‘If you help me into my chair, we can watch TV,’ Mum says.
She wants to watch TV? After everything’s that happened?
‘I missed my swim practice,’ I say.
Mum’s eyes cloud over.
‘And I can’t afford to miss training sessions. The regionals are coming up.’
Mum doesn’t say anything.
I hear the diggers rattling along The Green on their way to the Lido. I guess Mum’s lost the protest before it even started.
‘Do you even care about me?’ I ask. ‘About the things that matter to me?’
Mum tries to prop herself up in her bed but collapses again. I know I should help her but right now I don’t want to.
‘I don’t understand, Feather.’
‘I said, do you even care?’
‘Of course I care.’
Mum finally manages to prop her back up against the pillows. Her face looks grey.
‘You never ask, Mum.’
‘Ask what?’
‘How things are going. For me.’
‘You tell me how things are going.’
‘Yeah, but you never ask.’
‘I don’t understand what I’ve done wrong, Feather.’
I let out a laugh. ‘Seriously?’ I ball my hands into fists to give me the courage to keep going. ‘Proper mums ask questions.’
‘What?’
‘I train every day, Mum. And you never ask me about it. And Steph’s my coach and my friend. And Rev Cootes is my friend too.’ I gulp. ‘I hate the way you spoke to them last night.’
‘Darling…’
‘We only ever talk about you, Mum. About what you watch on TV. About what you want to eat or drink. About what you’ve seen through your stupid window.’
Mum stares at me like a stranger’s sitting on her bed rather than the daughter who’s loved her since she was born.
‘And I don’t mind. I like to talk to you about that stuff, because I love you.’
My eyes are welling up.
‘You’re saying I don’t love you?’ Mum’s voice is flat now, like it’s finally sunk in that I’m not okay with what she did last night. Or with what she’s been keeping from me.
I ignore her comment and keep going: ‘You know what, Mum? I wouldn’t even mind if you didn’t show any interest in my life outside this house, if you told me about your life outside this house.’
Mum’s eyes flicker. She takes a breath.
‘So tell me, how is your swimming going?’ Mum asks in the most unconvincing tone ever.
‘That’s not the point.’
‘You asked me to show an interest – so I’m showing an interest. How’s the swimming going?’
‘You really want to know, Mum?’
She nods.
‘It’s not going anywhere. If I don’t improve my PB massively, I’m not going to make it through the regionals. Which means I won’t even get to swim in the Lido at the nationals this summer.’ I gulp. ‘And if you’d been able to do anything about it, you would have put a stop to the nationals happening at all, wouldn’t you? You’d have made sure that the Lido stayed closed forever.’ I whip out the letter from the council and throw it onto her lap.
Mum closes her eyes.
‘You see, Mum? Every time I talk about what matters to me, you switch off.’
Mum opens her eyes. ‘I’m not switching off.’
‘If it were down to you, I wouldn’t leave the house at all. I wouldn’t swim or have friends or have a job or even go to school. I’d just sit here with you, watching TV, waiting for you to eat yourself to death.’
I notice a tear plop out of Mum’s eye. It sits on her cheek. She doesn’t wipe it away.
‘You weren’t always like this, Mum – were you?’
Another tear. And another. Suddenly, they start flowing down her cheeks. My throat seizes up. I hate having to talk to her like this but I can’t ignore what happened last night or what I’ve been finding out about her past.
‘You used to care about people, you used to help them,’ I say. ‘You used to love the village.’
She sniffs. ‘Sorry?’
‘I saw a picture of you on the Internet. And I found a photo of you at the Lido.’
Mum wipes her brow, props herself up until she’s sitting properly and looks towards the open door.
‘George…?’
‘What? You’re calling Dad now because you don’t want to talk to me?’
‘George!’ she yells out, her voice wobbly, her face wet with tears. ‘Get in here!’
‘Why don’t you tell me, Mum, why you’ve been lying to me basically since I’ve been born?’
