Fat Boy Swim (9 page)

‘
Fab
ulous!’ The Tyre chipped in. ‘Mrs Bacon ate three!’ She pointed at her passenger who, to Jimmy’s delight, was looking a bit green around the gills.

Result! thought Jimmy, marrying the teachers’ compliments to the portrait of Ellie hanging in the gallery of his heart.

There was actually a spring in Jimmy’s lumber as he passed the pitch on his way out of school. He imagined himself walking over lightly-toasted marshmallows; just firm on the surface yet squashy underneath. It was such a pleasant sensation that Jimmy almost delayed dropping his head when he realised that the figure doing star jumps, while GI Joe prowled a circle around him growling, ‘Faster,
faster
if you wanna be a pro,’ was Victor.

Jimmy definitely didn’t want Victor to see him. Slag him. Spoil a perfect day. Well, perfect in the end.

Nothing
should stop the cream of this day floating to the surface of his mind.

Not only had he managed to bake undercover in school. Instead of doing gym.

But he’d made a friend.

And she was gorgeous.

‘AB-SO-
loot
-ely
DEE
-licious!’ Jimmy couldn’t help whispering to himself once he was home. He was making Ellie a mini-disc, because it turned out she liked nearly all the same music as he did, wondering if the Ronettes ‘Be My Baby’ (Aunt Pol’s all-time favourite song) was a bit too obvious. He had settled instead on Aretha doing ‘Respect’ when the phone rang.

‘Ree-ah-ree-ah-ree-ah-ree-ah-ree.
Just a little bit
. . .
’ Jimmy hollered into the receiver, expecting Aunt Pol to sing back to him, but there was silence when he stopped holding the receiver like a mike and put it to his ear.

‘Jim?’

It wasn’t Aunt Pol. It was GI Joe. Deadpan.

‘Poolside. Seven. No armbands.’

Jimmy had completely forgotten.

Chapter
15

‘To be continued’, continued

Heat smacked Jimmy like a wall in the face as the swing doors opened into wet changing. Every noise was amplified. Music throbbing so loudly over the PA system that the tune was unrecognisable. Its beat made the floor vibrate under Jimmy’s feet. Babies cried in relay behind cubicle doors and from the pool itself, frenzied shrieking rose and echoed to the rafters over the splash splash splash of water.

Chlorine and shampoo and sweat and nappies assailed Jimmy’s nostrils as he plodded across the scummy floor to the changing cubicles.

A woman stared, nudging her daughter as Jimmy, unable to fit sideways into a single cubicle, reversed out again.

She was still staring when Jimmy took a vacant family cubicle. As he locked the door both woman and daughter exploded with laughter outside.

If there had been a mirror in the cubicle Jimmy would never, ever have ventured outside in the luminous orange, lotus-patterned XXX-large shorts Mum’s pal Treesa had brought Jimmy back from Hawaii two years ago. The label was still on them. They were too long and at least one size too tight, the waistband bisecting the swell of Jimmy’s stomach.

‘Cheery,’ Treesa had described them.

Criminal, more like, Jimmy had thought as he thanked her enthusiastically at the time. I’ll never be seen dead in these.

Steeling himself, Jimmy bundled up his clothes and crept from the cubicle to the lockers. With the rubber band that held his locker key disappearing into a cushion of flesh at his wrist, Jimmy looked nervously towards the pool.

He hesitated, resting his damp forehead against the cool metal of the locker door. Could always say he turned up and GI Joe wasn’t there.

Could say the heat of the place bothered his asthma. Could say –

‘Well whaddya know. It’s the pig in curtains.’

Jimmy froze. Squeezing his eyes shut. Pressing his forehead harder against the locker door in the hope that he might pass through it by osmosis.

‘What you doin’ here, lardy boy?’ Maddo snarled, slapping Jimmy round to face him. Victor, behind Maddo, said nothing. Flushed, breathless, his sleek racing trunks already wet, he peeled his squad swimming cap from his head, sucking greedily from a sipping bottle. Opening a locker in the same row as Jimmy’s he threw in his cap, float, leg brick. All the time looking Jimmy up and down, up and down, from head to toe, assimilating every square millimetre of what he saw. His eyes lingered particularly long on the shorts; a thin, mean smile on his face.

‘You’re late, fat boy. Squad training’s over.’

‘Gunna empty the pool, are you?’ grunted Dog Breath Doig, face so close to Jimmy that there was no escaping his horrendous halitosis.

Maddo knuckled Jimmy in the solar plexus, the pain forcing him to wince and straighten up to his full height.

‘Vic’s talking to you, blubber-belly,’ Maddo hissed.

