“Yes, you were. Hold on.” I heard what sounded like the car being pulled in so we could talk without him risking the wrath of a traffic policeman. “What’s really the matter, Ben? If you want me to piss off then just tell me and I’ll do it. I’m not ready to chase lost causes. Only don’t bugger me about. It’s not fair.”
“I know it’s not. I told you, I was wrong and I’m sorry. And I don’t want you to clear off. Not until I know you well enough to make a sensible decision on the point.” That was maybe going too far—I suspect I’d lost any social skills I’d ever had—but light banter seemed to be the right tack to take.
“I’m surprised Matty never murdered you. Have you always been this stupid?”
“I think I used to be worse.” I perched on the arm of the settee. “Is it too late to ask whether you’re still up for that takeaway? Dad’s spending the night with Gran—her needs are even greater than mine, apparently. I’ll be on my lonesome ownsome.”
“Get it ordered, then.” It sounded like Nick was trying to give the impression of grudging agreement, but I could detect the keen edge to his voice. “We can go and pick it up when I get there. Prawn curry, hot, and egg fried rice.” And that was the end of the call. I ordered food from our favourite local Chinese restaurant, the old left arm playing up a bit as I wrestled with the phone because of all the strain. I couldn’t settle after that, not until I heard Nick pull up, at which point I was straight out of the door, before he could turn off the engine.
“Blimey, you’re in a hurry.” It was nice to hear him sounding more relaxed. “Takeaway’s burning down and we’ve got to rescue the grub first?”
“It’s your prawn curry. They made it too hot.” I strapped in and pointed down the road. “To the end and turn left. It’ll only take about five minutes.”
We managed to fill the journey with talk about Chinese restaurants we’d known, the good, the bad and the food poisoning inducing. The conversation produced a pretence of normality, like we hadn’t been at each other’s throats not an hour before. The English—don’t you love us?
By the time we’d got back to our house, with the food filling the car with fantastic aromas, the edge of good manners covering up awkward relationship was starting to wear off. We were even talking Olympics, and all the British medal successes—expected and out of the blue—although we didn’t touch on my chances, thank goodness. Maybe the Edwards-White-Prior gossip machine had tipped Nick the wink that it wouldn’t be diplomatic to go there. We ate, swilling it down with a couple of bottles of Dad’s beer and then washed up, so that neither Mum nor Dad would have to worry, or be any the wiser. Just as I was hanging up the tea towel to dry—very domestic—Nick put his arms around me.
“You’re a bit of a pain in the arse, did you know that?”
“Matty’s told me plenty of times. So has my coach.” I leaned back into his grip, head against head.
“You’re a nice pain in the arse, though.” He twisted me around so I could have one of those really scrumptious kisses I’d sampled near the Aquatics Centre. It was none the worse for being tinged with spice and it knocked any smart sort of retort out of my head.
“You’re not so bad yourself,” I said, as I came up for air after the third kiss. That’s one advantage of being a good swimmer—I’m in peak shape for long-lasting snogs. If they ever made that an Olympic event I’d be a shoo-in for a medal. Nick had me pinned up against the kitchen units, nice and close, so I got a good idea of his chest’s muscle tone, through his shirt. Nice shape, not too overdone in the gym. Just the way I like it. I thought I’d better just explore if his backside had the right amount of muscle, too.
“Wait till you’re asked.” Nick took my hand off his buttock and put it on his waist.
“If you’re going to talk about arses, you’re bound to give me ideas.”
I squeezed his waist, instead, which was good but not as good as his bum had felt. Maybe he was shyer than I’d given him credit for. “I’m going to have a mark from the cupboard handle across my back at this rate and I don’t think I’d dare explain to my coach how I got it. I think we should go somewhere more comfortable.”