‘George…’ Mum’s voice rings maniacally through the room.
‘Dad’s not here, Mum. It’s you and me. And you might have shut Steph up and, for all I know, you might have shut Rev Cootes up and Clay and Jake and the rest of the village too, but I’m not going to let it go. I need to know.’
Mum wipes away the tears from her cheeks and stares right at me. I recognise the look in her eyes. It’s the same one she had last night when she looked at Steph and Rev Cootes.
‘It’s none of your business, Feather.’
I keep my eyes locked on hers for a beat and then I get up, walk across the lounge, grab the door handle and leave to go to my room, slamming the door so hard the whole house shakes.
30
I run up the stairs, press a chair against my bedroom door and tear down the information wall. The Post-its and bits of string and photographs float to the floor. I sweep them all up in my arms and dump them in my bin.
I’m sick of worrying about other people. I’m going to focus on my life for a change and one thing I’m going to make sure of is that I get through to the regionals. No one’s going to stop me from swimming in the Lido for the nationals.
I lie back on my bed and stare at the ceiling. My heart thumps and blood rushes through my ears.
Shifting my head to the side, I notice the hole left from where I pulled at the wallpaper the other day.
Behind my thoughts, I hear heavy footsteps plodding up the stairs. I block them out, get onto my knees and peel away more of the wallpaper. And then I keep going, slowly and carefully at first, but then I lose patience and start tearing at the paper, yanking at it. I tear until all the sea animals are floating in front of me: starfish and seahorses and blowfish and sharks. I tear until shades of blue from the sea and the sky shine through. I tear until my fingernails are bloody and my knuckles are raw and my hands are shaking.
The footsteps are on the landing now.
I lie back on the bed and close my eyes, my hands throbbing. The fish and the waves and the sky from the wallpaper flash in front of my eyes.
‘Feather?’ Mum’s voice behind my door, her breathing heavy.
I don’t answer.
‘Feather, please…’
Under normal circumstances I’d be jumping up and down with excitement at the fact that Mum’s made it up the stairs, but right now I don’t care. I don’t care about her or Dad or Steph or Jake or Rev Cootes or Clay or anyone else.
I hear the rattle of Dad’s van pulling up outside. Houdini bleating. And a few moments later, Dad’s light footsteps on the stairs.
And then a knock on my door.
‘Feather, it’s Dad.’ A pause. ‘Please let us in, my love.’
I swing my legs off the bed, grab my swim bag and throw in my costume, my hat, my goggles and my towel. I stuff my pencil case and all the books that will fit into my school bag. Then I grab an old rucksack and pack some clothes, a few bras and knickers, a set of pyjamas. And after moving the back of the chair out from under the door handle of my bedroom door, I step out onto the landing.
Mum and Dad stand outside my door. They stare at me blankly.
‘Feather?’ Mum looks at my bags. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m going.’
‘Going where?’
I pause. ‘None of your business.’
<
br /> ‘Feather…’ Dad starts. ‘Why are you doing this?’
I shake my head and turn to face Mum. ‘I’m doing this because I need to get away from her.’
And with that I run down the stairs, my bags bashing the wall beside me, and then I lurch out through the front door.
I stop briefly at Houdini’s kennel. It takes all the willpower I have not to untie his lead and take him with me. Because, right now, Houdini feels like the only friend I’ve got. But taking him would be too complicated.
‘Sorry, buddy,’ I say. ‘Don’t take this personally but I can’t take you with me.’ I kiss the top of his head and rub his horns. ‘I’m going to need all the luck I can get.’
I pick my bags up again and run across The Green. I run past Mr Ding’s takeaway van and St Mary’s church and Bewitched and then I head down Twirl Street, past Steph and Jake’s house and to the bus stop by the motorway. If I wait at the stop on The Green, someone will come out and want to talk to me, and I can’t face that right now.
As I sit at the bus stop outside the village, I realise that I haven’t got a place in the world to go.
‘Feather?’ A voice sings out across The Green.
