Aunt Pol said nothing. Stood, arms folded defensively across her chest for what felt like a bad-mannered eternity to Jimmy, until GI Joe’s smile faded. With an awkward cough he moved off.
‘Enjoy your evening folks. Catch up with you tomorrow, Jim.’
What was that all about? thought Jimmy, watching GI Joe retreat. Nothing like a priest, he thought, in his shorts and faded Pulp t-shirt. Just a bloke. Being civil. Maybe wanting a bit of company. An image flashed into Jimmy’s mind: GI crouched among the kids in the middle of nowhere.
Jimmy frowned at Aunt Pol in bewilderment.
She never acted like this. Downright rude. Face set as she watched GI Joe. Waiting until he’d blended in with the Saturday crowds before she moved herself. He must have been the bad smell she’d mentioned in the cinema.
‘Gie us peace, Holy Joey!’ she muttered after him.
‘What’s up with him?’
Vaguely, Aunt Pol waved her hands.
‘My al-lergy to the cl-ergy,’ she sing-songed.
But Jimmy knew Aunt Pol was lying. And she never lied to him.
He stared at the top of her head wishing he could see inside to her thoughts as she stirred her cappuccino in their favourite café.
In the dream that night, the top of Aunt Pol’s head was platinum blonde, like Marilyn Monroe. She wouldn’t look up when he called her name and pointed to the Shadow Shape.
‘Aunt Pol, what’s up? Tell me.’
Chapter 8
GI Joe kicks ass
‘So, think the swimathon’ll be a good fundraiser, Jim?’
Jimmy was sneaking out of Mass before the end, tiptoeing as best he could down the front steps of St Jude’s when GI Joe caught him. Caught him in more ways than one. Of course, Jimmy had remembered GI Joe wanted to see him. But there being no sign of him at the back of the church, Jimmy had convinced himself that GI Joe had forgotten.
Doh! Nabbed, thought Jimmy, nodding unconvincingly at the ground.
During Mass, Jimmy had been vaguely aware of Father Patrick’s usual dronesville sermon including something about fundraising to help all our less fortunate brothers and sisters overseas. Blah. Blah. Blah. His brain had pressed the off button at that point.
‘Jim?’
GI’s voice was stern, its tone accusing.
‘You mean you didn’t hear the sermon? I’m disappointed.’
Jimmy squirmed.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, making a futile attempt to shuffle past GI Joe. Escape was becoming a matter of urgency, not merely because GI Joe was giving him grief. People were beginning to spill out of church. Kids from school among them.
‘Hey, lighten up, Jim.’ GI Joe’s hand circled Jimmy’s elbow, shook it playfully. ‘Kidding. I don’t listen to that old codger, either. But come back in the church and I’ll show you . . .’
This was worse, infinitely worse than any genuine rebuke from GI Joe. To be ushered through a jostling congregation, letting the very folk you wanted to avoid feast their eyes.
Mum, there’s the fat boy in third year I told you about!
Here, thought Jimmy, was a fundraising opportunity extraordinaire for GI Joe. All he needed was a megaphone:
Roll up. Roll up. See Fat Boy Fat in the flesh. Pound a stare.
Jimmy raised his arm to wipe the sweat of embarrassment from his forehead, bumping Victor’s mother who veered to avoid him, her mouth pursed in distaste.
Ellie McPherson, new to the school, slipped round Jimmy and away. Her hair piled up on her head looked like chocolate curls. Without her special glasses on, at least she wouldn’t have seen him. Jimmy blushed all the same.
Finally Mum emerged with her wee wifey pals from the choir. ‘Not like your Jimmy to hang about,’ Treesa, their leader, bawled with as much subtlety as her singing.
Heads turned. Stared.
‘He makes you look awfy wee, Father Joe,’ one of the other women cackled.
‘Here, we’ll need to hide all the home-baking if your Jimmy’s coming in for a cuppa in the hall, Maeve.’
Enough already. Jimmy wrenched his arm free of GI Joe’s grip, turned and pushed his way through everyone on the church steps. Ducking his head so low that his chins compressed his throat, he headed for the bus stop but swerved away. He knew the girls standing there.
‘No’ coming to join us, big boy?’ one jeered. Senga, Victor’s squeeze. ‘Plenty of you there for all of us.’