He took my hand, drawing me into the lounge and plonking us both down on the sofa. I’d never had the pleasure of using it as a venue for a bit of slap and tickle but it fitted the bill perfectly. Soft enough for comfort but hard enough to support any possible future contortions, although I’d have to make sure we shut the curtains if Nick got too frisky. You can’t see in from the road because of Mum’s nets, but you never know if someone’s going to be on the prowl. While we stuck at kissing and a bit of fingers up the shirt then I wasn’t in any hurry to shut the last bits of evening sunlight out.
“Matty was saying you’re having trouble getting your head in the right place. In the pool. He didn’t say why.”
I wasn’t having trouble getting my head in place for nibbling Nick’s ear. “You could say that.” I disentangled myself from him. Reluctantly. “Mum being ill should have been the kick up the backside I needed, but I’m not confident I can go back to Manchester and get myself back into top form. I’ve been waiting years and it seems like at the eleventh hour my courage or motivation or something is going to fail me.” I sounded a right drama queen.
“Look, I’m no sports psychologist, but I’ve got an idea.” He drew his fingers up my thigh. If that was the idea, I was already sold. “If you’re interested in this…” the fingers wandered across my crotch, provoking the usual reaction, “then get your medal. Any colour, although gold’s preferred.” The fingers wandered back again and down my thigh. “Otherwise nothing doing. Heart breaking, I know, but I’m doing this for the sake of Britain.”
“Oh.” Talk about my flabber being gasted. The cheeky sod. The cheeky, underhanded, conniving…absolutely brilliant sod. “Let me get this straight. No medal, no nooky?”
“Got it in one.”
“Event specific?” I couldn’t believe we were having the conversation. In my parents’ lounge. On my Mum’s best cushions.
“Your blue riband. Medals in other events would be given due consideration, but the only one I’ll guarantee remuneration for is the one hundred.” He leaned forward, pulled me in for another kiss and grinned. “Just so you don’t forget what’s at stake.”
Bloody hell. As if I was likely to forget what it had felt like when those spidery fingers crossed my todger. “Is there a gradated award depending on the colour of the medal?”
“What, like just heavy petting for the bronze, hand job for the silver and…” I put my hand over Nick’s mouth before he could elaborate on what was on offer for the gold. Not just because I didn’t want my Mum’s collection of Lladro figurines hearing whatever smutty suggestion he was about to make. I was getting very excited and the sheer thought of whatever it was—I could narrow it down—was likely to push me near the edge. I’d have to get into a cold shower again, at this rate.
“I don’t get a little bit on account if I promise to get straight back in the pool tomorrow afternoon? A sort of down payment?” I stroked his thigh, to increase my bargaining power.
“Sorry. Incentives don’t work like that. No one’s going to give you a bit of a medal just because you’ve worked hard.” He moved my hand away, not without reluctance. “Think how good it’ll be. You, me, big double bed.”
“I’d better not think about it.” I was going to have to take that cold shower before bed time as it was. “If I agree right now, you won’t clear off straight away, will you? I could crack open some more beers and we could watch the telly together. I could do with the company.” Not quite the evening I’d anticipated, but it would have to do.
“Seeing as I’m driving, make that a pot of tea and you’re on.” He patted my backside as I got up. “Want a hand?”
We made the tea together, rummaging out the few remaining custard creams. Steaming mugs, biscuits and a re-run of the Sweeney on the telly, what more could a boy want? Or at least, what more could a
boy want who’d been told that anything beyond snuggling up was off the agenda. Maybe it was as well; half way through another car chase I could feel my head drooping onto Nick’s shoulder and, what felt like the next second, I woke up to discover the programme was over and I’d been out for the count for twenty minutes.
“Time for your beauty sleep.” Nick gave me a hug and a kiss—I thought for an awful moment he was going to pat my head—before pulling me off the settee. “Been a nice evening, eventually.”
We shared another long, sleepy kiss before he left. Or maybe there were two or three of them, in the lounge, in the hall, on the doorstep. I was too tired to tell.
That cat nap didn’t stop me from getting to sleep almost the minute my head hit the pillow. Despite all the drama, life felt good in a way it hadn’t for ages. And if I’d been looking for that extra incentive to get me into the zone, I had it. In spades.