Mrs Zas stands there, her hands on her hips, a yellow scarf shining like a beacon from her head. Under her coat she’s wearing a Doctor Who outfit. I wish I could time-travel right now. Way, way into the future, far away from Willingdon and everyone I know.
She must have followed me to the bus stop.
In a minute she’s sitting beside me.
‘You planning to go on holiday?’ she asks, out of breath, nodding at my bags.
The bus lurches to the kerb and its doors open. I get up off the seat and hitch my bags onto my shoulders.
‘I have to get away from her…’ I say, my voice choking up.
Mrs Zas puts her hand on my arm. ‘Why don’t you stay a bit and talk, there’ll always be another bus, if you still want to go.’
I slowly put down my bags. The bus driver shakes his head and closes the doors again.
‘I ran away at your age,’ Mrs Zas says.
‘You did?’
She nods. ‘Though my reasons weren’t nearly so noble.’
I don’t think my reasons are noble.
‘I was jealous of my sister,’ she goes on. ‘I wanted my parents to notice me too.’
I watch the bus pulling away.
‘If you run away, you won’t be able to do your swimming training. And your training is what matters. You have to prepare for the regionals now, it has to be your focus.’
I wonder whether Mrs Zas gave pep talks like this to her sister. You have to train harder, to dance every day…
I look down at my swim bag. Mrs Zas is right. If I ran away to who knows where, I wouldn’t be able to keep up my training, or not in the same way anyway. I must have known that all along, otherwise I wouldn’t have packed the bag and taken it with me.
‘Why don’t you come back to the shop for a bit,’ Mrs Zas says, looking in the direction of The Green.
I don’t answer but she takes one of my bags anyway and then grabs my hand and we walk over to her Bewitched, breathing in warm spring air.
I look at the daffodils nodding along the edge of the cemetery and think about how, while the world is coming back to life after a long, cold winter, my life is shutting down.
At the shop, Mrs Zas guides me up the stairs to her flat and opens the door to a box room, which is even smaller than my bedroom back home. She points to the bed.
‘There are some fresh towels for you. I’ve put some warm milk in the Thermos.’ She points at the bedside table.
Not for the first time, I think Mrs Zas must be psychic. She must have known that something was wrong and she must have known that she’d persuade me to come back to hers.
I put my bags down and sit on the end of the bed. I like how blank the walls are and that there aren’t any decorations or bookshelves or flowery curtains. A blank canvas.
I look up at Mrs Zas. ‘How long can I stay?’
She comes over and kisses my forehead. ‘For as long as you need.’
Moving across the road isn’t exactly running away, but I don’t care: sitting in Mrs Zas’s small room feels like the only place in the world I want to be right now.
May
31
Most people hate swimming fly because it’s the hardest. But that’s what I love about it. It stretches every bit of my body. It pushes me so hard that, when I’m in the water, my arms and legs thrashing, my mind driving me to swim faster and harder – everything and everyone falls away. For those fifty metres, all that matters is the water and my body and this moment. And in this moment, the world feels like a good place again.
I’m sitting in the whipping area, waiting for the official to call my name. It’s the regional finals. Early this morning, Mrs Zas drove us to Slough, where they’re holding the competition this year.
A nasal voice buzzes behind me:
‘I’ll be so fast, it’ll be like a flash of lightning bolting through the water…’
It’s Amelia, talking to her mum, who’s also her coach. She’s speaking loud enough to make sure I hear every word. Amelia and I have been competing against each other since we were seven. If you were to count up all the races we’ve done since then and which one of us came first each time, you’d probably come out with an even number. I might even have won a few more. But this time, the odds are against me.
