Fat Boy Swim (4 page)

The pool in Jimmy’s dream was very, very long. It was brightly lit, full of noise. Not sharp, up-close noise, but distant echoey sound. Jumbled words and phrases drifted towards Jimmy from the deep end. Spoken by people too far away to see clearly. Jimmy wished he could reach these shadowy people. There was somebody important up there he had to meet. Someone he didn’t know. A Shadow Shape.

Jimmy had never reached the deep end in his dream. And every time he failed, he grew more convinced that when he
did
get there, his life would click into place.

That was why this was such an anxious dream. Why, when it recurred it left him so exhausted, so disappointed.

In the dream tonight, GI Joe clutched Jimmy by the shoulder, blowing a whistle in his ear to start him swimming. Father Patrick was there too, like a great black crow, guzzling a plate of tablet secreted under his cassock.

‘Go! Go!’ GI Joe shrieked as Jimmy plunged his head under the water. ‘You’ve got swimmer’s shoulders, Jim.’

Jimmy lunged forward, passing Aunt Pol in the spectator’s gallery. She always watched his dream swims, chewing worriedly on her red nails. Even underwater, he could sense her willing him on:

You’ll get there, Jim. Keep going.

And he tried. Ploughing forward with every ounce of strength in his shoulders. Even in sleep he could feel the sinews in his neck strain with the effort. Hear himself grunt. Kick to gain enough momentum to propel himself towards his goal.

One stroke. That was all he managed, all he ever managed. Out as far as Dad in his armchair, never beyond.

Jimmy, floundering like a toad in a muddy puddle, was going nowhere. Arms circled, legs jerked, chin strained forward, but it was hopeless. Always hopeless. He wallowed in the treacle of his dream and the people in the distance receded beyond his view. Their voices evaporated, words becoming whispers he couldn’t catch.

The spectator’s gallery emptied; everyone gone home.

‘Wait!’

Jimmy tried to call out, aware of his mouth opening and shutting in his sleep, but he might as well have been a Little Minnow for all the sound he produced. In the dark of his bedroom, he stretched his hand out in front of him to snatch the dream. Make it stay. But it was fading.

Far away, in the horizon of the dream, there was a stir of movement. The scantest shift that senses could detect.

‘Wait.’

The whisper of a shape rose. Big, wide, tall. The Shadow Shape. It was there. But it was leaving.

‘Wait!’

Turning. The transparency was turning. It had heard.

But, as usual, Jimmy’s own feeble croak had roused him from sleep. And chased the dream away.

Chapter
6

The Hungry Hole

The failure of Jimmy’s dream lay on him like something rotten he had eaten. He felt wretched, a washed-out rag. The dream always left him like this. Miserable. Even more fit for nothing than usual. And starving.

Normally, Saturday’s were magic. The day was an official diet-free zone as far as Aunt Pol was concerned, no matter how strictly she had been keeping tabs on what Mum let Jimmy eat all week. Jimmy usually went round to Aunt Pol’s for a second breakfast. He’d make pancakes on her tiny cooker and they’d drink frothed-up hot chocolates covered in marshmallows until it was time to go out for lunch.

Not today.

Jimmy left a lie on Aunt Pol’s machine. Said his hay fever was bad. She’d hear his voice from her bed. She’d know exactly what he was doing. He’d have to face her later. But, for now, he couldn’t help himself.

Armed with a six-pack of crisps, a giant Yorkie and a packet of chocolate digestives, Jimmy thudded down on the settee in front of the telly. He made sure his three cans of Irn Bru were lined up within hand’s reach.

How else was he expected to plug the Hungry Hole that the dream had excavated?

When he answered the door several hours later, the dry cleaning fumes from the blazer swinging on GI Joe’s finger made his head reel.

‘Good as new,’ said GI Joe. ‘Got it steamed at my auntie’s laundry.’

‘Thanks,’ murmured Jimmy, woozy, his mouth viscid with chocolate. He had completely forgotten his appointment with Coach.

‘You should’ve said if you’d something better on.’ GI Joe stepped into the flat. Flummoxed, Jimmy did what Mum said he should always do when a visitor came. He showed GI Joe into the front room.

A witness to Jimmy’s shame, even GI Joe didn’t seem to know where to look at first, his eyes swivelling in disbelief from Jimmy himself – who had Sugar Puffs velcroed to his t-shirt, warting his face – to the debris-strewn site of Jimmy’s latest pig-out.