Someone else made a loud vomiting noise and another voice lisped. Chantal McGrory. ‘No theatth for uth if he getth oan, Thenga.’
Jimmy walked, keeping his eyes on the pavement. As his bus passed, he heard the girls banging the window at him.
Just get home he told himself, doing his best to step up the pace.
‘Oi, Jim,’ he thought he heard someone call at his back. Although he didn’t turn round. Kept walking until someone stepped in front of him.
Not again.
‘That was rather rude back there.’
There was an edge to GI Joe’s voice; he was the hard-man coach again.
‘Manners cost nothing, you know.’
Jimmy shrugged, and began to move away. Leave me alone.
‘Where you going now? I’m still talking to you, Jim.’
‘Look.’
Something flashed inside Jimmy and before he could stop himself he was staring GI Joe straight in the face.
‘I’ve said I’ll bake for you, OK? Just get off my back.’
Jimmy gulped.
Never in his life had he stood up to anyone. He forced himself to eyeball GI Joe.
In his chest, something had come alive. It was glowing like a coal. It was warm. It felt brilliant.
GI Joe had taken a step backward, holding up his hands in a gesture of submission.
‘That’s more like it,’ he rasped, eyes boring into Jimmy, challenging him to say more. Then he grinned, not in the mocking way that Jimmy was used to when anyone grinned at him, but as though the pair of them were in cahoots, sharing some secret.
Jimmy felt his cheeks grow hot, the warm coal inside cooling as suddenly as it ignited. His rush of anger fled, mind turning cotton-woolly and flustered. He looked down.
‘So, Jim.’ GI Joe’s hands landed, paw heavy on Jimmy’s shoulders. Leaning forward, he growled in Jimmy’s ear, ‘You’ve a set of balls in there somewhere. Now we can do business together. Tell me what I can do for you.’
‘Don’t want anything.’ Weirdo. Jimmy tried to shrug the hands away.
‘I’m late,’ he added, feebly.
‘For what?’ GI Joe’s voice was searching. ‘For hiding yourself away?’
Leave me alone.
‘You’re happy with things as they are? Rather I ignored you? Left you to fester like a blob in your kitchen. Left you to binge yourself into an early grave steeped in your own misery. Left your big fat arse to rot. Gie us peace. That’s all you want. Well – I’m sorry.’
Jimmy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Responsible adults didn’t speak to him like that.
Mum wouldn’t even have scales in the house. She never mentioned his weight, even on Obsesity Clinic days.
‘We’ve got hospital today,’ she’d say, making sure she shredded any new diet sheets the consultants gave Jimmy the minute she got home: ‘How . . . are you . . . expected . . . to live . . . on this rabbit food ?’
Not even Aunt Pol, who thought Mum was too soft with the diet, ever talked about ‘fat’.
‘Let’s get fit,’ she’d say every New Year. ‘A mile jog every evening. I’ll stop smoking.’
But it never lasted. Bad weather and overtime, flu and homework meant that any fitness drive was over before it started.
Nobody, not even the consultants who gave Mum such a hard time, ever used the word fat in Jimmy’s presence.
Now here was a priest, calling Jimmy a blob, a fat arse. Kids at school had called him less and been suspended.
‘Jim, look at me, will you?’
GI Joe was s
houting. One or two people passing glanced over their shoulder at him.
Aye, you’re right. This guy is a nutter. Help! Jimmy wanted to call after them.
‘Look at yourself, Jim. You’re the saddest, most miserable sod I think I’ve ever come across in my life. Sadder in your own way than my wee souls in South Africa. And that’s saying something.’
The paw tightened.
‘Fourteen, Jim, and you’re dead inside. Standing on the sidelines of your own life, miserable as sin. When you gonna change? When you gonna make things better?’ GI Joe shook his head, voice quavering as he backed off Jimmy at last. Jogging away.
‘I want to know how I can help you before I let you help me.’
Chapter 9
Sunday lunch
‘Soup’s great, Jim,’ said Aunt Pol.
‘Mmmm,’ Mum agreed brightly, smacking her lips. She exchanged glances with Aunt Pol.
‘Something up with it, Jim?’
Both women had let their bowls grow cold. They watched Jimmy toy with his spoon. He hadn’t touched his soup. Carrot and coriander with ginger. His favourite.
