Fat Boy Swim (18 page)

‘Double of you, son. Same lovely smile. Fine big man.’ Mum’s voice had been quiet at Jimmy’s side, hand taking his. Squeezing.

‘We didn’t say a word about . . . to him . . . just thought we’d let you know.’

‘For what it’s worth,
I’d
want to know if I’d a lad like you somewhere, Jimmy,’ Barry Dyer had added, gruffly. Flustered by the spontaneity of his compliment, he swallowed a scone whole.

If only the swimathon had raised enough dosh to buy computers as well as a new roof for the middle of nowhere, Jimmy could have e-mailed Coach tonight:

They’ve found my dad. What do I do now
?

* * *

So what now, Coach?

Some homecoming celebration. Here was Jimmy, first night back in his own room, in a proper bed, and he couldn’t sleep a wink. His Shadow Shape had substance, had life now. He wasn’t just some face in an old photograph, or another person’s recollection. He was within Jimmy’s reach. Yet in some respects, he’d never been so untouchable.

I mean, what if he has a wife, other kids?

Dawn was breaking when Jimmy wrote that first letter to GI Joe.

He might not want to know me.

What should I do?

Chapter 34

Letter from the middle of nowhere

Jim,

Take your time before you do anything about your dad. Get your head round finding him first. Talk to your Mum, Polly, Ellie. Say what you feel about things. If you do decide to get in touch with Frankie, it’s best to go through someone else first. I’ll be your intermediary if you like. But there’s no rush.

It was magic to get a letter so soon. Never thought I’d get homesick for Glasgow, but it’s been some summer! We got things done, didn’t we, Jim?

And you’re still up at the crack putting in those lengths before breakfast? Brilliant.

Make sure you say hi to Barry. He’s doing salsa classes with your Mum now, is he? Good on them both.

I’m sending photos of my new roof. You’ll get them on the school noticeboard for me? It’s looking good, yeah? Watertight – well, no rain yet. Say a prayer.

You’re up on my wall, by the way, between Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela. Above Bono. My kids want to know all about you: Are you famous?

No, I tell them, although he might be one day. He’s my friend Jim, from Glasgow. Uses his talents to make things happen.

Helped put this new roof over our heads. Then I tell them the whole story . . . cracks them up!

I’ve sent a loads of info to Mrs Hughes so she can get working on that Link project with Ellie. Tell them both it’s a great idea.

And listen, will you tell Victor I was asking for him? Say Coach says ‘Use it or lose it’. He knows what I mean.

Keep in touch.

Love to Polly.

Cheers,

Coach

PS. Thanks, Jim. For everything.

Chapter 35

Not the last chapter

‘What was that out there? Opposition think it’s Christmas! And you. Aye you, Kelly, you big balloon. Ye’d need a white stick to miss a save like that.’

Bursts of rowdy laughter from the guest changing room next door intensified the pall of silence that fell at Hamblin’s entrance.

Just like old times.

Hamblin’s sardonic blue gaze swept the room, homing in on his favourite target. Jimmy, exposed in his underwear, blushed scarlet from his toenails to the roots of his hair.

‘All you had to do was block the goal, Kelly,’ Hamblin said ponderously, inflating himself to fill the changing room doorway.

‘Jeezo, I put you there because you’re wide. Just had to s-p-r-e-a-d yourself out. Shuffle to the left. Shuffle to the right. Never asked you to run. Is standing still too much for you?’

Hamblin, licking spittle from his lips swivelled his head, lizard-like, along the benches. Looking for allies. Since every player had been disgraced by the visitors, Jimmy or no Jimmy in goals, most kept their eyes on the muddy floor, scuffing their boots, or quietly lifting bottles of shampoo and towels from their kitbags. Tiptoeing to the showers. Only Victor and Dog Breath leered greedily at Hamblin, willing him to step up a gear. As if he needed any encouragement.

‘Maybe Kelly was rubbish out there –’ Hamblin had a hand up to the side of his mouth, feigning discretion, ‘– because he’s slimming now. Cutting down the old pies and cream cakes makes you weak, so you canny think straight.’ The lizard head turned from Jimmy, scanned the benches.

Heads stayed down. Hamblin was dangerous like this. He might be picking on Jimmy right now, but anyone could be next in line for a dose of ritual humiliation. Two more lads managed to slip behind Hamblin into the showers as he dug deeper.

