by T. S. Easton
‘How’s Magnet?’ I asked.
‘Oh, who knows? He’s at the Project,’ she said frostily. ‘No phones allowed. So I texted Pip earlier, and he’s not going to Battle tomorrow. Says he’s got something on, but I think he’s worried Garnet will rope him into another Battle rehearsal.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘About that …’
‘Just you and me then,’ she said. ‘Just the gals, keeping it real in a wimple.’
‘I’m not going to Battle either, tomorrow,’ I said. ‘I’m going to boxing.’
‘Oh,’ she said, not looking at me. ‘OK.’
‘Pip’s coming to boxing too,’ I went on, wincing.
‘I see,’ she said.
There was a long period of silence, eventually broken by Blossom who said, ‘Why are you going to boxing?’
I shrugged. ‘Because I want to get fit?’
‘Why?’
‘I’ve decided to become a polar explorer. My training starts here.’
‘But I feel left out now,’ she said. ‘Saturday mornings are when we all go to Battle; now you and Pip want to do something else.’
‘You could come too?’ I suggested.
‘NO WAY!’ she cried.
‘Why not?’ I replied.
‘How many times …? Look, it’s violent, it’s misogynistic. It rewards aggression and strength instead of reason and equality.’
‘Cool boots though,’ I countered. ‘And at least this disproves your theory that they won’t let girls join.’
‘Only thanks to my intervention,’ she pointed out.
‘Well, you can’t have it both ways, Blossom,’ I said, pressing play on the remote to end the argument. ‘You can’t enable girls to do something then tut because you don’t like what they choose to do.’
Eye of the Kitten
I wasn’t convinced by Pip’s outfit. He was wearing very long silk shorts which he said were genuine boxing shorts from the 1920s that he’d bought at Vintage Vicky’s, his favourite shop. He’d come to pick me up on Saturday morning and was standing in the garden while Mum twitched the curtains.
‘And are they definitely men’s boxing shorts?’ I asked.
‘They must be. Women didn’t box in those days,’ he said. ‘Women don’t really box now.’
‘Women do box,’ I said. ‘And I only ask about the shorts because they look a bit like bloomers.’
‘They’re not bloomers,’ he assured me. He wore a singlet and black boots to complete the look. Though what the look was I really couldn’t say. I wore trainers, leggings and a Lycra T-shirt Mum had lent me when she thought I was going to Pilates. It felt a bit baggy in the front. Pip drove us into town. I still wasn’t entirely sure why Pip had signed up for boxing. It can’t have just been the biscuits. But Pip was prone to doing odd things. It was entirely possible he’d just been looking for an excuse to buy the bloomers from Vintage Vicky’s. Twenty minutes later Pip and I stood in the Memorial Hall, looking around and waiting for the session to begin.
‘That boy has an electronic tag,’ Pip whispered.
‘Shush, stop staring,’ I said.
‘I’m a bit nervous,’ Pip said.
‘Me too,’ I replied. There were a lot of people there. And when I say people I mean boys. Apart from Sharon, I was the only girl in the room and I was starting to feel uncomfortable. They mostly seemed to be in their early twenties, with short, no-nonsense hairstyles and grey or black sports clothes. No one would meet my eye.
‘Do you think they’ll try and hit us?’ Pip asked, swallowing nervously.
‘It is a boxing club,’ I replied. ‘So there’s a chance.’
At that point Ricky came over to greet us. He looked us up and down. I imagined his heart sinking like a stone as he saw the state of his new recruits. A tiny girl with arms like audio cable and a ginger giraffe-boy wearing a pair of frilly knickers. We told him our names.
‘I never forget anyone’s names,’ he said, clearly trying to be positive. ‘Can’t remember my wife’s birthday, but I never forget a name.’ He looked me in the eye as he shook my hand.
‘You ever boxed before?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘You here to learn to box? Or just for conditioning?’
I shrugged. ‘Conditioning, to start. Then who knows?’
‘Hmm.’ He nodded quickly and turned away. I’d half expected him to burst out laughing, but if he thought my ambitions amusing he managed to keep it to himself. ‘What about you?’ he asked Pip.
