“Quiet now,” said the nurse. “We’re going to get your wrist sorted very soon. Just lie back. Wiggle your toes. Think of somewhere nice, lying on a beach or somewhere.”
Cat knew her mother would not find the idea of lying on a beach particularly relaxing. She wasn’t a beach-lying sort of person. Too sandy. Cat wanted to tell the nurse.
And what the hell was the point of wiggling your toes?
Their father turned to the doctor. “Was a car involved? Did anyone see anything?”
“Not as far as we know. A passer-by found her, probably only a few moments later. She was conscious but it sounds as though she had lost consciousness, probably very briefly. There were no witnesses, as far as we know.”
“Just need more practice, Mum,” said Angus.
“A few weeks for that wrist to heal, and you’ll be back in the saddle, no problem.”
Diana shook her head, then groaned and closed her eyes. Her family said quick goodbyes and were ushered out of the cubicle. Cat took a last look at her mother lying there, so vulnerable, pale, older.
Their father would come back again later, he said, and then tomorrow to collect her. Meanwhile, he would take Cat and Angus home.
In the car, Cat had to ask, “She will definitely be OK, won’t she? I mean she was unconscious: she might get bleeding in the brain or something, mightn’t she?”
“She’ll be fine, I promise. They’ll keep an eye out for any symptoms but they’re obviously not expecting anything.”
“Will she remember more about what happened?”
“She might. In time. But it doesn’t sound as though there was much to remember. It’ll just be one of those things. The road’s bad there; she’ll have gone over a bump or something. Anyway, the main thing is she’s going to be OK. Get one of my CDs, will you, Angus? I need Pink Floyd.”
He turned the volume up and soon the fast beat filled the car. They all retreated into their own thoughts. Shock had turned to relief and Cat felt exhausted.
She found it hard to sleep that night. Later, long after her dad had come back for the second time and had come in to say good night to her, reassuring her further that her mum would be fine, she got up from her bed and walked to the window.
She looked out into the blustery thick night. She needed air. Opening the window wide, she leaned her elbows on the sill and let the wind blow hard through her hair and into the room. A few papers flew off the table behind her, but she didn’t mind. She had a good view from here, and with so many leaves fallen she could see lights blinking in windows far and near. But she looked down at the street now, at its mustard light, its dark corners by the bins, at the familiar cars parked in their familiar places. A cat – or maybe a fox, yes, definitely a fox – slipped along the top of the wall.
A cyclist spun past, seeming to slow a little as he came level with their house. And then the man was gone. For it was a man, she was sure, in a bulky coat, collar up, no helmet.
He should wear a helmet, she thought. Think what would have happened to her mum if she had not. That horrible crushed dent in the plastic. It didn’t bear thinking about.
Cat shivered, closed the window, and went back to bed.
CHAPTER 28
SWIMMING
“WHAT are you doing, Catriona?” Her dad shuffled into the kitchen in slippers, his greying hair tousled and his eyes dark and drawn.
“What?”
“Why are you in sports kit?”
“It’s Saturday.” Cat was in the kitchen the morning after the accident, eating breakfast and chucking oats for Polly to catch.
“You don’t have to go, you know. Not today. You must be tired after last night.”
Typical. You say you don’t want to do something and they say you’ve got to. You say you’re going to do it and they say you don’t need to. But she wanted to. She had to. She felt guilty. It was stupid, she knew that – her mum had said the accident was nothing to do with the brakes. But Cat knew that she should have remembered to tell her. She should have cared more. What if…?
“It’s a swimming competition, Dad.”
“God, I’d forgotten. But I can’t take you. I have to go to the hospital. I’m so sorry…”
“It’s OK – I can get the bus.”
“Are you sure? I feel really bad I can’t come and watch, but…” and the word hung in the air, his face tired, creased.
“I’m sure.”
Later, on the bus, she got a text from Bethan. “Can we come 2 watch?” Her heart leapt. So they weren’t going to the cinema or whatever: they were coming to see her.