‘Tell me Kelly, d’you not feel a big jessie being the only bloke among all those fat lassies at your slimming club?’

Shaking their heads, several more boys escaped to the showers.

‘Give over,’ Billy McIndope muttered. A few on the benches sniggered, but only Victor wore a grin that split his face.

Jimmy sighed. He daren’t be late for English. First lesson of the new term. Ellie was meeting him outside class so they could sit together.

‘Sir,’ Jimmy urged, ‘I’m not in a slimming club.’

He was wasting his breath.

‘What is it they do again? Put you on scales in the scuddy and boo you if you havenae lost anything? Give you a wee clap if you’ve been good.’ Hamblin’s slow handclap ricocheted around the changing room.

‘I don’t go to a slimming club, sir.’

‘You’re still a fair bit off your – what d’you call it – “target weight”? Bullseye, eh, lads?’

Hamblin held his whistle poised, dartlike, between finger and thumb, and aimed at Jimmy’s belly. He’d one eye closed. The mime earned him a smattering of laughter and Jimmy could sense a mood of hostility seeping like invisible toxin through the boys remaining on the benches. This was exactly what Hamblin wanted; a great stressbuster for the team.

Déjà vu.

Jimmy’s heart sank. Surely it wasn’t all going to begin again? Coming to school today, fourth year, new term, he’d felt his life really had turned the corner.

No one had snorted or taken the mick when he got changed today.

He and Findlay McKay, who was new to the swimming squad, had arranged to go to the gym before training.

He’d even made a couple of saves during the match. Everyone, including Victor, applauding him.

The gravest indignity Jimmy had borne since returning to St Jude’s was from a lippy wee first year who’d never seen Jimmy before.
Fee Fie Fo Fum,
he chanted after Jimmy in the corridor. He could live with that.

Other lads further up the school had been staring at Jimmy too. But not like before. It was obvious some of them barely recognised him.

‘That’s yon big bloater, innit?’

‘Nah. Fat Kelly wasnae as tall.’

‘New guy, then?’

‘Must be.’

‘Looks like Kelly right enough.’

Girls in the school were clocking Jimmy too, the fleet, approving up and down of their eyes like fingertips tripping the hairs on his skin. Since he became a fourth year he seemed to be blushing a lot more. It
was
embarrassing, mind you, when teachers insisted he was a new sixth year until they checked his name against the class register.

‘Jimmy Kelly? It’s you. What a transformation!’

No such confusion where Hamblin was concerned. No compliments. He looked at Jimmy and he saw what he wanted to see: a scapegoat, a wheezy pain of a butterball who deserved to be vilified.

‘Does your mammy send in wee notes to the slimming club if you don’t lose any weight?
“Dear Fat Controller”,
’ Hamblin wheedled, pretending his whistle was a pen.
‘“Please don’t boo my Jimmy. He’s been awfy hungry this week”.’

‘Sir, I said I don’t go to a slimming club.’ Jimmy tried to make himself heard above the inevitable caws of laughter that followed Hamblin’s insulting impersonation of Mum. He was heart sick of this, anger, not embarrassment turning his face as red as a traffic light.

‘My mum doesn’t speak like that either,’ Jimmy’s voice rang out. He shook his head, and turned his back on Hamblin.

‘Which mum d’you mean, Kelly?’ chimed Victor. In a mocking sing-song voice he added, ‘Did you know Kelly’s got two mammies, sir?’

Barry Dyer would have been impressed by the acceleration of Jimmy’s dive at Victor. From a standing start he was towering over him, eyes blazing, face so close that he could count Victor’s galaxy of blackheads.

‘I’ve really had enough of all this,’ Jimmy said, bearing down closer, his hands spread wide on either side of Victor’s spotty neck, watching Victor shrink and slide down the changing room wall.

‘Stop this –’ Hamblin plucked feebly at Jimmy’s arm. ‘Take your hands off –’

‘Haven’t touched him. sir.’ Jimmy threw off Hamblin’s grip and spun to face him. Hamblin, half a head smaller than Jimmy, took an involuntary step backwards, losing his balance and landing like a deck chair folding on Dog Breath’s lap.

‘Never been to a slimming club, sir,’ said Jimmy in the same clear voice that had shut Victor up. ‘Don’t need to. I’m fine the way I am.’

Slinging his towel over his shoulder, Jimmy strode to the showers, head held high.

