Minus Me

by Ingelin Rossland

  ‘You should give Oscar some serious thought,’ Maria says, looking back over her shoulder. ‘You don’t want to end up like my big sister, do you?’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’

  ‘Sixteen and never been kissed!’

  Chapter 6

  Markus and Oscar come down from the stands. As usual, Oscar walks a couple of steps behind Markus, wearing slightly baggier trousers and shuffling his feet more than his friend. Maria goes to meet the boys. She also walks a little ahead, with her towel still draped over her shoulders like a cape, more for effect than to actually cover herself. Markus takes Maria’s hand. Linda sees him squeeze it, and then sees Maria squeeze his. Then he kisses Maria on the cheek, and she giggles, pushing him away as if she’s shocked. But it’s clear that she likes it, so much so that she kisses him back. Maria kisses the best-looking boy in school. And just behind him stands (according to Maria, at least), the second best-looking boy. The boy who has written a perfumed love letter to Linda. The boy who probably wishes he had a fringe covering his face right now, but who has hair that sticks right up, giving him nowhere to hide. Linda hasn’t got anywhere to hide, either, however hard she tries to stand behind Maria or stare at the floor tiles.

  ‘That was a great dive,’ says Oscar.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Linda. ‘And thanks for the letter.’

  ‘Letter’ is the magic word that tears Maria and Markus from each other. They turn to Linda and Oscar excitedly. Oscar looks down and shoves his hands in his pockets. If they’d been outside he’d have kicked at the gravel with his shoe, but there are only smooth tiles. Maria gives her a gentle nudge. Linda looks up at him.

  ‘Okay. I’ll be your girlfriend.’

  ‘You will?’

  The sunlight hits Oscar’s face. Perhaps red hair isn’t that bad after all, thinks Linda. Oscar takes a step towards her and she instantly feels her mouth go dry. Surely he’s not going to kiss her? But no, he’s not; he just pats her arm. Her arm is completely white, but still browner than his, even though he’s covered in freckles. His hands are freckled too.

  ‘Congratulations!’ says Markus.

  ‘Yes, congratulations, both of you!’ says Maria. ‘How about the four of us go and see a film together tonight?’

  ‘The boys get to pick the film!’ says Markus.

  ‘I don’t think so! Linda’s in first place on the scoreboard and I’m in second. So it’s girls’ night tonight. Isn’t that right, Linda?’

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ says Linda, less than thrilled at having a new boyfriend and a double date.

  ‘Well, Oscar?’ says Maria.

  ‘Sounds fair to me,’ Oscar replies.

  ‘Oh my God, Oscar!’ protests Markus. ‘Ten seconds with a woman and you’re already a doormat.’

  ‘We ought to go,’ says Linda, dragging Maria off.

  She can’t stand Oscar mauling her arm any more. It makes her feel totally naked. She doesn’t even glance back at him, as they head off to join their team mates.

  ‘Everything alright, Miss Larsen?’ asks the coach as they return. Linda nods and sits down on the bench.

  ‘Good. I hope you didn’t spend your entire break talking to boys, girls. Mental preparation and focus are half the dive. More, actually.’

  Maria pulls a face.

  ‘I saw that, Yustino.’

  Maria flashes him a sweet smile, then throws off her towel in preparation for her next dive. Linda stays behind on the bench. She looks over to where the boys are sitting, but instantly regrets it when she sees Oscar staring over at her and waving enthusiastically. Linda gives a tiny wave back, and then puts both hands very firmly in her lap.

  She turns to look at Maria on the diving board. But again her mind drifts off. She is transported to a summer’s day down on the south coast. She and Axel are lying on their backs in the grass, gazing up at the sky with pieces of straw in their mouths. She can feel the thin straw tickling her cheek. She scratches. Axel is propped up on his elbows. He smiles and Linda can see his slightly wonky tooth.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ says Axel.

  The moment is shattered by the voice of girl.

  ‘Why didn’t you wait for me?’

  It’s Mia, desperately out of breath. Mia in the stupid pink dress that barely covers her summer-brown skin, with hair so blonde it’s practically white, and the sun glinting on dental braces in her stupid gawping mouth.

