Wishbones

by Virginia MacGregor

  ‘Okay.’ He pulls his headphones up over his ears again and flicks through his iPhone.

  If I don’t say anything now, he’ll go and he’ll think I was rude and he won’t want to speak to me ever again.

  ‘You live with Rev Cootes?’ I blurt out.

  ‘Grandpa?’

  Grandpa? Wow, not in a million years did I think I’d hear anyone call Rev Cootes that.

  I nod. ‘Yeah, your grandpa. You staying with him long?’

  He shrugs.

  Any minute now, he’s going to take off.

  I touch his arm. ‘Maybe…’

  He looks up and frowns.

  ‘Maybe we could talk… just a bit.’

  He takes his headphones off again.

  ‘But not here,’ I add quickly.

  I need to get away from the house and The Green and everything that reminds me of Mum.

  ‘Sure.’

  And then my chest goes tight because I think of Jake and how he’s the one I tell about Mum and how we don’t ever take anyone to our special place. It feels like I’m betraying him twice over. Three times over, seeing as he wants to get to know Clay too.

  ‘So, where are we going?’ Clay smiles.

  I lock my bike to the lamppost by the park gate, put the bike light in my pocket, and take Clay through a gap in the fence.

  As we walk across the empty park, the wet grass seeps through our trainers. He follows me, without asking questions, as if breaking into a park is the most normal thing in the world.

  When we get to the Lido, I take my bike light out of my pocket, switch it on and sweep it across the pool.

  Clay hangs back.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask.

  For a few seconds, he doesn’t answer.

  ‘Clay?’

  I hear him swallow. And then he says. ‘Nothing, it’s just bigger than—’

  ‘Than what?’

  He doesn’t answer.

  ‘You’ve seen the Lido before, haven’t you?’

  He looks back at me and blinks and there’s a long pause.

  ‘Yeah. But it was a long time ago. I was so young I don’t really remember anything.’

  But do you remember me? I want to blurt out, only Jake’s right, it’ll just come out sounding desperate.

  He clears his throat. ‘What I actually meant is that it’s bigger than the public pools we have back home.’

  ‘I thought everything was bigger in America.’

  ‘We don’t really have pools like this.’

  ‘Come on,’ I say and usher him to the edge of the pool.

  He peers over. ‘Isn’t it dangerous?’

  One thing I hadn’t expected from Clay was that he’d be scared of stuff, especially of a plain old empty Lido. He seems like the kind of guy who’d dive into things headfirst and think about whether it was dangerous later.

  ‘Not if we don’t throw ourselves off the deep end,’ I say, laughing. ‘Come on.’

  He joins me and we walk to the far end of the pool.

  ‘It’s been shut for years.’ I shine my bike light down into the big, empty shell, littered with leaves and twigs and piles of Willingdon dirt, and gathered in heaps in the corners. Weeds grow through the cracks in the tiles. ‘They used to fill it on the first of May every year and it would stay open until mid-September, but that was when I was too little to remember. They closed it when I was one’

  ‘It must have been amazing,’ he says.

  I often think about what the Lido must have been like when it was still in use – a happy, blue, sparkly place filled with children swimming and laughing in the sunshine. People came from all over the county.

  And then I remember the flier from earlier today.

  ‘They’re opening it again,’ I say. ‘They’re holding the Junior UK Swimming Championships here this summer.’ Just saying that makes me feel a glow of pride for the village.

  Clay nods. ‘Grandpa showed me the flier.’

  I clear my throat. ‘I’m going to compete… Well, if I get through to the regionals… I mean, it’s going to be tough…’

  I wish I hadn’t said it. If I don’t make it through I’m going to look like an idiot.

  ‘You swim?’ He sounds surprised.

  ‘Fly – butterfly stroke.’

  ‘That’s hard, isn’t it?’

  I feel a swell of pride again but this time for me.

  ‘Yeah, it is. I love it though.’

  ‘Cool.’