‘Maybe too hot for soup, Jimmy?’ Mum pushed her bowl away. ‘Salad would’ve been better.’
‘Plenty of that in this house,’ snapped Aunt Pol, quick as a flash. ‘Deep fried lettuce.’
‘That’s unfair.’ Mum was defensive. ‘We eat greens, don’t we Jimmy?’
‘Not enough,’ snorted Aunt Pol when Jimmy didn’t answer, and before he had the table cleared she and Mum were going hammer and tongs about what should be in a healthy diet.
This dispute wasn’t a new one, but today there was something forced about it; Mum and Aunt Pol trying to cram noise into the silence Jimmy’s mood had spun.
Jimmy was normally at his best cooking Sunday lunch, a feast that tended to last all the way to teatime. Today, no one wanted seconds and the wine Aunt Pol had brought remained unsipped. While Mum and Aunt Pol argued, Jimmy slipped off to his room.
Fat arse.
Dead inside.
Miserable as sin.
GI Joe’s words churned like ingredients boiling in a stewpot. They burned. They hurt. Gnawed Jimmy like hunger.
Reaching under his bed, he withdrew his stash of emergency rations. Unwrapped a multipack of Mars bars, settled back on the bed. Its frame creaked, springs twanging a tone poem of warnings under Jimmy’s backside as he swung his legs up with a grunt and nestled against his pillow.
His mouth filled with soft sweet flavours: toffee, mallow, creamy milk chocolate. They coated his teeth and his tongue, plastering the arch of his palate. Jimmy allowed himself a little sigh.
That’s better, he told himself. You needed that.
Stop it. Look what you’re doing to yourself, a voice in his head implored.
Jimmy unwrapped another Mars bar. Noisily. Stuffed it whole into his mouth making loud mashing noises, pulping the chocolate. Chomping down so he wouldn’t hear his nagging voice of reason:
Stop. You’re making yourself ill. You have to stop.
I’ve had a rotten day, Jimmy justified himself.
He’d finished the packet. Fifteen Mars bars journeying through his digestive system. Jimmy lay back and pressed his belly. His hands disappeared into a squish of flesh. He moved them upwards to his chest. He shuddered, crossing his arms over his shoulders, cupping the spot that GI Joe had gripped so earnestly.
His fault, that psycho priest. If GI Joe hadn’t said all those things, Jimmy would never have skelped those Mars bars. Now he was feeling worse than ever.
I want to know how I can help you, GI Joe had said. Tough one that, thought Jimmy. Let’s see: Can you find me some mates?
Can you whisk me away and set me up in my own restaurant far, far from here? Where the only things I’ll worry about are choosing ingredients, blending flavours, inventing sauces, cooking . . .
When he closed his eyes, Jimmy could see himself, clad in the checked trousers and stacked white hat of a chef. He stood in the middle of a stainless steel kitchen. Around him winked gleaming pots and pans. Ranked before him was an armoury of utensils essential to the working chef.
In his mind’s eye, Jimmy opened a swing door into his well-stocked pantry. On shelves, tidy rows of ceramic jars stood to attention, labelled in his own handwriting:
CORNFLOUR CUMIN CURRY POWDER
Tins on the floor. Bulky dried goods on the first shelf. Fragrance of basmati rice tempered by the tang of dried herbs. Jimmy knew the layout of his pantry better than the stretch marks on his belly.
SUGAR
He reached for the sugar jar without needing to look for it . . .
But his hands clutched air. And the pantry doors swung closed behind him. There was no smell of dried food in his nostrils.
Only chlorine.
Jimmy was back at the swimming pool of his dream.
There was Aunt Pol, waving anxiously from the gallery. She was jabbing her finger towards the deep end. Jimmy scrunched his eyes, tried to see what she was on about. He could only make out a blurred shadow in the distance.
‘What?’
He shouted at Aunt Pol in frustration.
‘Who is it? Tell me.’
Then he had a brainwave. Eureka! Why did he have to swim to the end of the pool when he could walk around its perimeter?
He moved off, still in his chequered chef’s trousers. One step, two steps. Excitement beating a pulse in his throat. At last, the answer to his dream quest: Shadow Shape, who are you?
He took another step, foot raised in mid-air, ready to surge forwards.
‘Jim. What are you doing to yourself, man? Stop. You’ll drown.’
