
‘Must be a relief for them, Jim,’ said GI Joe, mind-reading. ‘Getting things out into the open.’
‘I knew there was something – something, not right. I had dreams –’ Jimmy began, but his thoughts and feelings flew about in his head too rapidly to be pinned down. ‘I just wish I could see my dad, find out about him,’ he whispered, before slipping past GI Joe, and Barry and Mum and Aunt Pol. He needed to get outside for air.
‘Awright, Jim?’ whispered the priest, touching Jimmy’s arm gently. He had found Jimmy leaning against the Leisure Centre wall, his eyes closed.
‘I’ll tell you one thing I remember about your dad. You couldn’t miss him, Jim. He was built like a brick cludgie.’
‘You mean he was fat.’
Jimmy’s eyes remained closed. He didn’t want anything to distract him from the information GI Joe was feeding him.
‘First impression, Jim, was this huge fella. Big red mullet of long hair. Frankie was totally different from the rest of us. That’s why,’ GI Joe admitted, ‘I couldn’t understand what Polly saw in him at first.’
‘See, Jim, back then I’d have eaten myself if I was chocolate. I was a wee poser stringing Polly because I thought I was gorgeous. But I was rotten to her, always arranging dates then standing her up. Blanking her if she spoke to me. Total wally. All flicked hair and attitude. She must have thought I was scum when I turned up here again after all these years. You’ll always get teenagers like me, Jim. Run of the mill, ten a penny. But you wouldn’t buy two Frankies for a pound.’
‘Frankie was different,’ GI Joe said. That, thought Jimmy, was one of the adjectives he used repeatedly. Along with words like ‘hefty’ and ‘big-built.’
‘
Fat
you mean, yeah?’
‘Did I say fat
once,
Jim?’ GI Joe was getting a bit worked up. ‘I said first
impressions
were of someone huge, but you get used to someone’s size, see beyond it when you suss the person inside. I mean, d’you think I keep thinking “he’s fat” when I’m with you? How tragic would that make me? Frankie was just different. Polly thought so too. Frankie made her feel special, never mucked her about, never made her feel small.’
‘How d’you know all this?’ Jimmy asked.
‘Because Polly told me all about him when I finally came groveling,
begging
her to go out with me. No chance. “Away and admire your blackheads in the mirror,” was about the jist of it for me. She said Frankie wanted to marry her. She’d told him she was eighteen, a law student.’
‘Course, I slagged her bigtime for lying. Said Frankie must be dumb to believe her. That’s when she fell out with me. Never spoke to me again.’
‘So you became a priest?’
‘I’m daft, Jim, but I’m not stupid.’ GI Joe had slapped his big paw so hard on Jimmy’s shoulder that his teeth rattled.
‘Sure, I took the hump when Polly gave me the cold shoulder. Thought, I’ll show her. Chucked in school. Joined the army. Just sixteen. Wee eejit. Didn’t come home for five years, not even on leave. Asked to get sent all over the place.
That’s
when I found my vocation. Some of the things I saw –’
GI Joe was staring into the horizon. Miles away.
‘Nothing to do with Polly. Or Frankie. Although I suppose I owe them.’
‘Awright, Jimmy?’
Jimmy had no idea how long Senga and Chantal had been watching him. After GI Joe had gone, Jimmy remained outside trying to picture a teenage Aunt Pol with Frankie Fallon. Was his dad as smitten with his girl as Jimmy was with Ellie, he wondered, smiling a lovestruck smile at the memory of Ellie squeezing his hands. That was when he heard sniggering and opened his eyes. Like a pair of smoking wally dugs, Senga and Chantal were perched on the two walls outside the Leisure Centre, sizing Jimmy up.
‘Thenga thinkth you look like Ronaldo wi’ your hair cut short like that.’
‘Shurrit, did no’. Said ah bet he
thinks
he looks like Ronaldo but he’s more like a spacehopper.’
Senga dunted Chantal so hard that she fell off the wall on to her knees.
‘Saw you swimmin’ through the windae,’ said Senga.
‘Thenga thaid you made Thwifty look like a pure thaddo. Thenga thinkth you’re no’ bad lookin’ now you’re no’ tho fat . . .’
Before Chantal could report any more of Senga’s musings, Aunt Pol appeared.
‘That’s his real maw, Swifty says,’ Senga informed Chantal in her loudest whisper. ‘Swifty says you canny blame her pretendin’ she didnae have a son like that.’
Jimmy sensed Aunt Pol bridle, gather breath, about to speak. Instead, she held Jimmy’s arm tightly, and they walked away.
‘Sticks and stones, remember. That pair are nothing. Ignore them.’
She squeezed Jimmy’s arm tightly.
‘Awright, Jim?’
There was that dumb, dumb question again.
All Jimmy’s anger and confusion simmered over before he could put a lid on it. He threw off Aunt Pol’s arm, and yelled into her face. ‘No, I’m not actually. How would you like non-stop slagging like that? If it’s not my weight, it’s my background. I’m supposed ignore it, am I? Can’t even take a shower without that prat Victor taking the mick. So I’ve to play the heavy to keep him off my back, and I hate doing that. Then his dolly-dimple girlfriend starts on me. Nothing’s right.’ He wasn’t finished either.
‘Not only am I big fat Jimmy, but to make things worse, everyone in the world except me knows you’re my real mum, and Mum’s my gran. Oh, and my dad wasn’t my real dad. But my real dad ran off and left you up the duff. Still think I’m alright –
Mum
?’
Half-sobbing as he gulped great uneven breaths of air, Jimmy stumbled off.
‘Jim, wait. I’m sor –’ Aunt Pol called after him. For the first time ever, Jimmy ignored her.
Aunt Pol caught up with Jimmy in the park. She steered him to a bench. The same one where he’d sat with GI Joe. Only weeks back. None of this had happened.
‘Here’s the only other picture I’ve got of Frankie. You keep it.’
‘But this is me –’ began Jimmy, taking the photograph Aunt Pol handed him before he realised that the strip of school tie beneath the treble chin was different from the one Jimmy had worn to St Jude’s Primary at that age.
Hair: Longer, redder than his own.
Eyes: Brown like his, maybe a little fairer around the lashes. Kind. Guarded.
Freckles: A myriad.
Nose: A jelly tot squashed between –
Cheeks: Pendulous. A pair of bulging fat sacs straining the skin to a shine.