How Not to Be a Loser

by Beth Moran

I automatically glanced back, the realisation hitting me that a dustbin-lorryload of mine and Joey’s personal issues now lay scattered across the reception before a crowd of onlooking scavengers.

  ‘You need to go before Joey gets here.’

  Where the hell was Joey? I scanned the crowd, but the only pale blond mop in the room was Sean’s.

  ‘Are you still going to let me see him?’ Sean spoke quickly, his eyes imploring. ‘At least tell him I’m here, let him decide…’

  ‘Get out of here now, and I’ll tell him.’

  I mean, I would have to, wouldn’t I? The trick would be doing it before half the swim team and the smattering of overly competitive parents told him first.

  ‘I’ll wait for you to message me. Or… or call… or shall I call you?’

  ‘Go!’ I practically shrieked, only waiting long enough to be sure Sean had actually exited the building and was out of sight before pushing my way through the crowd. In blatant disregard of swimming pool etiquette, child protection issues and quite possibly the law, I burst into the male changing room, eyes frantically searching for Joey, my legs nearly collapsing when they found him, sat on a bench with Nathan.

  ‘Mum? What’s happened?’ Joey stood up, understandably alarmed. ‘Are you having a freak-out? I’m really sorry, only Nathan wanted to talk about changing the training programme.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Nathan gave my arm a reassuring squeeze as he passed.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered.

  He nodded, once, and let the door close behind him.

  ‘Firstly, you were magnificent,’ I said. ‘It took my breath away, watching you fly through the water like you were made for it. I’m so grateful I got to see that, so thrilled and delighted and awed, I don’t want to waste any more time feeling devastated about how much I’ve missed. I’m beyond proud, Joey.’

  ‘Thanks. But can you hurry up and tell me what’s second, because you’ve not even given me a hug, so I know it’s something bad.’

  I sprang forward and wrapped my arms around him, speaking into his shoulder. ‘It’s not bad. At least not totally bad. But I think we’d best talk about it at home.’

  He peeled himself away from me. ‘Let’s go then!’

  We talked for a long time that night. And then spent more time sat side by side on the sofa, not talking. Until way past a sensible bedtime for a thirteen-year-old who is supposed to be training at seven-thirty the next morning before a full day of school. Joey was shaken to know that Sean was in the UK, let alone that he’d been following him about for the past few weeks.

  ‘He should have told you.’

  ‘Yes, he really should have,’ I agreed.

  ‘I guess if you’ve never parented before you don’t know about being appropriate and stuff.’

  I didn’t reply that any adult should know that stalking people is never appropriate. And certainly not stalking a child.

  I knew that the only way for Joey to have any peace, let alone sleep, was to arrange a meeting. I texted Sean and asked him to be in the Cup and Saucer at five-thirty the next day. Not an ideal choice of venue, it being one where there would be other human beings, some of whom might even know Joey or me, but it was the only place in the village where we could have a drink that wasn’t a pub, and it would feel weird taking my son to a pub to meet his dad for the first time, on a school night. While able to feel some gratitude that this whole thing had happened once I had been able to go anywhere, I wasn’t ready to think about catching a bus, or getting a taxi, to somewhere new.

  Eventually, I pulled rank and called it a night, bundling Joey up the stairs. ‘Come on, let’s at least pretend to try and get some sleep. And I think it would be wise to skip your early training tomorrow.’

  ‘What? I seem to remember you going on about how if I was going to be serious about swimming, I couldn’t skip training because I was tired, or had a bad day, or had other stuff going on. “You have to get up and show up and give it all you’ve got, no matter what.”’

  ‘Hmmm. Well. You’re not in the Gladiators yet.’ I opened his bedroom door, winced at the mess, and gestured for him to go in.

  ‘No, and I never will be if I decide to lie-in every time some little thing happens like my dad turning out to be the village stalker. What would Nathan say?’

  ‘Coach Gallagher would say that you should trust your mother when she tells you that if you want to make the distance as a swimmer, you need to make some occasional allowances.’