Amelia will have been training non-stop since she got through her county competition; whereas, I’ve been focusing all my energies on Mum and the other crap that’s been going on in the village. Plus, Amelia’s rich and she goes to a posh school with a posh pool and she has a gym at home and personal trainers who help her with her land work and dieticians who make special menus for her so that she eats right. Amelia likes to tell me these things whenever we meet at a competition; she hopes she can chip away at me so that by the time we dive into the pool, I’m a nervous, wobbly mess. Usually, I don’t let it affect me, mainly because I know that having all the posh pools and equipment and trainers in the world still doesn’t guarantee you’ll be any good. Putting in the work is what matters. That’s what Steph’s taught me. But things are different now: Amelia will have trained harder than me, and training hard was meant to be my trump card.
‘Mummy hired a coach from the Youth Olympics Squad to give me some tips,’ Amelia said, earlier on in the changing rooms.
At first, it really got to me. Next year, we’ll both be old enough to try out for the Youth Olympics Squad and, now, with her contacts, I bet she gets a place. It makes me even more determined to beat her. The clock doesn’t lie: if I swim faster than her, if I win and go through to the nationals, the Olympic coaches will have to take me seriously.
I turn up the volume on Mrs Zas’s phone so that it blocks out Amelia’s voice. Over the last two weeks, Mrs Zas has been playing me lots of pieces by a man called Tchaikovsky, who wrote ballet music that Mrs Zas’s sister danced to. Irinka’s favourite piece was the ‘Waltz of the Flowers’. They’d listen to it before Irinka’s performances and competitions. Mrs Zas said it helped to calm Irinka’s nerves and that it focused her mind and her heart. I’ve never really liked classical music but when I listen to ‘Waltz of the Flowers’, every muscle in my body both relaxes and feels alive.
And of course the waltz bit of it makes me think of Mum. The other day, Mrs Zas went over to talk to Mum, to explain that I’d be staying with her and that she’d take good care of me. Apparently, Mum didn’t respond – she didn’t even look away from the TV screen.
I take off my headphones just in time to hear the official’s voice: ‘Feather Tucker to lane one.’
‘Time to go, Miss Feather,’ Mrs Zas says.
I slap my thighs to get the blood flowing and circle my arms and shoulders, imitating the fly movement I do in the water. My heart and stomach feel like they’re playing ping-pong. And I need the loo, but I’ve already bee
n three times in the last hour.
I stand up and shake out my legs. Then I close my eyes for a second, trying to get into the zone. Everything draws back: the competitors sitting around me, Mrs Zas, the officials blowing their whistles and making announcements, the supporters cheering.
‘You’re going to lose…’ A hot whisper by my ear.
My focus goes and I’m snapped back into the present.
‘Don’t listen to her,’ Mrs Zas says. Then she shoots Amelia the first mean look I’ve ever seen her give to anyone.
‘Thanks,’ I say.
Mrs Zas squeezes my hand and then she looks around the big, echoey room.
‘Feather…?’ she starts.
‘Yes?’
Then she shakes her head.
‘Never mind.’ Her eyes film over. ‘Break a leg.’
I imagine her saying that to her sister and wonder what ‘break a leg’ is in Ukrainian.
I don’t know what I would have done without Mrs Zas. These last few weeks, she’s been my mum, my coach and my best friend all rolled into one.
Mrs Zas kisses my cheek.
‘Love every moment.’ Apparently, she’d say that to her sister too. It is a pretty weird thing to say to someone about to go into a gruelling competition or performance.
You can only win if you love the process, Mrs Zas explained.
And I guess that makes sense.
Mrs Zas goes off to sit with the supporters and I walk to the blocks with the other competitors. Amelia’s in lane two, right next to me, which will make it even harder to ignore her.
I spot Allen from the Newton News, ambling towards us with his camera. He grins at us with his yellow teeth and snaps some photos. And I wish I had the time to jump off the block and ask him where the hell he gets off stealing a book from someone’s house.
I breathe and close my eyes to block him out. Focus on the race. The race is all that matters right now.
The official, dressed all in white, blows a long whistle to get everyone quiet. Then two quick whistles followed by a third longer one as a signal to the competitors to get ready.
‘Get onto your blocks…’
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