“yes if not 2 boring!”
“c u l8r good luck!”
Cat could not risk losing friends like Bethan and Ailsa: friends who understood her and knew what she’d be thinking. Friends were more important than dreams of future glory.
She got off the bus and jogged the last short distance to the Commonwealth pool. She could see the other teams arriving, piling off the buses, their coaches clucking around them. She recognized club colours from previous competitions, and some individual faces. Rivals.
A familiar stomach-churn of nervousness. The adrenalin was beginning, making her legs spring, her whole body feel light. She had to do well. She could pretend she was doing this for her mother or for guilt, but in fact she was doing it for herself.
She was trapped by the need to do it. The need not to fail.
She would cut back on the effort … but later. She couldn’t deliberately lose a race. If she was selected for anything further, like the national squad, she could always say no. Postpone till the next year. Something would turn up. But lose deliberately? Simply not an option. She didn’t know how she could ever have thought she might.
Cat joined her team and even seeing them was part of it. She might not like them but it was her team – and she was the star of it. Her swimming coach, a small sturdy man called Jim, was talking to the judges. Mr Turner came over to Cat, grinning and looking important.
“Ready to win today, Catriona? Ready to put everything into it? Sleep well? Eat well?” Mr T. might not be her swimming coach but she was his club star and he was in charge of her biathlon training. And he was senior to Jim.
She didn’t tell Mr T. or anyone that last night her mum could have died. The head injury could have been so much worse. When she thought of it she felt cold, sick, so she didn’t want to think about it. Let alone have to tell the story.
After changing into her costume, Cat didn’t see her friends while she was warming up and receiving all the last-minute instructions from both Jim and Mr Turner. The spectators’ area was slowly filling up, with parents and supporters, the odd journalist, all the hangers-on. Normally her own parents would be there. It was fine that they weren’t. They would have to get used to not watching her in competitions.
Officials were everywhere, as always. She called them robots. They never smiled, but spent their lives watching whether a swimmer’s fingers touched the right bit of the pool; how many strokes were swum before surfacing after a turn; whose toes were not quite in line at the start: tiny details that were the whole meaning of their little lives.
Cat won her first heats easily. Butterfly and freestyle at her usual lengths. She won the 100m and 200m individual medleys. And her butterfly final. By a mile. She heard Bethan’s voice shrieking above the others in the clapping that followed that race. Glowing, she went back to the bench, floating, and was wrapped up in the towel that Mr T. held out to her with a satisfied smile and a few words of praise. It was easy to feel nothing else mattered. But it did. Her mum was alive. The faulty brakes had not caused the accident. She was part of the way to paying for her forgetfulness. If she could win her 400m freestyle too…
As soon as she had a chance, she scanned the spectators to find her friends. Waved at them. They waved wildly back. Ailsa, Bethan, Josh and Marcus – all of them were there. Emily and Rebecca too. They held up a banner. GO CAT GO!!! She grinned and they did a thumbs-up sign back.
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There was a long time to wait till her freestyle final. She kept warm, occasionally doing stretches, watching the other races, cheering when appropriate, listening to Jim and Mr T. with half an ear, eating and drinking what she was told, feeling looked after. Focused.
Cat was about to turn back to watch a race and cheer her team, when her eye caught a familiar figure in the crowd. Or not so much the figure but the coat. It was the man again. Looking at her? Maybe not. Could be looking at anyone. He could even be one of the talent spotters.
It was time for her final. She knew what she had to do. And the knot in her stomach as she went towards the pool edge was very familiar. There was a slight nausea. A tingling in her fingers, cold sweat under her arms. The feeling that everyone was watching her. She shivered, shaking her arms and wrists to keep them loose.