  ‘Will you still be here?’ I ask. I think about how, if I do make it through, I’d like for him to see me swim. That maybe if he was there I’d swim even faster to impress him. That maybe I’d win.

  He pauses. ‘Maybe.’ He looks out across the dark Lido. ‘I’m not really into swimming.’

  ‘You’re not?’

  I know it’s ridiculous but the first thought I have when Clay says he’s not into swimming: Can you love someone who doesn’t love what you love? Swimming means everything to me. But then Mum won’t go near water and I love her.

  I shift my bike light to show him the ladder that goes half way down the tiled inside of the pool.

  ‘Want to go in?’ I ask, looking down the ladder. ‘We’ll have to jump down for the last bit, and scramble a bit on the way up.’

  He hesitates for a moment and then steps onto the first rung of the ladder. I light his way and wait for him to get far enough down to start following.

  I hear his feet land on the tiles and jump down beside him. Then I take his hand.

  He looks at me and then stares down at our hands.

  I’m glad it’s dark and that he can’t see me blush.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s a habit I have with Jake… my friend. We hold hands when we come here.’

  Clay smiles and squeezes my fingers. ‘It’s okay, I like it.’

  This time, all the organs in my body flip inside out. No boy (except Jake) has ever:

  a) held my hand; or

  b) said he likes holding my hand.

  ‘You okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Fine,’ I say, but my voice sounds wobbly, which makes my cheeks burn up even more.

  Clay lets go of my hand but I can still feel the warmth of his palm pressed against mine.

  ‘I’ll show you the best bit,’ I say and walk ahead of him across the tiles. Dry leaves crunch under our feet and, when we reach one of the side walls, I pull Clay down beside me and we sit with our backs against the tiles. I switch off the bike light and, for a moment, we sit in the dark. Everything is still except for the sound of our breath and the skittering of leaves on the tiles of the Lido.

  ‘Look up,’ I whisper, pointing at the sky.

  Framed by the trees of the park, there’s a big clearing of sky. And a thousand stars.

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘You’ll see stars from most parts of the village,’ I say. ‘But here it’s like the sky’s putting on a show just for us.’

  We stare at the night sky and I feel him smile.

  ‘Cool that you found this spot.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Jake and I first started coming here five years ago. Houdini had gone missing – again. After spending hours scouring Willingdon without any luck, we spotted the gap in the park fence and had the impulse to go in and look for him there. We found him bleating his head off, looking down into the big empty Lido. It’s a miracle he didn’t go over the edge and break his neck. Anyway, since then, whenever we’re sad or need to talk or want to get away from things, Jake and me come here to talk.

  ‘Were you having a party?’ Clay asks. ‘At your house?’

  I laugh. ‘Not exactly. It was something I organised for Mum.’ I crush a dry leaf between my fingers. ‘I guess you’ve heard about her.’

  ‘Heard what?’

  Rev Cootes must have told him about Mum.

  ‘She’s obese.’ I think of those NHS articles I read with Jake. ‘Morbidly obese.’

  ‘She didn’t look that bad.’

  ‘S
he got sick a few weeks back and had to go into hospital. They used a crane to lever her out of the window.’

  He pauses. Then he asks, ‘How much does she weigh?’

  ‘Think of a brown bear.’

  He laughs. ‘A bear?’

  ‘I looked it up. I wanted to know what else weighed thirty-seven stone – besides Mum, that is.’

  ‘I hope you haven’t told her.’

  I like how easy it feels, talking to him about Mum. As easy as talking to Jake. Easier maybe even than that.

  ‘It’s one of the better comparisons,’ I say.

  And brown bears are disappearing from the earth, I read that too. They’re an endangered species, which is what Mum’s heading for if she doesn’t start looking after her health.

  ‘I’m trying to get her to lose weight. The people you saw going into the cottage, they’re from this group called Slim Skills.’

  His eyes go wide. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘What?’

  His eyes pop out of his bony face. ‘You invited a weight-loss group over to your house?’

  ‘Mum won’t leave the house. It was the only way.’