  ‘I do trust you. But I’m also not you.’ He flopped onto the duvet, flinging one arm over his face, no doubt to block out all sight and sound of his annoying mother.

  ‘I’ll let Nathan know that you might not be there. He’ll understand. Good night.’ I quickly backed out, pulling the door shut behind me.

  ‘He’ll understand that at the first sign of pressure I need my mum to step in and start taking over like I’m some little kid!’ he yelled through the wood. ‘Stop fussing, I’m not tired! You’re so irritating!’

  ‘I love you, Joey!’ I sang back, as irritating as ever. ‘Try to get some sleep.’

  34

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Seventy-Six

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here,’ Nathan said when I arrived in time for the warm-up the following day. ‘Thought it might be a sleepless night.’

  ‘It was, so I decided to come and run before I started using up my nervous energy smashing plates or throwing stones at cars.’

  ‘How’s Joey?’

  I leant against the leisure centre wall and began stretching out my leg muscles. ‘As you’d expect. A dozen different emotions all bubbling together inside the brain of a half-child, half-man.’ I swapped to the other leg. ‘Insists he’s coming to training though.’

  Nathan nodded. ‘I can see why. It’s as good as running to get rid of some of that nervous energy, shut down the manic thoughts for a while.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  Nathan twisted round in the shadows and bent his head closer to mine so that the other Larks couldn’t hear him softly say, ‘And by the way, I forgive you for standing me up last night. It had only taken about an hour to find a decent pair of shoes, on top of the time it took to figure out how to iron a shirt.’

  I dropped my foot from the thigh stretch I’d been doing. ‘I completely forgot!’

  Nathan smiled. ‘Like I said, I forgive you. And I also understand if you need to put the Programme on hold, given the extenuating circumstances.’

  ‘Err – hang on, buddy. I went inside the pool last night. You ironed a shirt. Screw extenuating circumstances, you owe me a sweaty, awkward, challenging evening.’

  ‘My, my,’ Bronwyn exclaimed, as she strolled past. ‘Can I come?’

  ‘It’s not what you think!’ I called after her, following a frozen moment of horrified silence.

  ‘Oh, Amy, you have no idea what I’m thinking.’ Bronwyn looked me up and down in the amber glow of the car park lighting. ‘Then again, maybe you do!’

  ‘Bronwyn, you know the policy on my relationships with club members,’ Nathan hissed.

  ‘Yes, but policies were made to be broken, isn’t that right?’ she drawled, somehow making it sound a million times more suggestive than any sentence containing the word ‘policies’ should be.

  Nathan looked about ready to combust, pulling at his hat with agitation. ‘No! I’m helping Amy with some private coaching.’

  ‘I bet you are!’

  ‘Of a perfectly respectable nature, well within the policy! And in return, she’s… helping me to overcome a few of my own…’

  ‘Policies?’ Bronwyn couldn’t help laughing, high-fiving the woman next to her at the same time.

  ‘Issues,’ Nathan choked out.

  ‘Ah, Nathan, I’ll help you with your issues,’ someone shouted from the shadows. ‘You can call on me anytime.’

  As the catcalls continued, I slunk off to one side, glancing over to see Nathan clenchi
ng his jaw, eyes on the ground, hands firmly planted on his hips.

  ‘That’s harassment in the workplace,’ Dani pronounced, as she swung past him. ‘You should give me a call sometime, I’ll sort this lot out. For a reasonable fee.’

  ‘A reasonable fee?’ Nathan shot back, eyes dancing in the darkness. ‘That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all morning. Right. Time to stop gabbing and get moving. And, Amy, I’ll see you tomorrow night after Joey’s training. Now, stretch up…’

  Inevitably, it somehow happened to be both the longest day while at the same time whizzing towards five-thirty like a speeding space-shuttle. I faffed about on a new project, made a half-hearted attempt at some cleaning, flopped on my back under the duvet, fretted, worried, agonised and stayed as far away from external doors and windows as possible.

  Of course, when Joey came home from school it only got worse. We flitted around the house like mosquitoes in a heatwave, and I don’t think I was the only one who changed my outfit more than once before we headed out.