‘I
. . .
I’m getting a lesson.’

As one, the three boys closed in. ‘You’re no’ seriously showing yourself in public?’ said Victor, voice low and dangerous. He was wearing fancy goggles around his neck like an extra pair of eyes. ‘We canny let you do that,’ piped Maddo who, like Dog Breath, was changed for swimming. Jimmy reeled back from the sour sweat smell of Maddo’s armpit combined with Dog Breath’s dog breath, as with sudden force Victor slammed Jimmy against the lockers, piercing his shoulder blades with two protruding locker keys.

‘Ugh,’ Victor shoved Jimmy again, revolted at having touched the film of sweat covering Jimmy’s entire body.

‘You’re disgustin’.’ He stepped back, whipping Jimmy’s towel from under his arm.

With a flick he snapped the towel open, catching Jimmy hard on the cheek before he could flinch.

‘Fat-disgustin’-loser.’

‘Fat-disgustin’-loser.’ Maddo and Dog Breath automatically joined in the chant as Victor flicked the towel again. This time it glanced the side of Jimmy’s eye, drawing tears.

‘He’s greetin’. The blubber’s blubbering.’ Maddo guffawed as Jimmy curled instinctively, clutching his eye, leaving his back exposed to the next swipe of his towel.

They were all prancing around him now, in a mad dance. Skinny white bodies and bare feet. Maddo and Dog Breath poking Jimmy’s belly, slapping his backside, chucking his cheeks and making quick karate kicks at his legs while Victor drew the towel back for another swipe and another swipe. Welts rose over Jimmy’s torso as he swayed helplessly out of the firing line while Victor choreographed his moves to the relentless, concealing throb of the poolside music.

‘This –
flick
– would be a lot more –
flick flick
– fun if you –
flick
– fought back, you fat poof,’ said Victor, throwing in the towel at last. At last he made to drop the towel into the filthy wet gully that gathered slops from the changing areas.

But that was when GI Joe lunged from a changing cubicle right next to the lockers in time to catch Jimmy’s towel before it hit the ground.

‘A word, gents,’ he said shepherding Victor, Maddo and Dog Breath out of sight, leaving Jimmy slumped against the cool metal of the locker doors, his towel pressed hard against his eyes.

Chapter
16

Taking the plunge

‘They’re a shower of wasters, Jim,’ said GI Joe through clenched teeth when he returned to Jimmy. ‘You’re bigger than the lot of them put together when they behave like that. Now. Let’s do this.’

Meekly, Jimmy followed GI Joe down the row of lockers to the poolside.

He felt wobbly after Victor’s assault. Drained. Close to tears. Last thing in the world he wanted to do now was make another fool attempt at swimming. He’d never be like Victor in the water, needing all that impressive squad paraphernalia. Why on earth had he asked GI Joe to teach him swimming? Jimmy and water just didn’t mix.

How long had GI Joe been in there, anyway, Jimmy wondered? And why hadn’t he come out sooner? Why wait until Victor and his sidekicks were getting tore in before he intervened?

This wasn’t the time to ask. GI Joe was already at the shallow end, jerking his head impatiently for Jimmy to join him. Here was a moment Jimmy wished more than anything that he could be invisible.

No such luck.

There might as well have been an announcement over the PA system:

EYES LEFT EVERYBODY – FAT BOY ON THE MOVE

because any head that wasn’t underwater turned to get an eyeful.

There was total hiatus in the pitch and thrum of the pool, all eyes following Jimmy as he lumbered into view behind GI Joe. Silence echoed through the sticky, chlorinated air.

The pool’s surface smoothed to a millpond as swimmers froze.

Even the music stopped.

Then reaction began to ripple across the pool. There was laughter. There were sharp intakes of breath. There were kids pretending to make tidal waves.

Jimmy shrivelled. Shrunk inside. Died a thousand deaths. But there was no escape.

‘Jim, pay attention.’

GI Joe didn’t mess about. He positioned Jimmy at the shallow end of the pool, shuffling him forward until his toes were over the edge. Jimmy had to trust him. After all, he couldn’t see his own feet.

‘Step forward,’ GI Joe barked as though he were on a parade ground.

‘Don’t look down and you’ll land in the water standing up. It’ll be over your waist, but you’ll be fine.’

GI Joe’s hands gripped Jimmy’s upper arms.

‘Don’t push me,’ Jimmy wheedled before he could stop himself, cursing his fear.

‘
Don’t PUSH me
!’

