‘Thenga’th no talkin’ to me the now because I wouldn’t dog it today,’ said Chantal, lisping spit into her cake mixture. ‘She’th goin’ up the woods wi’ Victor because it’th Maddo’th last day at Thaint Jude’th and they’re all gonny get wathted. Ah’m no intae that; neither’th Billy.’
‘The secret’s in the beating,’ interrupted Jimmy, wishing Chantal would put a sock in her mouth. Talk of Victor and Maddo, the very suggestion of Dog Breath’s dog breath, let alone the thought of Chantal and Billy McIndope sucking the faces off each other, was putting him off. It was hard enough to explain in words a skill that came so naturally to Jimmy, without having some glaiket doolally lassie breathing her chewing gummy, nicotine breath all over him.
‘You only need half the butter in Busty’s recipe. Then crack your eggs in – thank you,’ said Jimmy, as Ellie obliged with a salute. ‘Chuck in your sugar. And flour. No. Self-raising, Chantal. This is a sponge mix, remember. And beat, and beat, and beat. Don’t bother creaming everything separately like Busty says, either. Here.’
Jimmy handed the electric whisk to Chantal. She wouldn’t have the wit to talk and operate an appliance at the same time. He kept one eye on her while he helped Ellie with the seemingly complex task of arranging paper cases on a baking tray.
The two of them kept sneaking smiles at each other, so they didn’t see where they were putting the cake cases and their fingers would collide. Each time Jimmy made contact with Ellie, a sweet shock jolted all the way up his arm to the roots of his hair, via his heart.
‘Nothing fairy about them is there?’ said Jimmy, depressing the top of one golden sponge cake. Like his éclairs, his fairy cakes had risen to humungous size, and emerged from the oven shouldering each other for space on the baking tray.
‘Thought youth couldnae bake?’ gasped Chantal in amazement.
‘Hey, Jimmy, what about some organic icing to finish them off?’ Ellie grinned at Jimmy and squirted saliva through her teeth.
‘Grog flavour, you mean?’ Jimmy stroked his chin thoughtfully.
‘What d’you think, Chantal?’ he asked, dead serious, ‘Essence de Phlegm?’
‘Naw, we canny,’ said Chantal, horrified, fingering her toilet paper bandage as Jimmy seived icing sugar into a bowl. ‘Youz are dithguthtin.’
‘Only joking, Chantal,’ said Ellie, smiling at Jimmy. ‘Sooks like us would never do anything like that.’
‘Here, Chantal.’ Jimmy placed two freshly-iced cakes into her hands as the bell rang. ‘Once for you and one for Billy.’
‘Give you energy,’ laughed Ellie, nudging Jimmy, ‘When you’re bloodletting.’
Chapter 21
Butterflies and mermaids
Jimmy could feel his face scarlet.
Not from embarrassment, but from effort.
How many lengths was it now? Felt like hundreds that GI Joe had had him wiggling up and down the pool, arms outstretched, holding a float, while his legs learned the new stroke. Butterfly.
It was only when Jimmy surfaced to take a breather and felt the blood surging around his face that he realised how hard he was working. The actual rhythm of the stroke itself, once he had the technique sussed, was a skoosh-case for him. As Jimmy swam, he imagined his legs were fused like a merman’s tail or the powerful flipper of the albino whale. That way he could make his body ripple through the water without effort. And, of course, he also imagined that the Shadow Shape watched him as he swam. Since he didn’t want it to go away, he kept on swimming, perfecting the stroke, motivated to do his best. Sometimes he felt he could swim for ever once he got going, his brain clicking into autopilot.
‘Stop there, Jim. You’re doing great.’
GI Joe had to tap Jimmy on the head to prevent him pushing off for yet another length.
Butterfly.
Jimmy couldn’t believe he was going to swim butterfly! It was always his favourite stroke. To watch, that is. Now he was going to do butterfly himself. He was halfway there. More than halfway. GI Joe said the kick was the hardest, getting the rhythm right. And Jimmy could do that in his sleep.
Every swimming pool dream Jimmy had lately made him work a nightshift on whatever stroke he’d been learning during the day with GI Joe, the Shadow Shape lingering, as ever, at the deep end of the pool. Jimmy always checked it was there when he surfaced for air. And it was, although vague and nebulous, and when Jimmy reached the deep end – as he always did in his dreams now – the Shadow Shape was still too filmy to be identified.
