by Julia Jones
Inside the meeting she agreed that her punch had been deliberate. She listened dumbly as the assistant coach related the scraps of conversation that she’d heard and when Griselda asked her directly whether there had been provocation, she waited for a moment and then shook her head.
“I was just a sore loser.”
The coach tried again to help her but Xanthe couldn’t respond. It was too humiliating and too hard to explain – she wasn’t ready to understand it herself. Let alone put Madrigal’s insinuations into words in a room full of white, uncomprehending faces, however basically kind.
She was thrown off the squad and given a six month racing ban. The Shrykes demanded an injunction that she stay away from their daughter but were finally persuaded not to prosecute. The Ribieros drove home to Suffolk, trailing Xanthe’s dinghy.
The first tweets had been posted before they reached the motorway.
Chapter Two
#barbarianbehaviour
They didn’t use as many characters as that. When you’ve only got 140 letters and spaces to slag off someone you’ve never met and you need to get all your friends and followers doing the same, you don’t waste nineteen of them on the hashtag. Anyway it soon got objected to by the people in the senior bits of GB Racing.
So the Twitter campaign against Xanthe used #bbarbie instead. It was very neat. There’d been a new black doll brought out for Christmas and that was controversial. You could pretend it was nothing to do with racing: nothing personal against anyone. Once the mass outrage at Xanthe’s ‘barbarian behaviour’ had made everyone aware what the tweets were really about, then #bbarbie could be used in any number of imaginative ways.
Some of them were plain threatening: photos of African-American Barbie dolls being held underwater, dolls with snapped limbs or their heads pulled off.
Others were more subtle. The new range of Barbie dolls were designed to have more ‘realistic’ African features and frizzy hair that could be straightened if the little customers required. Xanthe’s hair was strong and wiry. She usually scraped it up onto the top of her head in a bunch but #bbarbie users posed their dolls underneath England flags and offered helpful advice on bleaching and extending. The results were grotesque.
These new dolls were still stick-thin and it was easy for even the dimmest of Madrigal’s friends to start a social media thread with a remark about the naturally fuller hips or the heavier bones of racial stereotypes, then adding a sailing jacket or wet suit to make it clear who it was that they were talking about. There were pictures of black Barbies struggling in the water or Xanthe herself, snapped jogging or working out but with a doll’s head superimposed. “Why do black people run faster than whites?” “Why don’t they swim so well?” “Have they all got thicker skulls?”
Someone photo-shopped a Laser dinghy black and white and called it the Oreo. Then there were lots of good ideas for future Olympic competitions that would involve punching and running away and getting sponsorship to sail in hollowed-out tree trunks. It seemed this flood of creativity would never end. Old photos of Xanthe sailing for her club or receiving awards were discovered and manipulated. Then someone began using photos taken at her sixth form college.
“I can’t,” said Xanthe. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
“Can’t, my big sis? I didn’t know you knew that word.”
They were finishing breakfast. Her father, Joshua, was about to leave for the hospital. Maggi would be catching the school bus to Gallister High and June, who was a magistrate, was due in court.
“Then don’t,” she said immediately, looking up from her newspaper. “You don’t have to. I’m amazed that you’ve stuck it for so long. I’ll ring the college and tell them that you’re not coming in.”
Xanthe didn’t acknowledge her mother. She was staring at her uneaten food while the words she’d been damming up began pouring out.
“Every time I hear a text arriving on someone’s phone or someone boots up a computer I assume they’re going to be reading something bad about me – ‘Black Barbie’” Xanthe choked. “I ought to think it’s funny but I can’t.”
“You can’t because it isn’t,” said Maggi. “It’s totally sick.” Her normally sweet expression was fierce.
“Yet you don’t let me lodge an appeal with the RYA,” said Joshua. “There must have been some reason. You need to talk to us, Xanthe. Hashtag Black Barbie! It’s beneath contempt.”