GI Joe’s features, slick on the head of a seal, emerged from the water millimetres from Jimmy’s foot. He blew through the ref’s whistle in his mouth as he spoke.
‘Stop.’
The pool had widened, completely filling Jimmy’s dreamscape. Any pathway to the deep end of the pool had vanished. There was only one way for Jimmy to reach his Shadow Shape.
‘Go and get changed,’ said GI Joe. ‘I’ll help you swim.’
Chapter 10
Tough love
Jimmy didn’t feel he’d been asleep, but must have been. His mouth was thick with the aftertaste of too much chocolate. There were great ridges down one side of his face where he’d lain on crumpled wrappers. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat.
He felt awful. Heavier than ever staggering into the hall, bulk compressing his lungs, denying him breath in this airless afternoon.
He leaned his head on the cool wood outside the kitchen, wheezing. On the other side of the door, Mum was shouting:
‘– you think Jimmy should be out gallivanting, do you? Meeting girls? You of all people. You’ve a short memory, Pauline. A very short memory.’
There was a long, long pause. Something hanging, thought Jimmy. Unsaid.
‘It’s not the same for Jimmy, and you know that.’ When Aunt Pol spoke, her voice was minute. ‘I just wish he was – you know, normal. I mean – he’s pathetic. Bingeing because he’s so flipping miserable. No pals. What existence is that for a teenager?’
‘I hope you’re not suggesting it’s my fault –’ Mum’s voice quavered in indignation.
‘– You know I’m not saying that,’ Aunt Pol interrupted. ‘I know what you’ve done. And I’m grateful. It’s just – I look at Jimmy, and it cracks me up inside. He’s enormous, and we’re letting him get that way.’
Jimmy winced at what came next:
‘Our Jim’s fat. Obese.’
‘He is not.’
‘Gross.’
‘He is NOT!’
‘And he’s getting worse. Where did I put that article?’
Jimmy heard objects clattering on the table as Aunt Pol tipped her handbag out.
Pathetic, Aunt Pol had just called him. Fat. Obese.
How could she? Aunt Pol. Who never seemed to notice his size. Jimmy didn’t even feel fat around her.
Mum’s voice quaked as she cut in. ‘Why are you saying this, Pauline? Jimmy’s fine here. He’s going nowhere. I watch his diet.’
‘Ach, you never make him stick to anything. Buy him junk. Let him comfort eat. You’re too soft. Jim needs tough love.’ Aunt Pol sighed then added so quietly that Jimmy had to strain his ears. ‘You should know.’
‘Pauline.’
There was silence. Jimmy could hear the kitchen clock ticking on the mantlepiece. A chair scraped.
‘Sorry,’ whispered Aunt Pol.
She was crying. Aunt Pol, who never, ever cried. ‘He breaks my heart,’ she said.
Not since Victor, Maddo and Dog-Breath chased Jimmy with knives and forks, chanting Kill the Pig had Jimmy moved so fast.
The knowledge that Aunt Pol thought the same things about him as everyone else twisted Jimmy’s stomach like a dose of indigestion after a dodgy pudding supper. It hurt.
Chapter 11
Help
Out in the street, Jimmy felt vulnerable. Exposed. Everyone second-glanced him: from the bloke lovingly waxing his car, whose bonnet darkened with Jimmy’s passing reflection and who turned to gawp at the real thing, to the old dear sitting in her deck chair lost in the Sunday Post. She lowered her reading glasses, stared and stared until Jimmy was out of sight.
‘Get a load of that, Darren,’ Jimmy heard a man tell his son as they suspended a garden kick-around.
‘Who ate all the pies, eh, Da?’
I’m fat, not deaf.
Miserable as he’d ever been, Jimmmy walked on. He didn’t even know where he was going, having walked blindly from his row of tenements into a nearby housing scheme, taking unfamiliar side streets and crescents. Only the occasional flash of an orange bus hurtling along the main road assured him he wouldn’t get completely lost.
Crikey, was Jimmy bushed walking! Heart going like the clappers, t-shirt stuck to his back. He was breathless. Parched. Would never make it home on foot. Fumbling among the sweetie papers in his pockets for change he made for the main road.
‘Jim! Isn’t it too good to be inside this weather? I was gonna come and see you later. Now we can walk and talk.’
Fat Boy Swim Page 4