Lately, Jimmy’s better swimming dreams took him to the sea. There, the water was always green and cold and salty. In these dreams, Jimmy didn’t so much swim as let himself be carried out on waves just bumpy enough to make him cry whoa as he rode them.
Ellie was always in these dreams, flitting around Jimmy. A mermaid extension of the Ellie he had seen more of than he could ever have imagined these past few weeks of the holidays: walks in the park, rummages in record shops, she even met Jimmy after swimming some nights . . . In dreams, Ellie’s hair floated around her head and arms and shoulders, woven through with pearls and tiny shells. As she swam, the scales of her shimmering tail would coil and flick around Jimmy. She would tug him gently by the hand, bearing him out to sea.
No wonder butterfly kick was a doddle in reality: all Jimmy had to do was pretend he was a merman chasing his mermaid from one end of the pool to the other.
After swimming his first proper fifty metres of butterfly, Jimmy surfaced. GI Joe was chatting to an older bloke who Jimmy had seen coaching Victor on squad nights. Recently, Jimmy had been aware of this man watching him as he swam.
‘Are you sure this is Jim Kelly?’ said the coach bloke. He seemed perplexed by Jimmy’s surname, shaking his head doubtfully as he stared down from the edge of the pool, hands folded across his chest. When he tapped his foot, his massive quadriceps muscle leapt up and down under his skin like a piston.
‘Definitely Kelly?’ he confirmed with GI Joe, who shrugged, looking a bit non-committal himself.
Course my name’s Kelly, thought Jimmy, heaving himself out of the water in response to a jerk of the head from GI Joe. (No need to clamber up and down the pool steps these days.) This was a daft conversation. What else could it be?
‘What age are you, Jim?’
When Jimmy pulled up his goggles he could read the name, Barry Dyer, SASA SQUAD COACH monogrammed on the man’s white t-shirt.
‘Fourteen,’ replied Jimmy
‘You’re fairly coming on,’ said Barry Dyer, matter-of-factly. A short guy, he had to crane his neck back to make eye contact with Jimmy. ‘How long’s that?’
He addressed GI Joe.
‘Four weeks.’
‘Five,’ Jimmy corrected him.
Barry Dyer looked Jimmy up and down critically, taking in the goggles dangling from his hand and the sleek long-line swimming shorts that GI Joe had bought Jimmy the day he learned backstroke. ‘Swimming every day.’
A statement, not a question.
‘Watching what you’re eating.’
That was another statement, but Jimmy processed it as a question, dropping his head to his chest. A guilty reflex.
‘Aye. I can see you toning up, son,’ said Barry Dyer, smacking Jimmy on the upper arm. ‘And some of the weight’s coming off too, but good swimmers can carry a bit extra. No big deal. Mind, you’d come on faster if you trained with my squad. Be glad to have you. I’m one lad short to demonstrate butterfly in this swimathon coming up.’
Jimmy was still looking down long after Barry Dyer had strode out of sight. What would Victor say to that one? Fat boy invited to join the swimming team? Jimmy wasn’t sure if his legs were trembling with pride or apprehension.
GI Joe tried to catch Jimmy’s attention with one of his shoulder punches. ‘What about that, Jim? Asked me what team you swam for. Says you’ve a beautiful style. A natural.’
Jimmy still couldn’t look up.
Now he was completely gobsmacked. Not only at Barry Dyer’s complim
ents, but at what he could see when he looked down the length of himself.
His own toes.
Chapter 22
Fat boy swimming
It was a Friday night, but not the usual Friday night. It was the night before the swimathon. Six biscuit tins of tablet and caramel shortcake were stacked in the hall. Two giant saucepans of bolognese sauce cooling by the open kitchen window. One smaller dish sat on the cooker, ready for Aunt Pol when she arrived. In the fridge, dwarfed by the trifles and tiramisus that Jimmy had prepared earlier, was an individual portion of tiramisu soaked in extra Amaretto liqueur and sprinkled liberally with dark chocolate curls.
Aunt Pol’s favourite.
But she was very late, arriving, not from work this week, but from Spain where she’d grabbed a last minute break with one of her pals. When Jimmy checked teletext, it showed her plane wouldn’t be landing for another hour. Ages yet before she dropped off her suitcases and came round.