Xanthe hadn’t managed more than a mouthful of juice and a couple of spoons of yoghurt. She pushed her chair back and left the table. Next thing they heard her in the toilet, throwing up.
“If I could do one thing for my sister right now,” stormed Maggi, “I’d banish the letter B from the alphabet. And I’d withdraw all those stupid dolls. I’d melt them back into chemical soup. And how can they be using photos of Xanth at college? It’s completely creepy.”
“Maggi,” said her mother, still holding her newspaper and not answering the important question, “You loved your Barbies – you didn’t care what colour they were. Did you?”
Maggi calmed down. She took a deep breath.
“I do remember using a felt tip to darken one of them once but it was more like a style statement. I was never political. I loved all my dolls and they needed to look good.”
“Especially if they’d gone bald or lost a leg. It was a paralympic couture-fest. Oh, those poor families!”
Maggi gawped at her mother, then realised she’d glanced back to the newspaper report of some gangland feud that was finally coming to trial. A young mother had been killed with her child beside her. It was foul but it wasn’t for them. Xanthe was still out of the room so Maggi felt okay talking about her.
“Xanthe never really got it about dolls.”
“Poor, poor Xanthe,” said June. She’d put her newspaper down now and was really concentrating.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Joshua spoke like someone who asked himself that question several times a day and hadn’t come up with an answer yet.
“If there is, it seems unlikely that she’ll let us. And I can’t stay home with her today because I have to be in court.”
“And I’ve got ward rounds this morning then a full operating list.”
“I’ve a GCSE coursework assessment. It counts to my final grade.”
“We’re not much use, are we?” said Joshua. “Exactly when she needs us.”
“No,” said June with an angry sigh. “But it’s time I talked to the college at least. I’ll phone them now and tell them she’s not coming in, then I’m going to arrange a meeting with her tutor – whether Xanthe likes it or not.”
She brushed the last of her crispbread crumbs neatly from her mouth, checked there were none on her turquoise jacket and stood up. She folded the newspaper into her bag and walked briskly next door. Seconds later they could hear her on the land-line.
Maggi and her father looked at one another. There were frown lines deep in Joshua’s forehead. He rubbed them with the soft heel of his hand.
“I can’t understand why she won’t talk about it. She must know who these people are. And it’s bullying, however they dress it up. I would never have expected my Xanthe to put up with bullying.”
“I wouldn’t have expected her to punch Madrigal Shryke either. I don’t get what went wrong in Weymouth. She wanted it so much. Being selected for that training camp, new dinghy, new kit, good sponsors. It was her big chance.”
“Who is this girl? Couldn’t we talk to her parents?”
“No way, Dad – you need to get real. Madrigal Shryke is a complete and utter hag but she’s pretty and she’s charming and she’s actually incredibly talented (except not quite as good as my big sis) AND she’s rich. Sir Daddeh and Mumsie Shryke are rolling in it. They’re always sponsoring things – like they were major donors to the Sailing Academy. Maddie’s at some amazingly posh
school and she has this total gang of luvvies. They’ll be the ones posting the tweets. She’s way too clever. I wish I knew what she’d said to make sis flip.”
She hadn’t noticed Xanthe standing in the doorway looking like someone who’d just had to splash a bucket of cold water over her face.
“Leave it, can’t you? I was completely out of order and I’ve probably messed up my entire life but I need you to STOP going on about it.”
Xanthe flung herself down on her chair. The smoothie carton toppled and splashed thick mango across the bright tablecloth.
“I DON’T WANT SYMPATHY.”
“Okay,” said June, who had also come back into the kitchen. “Then maybe you should stop feeling sorry for yourself and begin thinking about other people. You can start today. In a house with dreadful mobile phone reception where you don’t have a password for the wi-fi – even if you had time to use it. Which you won’t.”
Xanthe stared at her mother. This didn’t sound very loving or sympathetic. June stared back, challenging her. Xanthe shrugged and gave in.
