by T. S. Easton
‘Too boring.’
‘Or Silent Women of the Jasmine River?’
‘No such film.’
‘Fine then.’ I flashed her a smile. ‘Creed it is.’
After a week I was looking pretty ripped. I was developing a proper six-pack. But I wasn’t putting on enough weight. I’d only gained one kilo. I had another two to go. I went for a weigh-in on the Saturday. Ricky shook his head. ‘This isn’t going to work.’
‘She needs Bulkup,’ Joe said, rubbing the back of his stubbled scalp.
Ricky frowned.
‘What’s Bulkup?’ I asked.
‘It’s calories in a can,’ Ricky said. ‘Useful for putting on weight, quickly. You’d need a lot of it though …’
Oh my God! Bulkup is disgusting. Cloying, sickly sweet with just a hint of toxic sludge. I started reading through the ingredients but got scared after a few minutes. I just concentrated on the one slightly positive piece of advertising on the front of the tub, which said New Flavour: Strawberry! I mixed it with full-fat milk, drank a glass and felt immediately bloated. I went and looked at myself in the mirror, wiping the pink goo off my cheek. What on earth was I doing? Deliberately putting on weight, exhausting myself daily, spending all my savings, just so I could get into the ring with a girl who wanted to tear my head off and shout insults down the neck hole.
I must be absolutely crazy.
Busted
‘Can you stay a bit later tonight?’ Ricky asked me at the drinks break on Wednesday night. This would be my last day of training. Ricky had said I’d need to rest for the next couple of days and concentrate on putting on an extra two kilos. I was doubtful it was physically possible but Ricky said he had a few tricks up his sleeve.
When the session finished, I hung around, slowly stretching, waiting for the others to leave. Bonita had cornered Tarik again in the kitchen and the two of them were laughing over something. I just wanted to get home. I was hungry and I’d only brought half a packet of biltong, which I’d nearly finished. Eventually, Bonita abandoned the kitchen and came over.
‘You wanna walk back together?’ she asked. Since Bonita had learned I was going to fight, she’d become slightly more human, if not exactly friendly.
‘I can’t, I need to talk to Ricky about something,’ I said. Bonita glanced suspiciously over at Ricky, then back at me. It didn’t really seem fair that Ricky was giving me extra attention, but the bout couldn’t go ahead if he wasn’t satisfied with me. She shrugged and walked out.
‘Right,’ Ricky said as soon as it was just me and Tarik left. ‘Get in the ring, you two.’
‘Why?’ Tarik said.
‘Fleur’s nearly ready,’ Ricky said. ‘But there’s one thing she needs. And you’re going to give it to her.’
‘Shouldn’t he buy me dinner first?’ I asked.
‘You got time to make jokes, you got time for ten press-ups,’ Ricky said. I sighed and dropped to the floor. Tarik dropped down beside me in solidarity. After I’d finished, I stood there puffing as Ricky explained what he wanted.
‘There’s a good chance that in the ring, Bonita will smack you one right in the chops,’ he said.
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ I said.
‘Being hit in the head is not fun, but it happens, and you need to be ready for it. You need to know what it feels like, then you’ll be able to deal with it in the fight itself.’
‘I’ve been hit before,’ I said. ‘Destiny lamped me, remember? And Joe.’
‘Being hit by someone your own size is one thing,’ Ricky said, frowning. ‘Being hit by someone bigger and stronger …’
‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘I can see where this is heading. You want Tarik to punch me in the face.’
‘Yes,’ Ricky said. ‘He’s about the same weight as Bonita, same height, same reach. I want you two to spar a bit, and Fleur, I want you to drop your guard and open yourself up to him.’
I looked over at Tarik. Put it that way and it didn’t sound too bad.
Tarik and I circled, gloves up, watching carefully, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Tarik stepped towards me and I jumped back. Then I shuffled forward and he retreated. All the while our gaze was locked together. His brown eyes were dark and endless. But this wasn’t the time to be noticing things like that.
‘Hit her,’ Ricky said.
He pushed out a glove. I gently tapped it away.