Representation
“Ladies and gentlemen, the competitors for the S9 one hundred metres final.”
I can remember the announcer’s voice as clear as day, and the face of the woman who ushered us poolside at the Aquatics Centre. If I shut my eyes right now I can summon up the colours of the flags, the roar of the spectators and some strangely elusive smell—someone’s cologne?—but I can’t remember a thing about the race itself.
People think I’m lying when I say that, but it’s God’s own truth. I can recall going out and getting my kit off by my lane block: I was in four, because of my spanking heat time. The number four on the basket where I left my kit when I stripped down seemed so large and almost surreal. That number’s about the last thing I remember clear as day, because the next few minutes began to blur. There was the bit where we were introduced one by one and got to wave at the crowd and smile at the camera. I think I behaved myself by not pulling a funny face—I hope I did, anyway—and next thing we were called to mount our blocks.
I must have got on them and resisted all temptation to just throw myself in straight away. Cardinal sin, the false start. I guess I did the right thing and dived in when the gun went—I was in the water, and not back in the changing room in disgrace. I suppose I must have got to the other end, made a decent turn and done another thirty five metres, but don’t ask me how. I came to about fifteen metres from the line with nobody in front of me, at least not in lanes three and five. The shock nearly lost me the race. In what must have been a micro-second I went through the whole What am I doing here? Why can’t I feel my legs? I don’t think I can swim another metre... crap.
It had happened before, when I was a lot younger and had the chance of winning a race that was technically out of my league. I was ahead with ten metres to go and got a severe case of the willies. I didn’t think I should win and I didn’t. That mistake wasn’t going to happen again. This time, I concentrated really hard, willing my legs and arms through the water, through the longest fifteen metres I’d ever swum. My left arm wanted to give up the ghost but I forced it through, doing the last two strokes by willpower alone.
Even then I wasn’t sure I’d won, because I bobbed up in the water at about the same time as my greatest rival, Byron Jones from the USA, who’d been in lane five. I’d beaten him at the World Cup and I knew he was out for revenge. We just looked at each other with a sort of you or me? expression. The tannoy put us out of our misery.
“First, and Paralympic champion, Ben Edw…”
I didn’t hear the rest of that; he’d hardly got to the B of the Ben when the crowd went mad. I did too, jumping about in the water and cuddling everyone in sight. I think all the swimmers had converged on my lane by then. I didn’t even pick out the significance of the time, because it got drowned out in the cheering and hollering. When I saw it on the display I thought someone had cocked it up. I’d never gone that fast—nobody had gone that fast. If my eyes weren’t deceiving me I’d set a new world best time.
My eyes mustn’t have been lying, because the lad from the BBC nabbed me poolside, grinning fit to split his face and wittering on about me breaking the world record. I think that was when the facts finally penetrated my skull. I’m not sure what I told him apart from the fact that I was proud to be British and winning the medal on home soil and how my bum was really sore because I’d got cramp pulling myself out of the pool. At least I must have looked dead sexy in that interview, all out of breath and dripping with water, like something from a soft porn movie.
I told him I was desperate to escape and get to see my parents, who’d pushed their way to the front of the seating, so he let me go.
“You were brilliant.” Mum seemed to have dissolved into one great big tearful lump and Dad wasn’t far behind. “Just brilliant.” She seemed to have lost the power of sensible speech while she was at it, all the variations on brilliant washed away with the tears, given the number of times she kept using the word.
“I’d no idea you had such a fast time in you.” Dad hugged me so close I thought I was going to faint from lack of oxygen. “World record. World record!” He hugged me again. “Best time in the world for your category and that distance.”
Bless him, he must have thought I didn’t really understand what the time meant, although I’m not sure I’d grasped the full significance at that point. I’ve heard plenty of other athletes say that they didn’t realise at the time exactly what they’d achieved. Maybe the next day or the next week or maybe next year it would finally strike me. At that moment it was all just a happy haze.
