Wishbones

by Virginia MacGregor

  We step on.

  ‘Take your marks…’

  I put my goggles over my eyes, grip my hands under the front of the block, curl my left toes over the edge and pull my body back like a spring, bum up. In under a minute, all this will be over.

  I shift my eyes to the left and see the row of competitors on the block. We’re all still as statues. No fiddling with goggles. No mumbling. If we breathe too hard we’ll be disqualified.

  Then I look to the supporters on my right and catch sight of Mrs Zas’s sky-blue headscarf. She gives me one of her wide smiles that makes me feel like I’m being lifted off the ground. And then I notice someone standing a little further on, to the side of the supporter benches. A floral dress straining over a massive stomach. Long hair. A red face.

  My stomach does a flip.

  Mum? Here? Now?

  And then Allen notices her too and shifts his camera from us to her and snap, snap, snaps. His flash bounces off the tiled room.

  I swallow hard.

  Part of me feels furious that she’s showed up out of the blue like this – she must have known it would throw me off course. But a bigger part of me is so happy to see her that I want to stand up on the block and do star jumps into the water. After all these years, Mum actually came.

  Focus, I tell myself again. Focus.

  The buzzer rings so loud it ricochets in my head and everything else gets drowned out.

  I lift my arms and dive in.

  Then I become aware of a whistle for the competitor in-lane three, who must have been disqualified for diving past the fifteen-metre mark.

  ‘Never breathe on your first stroke,’ Steph taught me. ‘You’ll waste energy.’

  I wonder if she’s come too. Mrs Zas has been really great stepping in as my coach and she’s good at all the pep talks and all the mind-focusing stuff, but she doesn’t know anything about technique. Steph was a total expert and she always worked hard to stay on top of the latest training methods so that she could be the best coach for me. I’ve felt bad about not getting in touch but I needed to spend the last two weeks focusing on the race – which meant letting go of all the other voices in my head.

  I dolphin-kick through the water. A little kick followed by a big kick to get my arms out of the water.

  I feel Amelia pushing through the water to my left.

  I bet that, right now, there’s not a second between us. But she’s been training steadily for months with no interruptions.

  Mrs Zas’s words come back to me: Love every moment.

  I force myself forward, kick my legs harder and bring my arms out of the water faster.

  My legs and shoulders burn, but I keep pushing.

  I have to do this for me. And for Mum: to show her it was worth her coming. To make her proud.

  Fifty metres. Two laps of the pool. My PB is thirty-six seconds. Amelia’s is thirty-four seconds. I need to get to thirty-two seconds if I’ve got a chance of getting through to the nationals.

  Love it, love it, love it, I say to myself over and over as I push through the water.

  I sight the wall and make the turn.

  I see her surface ahead of me. She always does this – speeds up on the second lap, whereas I’m best in the first lap.

  The crowd sounds like white noise: names cheered so loud they all meld into one roar.

  Is Mum shouting for me?

  I wish I could freeze time and space and look up out of the water at her, to see what she’s doing and what her face looks like, what her eyes are saying.

  Only a few more metres and the race will be over.

  ‘Go, Meals! Push harder!’ Amelia’s mum, her voice like a foghorn – it’s the only one that never seems to get drowned out by the crowd.

  She’s going to win. I’m not fit enough to catch up.

  And then I close my eyes and for a second the world goes black and I get a few notes from ‘Waltz of the Flowers’. It soars through my body and lifts me out of the water.

  And then Mrs Zas’s voice again:

  Focus your heart… focus your mind… love every minute of it…

  I take a breath and kick harder. My body shoots through the water. The burning and aching in my muscles melts away. I throw my arms over my head, bring my hands together and then go again. I kick, kick, kick as hard as I can. I’m catching up with Amelia. We’re parallel now.

  The crowd shouts louder.

  And then I hear a voice, clearer and sharper than Amelia’s mum – as clear as when Rev Cootes rings the bells of St Mary’s and the whole village sings like a tuning fork.

  ‘Go, Feather!’

  It’s Mum.