‘Err, same?’ Pip said. Ricky pressed his lips together and nodded again before walking back to his position near the stage. I thought I heard him sigh. He picked up an iPod attached to a stereo and hit play. Awful old man’s music came out of the speakers and Pip and I looked at each other, trying not to laugh.
We began with some warm-ups. Jogging on the spot, swinging our hips back and forth, simple stuff. Simple, that is, for anyone with control of their limbs, but almost impossible for poor Pip. All he had to do was jog slowly on the spot, but he looked like a newborn calf trying to moonwalk while being jabbed with a cattle-prod. I could see Joe at the side, staring in astonishment, mouth open, revealing toothless gums.
‘Now race for ten seconds,’ Ricky cried and we picked up the pace. ‘Get those knees high.’ I was already out of breath and could hear Pip panting beside me, gasping for air. ‘Now back to jogging on the spot,’ Ricky said. The change in pace proved too much for Pip who collapsed in a tangle of limbs.
After that we all had to get medicine balls and thrust them up and out from our chests as fast as we could as many times as we could in a minute. It seemed easy for the first ten seconds but then I felt the beginnings of a burning ache in my upper arms that quickly grew more and more painful. ‘Don’t look at the clock!’ Ricky growled as I did just that, seeing with dismay that only fifteen seconds had gone by.
A quick glance around showed me that everyone else in the hall was handling the exercise with ease, pumping their arms up and down like machines, hardly breaking a sweat. Somehow I got through that minute and we had a blissful fifteen seconds of rest before the next exercise.
‘Burpees!’ Ricky growled and everyone moaned.
‘Come on,’ Ricky said. ‘Train hard, fight easy.’
Burpees, it turns out, involve getting down in a position like a press-up, then quickly bending your knees to bring your feet up, then rising to your feet and jumping in the air. Sounds easy, and doing the first one was easy. It’s just like getting up off the floor. And anyone can get up off the floor once. Maybe even twice. But over and over again, leaping up into the air every time? Pip only managed one. And even that one he didn’t bother with the jump, just raised his arms in the air like a half-hearted Mexican wave. The fit young boys around me were clearly not enjoying this exercise, but they kept at it, a couple of them did twelve or more, I reckoned. I think I managed five, and some of those were feeble.
My heart was pounding and I thanked Mum for choosing a black Lycra top because I was already sweating like a pig. Pip was flat out on the floor, groaning. There was another exercise after that, lunges, then it was back on the medicine ball. Sweat poured from me, stinging my eyes.
‘This is just the warm-up, people!’ Ricky growled. ‘If you’re struggling now you’re going to hate me in a minute.’ Pip dragged himself to his feet and just about managed to lift the medicine ball, once. I felt like giving up – this was ridiculous, what was I doing here? Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tarik enter the hall. Sharon hugged him and he walked over to join us, catching my eye briefly. I must have looked pretty close to my best, with hair plastered to my forehead, face bright red and shining with sweat. Tarik, presumably recognising my inner beauty, smiled briefly before grabbing a medicine ball and joining in. I redoubled my efforts and managed to lift my own ball a couple more times before the buzzer sounded. ‘Do one more on the buzzer,’ Ricky yelled and I managed to push the ball up one last time.
After the ‘warm-ups’ it was skipping for som
e of us, while others put gloves on and split into two groups. Some were told to hit punching bags while the others joined Ricky in the ring. I’d thought I might be OK at the skipping. I hadn’t done it since, oh, let’s see, Year 4? But I was pretty good at it back then. Also I’m light and was sure I’d read somewhere that women had proportionately better lower-body strength than men. Maybe this was where I’d hold my own.
It turned out I wasn’t very good at skipping either. I could get into the rhythm OK, but it was SO HARD. Much harder than ten years ago. Who would have thought jumping up and down could be so difficult? At least I could do a few skips. Pip couldn’t do it at all. He could just about flip the rope over his head but when he’d try to jump over it he’d mistime it horribly and get the rope caught in his boots. He stumbled and fell a couple of times.
‘Try it like this,’ one of the boys said to Pip. He demonstrated a slightly different technique where he sort of hopped over the rope, using alternate feet, rather than jumping with both feet. Pip nodded and stood on one leg like a crane before whipping the rope around and whacking himself in the ankle with a sharp crack.