  ‘Is it weird, seeing him?’ Joey asked as we walked towards the square.

  ‘Very,’ I replied, voice muffled from behind my scarf. ‘He’s different in some ways – obviously he looks older. But his voice and his mannerisms haven’t changed at all.’

  ‘Do you hate him?’

  ‘No.’ And I wasn’t lying, either. ‘I do feel angry, and have some painful memories about what happened. But he didn’t deliberately try to hurt me, and he’s the one who missed out.’

  ‘I can’t help trying to imagine what it would have been like if he’d not gone, and I’d grown up with a mum and dad around. Is that okay?’

  I took a few strides before answering. ‘Yes, of course it’s okay. But we wouldn’t have stayed together even if he hadn’t gone to America.’

  ‘He’d still have been around to do stuff with me. Take me on holiday and things.’

  Come on now, woman. Don’t start crying before you’ve even got there.

  We waited for a car to pass before crossing the road onto the square.

  ‘But there’s no point wondering what might have happened, is there? Because it didn’t, and we can’t change it. And if he’s the kind of dad who left before I was born, it might not have been that great having him around anyway. At least now I’m old enough to figure out for myself if he’s worth bothering with or not.’

  Oh, Joey.

  I hoped so.

  Sean was waiting at a corner table. He jumped up when he saw us come in, brushing his hands against a black pair of jeans.

  Joey walked right up and held out his hand.

  ‘I’m Joey. It’s good to meet you.’

  Sean reached out and tentatively shook it, unable to take his eyes off Joey’s face. ‘It’s great to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’ve looked forward to this for a long time.’

  Joey nodded, pulling out a chair and sitting down. I joined him facing Sean, although it was already clear that my role in this meeting would be that of silent partner.

  The next hour passed in a blur. I gripped my coffee mug, made sure my lungs re-inflated every few seconds and focused on the sturdiness of the oak table in front of me. Joey had that confidence in talking to adults common in only children and, after a hesitant start, was soon making conversation with Sean about school, his various sports clubs, what computer games he played, films he liked. He also quizzed Sean about his life in Colorado, and I managed to absorb enough to learn that he had been engaged in his late twenties, had no children and lived in what sounded like an excessively large ranch-type house for one person.

  And then came the question we’d all been waiting for:

  ‘Why did you want to meet me?’

  Sean swallowed. He must have been prepared for this, but I enjoyed watching him squirm all the same. A bit different looking your own child in the face and answering that than it must have been practising it in the mirror.

  ‘I… You’re my son. I’m only sorry we didn’t meet earlier.’

  ‘So, why didn’t we?’

  Sean sighed. ‘Because I was an idiot. And a coward. For a long time, I didn’t know how to even start, we live so far apart.’

  ‘Although you didn’t know where I lived. I could have been anywhere.’

  A short pause. ‘I guess I assumed you were in the UK.’

  ‘How did you know we even had somewhere to live?’ Oh boy. I held my breath, waiting to see how this turned out.

  ‘I knew your grandparents would take care of you both.’

  ‘Mum’s parents wanted about as much to do with me as you did,’ Joey replied, while I tried to unclog the broken shards of heart from my windpipe by sheer force of will. ‘They’ve never even met me.’

  All the colour drained from Sean’s face. Even his lips were white. ‘What?’ He looked at me, aghast.

  ‘You knew they’d sued me and then published a book about it. Why on earth did you think they’d want to take on my baby?’

  ‘But how could they leave you to fend for yourself? Their own child?’ he stuttered.

  ‘Bloody hell, Sean!’ Oh dear, this conversation appeared to have caused my swear-translator to malfunction.

  ‘What, like you did, you mean?’ Joey said.

  Sean dropped his forehead into his clenched fists, barely managing to stop his jaw from scraping the table. We sat there, Joey and I, and calmly waited for him to pull himself together.

  Eventually, after much face rubbing and slow head shaking, Sean rose from the depths of the table. ‘I’m so sorry. I just never thought.’

  ‘Well, no, that would have presented you with a quite inconvenient truth, wouldn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘What did you do?’ he asked, voice hoarse.