  I kick and kick and worm my body through the water. And then, for a moment, I’m going so fast I feel like I’m flying.

  The edge of the pool comes towards me. I grab it. A second later, Amelia comes in beside me.

  I did it. And Mum saw.

  After the race, I want to run straight to Mum but Mrs Zas says I have to go to the swim-down pool or I’ll get an injury. When you finish doing a race, especially one as intense as fly, your whole body is as tightly wound as a spring. You have to spend some time in a warm pool, relaxing your muscles, swimming gently, letting all the energy seep out.

  I sit on the edge of the pool, my legs shaking.

  ‘Did I do okay?’ I ask Mrs Zas.

  She grins. ‘Okay? You were the best.’

  I look down into the water. ‘Did you know Mum was here?’

  Ever since I finished the race, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about Mum standing there by the spectator benches, watching me. It must have taken all the strength and courage she had to get out of the house and to climb into Dad’s van and to have him drive her all the way here. Mum’s barely stepped out of the front door in over a decade, and when she has, she’s gone no further than across The Green. Coming to Slough must have felt like going to the other side of the moon.

  ‘I didn’t know she was coming,’ Mrs Zas says, ‘but, yes, I saw her arrive with your father.’

  ‘Did you talk to her?’

  ‘I said, “Hello” and, “Thank you for coming.”’

  ‘And what did she say?’

  ‘She didn’t say anything. But it’s understandable, Feather. She doesn’t know me and, as far as she’s concerned, I’ve stolen you away.’

  ‘You haven’t stolen me… I’m the one who asked you to let me stay.’

  ‘It’s easier for your mother to think I’ve stolen you than to think that you don’t want to come home.’

  Mrs Zas always makes things clearer – and harder to hear.

  ‘And Jake?’ I ask. ‘Did he come? And Clay? And Steph?’

  She shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so. But I could be wrong, there were so many people out there.’

  Jake’s been acting embarrassed whenever I see him, like he’s replaying it all in his head: Mum stomping across The Green, shouting all those mean things at Steph and Rev Cootes and grabbing at them like she was having some kind of crazy breakdown. When I asked him if we could meet up, he said that Clay wasn’t feeling well and that he needed him. I know Jake’s telling the truth: Clay hasn’t been to school for over a month and, whenever I catch sight of him, he looks greyer and thinner. But, still, if all this stuff hadn’t happened with Mum, I’m sure Jake would still make an effort to see me.

  I know that I’m lucky because I’ve got Mrs Zas, and Clay doesn’t have anyone except for Jake, but I still wish I could tell Jake that I need him too. And that I miss him.

  Once I’ve warmed down, I stand up out of the water.

  Mrs Zas hands me my towel.

  ‘Is it okay if I go over and see Mum now?’

  I feel kind of bad. Mrs Zas has spent two weeks hearing me rant and rave about Mum and now I’m going straight over to her.

  She smiles. ‘Of course it is,’ she says.

  I wrap the towel over my shoulders, walk past the whipping area, where the next group of swimmers is waiting for their
race, and along the far end of the pool to the benches. I scan the benches, in case Mum decided to sit down, but realise that they’re far too narrow for her to fit. As I walk past the spectators and supporters, a few of the mums and dads from Newton clap, and I try to slow down and smile but all I want is to see Mum and to hug her and to thank her for coming and to have her tell me that she’s proud of me.

  I get to the place where I saw her standing but it’s empty. Then I head through the doors to the café, thinking that Dad must have taken her for a snack. But they’re not there either. Although I’m still in my swimming costume and towel, with my hair dripping down my back, I walk out into the car park. I stand on tiptoes and scan the rows of cars and buses and vans. And that’s when I spot the back of Dad’s plumbing van pulling out of the car park and onto the dual carriageway.

  32

  As Mrs Zas drives us home in her clapped-out red Fiat, I drift in and out of sleep. I realise that, ever since New Year’s Eve, I haven’t stopped: thinking and worrying and digging things up and training for the next competition. Every cell in my body feels like it’s going into shutdown.