‘It’s easier if you move forward while you skip,’ Helpful Boy said to Pip when he’d recovered. ‘Like this.’ The boy moved slowly across the floor as he skipped, almost like he was stepping over the rope rather than jumping over it. Pip panted and raised himself again. He stepped over the limp rope, then whirled it around, letting it come to rest on the floor again before stepping over. ‘Better,’ Helpful Boy said, encouragingly. Though he was just being nice. Mercifully, it was then time to switch over and the boy told us to put on gloves.
‘The gloves will make your hands stink,’ he said as he helped me find some 10oz small gloves. ‘There’s no way around that, I’m afraid. If you decide to come back, you might want to buy wraps for your hands. They’ll protect your wrists and knuckles and stop your hands from smelling quite so bad.’
‘I’m left-handed,’ Pip said as Helpful Boy turned to assist him.
‘That doesn’t matter when it comes to gloves,’ he explained. ‘They’re all the same.’ Pip and I took position either side of a punching bag, following the lead of the boys. Our punching bag looked like it had just done twelve rounds with Mike Tyson. The stitching was frayed and whatever it was stuffed with had started to sag to the bottom, leaving it more pear-shaped than cylindrical, rather like Ian Beale might look were he to be hung from a butcher’s hook. I watched the boys around us jab at their bags with the left hand, then follow with a hard right. It looked easy enough. Maybe the worst was over.
It wasn’t. Punching is just about the most tiring thing you can do. You know in films where the hero gets into a fistfight with the baddies, and they just go on and on smacking each other in the jaw over and over again? Well, it turns out that’s not very realistic. Unless they were superhuman, they’d be exhausted after just a couple of minutes, not to mention senseless from being hit in the head repeatedly.
‘There’s a reason boxing rounds only go on for three minutes,’ Sharon said as she came to watch us. ‘And there’s a reason boxers have to be super-fit.’ Pip took a couple of swings before falling against the punching bag and clutching it like a shipwrecked sailor might hold a lilo. I tried to do a couple of jabs and a big right swing, or whatever it’s called, but I could only do it half a dozen times before I had to stop. And when I hit the bag it hardly seemed to move at all. Some of the boys were hitting it so hard that the bracket holding it in place would creak ominously. I was hitting so weakly that I couldn’t even feel the impact through the gloves. And I was tired. So tired. I looked up at the clock and groaned to see only half an hour had passed.
Pip and I kept at it as best we could, patting away gingerly while all around us young fit boys hammered fists into the bags, pummelling them with terrifying power and intensity. I watched Helpful Boy closely and saw he sort of twisted his body and rolled into the punch when he hit with his right hand. That was how you made the bag swing, it seemed. I tried the technique for myself, and while rolling in, hit the bag as hard as I could. It juddered back sharply, thumped Pip in the chest and knocked him over. He blinked at me in surprise. ‘That was a good one,’ he said.
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘It was a good one, wasn’t it?’ I tried it again. Now I could feel it in my knuckles, through the glove.
‘Drink break,’ Ricky yelled. ‘Don’t drink too much too fast. After that we’ll change over. Those who haven’t been in the ring yet, get over here.’ I gave the bag one last whack. One for the buzzer! I gulped a few mouthfuls from my water bottle, resisting the temptation to drain it. Then I swallowed nervously and walked over to the ring, Pip stumbling along behind me, panting like a dog on a treadmill. We bent down and climbed through the ropes.
Sweat Angels
‘You two first,’ Ricky said, pointing to me and Pip. ‘I need to get your stance sorted before you do anything.’ He showed us how to stand, feet at shoulder width, the left slightly forward.
‘Keep your fists by your cheeks. Keep them there at all times unless you’re punching. Punch from the face, rolling your hips a little. As soon as you’ve completed the punch, bring your gloves back to your cheeks,’ he said. ‘This is the most important rule in boxing. Always keep your guard up. If you don’t, someone will punch you hard in the face. Is that simple enough for you?’
We nodded.
‘OK,’ Ricky said to me. ‘Now hit my left pad with your left glove.’
‘You mean the opposite pad?’ I asked.
‘Yes, the opposite one. Hit it.’
I did so. He tapped me on the left side of my head with his pad.