There were Pringles cartons crushed on the floor, crisp crumbs on the cushions. A carpet of sweetie papers radiating outwards from flicking distance of the spot where Jimmy had sprawled for the last four hours. Propped against the remote was a giant Cadbury’s Dairy Milk with the wrapper rolled down. Primed. Half a dozen Irn Bru cans lay on their sides. Drained. Next to them in a neat pile, were several unscrunched Chunky Kit-Kat wrappers that Jimmy planned to fashion into silver goblets when he felt more energetic.

Neither Jimmy nor GI Joe exchanged a word. There was no need. One sweep of the room, one glance at the shame and self-loathing on Jimmy’s face as he looked down on his stomach swelling up to meet him like a reproach, said it all.

‘This you with the rest of the family?’

GI Joe picked up a framed photo from the sideboard. The only photo on display.

Jimmy, days old, lay on Aunt Pol’s knee. He was asleep, mouth curled in a crescent smile as though he was harbouring some secret. No one else in the picture seemed as content. Dad’s expression was grim, the way Jimmy would always remember him. Mum was anxious, frowning over Aunt Pol’s shoulder as if she couldn’t trust her daft wee sister to hold a wean without dropping it. Aunt Pol – nothing like her dolled-up, laid-back, twenty-first century self – held Jimmy as though he was a bomb ready to detonate. At fifteen, she looked years older than she did nowadays.

GI Joe frowned into the photograph.

Just go,
Jimmy screamed silently at the top of the priest’s head.
Leave me alone.

‘This Dad?’ GI Joe asked.

‘Yeah, he’s dead. Cancer.’

‘Patrick mentioned that. Tough, Jim. I’m sorry.’

Before GI Joe replaced the picture, he ran his fingernail slowly around the swaddled bundle in Aunt Pol’s arms. ‘Lovely wee baby,’ he said, almost to himself, then turned, catching Jimmy’s eye before he had the chance to look down. His voice was gruff, but more kindly.

‘A wee tidy-up here then we’ll get out for some air.’

It was an order, not a suggestion.

‘Starving, eh, Jim?’ said GI Joe, very quietly, as Jimmy clunked his giant Dairy Milk in the bin.

Not anymore, gulped Jimmy. The amount of rubbish he had scooped off the floor made him sick with panic. How? Why did he do this to himself? It never made him feel better.

Jeez, it was sweltering, much hotter outside than in. Jimmy could hardly get a breath. GI Joe strode towards the Botanic Gardens, arms straining the sleeves of his grey priest shirt as if he was heading some SAS character-building punishment mission. Jimmy lumbered alongside, the contents of his stomach sloshing and churning audibly.

‘Looking a bit warm there, Jim.’ GI Joe turned into the gardens and steered Jimmy to a bench beneath a shady tree, the pressure of his hand printing a sweat leaf on Jimmy’s t-shirt.

‘Sit!’ GI Joe ordered, his command a benediction to Jimmy’s ears. From a backpack, GI Joe withdrew a tatty photograph wallet. And a bottle of water.

Nectar,
screamed Jimmy’s thirst.

‘Need help with this, Jim,’ said GI Joe, passing a couple of photographs to Jimmy. Hesitating. Then passing the water casually.

Gulping water, Jimmy’s eyes swept the first photograph. There was a miniature GI Joe staring back at him, dressed in a sweaty-looking vest and shorts. Spit of Bruce Willis in one of his action movies.
Diehard.
Even had his head shaved. He stood in front of some kind of hut. Low and long. Constructed from irregular strips of corrugated iron. Painted whacky colours. Roof was a tarpaulin secured by stones.

‘That’s my place. Way out in the bush in South Africa.’

There was no hiding the pride in GI’s voice.

‘I’ve only two rooms right now. Need to make it bigger.’

How barren the place looked. One ramshackle building and the man in front of it. In the foreground, rough soil, bare of grass. Nothing on the horizon. No trees. No houses.

And it looked hot.

‘Looks like the middle of nowhere,’ said Jimmy.

‘Exactly what I said when I first saw it,’ said GI Joe. ‘Day’s drive to the nearest town.’

‘The middle of nowhere,’ Jimmy repeated. ‘Why d’you live there?’

GI Joe slid the second photograph in Jimmy’s hand over the first one. Taken from the same angle, the tumbledown was still there but Jimmy could hardly see it for people. Dozens of them, mainly children of all ages, laughed and pointed at the camera. They had long brown sinewy limbs, huge glittery eyes,
huger
glittery smiles. GI Joe was in the middle of the group hunkered level with two skinny boys whose arms snaked around his neck. He was laughing too.

‘That’s why, Jim. That big girl there; Martha. She’s bright. Needs school.