Jimmy was restless, pacing the flat. He switched on a CD – Talking Heads – but it made him too jittery. He didn’t want that, knowing that if he thought too much about tomorrow he’d get so nervous that he could blow everything.
He contemplated phoning Ellie, but resisted. He’d been on to her for an hour already tonight, and Mum was giving him heavy grief about the phone bill these days.
There was always Friday-night TV. All those comedies. Jimmy hadn’t watched them lately.
He flopped on the settee but couldn’t relax. Nobody was being funny enough to make him concentrate, let alone laugh. Not even Father Ted.
It was no good.
Despite Barry Dyer’s advice, Take it easy. Get an early night, Jimmy couldn’t help himself.
He was much too hungry.
Though not for food.
Leaving a message on Aunt Pol’s machine to say where he was, Jimmy plucked his trunks from the pulley and headed for the pool.
‘There’s a new inflatable in the water.’
Unbelievable, thought Jimmy, pausing as he closed his locker. Would he ever escape these eejits? As Dog Breath expelled a blast of foetid air in Jimmy’s ear, Maddo, who Jimmy hadn’t seen for weeks now, larked at Jimmy’s elbow. He kept knocking Jimmy’s hand away as he tried to turn his locker key, but it was a stupid childish gesture rather than a menacing one.
He looks wasted, thought Jimmy, as Maddo pranced in front of him, trying to block Jimmy’s route from the locker area to the pool. ‘Wanna get past, fatso? Say, “puleeeeeze, Matthew”.’
Jimmy ignored them. Two lengths of butterfly, fast as I can. Good tumble-turn at the end of the first length and the biggest push-off I’ve ever done, he’d been chanting to himself as he changed, remembering Barry Dyer’s words after the final coaching session: ‘Squad’s got a real chance with you swimming butterfly for us, Jim.’
Big responsibility.
‘These your new drown-faster trunks?’
The tone was snide. But Victor was frowning, not gloating. His mouth was going through the motions while his eyes were all over Jimmy like a rash. He flexed his injured hand, unbandaged now, but scarred purple across the knuckle where the stitches had dissolved. Jimmy reckoned, since Victor hadn’t turned up at any of Barry Dyer’s dawn training sessions, that this was his first swim for a while. He was clearly seeing big changes in Jimmy.
‘What you doing here anyway?’ Victor’s eyes narrowed, two slits of suspicion. ‘Looking for tips from the experts?’
‘Telt you Vic,’ Maddo tried his joke for the third time, ‘he’s an inflatable escaped.’
‘Shurrit you,’ Victor withered Maddo. Like a kicked mongrel, he slunk out of sight.
‘What are you doin’ here, Kelly?’
Jimmy’s arms breaststroked a pathway between Victor and Dog Breath. He pointed to a poster advertising the swimathon.
‘Getting in some last minute practice,’ he said.
‘You’re no’ swimming races in Barry’s squad?’ Victor spat after Jimmy in disbelief. But Jimmy didn’t turn back to correct him.
The pool was busy, full of families, babies, kids. As usual, everyone second-glanced Jimmy when he appeared. Tall, broad, bulky, still overweight. However, no one giggled, or nudged their neighbour: Clock that. There was something too imposing about the way Jimmy chose a float and a leg brick from the crate at the side of the water and went to the cordoned-off section of the pool marked:
Lane Swimmers Only
He set his water bottle on the edge of the pool then dropped like a stone. The instant his feet touched the bottom he plunged underwater and began to swim. Long, strong, steady front crawl. Folk still stared. A few of them nudged each other. But not one person laughed.
Whoa! He fair goes, yon big fellow!
Lovely swimmer to watch.
Like sonar, Jimmy sensed the effect he had on people when they saw how well he swam. That was why he liked to get going quickly in the pool. It felt good to feel good about himself.
It even felt good, with Victor watching. In fact, for some reason it felt especially good. Maybe it was because Jimmy’s sonar told him that Victor couldn’t believe his eyes at this moment, and had to slip into the pool next to Jimmy and keep pace beside him just to check that fat boy swimming wasn’t an optical illusion. Jimmy grinned to himself as he completed the warm-up routine that Barry Dyer had taught him. When he slowed just short of the shallow end, Victor lunged for the wall making a big show of touching it first.
Panting triumphantly, Victor gave Jimmy the finger before kicking off again. Pelting hell for leather up the pool.