  Linda shuts her eyes and shakes her head, trying to wipe the image of Mia from her retina. She opens her eyes again, and tries to bring her focus back onto Maria’s dive. Maria is flying through the air, and after a perfect somersault she breaks the surface of the water like a silent missile, before surfacing immediately at the edge of the pool. She smiles. A smile that gets even broader when she sees the results board.

  ‘Bravo, Yustino! If you keep this up on the last two dives, you’ll have it in the bag!’ shouts the coach, clapping his hands. ‘That’s if Miss Larsen doesn’t beat you with her next dive,’ he adds in a quiet voice, looking over at Linda.

  Linda tries to smile back, but can’t bring herself to. She feels sure the coach has already lost faith in her. It’s written all over his face that he thinks Linda’s super-dive was a fluke, and if she’s honest, she feels the same. Who is she kidding? Does she really think she’s going to win a medal or something?

  Chapter 7

  Linda’s foot slips on the first step, but she regains her balance. She sees Maria has an anxious look on her face, so she smiles at her and waves. Then she looks over at her parents, who are smiling and waving enthusiastically at her, and then further towards Oscar who gives her two thumbs-up. He’s my boyfriend now, she thinks. It’s so strange. Even stranger if Maria’s right about her being in love with that idiot Axel. If that’s true, then being Oscar’s girlfriend is all wrong. It’s lucky there’ll be so many tomorrows, so she can untangle this mess. Maybe she should break it off with Oscar tonight? But what should she say? Sorry, Oscar, I’ve changed my mind? Just the thought of it makes her stomach churn.

  She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. When she opens them again she sees the coach sitting down there on the bench. He has told them to think about their dives and not about boys. He looks up at her, and Linda looks out at the stands, even though she knows it will make her even more nervous. The seat where the boy was sitting before is empty. It’s hardly surprising since she saw him leave. But she continues to scan the crowd until she finally spots him. He’s sitting further away this time, on the bottom row. He is blowing into his hands as if he is cold. His gaze is fixed on her. Linda feels goosebumps rising on her arms. The boy nods at her again, but this time her heart refuses to steady. Instead it feels as though it were stuttering. As though it were coughing and spluttering like a worn-out car engine.

  Linda hesitates, feels the diving board beneath her feet. She’s reluctant to cast herself out into this precisely planned dive. The boy nods at her. But the soles of her feet are glued to the board. He nods again. Hesitantly she lifts one foot. Then she jumps, even though her heart is stuttering so unevenly. Dunk, de-de-dunk, dunk, de, dunk. As Linda enters the surface of the water, her heart stops stuttering. There’s complete silence. Linda is under the water. Everything is utterly silent. And she is sinking. Sinking to the bottom of the pool. Then suddenly her body pops to the surface like a cork, with her back turned upwards, and the rest of her body drooping down into the water. She looks like a four-legged creature with a bowed head.

  And above her limp body, the silence is filled with loud screams.

  ‘Call an ambulance! For God’s sake, call an ambulance!’ cries the coach, before leaping into the pool. He grabs Linda, turns her over, and lifts her face above the water. Holding her head, he swims on his back towards the edge and then pulls her out onto the cold tiles. Quickly and decisively, he is following all the procedures they were taught in their lifesaving classes.

  Linda is lying flat on her back at the edge of the pool. But a part of her
has stepped out of her body, and is floating up so she can see what’s happening. She looks down at the pale body in the red swimsuit, and watches the coach bend over her. In slow motion, Linda watches the droplets fall from the coach’s wet hair onto her chest, as he tries to pump her heart into action. He leans over her mouth, breathes into her, watches her ribcage rise, breathes into her again, and again watches her ribcage. Then he places his hands on her chest again, and pumps hard. Linda remembers how she’d always thought it looked really brutal when this was demonstrated on the first-aid doll, but she can feel nothing now. And the sounds have melted away too. Or have they just been swapped for another sound? A soft droning sound. Or a gentle humming. She’s never heard anything like it before. But it’s a good sound, a safe sound. And strangely enough she doesn’t feel afraid.