‘What didn’t you do?’ he asked.
‘I didn’t keep my guard up,’ I said, annoyed with myself for forgetting so quickly.
‘Hit my right pad with your right glove,’ he said. I did so. He tapped the right side of my head with his pad.
‘What didn’t you do?’ he asked.
I sighed. ‘I didn’t keep my guard up.’
‘It’s a simple rule,’ he said. He proceeded to show me some basic routines, a left jab, then a right. Then a roll to the left and down as he swiped the glove over my head. One, two, roll left. One, two, roll right. All the while trying to keep my guard up and stay on my toes as instructed. There was a surprising amount to remember and I found myself getting increasingly frustrated. At one point I just took a wild swing with my right and connected hard with his right pad, then he tapped me on the side of my head again.
‘Good hit,’ he said, looking slightly surprised. ‘But you dropped your guard.’
Who would have thought boxing required so much thinking?
Tapping the gloves, as Ricky called it, was my favourite part. It was hard work, like everything else, but because there was someone else involved you were too busy to think much about the physical exertion. He was there, right in front of me, waiting for me to hit him. Or his pads at least. I couldn’t stop for a rest, I couldn’t double over and take huge, gulping breaths. I just had to keep going, one, two, duck-roll, one, two, one, two, duck-roll.
I almost enjoyed it. Almost.
Once or twice everything seemed to click, and I got my punch just right and felt the glove thud into Ricky’s pad with a satisfying smack. He’d nod on those occasions and say ‘nice’. It felt good when that happened. When we’d all had a turn on the pads it was time for a cool-down. Pip and I helped each other take off our gloves.
‘Oh my God, my hands stink like dead badgers,’ Pip said. I wrinkled my nose. The stench of stale sweat and mouldy leather hit me.
‘A lot of us have our own gloves,’ Helpful Boy said, noticing our faces. ‘They still stink, but at least it’s your own sweat.’ Warm-downs sounded a little less intense, but I hadn’t counted on the ab-work. There were press-ups and planks, then we had to lie on our backs and raise our feet just six inches off the ground and hold the pose for a minute, three times, or ‘reps’. I managed about fifteen seconds on the firs
t rep, then ten on the second and five on the third. No one was enjoying this. It was impossible not to make disturbing involuntary noises; grunts, hisses and groans.
‘Winners train, losers complain,’ Ricky cried.
Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Pip had abandoned the exercise altogether and just lay on the floor sighing like an expiring starfish. When we got up I looked down to see I’d left a wet imprint of my body on the floor. A sweat angel.
Finally, finally, finally the hour was over and Pip and I stumbled gratefully towards the door, leaving a trail of sweat. Joe intercepted us. ‘Coming back?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Pip said shortly. I don’t think he was being rude, he just didn’t have the breath to expand on his response.
‘What about you?’ Joe said. The look on his face suggested that he expected the same response. I hesitated. What I’d just done had been the hardest physical thing I’d ever done in my life. And part of me felt as though it was done now. I’d come along, I’d gone through with it, and I’d even done OK. Good hit, Ricky had said. I didn’t need to come back again. I could leave with my head held high. Mission accomplished.
‘I’m so unfit,’ I said. I looked over to see Ricky talking animatedly with one of the boys. Not even interested enough to acknowledge us. Probably assuming this was the last he’d see of Pip or me.
‘We can get you fit,’ Joe said. ‘And you’ve got good strength in your legs. You do a lot of running?’
‘Walking,’ I said. He nodded. ‘You transfer that lower body strength into your fists and you could make a boxer.’ Then he turned and walked away. Pip grabbed me by the baggy Lycra and dragged me out of the hall. We didn’t talk much in the car. Pip’s hands and arms were shaking violently and I had to keep leaning over to stabilise the steering wheel.
‘Thanks for driving,’ I said as he dropped me off. He nodded and looked up at me, face still bright red and blotchy. I hoped he wasn’t going to have a cardiac arrest. When I got in, I was shattered. Even Ian Beale looked in better shape than me. He thumped his tail against the floor to greet me then sighed and closed his eyes. I grabbed a pint glass from the kitchen, filled it from the tap, drank the whole lot down, then filled it up again and went upstairs. My mother appeared and followed me up.