‘There’s Wee Joe in the Glasgow cap – I’m Big Joe. Won’t speak. Dad hacked to death. Machete. Wee Joe witnessed it. That baby. Beautiful, yeah? John. Hardly cries. Dumped outside my door one night. Animal could’ve got him.

‘Ima, with the smile. She takes care of him. They’re all orphans, these kids. Most parents died of AIDS
. . .
’

Jimmy was happy enough to let GI Joe ramble on while he rehydrated. But he couldn’t figure what a dump in the middle of nowhere had to do with him. Unless Mum had stuck his name down for the Missions behind his back.

He listened while GI Joe explained how the hut – ‘falling down round our ears’ – functioned as a schoolroom, dining room, church, town hall. Medical centre once a month if the doctor made it.

‘I mean, look at the place. We’ve nothing, Jim. That’s not right, is it? If you met my kids, you’d give them the moon
. . .
’

GI Joe wiped sweat from his forehead, thumped his fists on his knees. Clenching. Unclenching. He breathed deeply, sucking air through his nostrils as if he needed to calm down.

Chill out, man, thought Jimmy watching a congoline of perspiration dance the vein in GI’s temple.

‘So you’re here to raise money for charity?’ He thought he’d better say something before GI’s head exploded.

‘No, I’m not after charity, Jim. Hate that word!’ spat GI Joe, with a glare that glued Jimmy’s wet back into the wood of the bench. ‘Every kid,
every
kid, deserves a decent childhood. By right. Health. Education. Nutrition. Love. By right. Nothing to do with race. Nothing to do with religion. A child deserves the chance to build on the talents it’s been born with, not bury them.’

GI Joe snatched his photographs, shoved them in his backpack and yomped from the park.

‘Food for thought, Jim,’ he hurled over his shoulder at the park gates.

What was he on about? Psycho priest. Jimmy exhaled through his teeth, mildly irritated. Dragging me all the way out here for nothing. I’ll bake for him if that’ll get him off my back. What else could he want
me
to do?

Inside the nearest bus shelter, Jimmy cooled his forehead against its metal wall. There was no one else waiting for a bus. Only Jimmy, and a voice in his head that wouldn’t shut up.

Coach was talking about you as well as those kids,
it said.

Chapter
7

Keeping cool

‘You told me you’d hay fever. I come up to see the invalid and find out he’s away with that dude at St Jude’s. What does he want, Jim?’

‘Who? GI Joe?’

The faintest flicker of a smile crossed Aunt Pol’s face. ‘That’s what you call him?’

‘He takes us for football,’ Jimmy explained.

‘He’s signing you for Scotland?’

Jimmy shrugged. ‘Wants me to bake, I think.’

‘And of course, you’ll say yes. Smart, Jim.’

Jimmy
was
smarting. Hated when Aunt Pol gave him grief.

‘He showed me pictures. Lives out in the middle of nowhere. South Africa.’

‘Looking for a cook, is he?’

‘Think he wants me to do that here,’ said Jimmy sheepishly. ‘To raise money. He wants a new building for the kids he looks after.’

‘Jim. You’re a softie.’

Aunt Pol was mellowing.

‘What do I keep saying? You don’t have to agree to things
. . .
’

‘
. . .
just because people expect you to,’ Jimmy chimed.

It was one of Aunt Pol’s top ten catchphrases.

And it always made her laugh when Jimmy finished it for her.

‘Well,’ she rapped Jimmy gently in the temples, ‘practise what I preach, my son. Fancy the flicks?
Some Like It Hot.
A classic.’

The cinema was busy for such a roaster of a day. Jimmy was glad he and Aunt Pol had arrived early. They always did these days, having learned the hard way. Last time they were late Jimmy had jammed, squeezing into a row as the opening credits were rolling. Vic Swift’s big sister started squealing that his bum was smothering her.

Jimmy and Aunt Pol hadn’t stayed for the film that time. They left, laughter flapping behind them in waves with each swing of the door.

‘Mission Impossible Three,’ Jimmy joked feebly on the way home, only joking at all because Aunt Pol looked so crumpled and sad for Jimmy’s sake.

Today, as the film began, and stragglers inched their way into the few remaining seats, Aunt Pol drew up suddenly beside Jimmy and inhaled sharply through her teeth.

Someone, half-crouching, had darted for a single seat in the front row.

Aunt Pol muttered something under her breath that Jimmy couldn’t catch. ‘Blowing in’ and ‘bad smell’, the only words he made out.

‘Whassup?’ he whispered.

‘Shh,’ Aunt Pol answered, digging him gently in the ribs.