  Clay brushes his pale blond hair out of his eyes. His wrists make me think of the tiny bones of a bird skeleton. I want to ask him about why he’s so thin, whether it’s because he’s ill, but I’m scared it will make him clam up just when we’ve got talking.

  ‘Has she always been… the way she is now?’ Clay asks.

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t think she was ever skinny, but she’s definitely been getting bigger over the years.’

  It strikes me that I’ve never seen a photograph of Mum young.

  ‘There must have been a trigger then,’ Clay says.

  ‘A trigger?’

  ‘When it started. Something that happened to make her start eating.’

  Maybe if Clay has to see a counsellor to talk about whatever it is that’s making him sick, it means he understands about people going crazy; about people eating too much and being scared of everything and locking themselves indoors.

  Maybe Clay can help me get my head around Mum.

  ‘If there was a trigger, I’d remember – or Mum would have told me,’ I say.

  ‘Everyone has their secrets.’

  I straighten my spine. ‘We don’t. We tell each other everything.’

  He smiles, which annoys me.

  ‘I get it,’ he says, ‘you’re close. But still, in my experience, when something goes wrong in someone’s life, really wrong, there’s always a trigger. And finding it will help more than forcing your mum to go to weight-loss sessions.’

  ‘Is that what your therapist in New York said?’

  ‘My what?’

  Our eyes lock.

  ‘I’m not forcing her—’ I start.

  ‘No?’ He gives me a crooked smile, which makes me relax.

  ‘I’m just trying to help her.’ My voice wobbles. ‘Someone has to.’

  My phone buzzes. It’s Jake.

  I consider leaving it because I don’t want to spoil the moment with Clay – but I always pick up when it’s Jake.

  ‘Hey, Jake.’

  I mouth Sorry to Clay.

  ‘How was the Slim Skills meeting?’ Jake asks.

  ‘A disaster.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says.

  I hear bleating in the background.

  ‘Where are you?’ I ask.

  ‘I went to your house. You weren’t there and your bike was missing – and Houdini was straining at his lead. So we thought we’d take a walk and look for you.’

  I look at Clay, sitting in the spot where Jake should be and feel guiltier than ever.

  ‘So are you going to tell me where you are?’ Jake asks.

  Clay gets up and walks around the bottom of the Lido. He keeps looking back up at the sky, his mouth open.

  ‘I’m okay,’ I say. ‘I’ll come by later.’

  I can’t explain why, but I want Clay to myself for a bit longer. And anyway, I can’t tell Jake that I’ve brought a stranger to our special place without asking him. Especially a stranger he’s desperate to get to know.

  ‘You sound weird,’ Jake says.

  ‘I’m just a bit upset – you know, about Mum ruining everything. I’ll get over it.’

  ‘You’re not giving up, are you?’ Jake asks.

  ‘Never.’

  I look over to Clay, who’s staring at the far end of the pool, the shallow bit where Steph says Jake and me splashed around when we were babies.

  ‘I’d better go, Jake.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘See you later.’

  And then we hang up. And I feel like I’ve betrayed Jake again. For not telling him where I am and who I’m with. For not asking him to join us.

  I get up and walk over to Clay.

  ‘Was that Jake?’ Clay asks.

  ‘You remember his name?’ They only met once, outside Miss Tippet’s office at school.

  He nods.

  ‘Yeah, it was Jake,’ I say. ‘He’s a friend.’

  A friend? What’s wrong with me? My best friend. Besides Mum, Jake’s the single most important person in my life.

  ‘He helps me with my swimming. And his mum’s my swim coach.’

  They’re my family, that’s what I meant to say. I’m not doing so well at talking about me so I decide to change tack and focus on asking Clay questions.

  ‘So what made you leave the most exciting city in the world for the nothing-ever-happens village of Willingdon?’

  He looks up at the stars again but doesn’t answer.

  ‘I told you about Mum,’ I say. ‘It’s your turn to share.’

  He looks back at me and laughs. ‘To share?’