  Linda sees her parents rush over. Her mother’s lips are moving, but there’s no sound coming out. Or perhaps Linda just can’t hear what she’s saying? Her mother falls to her knees and takes hold of one of Linda’s limp hands. Meanwhile, her father kneels down behind her mother, and holds her shoulders so tight his knuckles turn white. Her mother’s lips move again, but this time Linda knows she must have said something, because her father clearly replies, as he crouches there, stroking her with both hands.

  Then something happens. With his winter coat flapping behind him like a cape, he comes striding along the edge of the pool; the boy with eyes like a husky dog. He stops at Linda’s feet and lifts his gaze upwards. Up to the Linda who is floating above the drama that is unfolding down at the poolside. Is she visible, then? Linda stretches her hand out in front of her. Yes, she can see her hand, just as clearly as the body that’s lying below her. Wow! She wants to wave and to shout out that she’s here, tell them that they can all relax. Then she catches sight of the body below her again, and notices that the lips have started to turn blue. What’s happening? Is she dying? That’s not possible! She can’t just die like this, without a fight! Linda thrashes about with her arms, trying to descend to her body. The boy, who up until now has just been standing there watching her, suddenly nods and kneels down beside her body. The coach has turned away with his face hidden in his hands. Linda struggles to come down; it’s as though she’s too light. Then she sees the boy’s fist come crashing down into her chest. In a violent swirl, like water when you pull out the plug, she comes down towards her body at the pool’s edge. Thank you, God, she thinks, before she is suddenly blinded by a bright light like the flash of a camera.

  Chapter 8

  The wheelchair rolls down the corridor, its wheels going round and round, eating up the floor. Linda is freezing cold, but can’t be bothered to ask for the blanket that her father is carrying with her mother’s handbag. Her mother is pushing the chair, the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor. Linda’s heart stutters in her chest; it doesn’t beat properly, it just stutters.

  A fourth tube is filled with blood, and the nurse asks Linda if she is okay. Linda can’t be bothered to answer; it seems such a stupid question. Her mother is holding her hand, squeezing it too hard and smiling too much. Her father is standing over by the door. His hair looks like limp grass. The nurse attaches a fifth tube to the syringe, and places tube number four into something that reminds Linda of a see-saw. The blood sloshes back and forth in the tubes. Linda thinks the room has a metallic smell.

  ‘Just one more now, and it’s over,’ the nurse tells her, holding tube number six at the ready.

  ‘My little superhero,’ says Linda’s mother, tears welling up in her eyes. But despite her tears she keeps on smiling at Linda. That ever-hopeful, encouraging smile. That ‘everything will be alright’ smile. Her father tries to smile too, but he’s not as well-practised at faking it.

  And then the wheels go round and round again, and her heart stutters and splutters, and they’re off to another room. The corridor smells as you’d expect a hospital corridor to smell; a mixture of soap, plastic and pee. Linda is too tired to feel frightened, too absorbed in feeling her heart. She can barely take in anything that happens in this last room. But she sees the doctor holding up a picture of a heart. He tells them that it’s her heart, and points at it with his ballpoint pen.

  ‘Can her heart get better on its own?’ asks her mum, looking at the vague grey shadows on the X-ray, which apparently represent her heart.

  ‘I’m afraid all we can hope is that a suitable donor comes up in time.’

  Linda looks over at her mother.

  ‘That someone gives you their heart, Linda, darling.’

  ‘But surely people need their hearts themselves,’ Linda says sadly.

  The doctor doesn’t reply. He just puts the X-ray into a brown envelope.

  ‘Sometimes there’s a traffic accident or something, which means that somebody dies and can donate their heart to someone else,’ her mother explains.

  ‘So I have to hope somebody else has an accident? Is that it?’

  ‘I have to be honest; even if we find a suitable donor in time, the chances are minimal,’ says the doctor, looking away.

  ‘Am I going to die?’ asks Linda, shocked at the calmness of his voice.

  ‘You have a rare heart condition. Actually it’s a miracle that you survived this episode. It was lucky there were so many people at the swimming pool when it happened, so you were brought back to life,’ says the doctor, fidgeting with the envelope.