‘Please sir, Jimmy’s in a
swimming
club, sir. He’s seriously good.’

‘
Seriously good,
s’at right McKay?’ railed Hamblin, trying to sound posh. ‘How would a moron like you know if someone was
seriously good
at anything? You’re an even bigger balloon than Kelly. Did you think you were at Murrayfield when you picked the ball up and ran with it? This is
FITBA’,
ye posh dope.’

Findlay MacKay sloped into the shower next to Jimmy, Hamblin bellowing after him, ‘MacKay’s not the biggest balloon, either. That honour goes to you, Swift. Sitting there, thinking you’re camouflaged under all those plukes. You’ve nothing to laugh about. Swift by name and Swift by nature? Not. No wonder your fancy team dropped you this season.’

‘Thanks,’ Jimmy spluttered through the water to Findlay McKay.

‘Pleasure,’ grinned Findlay through a shampoo beard. ‘Hamblin’s a twally. See you later.’

Jimmy let the water cascade over him, rinsing away Hamblin’s scorn before he met Ellie. When he left the showers only Victor remained, head down, shoulderblades up to his ears, face to the wall. As though, thought Jimmy, he wanted to be invisible.

Well, it had been a cruel, cruel summer for Victor Swift, as the song goes. Not only was he out of Barry’s swimming squad, ‘Permo, Jimmy,’ for defacing the swimathon posters but, as Hamblin had jeered, he’d been dropped from his premier league boys’ team.

‘Wasn’t keeping up his training without Coach on his back,’ Findlay McKay whispered to Jimmy with a nod to the showers.

‘Och, that’s rough,’ said Jimmy, glancing at the lone figure. Jimmy couldn’t help himself. Despite everything, he felt sorry for Vic Swift. Over and above all his sporting misfortunes, Victor was undergoing such drastic physical mutations that Jimmy, having been there, done that – albeit in reverse – had to empathise.

Over the summer, Victor had developed chronic acne and his complexion these days was an ever-changing landscape, pitted here, swollen there, erupting everywhere, alive with its own abundant vegetation. It was as though, thought Jimmy, someone had put tomatoes, red peppers, bananas and a handful of purple grapes into a food processor, turned it on without the lid, and stuck Victor’s face over it. No wonder, to all bar Dog Breath, he was Nobby No-Mates now; the Leper of St Jude’s.

Even Senga, who had stuck by Victor, limpet-like, had had enough. ‘Swifty’s mingin’,’ she informed anyone who would listen. ‘He’s no’ touchin’ me. Even his plukes have got plukes.’

Today, Jimmy knew only too well, as he left the changing room, Victor was hanging back in the showers deliberately. Until everyone had left. Then he would change alone.

In the corridor, heading for English, Jimmy passed the new noticeboard, and stopped. Remembered GI Joe’s photograph was in his bag. Pinned it up, under Ellie’s heading:

Father Joseph’s Family

The new photograph made a brilliant contrast with the first picture Jimmy had seen of the middle of nowhere: that tumbledown shack. Now it was rebuilt. Underneath
that
was the Bruce Willis photograph. GI Joe, large as life, grinning out at Jimmy, surrounded by all his kids.

Jimmy didn’t know why he reached out and touched the photograph, returning GI Joe’s grin. Didn’t even realise he was doing it until a hand grabbed his wrist.

‘Hey. You leave Coach alone.’

Shoulders square to the noticeboard, Jimmy and Victor eyeballed each other. Victor was glaring fiercely, the hand that had grabbed Jimmy laid flat to the photograph on the wall.

‘Don’t touch that,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t just
your
mate.’

Victor’s glare held, but less fierce now.

You really miss him, thought Jimmy, recalling the last time he and Victor had stared at each other like this. The butterfly race. The beginning of the beginning for Jimmy. The beginning of the end for . . .

‘Sorry, I was just . . .’ Jimmy shrugged, breaking the eyelock. He stepped back. ‘Magic new picture,’ he grinned, pointing out GI Joe’s smart roof. Then he left the noticeboard free for Victor.

‘By the way,’ called Jimmy, walking backwards up the corridor. ‘Coach was asking for you. Use it or lose it, he said I’ve to tell you. Have you written to him yet?’

Jimmy wasn’t sure of Victor’s reply. If there was one. He didn’t really care.

Ellie was standing outside Mrs Hughes’ room.

Waiting. For him.