‘Not like that. Thump her!’ Tarik tried a right hook, but so slowly and softly I just pulled back and let it brush past my chest harmlessly.
‘All right, so he won’t hit you, Fleur, you hit him. See if that gets him moving.’
I swallowed and stepped forward, jabbing lightly, without properly extending. I didn’t want to hit him.
‘PROPERLY!’ Ricky roared. I tried an uppercut, the punch that Joe had said was my killer. But I didn’t hit hard, and telegraphed it a little, giving Tarik the chance to block, which he did easily.
‘She’s open!’ Ricky cried, and I realised he was right, I’d dropped my guard, but Tarik didn’t take the bait. In fact he dropped his gloves and stepped back.
‘I don’t want to hit her,’ Tarik said. He turned and began unwrapping his gloves.
‘Fine,’ Ricky said, grabbing his own gloves. ‘I’ll do it!’ He clambered into the ring and my heart lurched in alarm. Ricky was twice the size of Tarik. His arms were like tree branches, his legs like trunks.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, getting into his stance. ‘I won’t hit you hard. Now try and take a swing at me.’ I took a deep breath and hesitated. But then shrugged. If I was ever going to get home and eat something, I needed to get this over with. Lifting my gloves, I darted forward and let fly with my best right hook, crouching to get in low.
I think he must have been surprised that I went in for the killer blow straight away, because I actually made decent contact with his ribcage. My glove sank into his flesh with a satisfyingly solid thump and I was delighted with myself for exactly three nano-seconds before a medium-sized delivery truck slammed into my head and it exploded into stars. I felt myself go staggering across the canvas.
‘Keep on your feet,’ Ricky yelled. ‘Don’t go down, Fleur.’
‘Fight it!’ Tarik cried. His voice was coming from a mile away. The room swam and circled with lights and punching bags and ropes and concerned faces. I staggered, keeping away from Ricky, trying to keep my gloves by my face. If that’s what happened when you dropped your guard, I wanted no part of it.
But all the leg work had paid off.
I stayed on my feet.
‘So let me get this straight,’ Blossom said. ‘You’ve fallen for a man because he told you he didn’t want to punch you?’
‘I didn’t say I’d fallen for him. I just said he’s really hot.’
‘And he doesn’t want to punch you? You’re sure about that, right?’
‘Pretty sure, yes.’
‘He sounds like a keeper.’
‘I agree it sounds a bit underwhelming out of context …’
‘It sounds demented. Who is this Tarik anyway? What’s his back story?’
‘Back story?’ I said. ‘He’s not a character from a fantasy novel.’ Blossom had a point though. In hindsight the whole evening had been a little confusing. And I wasn’t sure what I thought about it. Tarik was gorgeous. There was no denying that. When he smiled at me, my tummy leapt like a salmon. And he did smile at me, in that way. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to get involved with another boy right now. I didn’t want to go back to Date Night.
And part of me knew it was different with Tarik. He wasn’t ‘safe’ like George had been. Safety wasn’t what I thought of when I looked at him. Quite the reverse. I felt that if I didn’t keep my guard up, Tarik might be someone who could really hurt me.
The Big Fight
Even though it was past midnight, Mum was still up when I got home. This time, though, there was no newspaper in front of her. This time she had
her laptop open. Alarm bells started to ring.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ she replied quietly, and I knew then something was definitely going down.
I walked past her to get a drink and glanced at what she was looking at on the screen. My heart skipped a beat as I saw she was on the Bosford Boxing Club website. At the bottom, in big black letters I saw
‘Could you come here and sit down, please,’ Mum said in her white-lipped voice. ‘Oh crap,’ I muttered, under my breath. I filled a glass and brought it back, sitting opposite her.
‘Is this about my Christmas list?’ I asked. ‘I’d just like money.’
‘Shut up!’ she snapped. ‘Just shut up!’
I stared at her, a little shocked by just how angry she was.
‘It’s always a joke with you. Or a barbed comment, or … or a lie.’