Lights glinted, reflecting on windows and water. Flashbulbs. “Go, Cat, Go!” she heard. Cat shielded her eyes as she looked towards the spectators again. She couldn’t see the man, but there were a lot of people there. He would be somewhere, watching. She had to do well. No, she had to win. She took a deep breath, and clenched her teeth and silently thought the words, Do it, do it, do it. Only the best is enough.
She balanced, poised on the edge, toes gripping, ready to crouch and push as far as she could. The whistle blew and she dived, slicing perfectly into the water. She forced everything from her mind except her strategy, drummed into her over the weeks of training.
Distantly through the surging water and her own breathing, she heard the shouting from the spectators, thought she heard Bethan and the others but put them from her mind. She focused on her body, drawing on all her strength, imagined each muscle working perfectly. Visualized winning, control, strength, as though by thinking it she could conjure victory.
Here came the edge of the pool, time to turn; she tucked her chin in, flipped her body and kicked off strongly from the wall. Speared through the water, surfacing, never losing her rhythm. And rhythm was important – damaging it would lose her valuable fractions of a second. Another turn. And another. She knew she was swimming well, with no loss of power. Energy surged through her. After another flip and twist, she was more than halfway through the race. Three lengths to go.
Soon it would be time to increase speed. But not too soon, not too soon.
Another turn, less perfect than the first. She could see she was up with the front swimmers, possibly in the lead but she couldn’t be sure. Increase the speed … now!
The spectators were a blur, spattered with flecks of colour, sudden reds, flashes of light, waves of movement. She must ignore them, keep them blurred. They had nothing to do with her. She powered on, twisting her body through the water.
But as she turned one last time, she saw him. The man, standing near the judges, away from the other spectators. Watching intently. Notebook in hand. Watching her? She knew he was. Simply knew it.
Her heart raced. Every gram of strength now, everything went into her surge for the far end of the pool. She knew there were other swimmers alongside her – at least two level or almost level with her. She could see the churning water, see the spattered goggles of the one on her left each time she turned her face to breathe, see the muscles of shoulders, the gaping mouth. Focused on every bit of herself: fingers tight together, toes working, each muscle squeezing the tiniest extra bit of speed and strength. She felt good, strong. Her body might be tired but her strength of will would keep it going until the very last moment. Her heart sang as she surged towards the end.
Stretch the fingers – both hands – touch! She grabbed the side of the pool, supported herself gasping, exhausted, looking round. Three other swimmers had finished at almost the same time. She shook hands with the ones on each side. She must have won! She felt it. Looked towards her coach. He was looking at the board. Had she won?
Cat knew from the movement of his body. Then she too saw the screen. Every pleasure drained from her. She couldn’t believe it. Rewind. It was a mistake. She must have won! By a whisker, but still. Surely?
She hadn’t. She’d come third. As she hauled her tired body from the pool, it was an effort to smile. Several of her competitors congratulated her. But she hadn’t won. Winning a bronze medal was not winning. Mr T. was coming towards her with her towel.
“Good effort, girl,” said Mr T. But his voice had no passion in it, no gleam. “It was a good speed – a fraction off your personal best. You swam a good race, Catriona. Really.”
Really. She couldn’t speak. Her legs now felt horribly weak and heavy.
“Hey, don’t be like that!” he said. If he didn’t shut up she was going to cry. She tried to smile but it didn’t come. Her mouth didn’t seem to want to do the smiley thing. “You lost by a fraction, a tiny fraction. You can improve by that much, easily – one of your turns could have been tighter. We can work on that. Don’t worry, you’re on course. And you’re younger than them, by nearly two years. They’re both out of the Under-16s soon.”
And there was Jim, saying much the same. “We can improve that, Catriona, fret not,” he said with a smile. “There are good races and there are great races. You swam some great races today. But sometimes it’s someone else’s day.” And he went to talk to someone else.
Cat looked up at the spectators as she went back to the swimmers’ area. Her friends weren’t looking. They were chatting among themselves. The banner was draped over their knees.