The next bit of the evening was a bit of a blur, too. I know you’re supposed to drink it in and make the most of it, but there seemed to be an endless round of interviews—Radio Five Live were up next—which were followed by making myself decent for the medal ceremony, which ate up the time. Next thing I knew, I was being led out and the crowd was going wild again.
Remember me talking about rugby players blubbing through the national anthem? I was in tears before they even played the first bar of God Save the Queen. They gave the bronze medal out and my eyes started to sting, they presented the silver and I welled up, so I was a complete disgrace by the time they put the gold around my neck. Deliriously happy and madly embarrassed all at the same time. I wondered if they’d be showing this on the TV and everyone would have a good laugh, like when they show footage of little Garry Herbert the rowing cox, getting his Gold at Barcelona. I also wondered if Nick was choked up, as well. I suppose that’s the point where I realised how much he’d begun to mean to me—the fact that I wanted him there to share my triumph.
Post ceremony things were still insane, another round of interviews with the TV and radio, someone from our local radio station sticking his mike up my nose just when I was still sniffly. All I wanted to do was get over to Nick—I’d spotted him down by rail at the front of the seats—and share some of the magic. He’d held back earlier, while I was being pummelled and kissed by the family, but now he’d spotted his chance. I just hoped he’d be patient.
“Bloody marvellous. You were bloody marvellous”. He shook my hand and slapped my arm and stood grinning like a big daft muppet. No matter how much I felt like hugging him, I held back, hoping he wasn’t offended, seeing as I’d been hugging just about everyone in sight. But it would have been different with him. It would have meant something—everything—and I wouldn’t have been able to keep that emotion off my face. I wasn’t having that on the BBC.
“Thanks.” My daft muppet face must have matched his. I wasn’t sure what else I could safely say. “I wanted you to see me win,” might have come out as, “fancy a snog right now?”
“I’m so pleased I got to see the race. Wouldn’t have been the same on the telly.” Nick seemed so overcome I was scared he’d start blubbing as well. I wasn’t ready for somebody to see us together, and the light dawning about our relationship; not before we’d sorted things out between us. Clearly, I’d considered the eventuality; on the podium, I’d been thinking it would be really nice to carry on for Rio 2016, with Nick at my side. The British media
are a funny lot and maybe they’d sort of adopt us as sport’s gay equivalent of Posh and Becks.
Luckily Mum came down and gave Nick a great big cuddle at that point—she’d fallen for him big time, it was obvious—so he got absorbed into the Edwards family congratulations-fest business. Even Gran gave him a hug. He looked just right, too, like he belonged with us. Although that might just have been my wishful thinking. It meant I could shake his hand and go off to get changed and we could both preserve our British stiff upper lip.
On the way to shower down, do my urine test and get changed back into something comfortable, I had another thought. In Nick’s great scheme of rewards, what was a gold medal plus a new world’s best time worth? And would any extra medals gained be added to the tally of compensation due? Not the best idea to go into the changing rooms with, so just as well I had a big towel and a sponge bag to hide any potential embarrassment. I’d have to get my nether regions through another two sets of races before I’d get the chance of claiming my recompense, so they’d better start behaving themselves.
***
It would be easy to say that the rest of the Games were anti-climactic but they weren’t. All the worry was gone now, with Mum and Nick there to shout me on and the fear—fear that all those years of dreams and hope and hard work would come to nothing—had been laid to rest, too. Now it was different.
I had my medal, I had my world best time, I knew that I was capable of winning and I was even more determined not to let anyone down by cruising in my other events. The fifty metres was still to come, as was the four by one hundred relay, in which I had a really good chance of making the final four. You might be assuming I was a shoo-in for it, with the gold and the world record and all, but the total points system doesn’t make selection that easy. Anyway, the incumbents were a hard act to follow. It might mean nothing to you that the 2008 boys were the only Paralympic quartet to have broken four minutes but it means an awful lot to those of us in the business. No pressure, then.
Love in Every Season Page 10