  ‘We coped,’ I snapped back, suddenly exhausted with the whole conversation. Part of me wanted Sean to grasp quite how tough it had been, being hurled across the chasm from Sports Personality of the Year nominee to homeless, jobless, single teenage mother in such a short space of time. The other part – a mix of pride and wanting to protect Joey – wanted to stick my chin up and pretend I’d managed perfectly fine, thank you very much, and here is the amazing proof, sitting right next to me.

  And it was for Joey’s sake that I summoned up enough strength to bite back the thirteen years of angry accusations jostling to be heard, squished my outrage down beneath my clenched intestines and took a slow, deep breath.

  ‘So, where are you staying? Have you managed to see much of Nottinghamshire while you’ve been here?’ I asked, valiantly omitting ‘or have you been too busy stalking us?’

  Sean blinked a couple of times.

  I picked up my slice of lime and courgette cake, waving it breezily. ‘If you can get out into Sherwood Forest this time of year, I’ve heard the trees are spectacular.’

  It took another minute or two of blatant changing the subject before Sean got the hint that I was moving things along from grotesquely painful to bearably bland. He tried to chat with Joey for a few more minutes, but the mood had shifted from nervously expectant to strange and tense.

  ‘I think it’s time we made a move,’ I interjected after an awkward anecdote about Sean’s brother (Joey’s uncle!). Joey sprang from his seat before I’d completed the sentence.

  ‘Right, well. It was wonderful to meet you.’ Sean stood, too. He was the exact same height as Joey. ‘I really appreciate it. And I hope we can do it again soon.’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ I said, snapping on my woolly gloves as if my insides weren’t a crumbling pile of wreckage. ‘Joey’s very busy with school and swimming at the moment. As you’re aware.’

  ‘I wish I could tell you how sorry I am,’ Sean blurted, just as we began to leave.

  Joey turned around, and the brief flash of anguish and confusion was a perfect mirror of the face behind us.

  ‘I wish I could make it up to you. Prove I’m not that selfish, immature jerk any more. I know I have a huge amount of work to do before I can earn your trust, let alon
e your respect or affection. But I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever you need. I hate that I wasn’t there for you. But I’m here now. Please give me a chance.’

  Bleuch! ‘That’s enough, Sean. I said I’ll let you know.’ Fully immune to his charms, I placed my hand on Joey’s elbow and steered him out of the café. But I knew it was too late. Desperate for a dad worth knowing – worth forgiving – with the simple faith of a child, Joey decided to give Sean a chance.

  And I couldn’t blame him. I knew I mustn’t try to change his mind, that I shouldn’t allow my feelings on the matter to influence how I handled Joey’s. But, ooh, how I wished that smooth-talking, drops-in-now-it’s-convenient, not-even-a-part-time-dad had never come here. I couldn’t wait for him to go back.

  35

  Stop Being a Loser Programme

  Day Seventy-Nine

  I had been invaded. Again. Only worse. It was nine-thirty on Saturday morning, Joey had headed off for an early football match, and I’d planned a lazy morning to combat the stress of the day before. However, somehow my house had become the headquarters for the Amelia Piper Swimming Centre PoolPal campaign. Maybe I should have known that sending Mel the link to the JustGiving page I’d set up would result in half the Larks plus associated children and elderly mother turning up on my doorstep, but I was still getting used to this whole friends thing.

  An hour after Mel and Dani’s arrival, I was still pretending that the ratty, oversized leggings and long-sleeved T-shirt I’d worn were my outfit for the day, not that of the night before. Mel’s two older boys, Jordan and Riley, were at home in bed. Taylor was spending the weekend with her dad, so Tiff and Tate were now in my living room watching one of Joey’s old Disney DVDs while Mel chose a good publicity photo of Tate. Marjory and Bronwyn were sat at my desk, designing a logo, and Dani was trying to put together a couple of paragraphs to pass on to the press that managed to tug on heartstrings without pulling so hard they made people cringe. Bronwyn’s mother, Gwen, was assembling mince pies at my kitchen table.