I’m not going after him, Jimmy decided. He watched Victor cut his streamlined path to the deep end. I’m saving my energy for tomorrow.
Two lengths of butterfly against the clock, thought Jimmy, and that would do him tonight. He filled his lungs and plunged. He was more than a third of the way up the pool before he surfaced for air. Barry would be well pleased if he did the same at the swimathon. Now Jimmy brought in his arms, heaving them with all his strength over his head, then ploughing them back into the water. His ears were pulsing to the beat of his own blood. It coursed through him, a rhythm only broken when he surfaced for air, and sampled the high-pitched ricochet of swimming pool squeals against the relentlessness of some forgettable number one pop song.
At the end of the first length, Jimmy tumble-turned. All his coiled weight giving him the momentum he needed to kick off the back wall and fire piston-long through the water for outstretched ages before he needed to take another stroke. Jimmy grinned to himself. He’d felt completely comfortable, swimming those two lengths. What’s more, he knew that he still held back that extra something he’d need for tomorrow’s race.
Boot.
From nowhere Jimmy’s water bottle glanced the bridge of his nose, shattering his new goggles.
‘Smiley show off.’
Maddo, who was rocking back and forth over the edge of the pool, spat his verbal insult at Jimmy. Dog Breath copied him with the real McCoy. It missed Jimmy and landed on Victor’s shoulder where it sat like a small green frog.
‘Ye clatty bam-pot,’ bawled Victor so loud and furiously as he flicked the frog-grog at Jimmy that all the attendants belted towards the shallow end blowing their whistles. Quickly, Victor ducked under the water, tugging Jimmy’s trunks down before losing himself in the soup of swimmers.
‘Bullseye, Vic!’ gurgled Dog Breath.
‘Splatto, fatto,’ honked Maddo, sinking to his knees as hilarity turned his legs, as well as his brain, to jelly.
Jimmy, eye to eye with Maddo, didn’t feel like laughing. He could taste his own blood running from his nose into his mouth.
Oh, no, Jimmy didn’t feel like laughing.
‘I’m sick of you wasters noising me up.’
Jimmy heaved himself out the pool just as the beefiest pool attendant reached the scene. But Jimmy didn’t need handers.
‘Don’t bother hassling me any more. Right?’ Jimmy’s order burbled red through his lips, f
lecking Maddo and Dog Breath. He shook them, not hard, but firmly. A pair of scrapping mongrels that needed a lesson.
Inside Jimmy’s chest a furnace roared:
‘It’s over,’ he said. ‘Tell Victor it’s over.’
Harry, the beefy attendant didn’t let Jimmy leave the Leisure Centre until a first aider looked at his eye.
‘He’s racing butterfly for the swimathon,’ Harry told her. ‘Hope it’s not going to need a stitch.’
‘My old man’ll crack up if you don’t swim tomorrow,’ Harry pumped Jimmy’s hand so firmly his eye throbbed. ‘I’m Barry Dyer’s son, by the way. My old boy never stops talking about what a natural you are. Says you swim like your dad.’
Mixing me up with someone else, thought Jimmy, recalling Barry’s puzzlement when they were first introduced. ‘My dad never swam.’
Harry found Jimmy a decent set of goggles from lost property, then offered to drive Jimmy home. ‘Reassure your mum those two neds are barred.’ He didn’t mention Victor who, Jimmy realised, must have slipped away unseen. Unpunished. Slimeball!
‘I’m fine thanks, Harry,’ said Jimmy, and left the medical room to get changed.
The pool was empty now as Jimmy walked around it. Unlit, the water looked inkier than the night sky, fathoms deep beneath a veneer silvered by tiny spotlights in the rafters. Jimmy paused, slightly dizzy as he stared into the still water. Suddenly, its mirrored surface rippled as though someone on the other side had blown across it to catch his attention, rendering the surface molten, like silk. Jimmy blinked. Glanced up, the quick movement making his injured eye stoun. Fingers probing the wound, Jimmy recalled the similar effect of Harry Dyer’s handshake. Or maybe his pain was the result of Harry’s weird remark nipping his head: You swim like your dad.
Jimmy scanned the darkness. Caught a movement at the deep end. He’d swear to it. The Shadow Shape reaching a hand out to him across the yawning water before it disappeared.
Chapter 23
Secrets
Aunt Pol was waiting when Jimmy came home.
‘Who the heck gave you that keeker? Not that poultice Swift?’
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