‘Well you just overreact to everything,’ I said, my heart pounding. This is why I didn’t fight back. It’s what Blossom didn’t get. The truth was, I was scared of my mother. Scared that if I started the battle, it would be a fight to the death.
‘How can I have a normal conversation with you when you’re just irrational?’ I said.
‘So I’m irrational now, am I?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I feel like I have to walk on egg-shells around you.’
‘If only you would,’ she replied. ‘You lie to me. You laugh at me behind my back. You have no … no regard for me or how I feel.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘Dad told me … he said …’
‘He told you what?’
‘Why you’re always so … worried about me.’
She narrowed her eyes. ‘What did he say?’
‘He told me about Ben.’ She sat back like I’d shot her and went white. The grandfather clock sliced the seconds off one by one as I waited for her to respond. I counted twenty-two before she spoke again.
‘He had no right.’
‘You should have told me,’ I said. Even as I said it, I knew it was the wrong thing to say.
‘I wanted to protect you,’ she said.
‘I don’t need you to protect me,’ I whispered. She seemed to wince. And then she looked incredibly tired.
‘Don’t do it, Fleur,’ she said. ‘Please. Don’t take part in this fight. For me.’
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ I replied. ‘I’m not doing it to hurt you. I know how you feel, and I’m sorry I haven’t been truthful with you.’
‘So why weren’t you?’
‘Because I was a coward,’ I said. ‘Because I backed away from the fight. But I’m not backing down any more. I’m fighting tomorrow.’ She shook her head sadly and the clock carried on ticking.
‘Well don’t expect me to be there, watching you,’ she said eventually. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’
‘Whatever.’ I shrugged, not wanting her to see how upset I was. ‘I’ll stay at Blossom’s tonight.’
The Count
It was horribly cold when I woke. I checked the radiator, but it was off. Blossom’s family didn’t use the spare room very often. I’d forgotten to pack my dressing gown, of course. More important than the cold, though, was filling my aching belly with something. I went through into the kitchen. No one was up.
I ate four Shredded Wheat. Carbs were fine now, and frankly I think I’d reached peak biltong. Now it was all about weight. In eight hours or so I’d be jumping on a set of scales. If I didn’t hit sixty-five kilos the fight would be off and everything would be for nothing. The training, the eating, the argument with Mum.
I ate another Shredded Wheat.
It was peaceful sitting there, munching my breakfast, not being attacked by my mother, not having to listen to my father explain the two different ways to clean a set of bike gears. Not smelling Ian Beale’s farts. But there was another empty hole in my stomach, one that couldn’t be filled. A guilty, churning hole of regret. I’d been furious, but underneath I knew it was all my fault. I had lied to her. I had betrayed her. I had hurt her. Because I’d been scared. Because I wouldn’t stand up for myself. Because I’d backed away from the fight.
Eventually Blossom came in, looking exhausted. Blossom is not a morning person. She nodded at me and came over to the table, slumping her head onto her forearms.
‘Want some coffee?’ I asked.
‘Yeah,’ she said. She opened one eye and peered at my drink.
‘What’s that?’
‘Bulkup with yoghurt and blueberries,’ I said.
‘I’ll stick with coffee please,’ she said. ‘So tell me about the fight with your mum.’
‘Oh God. It’s all her fault,’ I replied. ‘If she wasn’t so protective of me then I wouldn’t have to lie to her. I feel like she’s suffocating me. Like she’s trapped me with balloons and however many I pop I just can’t get away.’
‘You and your mum are so similar,’ she laughed.
I stared at her. Turned to stone. ‘What did you say?’ I asked eventually.
‘You’re two peas in a pod,’ she said. ‘Always have been.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said. ‘That’s the opposite of true. That’s … false.’
‘You’re both super-careful, you’re both stubborn, you look the same, you have the same mannerisms, and you’re both OBSESSED with punctuation.’ My jaw dropped. The words wouldn’t come. I pursed my lips and shook my head. She was wrong.
I’d had about a dozen texts and missed calls from Dad since I’d turned off my phone the night before. Nothing from Mum. I’d texted him back to say I was fine and with Blossom. Mid-morning Pip turned up and we drove down into Bosford to hang out, something we hadn’t done for months, it seemed. Pip spent about half an hour in Vintage Vicky’s, Blossom spent even longer in the feminist bookshop on South Street. Then it was my turn to choose the shop.