  ‘Isn’t that what they say in America?’

  He does his crooked smile thing again. ‘Only in bad teen movies.’

  ‘You’re avoiding the question.’

  ‘Mum thought it would be good for me to get away,’ he says.

  ‘From her?’

  He nods. ‘She’s kind of intense. Lives for her job.’

  ‘What’s her job?’

  ‘She’s the principal of a private school in New York. It’s famous.’

  I think of Newton Academy and how pathetic it must seem next to Clay’s mum’s school.

  ‘What’s it famous for?’

  ‘Rich people’s kids go there. And it’s religious.’

  ‘Religious like your grandpa?’

  ‘Mum must have got it from him, yeah. But her kind of religion is a hundred times worse.’

  ‘Worse, how?’

  ‘She thinks that there’s only one way to believe in God and that everyone else is wrong.’

  ‘I thought New York was meant to be really liberal and progressive.’

  At Newton Academy, the Head is always saying that every faith has its place and that, in the end, we all believe in the same God, which she basically has to say because there are loads of Muslims who live in Newton because of the mosque there.

  Clay flicks his hair out of his eyes.

  ‘After 9/11, things changed. Mum decided that the school needed to have a clearer direction.’

  Even though I was really small, I remember sitting on Mum’s lap, watching TV, staring at those towers burning down. I thought we were watching a film.

  ‘So, you were a pupil there?’ I ask.

  ‘I was Mum’s shiny advert: the son of the principal, a straight-A student, ice-hockey captain, in the chapel choir… I even believed the religious stuff for a while. And then I realised it was all crap.’

  I think me getting straight As is about as likely as Mum being a size zero. I might scrape a B in History, but that’s only because I like thinking about the past. Mum says it’s okay to have a different kind of intelligence, to be practical, like Dad. That’s why I want to take over his business one day.

  ‘She must be proud of you,’ I say.

  ‘I said I was Mum’s shiny advert.’

  ‘What
happened?’

  ‘Things changed. I changed. And she found it embarrassing.’

  ‘She found you embarrassing?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  I’m about to ask him what’s so complicated and why he ended up living in New York with his mum when his grandpa lives in England, but I get distracted by footsteps on the tarmac path leading to the Lido.

  At the exact same moment, we look up.

  Jake and I have been best friends for so long that I could spot him a mile off. The way he holds his head and his shoulders and how his arms dangle awkwardly at his side. I can tell he’s looking down at us both, wondering who the hell I’ve brought to our place.

  13

  Jake ties Houdini’s lead around the bench by the Lido and then climbs down the ladder and runs over to me and Clay.

  Clay smiles at Jake. ‘Thanks for the album.’ He holds up his iPhone.

  ‘You liked it?’ Jake asks.

  Clay nods.

  I stop breathing for a second. The music coming out of Clay’s headphones wasn’t like Jake’s Macklemore album; it was Jake’s Macklemore album. Which means that they’ve met more than once. Wow, I’m naïve.

  ‘You lent him one of your albums?’ My voice comes out wobbly. Jake never lends his music out, not even to Amy.

  They both turn round and look at me as though they’d forgotten I was there.

  ‘Yeah,’ Jake says, as though it’s the most normal thing in the world that he’s met up with Clay without telling me.

  ‘When?’

  Clay looks at me and frowns, probably because I’m sounding really lame, checking up on Jake like this.

  ‘We met when I was doing the paper round.’

  Jake does the round to help his mum out with the bills.

  He looks at me and I can tell he feels guilty, just like I feel guilty for bringing Clay here. I guess we’re even.

  ‘I saw your bike outside the park.’ He keeps looking right at me. ‘What are you doing out here?’

  Clay breaks the silence. ‘Feather basically ran me over with her bike.’

  ‘I had to get out of the house,’ I add. ‘And, yeah, I might have crashed into Clay…’

  ‘She does that,’ Jake says, smiling at Clay.

  ‘Anyway,’ I interrupt, ‘I thought Clay might like it down here.’