Last time Jimmy had been near a pool; the one and only school swimming lesson the PE department would let Jimmy take, he’d uttered these same words. Victor had been at his back, mimicking: ‘
Don’t PUSH me
!’ About to dunt Jimmy into the pool where the water would come over his chin. Nearly choking him. Hissing words in Jimmy’s ear that sent him off balance even before he was pushed.

‘See your Auntie. My mum says she’s no’ really your auntie –’

Jimmy was twisted round, mouthing a puzzled ‘Wha –?’ at Victor before he was felled.

‘Timb
errrr.
’

‘Don’t push me.’

‘I won’t,’ said GI Joe, releasing his grip on Jimmy’s arms. ‘You’ll do this all yourself.’

Plumbline-straight Jimmy fell, feet touching the bottom of the pool much, much sooner than he would have believed. The water reached no further than his waist. Just as GI Joe had promised. He’d done it.

From the corner of his eye, Jimmy watched Victor watching him. Keenly. Eyes narrowed. Arms folded. He stood shin deep in the kiddies splash pool ignoring Maddo and Dog Breath who lay on their backs before him frothing the water with their feet. He turned away slowly, as GI Joe slipped into the water beside Jimmy and with the sides of his fists, thumped Jimmy at the top of each shoulder. Coach was grinning from ear to ear.

‘That took guts, Jim,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

Chapter
17

Swimming

All that hassle, thought Jimmy, drifting off to sleep, and we didn’t even do any swimming. GI Joe wanted to leave that until the morning. ‘Seven thirty, when this place opens.’

He’d made Jimmy kneel until only his head was above water. For one cringing moment, Jimmy feared he was going to get a blessing. But no danger. Coach just wanted Jimmy to hold his breath and sink s-l-o-w-l-y under the water breathing out, and then come up again s-l-o-w-l-y, still breathing. Made him do it about fifty times, and after Jimmy became used to the sensation of the water over his head and round his face, it was a doddle. He felt like a twat at first, right enough, but once Treesa’s trunks were underwater, people ignored him.

Only Victor noised him up, repeatedly diving above him like a low-flying jet. Victor’s dives, long and streamlined – beautiful – flew him in an arc nearly a third of the way up the pool before his body cut the water. It would be another third of the pool later before he surfaced, ploughing to the deep end with one, two, three sleek strokes of front crawl.

‘Waster. Tries hard when it suits him,’ muttered GI Joe. Like Jimmy, he watched Victor give the finger to the pool attendant pointing out the NO DIVING notice.

Several dives later, Victor was marched from the pool area by two attendants. ‘Looks like you’re having a ball there, Coach,’ Jimmy heard him say to GI Joe with a chummy click of his tongue as he swaggered towards the showers. ‘Away you home and grow up,’ GI Joe replied, turning away from Victor back to Jimmy.

But Victor didn’t go home. Strange, thought Jimmy, breaking through the water for the umpteenth time. Once changed, Victor sat alone in the spectators’ gallery, arms draped over the safety rail, frowning as he watched Jimmy with GI Joe.

When the lesson was over and Jimmy heaved himself up the pool steps, he sensed something other than Victor’s mockery in the eyes boring his wet torso and tracking his journey to the cubicles. It felt more like resentment.

Victor was in Jimmy’s dream tonight too, sitting where Aunt Pol usually sat. He wouldn’t budge when she arrived and asked him to give up his place. Instead, Victor pointed towards the deep end. Jabbed at the Shadow Shape. Whispering in Aunt Pol’s ear, eyes smirking all the time at Jimmy. But Jimmy couldn’t hear anything that was said because the music in the swimming pool dream was too loud. ‘Heroes’, his favourite Bowie track, blasted through his head on a loop.

GI Joe was standing over him in the shallow end wearing Jimmy’s hideous Hawaiian trunks. They were so big that GI Joe had cut arm holes in them and wore them as a baggy costume. Jimmy felt sorry for him, dressed like that. He felt relieved that he wore proper racing trunks like Victor’s now. And goggles. A real swimmer.

Trapped in dream paralysis, Jimmy watched as Victor leapt from the spectators’ gallery and dived expertly over Jimmy’s head. One dive propelled him all the way to the deep end, landing him just where the Shadow Shape hovered. His body, as he waved smugly back towards Jimmy, obliterated the Shadow Shape completely.

‘Wait,’ Jimmy’s dream voice called, body aching to push off from the side and reach for the deep end. He stretched out both arms, kicking off against the side of the pool with all his strength.

And he flew, cutting the water like a torpedo. Whoosh, whoosh whoosh. Ellie, a mermaid, wearing her specs instead of goggles, passed him underwater, hair floating around her head in a giant halo. She was blowing him bubble kisses.