  My eyelids get heavier and heavier. I could sleep for a zillion years.

  When we pull into The Green, I blink open my eyes and get a glimpse of our cottage. If Mum wanted to see me or to speak to me, she’d have stayed around at the pool, wouldn’t she? And maybe the reason she left is because she’s upset with me or disapproves of the race or is disappointed that I didn’t do better, that Amelia nearly beat me. And I can’t face that, not right now.

  ‘Give her time…’ Mrs Zas’s voice sounds like it’s coming through a thick fog.

  The car rattles to a stop.

  My eyelids drop closed and I feel myself drifting into a deep sleep.

  At the sound of the bells of St Mary’s ringing through the sky, my eyes fly open. I don’t remember how I got from Mrs Zas’s car to the box room but when I look at my watch I realise I’ve been sleeping for twelve hours. My head is filled with that squeaky cotton-wool feeling and my throat is dry. But that heavy feeling in my heart that I’ve woken up with every morning for the last few months, it’s lifted.

  Kneeling on the bed, I push the curtain to one side. May sunshine streams through the window. The cherry trees along The Green are full of pink and white blossom. Mr Ding is washing his van; the water from his hose splits and sparkles in the sunshine.

  Today’s going to be a good day, I can feel it.

  I look over at our cottage, at how the roses are starting to reach over the door, and I realise that it’s time to go home.

  Humming the tune from ‘Waltz of the Flowers’, I pack my three bags: my school bag, my overnight bag, and my swimming bag. I think about wearing the medal I got for coming first in the fifty-metre fly but decide against it – Mum feeling anxious about me swimming can’t have just vanished, can it? I stuff it into the side pocket of my swim bag.

  I don’t know when I made this resolution but it feels like it’s been settled in my mind for a while now: I’m going to give Mum the time she needs. I can’t force her to be healthy and I can’t force her to tell me what went on all those years ago. Mrs Zas is right: my job’s to love Mum and, when she’s ready, she’ll start moving forward. And from the evidence of her showing up at the regionals yesterday, she’s already taken a massive leap forward, one that I didn’t push her to take, or not directly, anyway. Now it’s my turn to take a step towards her.

  I clomp downstairs with my three bags.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Zas!’ My voice sings through her workshop and spills out into the store.

  I hear the rustle of paper.

  I come up behind her. She’s got a mug of hot cinnamon milk in her hands and she’s shuffling together today’s paper. I notice a set of immigration papers on the side too.

  ‘Had a good sleep?’ she asks.

  ‘Weird but good, yeah. I don’t think I’ve ever slept that long.’

  ‘You needed it.’ She looks at my bags. ‘Decided to go home?’

  I nod. And then I feel guilty for rushing in when I needed her and then rushing off without talking to her about it first.

  ‘Thank you for letting me stay…’

  Mrs Zas puts down her mug of cinnamon milk and misses the edge. It crashes to the floor. She swivels round on her stool and knocks the paper down too. It lands on the puddle of milk.

  ‘Oh!’ She throws her hands in the air and then she bunches the paper together.

  I put my bags down and kneel beside her. ‘Here, let me do this.’

  ‘No!’ She takes the paper from my hand.

  I stand up, holding my palms out. ‘Sorry.’

  Her brow is all scrunched up and her eyes have gone dark and serious.

  ‘Oh, Feather, you’re going to find out soon enough.’

  She shakes out the paper, presses it to her dressing gown to soak up the milk, smooths open the soggy pages on the counter and leans back for me to see. I step forward.

  The headline reads:

  A BIG SPLASH: GRAND LIDO OPENING TO GO AHEAD

  – by Allen Fisher

  Seeing it, makes my heart skip. I’ve qualified for the nationals. And now the Lido’s going ahead. This day couldn’t get any better.

  I scan down the article and there’s a whole load of stuff about people being for and against the Lido and how the council decided to go ahead. And then I see it, a massive photo of Mum, at the trials yesterday. I read the paragraph under the photo:

  Josephine Tucker loses her bid to keep the Lido closed… Council says the Lido will make thousands for the village as well as inspiring young people to exercise more.