“Yeah, okay, why not? I don’t care what I do. I can’t face college now. I’ll probably never race again and if I stay here on my own I’ll only go on the net.”
Joshua looked enquiringly at his wife. She smiled across at him.
“After I rang Xanthe’s tutor, I rang Rev Wendy at Erewhon Parva Vicarage. She’s always needing help – especially now she’s taken on the Shelter full-time as well as her six parishes and baby Ellen – and her husband Gerald’s got a bad back. I thought you could drop Xanthe there on your way to work.”
Joshua laughed. It made him look so much younger. “I thought I felt sorry for my older daughter. But now with you and Wendy joining forces…! I assume that by the end of today you’ll have cooked up some other scheme to take her out of social circulation?”
“It’s possible.” June looked serious and even depressed. “There are so many people who are so very much worse off.”
Did that mean particular people or people all over the world? It didn’t feel the right moment to ask. Xanthe cleared the almost-empty smoothie cartoon onto the draining board and shoved the tablecloth in a bucket to soak.
“Ellen’s not such a baby any more,” said Maggi. “She’s gorgeous but she’s a total terror. Every time they try to leave her in a crèche she gets expelled. She has Gerald wrapped around her little finger. And Wendy.”
“Exactly.” June was her brisk and cheerful self again. “So there’ll be no time for Xanthe to go checking Facebook or Twitter or reading nasty anonymous texts. You’re to leave your mobile here,” she instructed her older daughter. “If your father or I need to speak to you, we’ll use the vicarage land-line.”
Xanthe was meant to be in her third term of the IB at her local sixth form college but she didn’t go back that week. Every morning either June or Joshua delivered her to Erewhon Parva Vicarage. Her job was to take care of little Ellen while Gerald went for physio and Wendy caught up with her paperwork. It sounded okay but Xanthe’d never had anything much to do with toddlers. She enacted endless pirate stories, mixed mud pies, changed nappies, mopped up mess, chatted to Ellen’s canary and floated sticks down streams. By the end of every day she was exhausted.
It still was hard to keep herself off the internet in the evenings. Wi-fi was everywhere in the house, in her room, on her phone. It was such a habit to sign in, to read messages, even when she knew she wouldn’t like them. She was dreading going back to college. Either she’d have to lie and say that she’d been sick all week or she’d tell the truth and then everyone would know that she was a coward as well as a loser. But those college photos that had been used – they were recent.
She wasn’t talking much to her family. Not even to Maggi. It was a good thing, really, that Gallister High had a new policy of putting people in for GCSEs early, especially top sets. Mags and their friend Anna were taking it really seriously and seemed totally focused on going to revision classes and stuff. Even Donny, the other member of the Allies, was mainly working in the evenings. She might have gone round to his otherwise. Donny and his mum lived on an old Chinese junk off beautiful, peaceful Gallister Creek. There wasn’t any wi-fi there. And he had their old dinghy, Lively Lady – the one she and Maggi had sailed together when life hadn’t seemed so complicated.
Xanthe was never going to go racing again. They’d left Spray II on her trailer at the Royal Orwell & Ancient Yacht Club, waiting for the sponsors to take her back. End of.
Then her mother announced that she’d arranged a month’s placement for her as a volunteer sailing instructor somewhere on the Essex marshes.
“I’ve spoken to your tutor, Mrs Oakenheart, and to the college principal and they’ve both given their permission. They’re pleased with your work but you’re low on your IB community service hours. Also Mrs Oakenheart says you could get all the research done for your extended essay while you’re in Flinthammock. And you should begin to think about what you’re going to put on your UCAS form. Aim high, she says.”
Before Getting2Gold Xanthe had been thinking about staying with her sport and not going to university at all. She had dreamed of making it to the Olympics and leaving any future after that to take care of itself. She was glad she hadn’t shared that idea with anyone else. Not that she wanted to go to Uni either. The way she felt now, some dump in Essex would suit her fine.