‘Greggs?’ Blossom sighed. ‘Do you know where the meat in their pork lattices comes from?’
‘No, but I know where it’s going to end up,’ I replied, buying two. ‘In my belly.’
‘So, when’s your fight start tonight?’ Blossom asked as we left the shop. It was bitterly cold outside and I clutched the warm greasy packet of food tightly.
‘We’re on last,’ I said. ‘So it should be around eight-thirty, maybe nine.’
‘If we sit in the front row, will we get splashed with blood?’ Pip asked. I stopped and looked at him in surprise.
‘You’re coming?’
‘Of course we’re coming,’ Blossom laughed. ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world.’
Weigh-in
I waddled up to the scales, feeling ready to pop. Ricky watched me nervously. He’d made me drink two litres of water a few minutes before and I was bursting for the loo. Sharon stood beside him, wringing her hands. Bonita had just been weighed, and she was at sixty-eight kilos, just inside the welterweight category. No one was surprised that she’d hit her target. If Bonita wanted something, she just went ahead and did it. And she’d had less to lose than I’d had to gain.
I took a deep breath before I hopped on to the scales, then had a quick panic that having extra air in my lungs might make me lighter. So I breathed out again, before realising how ridiculous that thought was. I could suck in the Goodyear Blimp and it wouldn’t make any difference to my weight, so I took another great lungful.
‘You’re gulping like a carp,’ Tarik said. ‘Just breathe normally.’ I glared at him. I could see everyone peering to look, especially Bonita.
Sixty-four point two kilos.
The room erupted into cheers. Tarik clapped me on the back. Sharon gave me a hug. Dan gave me a high five. Alex raised his eyebrows.
‘Well done, Fleur,’ Ricky said, looking immensely relieved.
‘Yes, it’s all great but can I go to the loo now?’ I asked urgently.
As I rushed out I came face to face with Bonita, who’d watched the whole thing. She winked at me. I wondered just what I’d got myself into.
The hall was packed. Ricky had formed
two dressing rooms up on the stage, behind the curtain and Bonita and I watched proceedings from there. I spotted Blossom at the front, with Pip next to her. I saw the back of Dad’s head, sitting on the aisle we’d be walking down in a few minutes. There was an empty seat next to him, which meant Mum wasn’t there. I wasn’t surprised. Bonita and I helped each other with our wraps and gloves, not really talking, avoiding one another’s eyes.
‘You’re using pro-hit gloves?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, why, what are you wearing?’
‘RDX,’ she said with a smirk. ‘They’re the best.’ I felt a surge of annoyance.
‘It’s not a competition,’ I said.
‘It IS a competition,’ she replied.
The boys’ bouts had all gone well. Tarik beat Jordan quite easily. Jordan was full of frantic fury for the first round, but Tarik just waited until he got tired, then finished him with a few well-aimed rights. The crowd was quiet at first, but got louder as the evening went on. The hall wasn’t that big really. There were a lot of people there and Sharon was selling bottles of beer. Whenever someone received a good punch the whole place erupted with noise. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle in anticipation. Soon I’d be walking out there.
Alex was Bonita’s second. And Joe was mine. I’d hoped to have Tarik, but Ricky wanted someone with more experience. After the last fight, between Jerome and Simon, which Simon won on points, Ricky came to find us.
‘Now, listen,’ he said. ‘This is the first proper fight for both of you. Don’t go in there hell for leather, all right? It’s a demonstration. Show them your skills, fair enough, but the object is not to try and murder the other fighter. We have friends and family out there.’ The speech was directed at the two of us, but I could see Ricky was looking mostly at Bonita.
He left, and Bonita and I caught one another’s eye. I grinned awkwardly but she just turned away. Was she nervous? She wasn’t showing it. I cleared my throat.
‘So this is our first fight.’
‘Yep,’ she said.
‘We’ve got our friends and family out there …’