Only the relays were left. Cat’s team won theirs and Cat knew she’d swum well. But it didn’t feel good enough. The swimmers who’d beaten her before weren’t in the relay. The times weren’t particularly brilliant, nothing for the selectors to get excited about. One of Cat’s team made a mistake on one of the takeovers, and they had only won because the other teams had either made worse mistakes or simply not been as fast.
Three individual gold medals and a bronze, as well as the relay gold medal. Hardly something to feel down about. Most people would be thrilled. But Cat had put every effort into the race she’d lost, and if she put every effort in and couldn’t win, then what could she do? How many times would she have to deal with the kick-in-the-stomach feeling of not winning? Often, was the answer – every athlete did, and the higher she flew, the further it would be to fall.
She wanted to go home. Making an excuse about needing to fetch something from the changing room, Cat went and hid there for a few moments, listening to the echoing shouts from the swimming area. She breathed in the smell of chlorine, the steam, the familiar feeling of heat and yet chill at the same time. The wet floor was clammy underfoot, slippery with other people’s skin and soap and sweat. In the mirror, she saw her face, thin wet hair flattened from the hat she’d been wearing, and beneath it the broad shoulders.
She loved it and hated it: this place, this smell, the winning and losing, the always knowing you could do better next time, the dreams. She felt part of it and yet alone. Because you were. You might be part of a team but actually you were doing it for yourself. And if you weren’t you’d never do it. You’d never put the effort in.
She went back to the poolside.
Mr T. wasn’t there. She looked round. He should be there: the medals were going to be presented. Jim was gathering his swimmers together. There was the announcement. She and the other winners from her team made their way over to the judges’ desk. There were the girls who’d beaten her.
The ceremony passed in a blur. She could see Bethan and the others, waving now, and cheering too. And of course she felt proud when she received her medals. But she’d tasted better – a few weeks before, when she’d broken records at the biathlon. Should she be satisfied with third best? And the hope of one day being the best, but maybe never getting there?
Where was Mr Turner? As she stepped off the podium for the last time, she saw him, hurrying towards her. He grabbed her arm, the sinews on his neck standing out in his excitement.
“They’re interested in you, Catriona McPherson! They want you to go to a na
tional training camp, in the holidays, with all the best facilities. There’s no promises but this is a fantastic chance, Catriona! Well done, you brilliant kid!” And there was Jim in the background, grinning at her before being grabbed by someone else’s parent.
Cat could see others looking in her direction. A girl who’d beaten her, turning away now, going off to her own coach. But Cat was being herded by Mr Turner over to the changing area. He was still talking, about training programmes and how much care the squad would take of her. And, yes, her heart was singing; yes, it was a fantastic feeling, being wanted.
That was when she saw the man. “Mr T., look – there’s that man again. The one who was watching? I saw him earlier too.”
Her coach looked where she was pointing.
“Don’t worry about him. I’ve discovered who he is. I was right – he’s from another club. Spying. But he’s too late. The selectors want you to stay in this club – we’ve got it all mapped out. You’re stuck with me, kid. You’re mine! I’m going to make you a star. All our plans are coming together. It’s fantastic, girl!”
But the fear. Fear of losing. Fear of the future. Fear of being trapped.
There was nothing better than winning. And nothing worse than losing. And how did you solve that?
CHAPTER 29
DANNY BEHAVING ODDLY
CAT’S mum came home from the hospital on Saturday evening, fragile and pale. She went straight to her bed. She slept most of Sunday too. But on Sunday evening, she had begun to remember more of her accident. There’d been a person, she thought, someone who had lunged towards her and made her fall. Cat’s dad had insisted that the police come to take a statement, which they did, reluctantly. He was furious that they seemed to care so little, but the two police officers who called round explained that with no description, and no witnesses, and the victim suffering from concussion, there was no chance of solving the crime. If there was a crime, they’d said pointedly. It was only her mum’s white-faced insistence on dropping it that stopped her dad from becoming quite rude.
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