“It’s all arranged then? I notice that you didn’t bother asking me. What’s the matter with these children that I’m gonna be teaching? What have they done wrong?”
Her mother seemed stressed. She wasn’t discussing at all.
“Listen, Xanthe. Or read my lips. I am unable to tell you anything at all about these young people. Except that they are young. I believe that the oldest girl may be thirteen or fourteen. There are five of them and their situation is quite unusually difficult. If Wendy hadn’t vouched for you there would be no way at all you would have been considered.”
“Rev Wendy? But you said I’m gonna be a sailing instructor. You made me fax off my certificates.”
“The Flinthammock Project is run by a small group of Companions. They’re based on a lightship and they’re also linked to a peace camp. They’re a charity that offers outdoor activity for children in need and they asked Wendy for an in-depth character reference. You need to thank her for this opportunity.”
When June used that tone of voice her family knew there was no more argument.
“So what are Companions?” Xanthe asked Rev Wendy the next day. “I mean are they, like, religious?”
“Does it make a difference?” Wendy sounded tired.
“It would if they’re going to want me to pray or anything. I don’t do religion now I’ve left school. All those assemblies and stuff.”
“If that’s how you feel, you’ll be perfectly safe on board Godwyn.”
“Godwyn?” It sounded religious…
“It’s a redundant lightship – from the Goodwin Sands. Where Earl Godwin lost to the Normans off the coast of Kent. You probably know more about that area than I do. I understand it’s dangerous to shipping. The lightship has been converted to residential accommodation and the Companions are local volunteers with a paid administrator and a leader. They won’t interfere with your…lack of conviction.”
Maybe Wendy was bad-tempered as well as tired. Maybe she was fed up with trying to help Xanthe. Maybe she’d realised that Xanthe wasn’t worth it.
“So you had to promise these people that I’m not going to punch anyone?”
“I couldn’t promise anything. You’re over sixteen. Your actions are your own responsibility. All I could do was tell them how long I’ve known you and in what capacity. I did my best to answer their questions about your suitability to undertake the specific duties they require.”
What did Rev Wendy know about her ‘suitability’ to teach kids to
sail? It should have been Griselda answering those questions. It was a good thing those Companions hadn’t spoken to anyone at Weymouth. They’d never have accepted her then.
“Thanks anyway,” she said.
Later Xanthe began to wonder whether the Companions had worked out that Wendy didn’t know her gooseneck from her pintles. She discovered that she wasn’t going to be allowed to stay on the lightship with everyone else. Apparently there was some big group of bird-watchers already booked in and she would have to start out as a lodger in a place called Rebow Cottage. She assumed someone had done a search on social media and they’d be issuing her with an orange hi-vis coverall so everyone would know to steer clear. Maybe she’d have done better to go back to college. Or jump in the river and go straight down.
Chapter Three
Here be Monsters?
Saturday May 25, lw 1450 hw 2114
Rebow Cottage was a small plain house on the edge of Flinthammock village, just a short distance from the marshes and the creek. The old couple who lived there had some connection to the Project’s Companion-in-Chief, the man who’d officially hired Xanthe. His name was Dominic Gold. She hadn’t met him yet.
Rebow Cottage made Wendy and Gerald’s grey Victorian vicarage look like an all-singing, all-dancing fun palace. And if it was possible to have less than no wi-fi, Rebow Cottage had it (or didn’t). There wasn’t even a phone.
She’d been delivered to Flinthammock the afternoon before she was due to start work. Mrs Farran, Xanthe’s landlady, had tottered on her walking stick and looked as if she might faint when she opened the door and saw her and her mother and Maggi, all standing there together. They had experienced some difficulty convincing the old lady that Xanthe was the lodger she’d been expecting and that she was going to be working for Mr Gold on the lightship.
“But does he know…?”