  Linda feels laughter building up inside her. She remembers the newspaper article about the girl who died after her first kiss. And now this has happened to her. The difference being that she was brought back to life. Plus, that she’s never been kissed.

  ‘What is it?’ asks her mother.

  Linda suddenly realizes she’s laughing out loud, and that she’s not managed to hold back.

  The doctor puts the envelope in Linda’s lap.

  ‘Is there absolutely nothing you can do?’

  ‘There’s not a lot I can recommend, apart from taking it completely easy. Linda mustn’t do anything to exert herself. No more sports, and that includes diving.’

  ‘And if I don’t take it easy?’ says Linda, not quite sure how she’s finding the energy to challenge him.

  ‘Well, that could result in fatality,’ he answers.

  ‘Result in fatality?’ asks Linda, unable to hide her irritation at the doctor’s pompous language.

  ‘Well, we . . . er . . . we don’t know what your heart can withstand,’ the doctor says hesitantly.

  ‘So I’m going to die anyway?’

  The doctor clicks his ballpoint pen before returning it to the breast pocket of his white coat.

  ‘You’ve cheated death once, so there’s absolutely no reason to give up hope,’ says the doctor, walking towards the door. ‘Thank you for coming, Linda. I look forward to seeing you again.’

  And suddenly they’re back on the ward. Linda is lying in bed, pretending to be asleep. She doesn’t want to look at her mother, who is standing by the window with that over-optimistic smile on her face. Nor can she bear to look at her father, who is incapable of disguising his fear. His hands are constantly moving, as though they want to grab hold of something. But there is nothing to grab hold of now; they have been given absolutely no hope. Just a mangled heart in a brown envelope.

  ‘Look! Do you see that black cat?’ says Linda’s mother.

  ‘Where?’ says her father.

  ‘There. Isn’t it the same one that we saw back at home?’

  ‘Oh, Ellen, the town’s full of black cats.’

  ‘But it can’t be a coincidence.’

  ‘I’d say that’s exactly what it is,’ he answers. ‘A coincidence.’

  Chapter 9

  With plaits dangling from under a woolly hat like two bits of rope, the girl runs towards the crossing. She shouts something and waves to some girls on the other side of the street. The girls turn and wave back. She runs out into the road without looking. There’s a screeching of brakes. The body of the girl
lies crushed on the asphalt.

  ‘Wakey-wakey, Linda. It’s your turn.’ Maria shakes her gently by the arm.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ says Linda, screwing up her eyes and shaking her head to chase away the awful daydreams that keep coming back. Children she imagines mown down by buses, trailers, trains or charging bulls. All the dead children who are her only hope, she thinks, with a metallic taste in her mouth.

  She opens her eyes, throws the dice and moves one of her Ludo counters.

  ‘What were you thinking about just now?’ Maria asks.

  Linda refuses to answer, but hands the dice to Maria.

  Maria throws and moves a counter.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ Linda asks.

  Angrily she grabs Maria’s counter and moves it back to where it was, then takes another of Maria’s counters and moves it so it knocks three of her own off the board.

  ‘What’s happening?’ says Maria.

  ‘Can’t you see?’ says Linda. ‘You’re winning and I’m losing.’

  ‘I meant with you?’

  ‘Please, can’t we just play this game?’

  ‘You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. I don’t want you to die. You’re not allowed to die.’

  Linda wishes Maria wouldn’t keep whinging on; it’s like a rodent gnawing at her stomach. As if whining will help. It just makes things worse. It makes her feel like it’s her fault she’s lying in a hospital bed. It makes her feel that she should have done something differently. But things are as they are. Linda wants to scream and chuck the dice and all the counters into Maria’s face. But she doesn’t. She picks up the dice calmly and passes them to Maria, who weighs them in her hand, then suddenly puts them down and gets up from her chair.

  ‘Now what’s the matter?’ says Linda, sighing.

  ‘I just need the toilet,’ says Maria, unable to hide the tears in her voice. ‘Anyway, it’s your go.’