  Then there’s another photo: it’s of me in my swimming costume with my goggles and my dimply white arms and legs.

  Under my photo, there’s a caption: Josephine’s daughter, Feather Tucker, thrilled to be racing at the Lido this summer…

  Under any other circumstances, I’d be chuffed to be in the paper, especially because it’s about getting through to the nationals, but I know how much Mum would hate having a photo of her splashed all over the local news. And I don’t like how Allen’s pitted us against each other like that.

  I scan through the rest of the article:

  Thirteen years after the tragedy that shook the village…

  The tragedy?

  Mrs Zas puts her hand on mine. I shake it off and keep reading:

  …Josephine Tucker is poolside once again… Her daughter, Feather, Regional Fly Champion, has been kept in the dark for close to thirteen years…

  How does he know that Mum’s been keeping things from me? And why’s he going on about it in the newspaper?

  My head spins.

  My eyes leave the text and look through the other photos, snapshots from the village: Mum being carried out of the house on New Year’s Eve; Mrs Zas standing on the doorstep of her shop, wearing a Superman outfit; Rev Cootes, kneeling in front of a flowerbed by the children’s graves, his hands covered in soil; the empty Lido, cracked tiles, leaves and moss gathering in the corners; and then a picture of the diggers with the words: Will they dig up Jo Tucker’s secrets?

  The biggest photo is of me standing in front of our tiny cottage, Houdini next to me, Dad’s van parked to the side and, behind me, through a slit in the curtains, Mum’s face staring out, white and wide as the moon.

  The photo of Mum and me has another caption under it:

  Mother and Daughter: Secrets and Lies.

  I dig my nails into my palms and go back to the article. Phrases leap out at me.

  I feel sick. Aren’t local reporters meant to support the community?

  I want to tear up all of Allen’s stupid, mean lies.

  For some reason, there’s a picture of a little boy at the bottom of the article. I look at his light blond hair and pale skin and blue eyes and feel a jolt.

  I take out the photo I’ve been carrying in my back pocket of my jeans all this time, of Mum and me and Clay, and hold it up to the
photo in the paper. It’s the same boy. Apart from me not being in it, the photo in the paper could be an exact copy of the one I found on the garage floor. But why has Allen printed a picture of Clay?

  Then I read the next paragraph, the words wrapped around a dust-jacket picture of Max’s Marvellous Adventures and I realise that the photo’s not of Clay, not even close:

  On the 1 June, Max Tucker drowned… It was his sister’s first birthday…

  33

  I run straight to Jake’s house and ring the doorbell over and over. I need to know whether he’s kept this from me along with everyone else.

  Steph opens the door. She’s still in her PJs and her hair’s all messed up and her eyes are red. I don’t know what she’s so upset about, it’s not like her life has just been blown apart.

  ‘Where’s Jake?’ I ask, looking past her.

  ‘He took off, Feather.’ She looks at the floor. ‘He wouldn’t talk to me.’

  Which only means one thing: Clay.

  She reaches out for my hand. ‘Feather, why don’t you stay and talk?’

  Steph’s obviously seen the article.

  ‘Not now,’ I say and run back to The Green.

  When I get to the church I stop dead. Rev Cootes’s garden has been vandalised. Rose petals scattered among the graves. Plants upended, their roots sticking up to the sky.

  ‘Feather! Feather!’ Mrs Zas calls over from her shop.

  I feel bad for ignoring her but I don’t need her words of wisdom right now.

  Rev Cootes is kneeling by the Fuzzy Deutzia I gave him, a spade in his hands, a stripe of earth on his forehead.

  I spin round and look across The Green.

  My eyes take in the houses and shops. I think about all the people who were meant to be my friends. I knew they were keeping things from me about Mum’s past, but I never thought it would be this big.

  I look over to the cottage. Mum’s curtains are drawn. And Houdini’s lead lies limp outside the kennel. He’s gone.

  I don’t have time to deal with this.