‘Like I said, we’ll talk tomorrow. But, I promise you we’ll make any decisions together. You and me. Now, finish your drink and get some sleep.’
As if that was going to be possible for either of us, after the day that changed everything…
Stop Being a Loser Plan
Day Two
‘Come on, Amy, remember when you used to be a winner?’ It was seven o’clock. I’d watched the minutes tick by through most of the night. Dozing had only led to jumbled dreams, ripe with yearning: the echo of the whistle, the exhilaration of the first dive, followed by the silent cocoon of water for that sweet moment until I burst up into the real world again. The tug of a swim cap. Lungs near exploding, muscles on fire, heart hammering as I strained to outswim the arguments bouncing off the tiled walls, the disappointment and the fifty-metre lane that became my prison.
I had been a winner, once. Funny how the memories still floating in my subconscious were all about losing.
I pressed at the ache in my temple, took a deep breath, and in some vain attempt to outrun what I was about to do, skidded out of the bedroom, tumbled down the stairs and threw myself at the front door. As I hauled back the bolt, which felt as though it weighed twenty kilos, my slippery hands grappling with the key, the panic caught up with me, freezing my fingers on the door handle. I remembered how I used to block out everything but my goal – shut off pain and stress and exhaustion and will my body into submission. So, I ordered it to open the door. Begged, pleaded, wept. Wrestled to overrule the paralysing fear clawing at my throat, whirling behind my eyes, screaming at me that I was dying, that if I opened that door one inch I would be destroyed.
‘It’s a panic attack,’ I whispered to myself, even in the grip of it still aware of Joey sleeping upstairs. ‘You’ll be okay, you’re not dying, it’s just your crazy brain. You will be okay. Open the door. It’s okay.’ Still my hand gripped the handle, as I curled round into myself and slumped to the floor, arm sticking awkwardly behind me, refusing to let go. My whispers now punctuated with rasping sobs, ‘It’s okay, just open the door… open the damn door.’
My traitorous, stubborn, cowardly hand did not open the damn door.
* * *
When I had finally managed to claw myself back together, I got a bleary-eyed boy out of bed and off to school, reassured by the bounce in his step as I watched out the living room window to see him jogging up to the gangly gaggle of boys waiting across the road.
I showered, cried, forced down a mug of coffee, opened a couple of bills, remembered the glossy invitation and cried again. I felt as though I was being wrenched apart inside – one half desperate to take these first steps towards finally recovering my health, my freedom and some measure of control; the other part of me was, quite simply, terrified. Scared, alone and utterly beside herself at the risk of facing the world again.
I dragged myself through three hours of turning rambling drivel into what would hopefully be a successful tender for my current client, a storage company, and cut myself a quarter of a carrot cake.
Plopping down at the kitchen table, I stared at the cake. Looked down at my ex-world champion thighs, now flabby and blobby and weak, like my heart. Twanged the extra inches dangling beneath arms that were once solid and strong. Powerful and resolute.
I was thirty-two years old. I felt about a hundred and two.
What was I going to do? Would the fear or the hope win?
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath in and threw the cake in the bin, for starters.
* * *
When Joey arrived home, I was in the living room. He hacked about half a loaf of bread into a gigantic cheese and turkey sandwich, surprised that for once I didn’t join him in eating the other half, and threw himself down next to me in front of a cardboard storage box that took up most of the coffee table.
‘What’s this?’ he asked.
‘This is the real reason I’m scared about you joining the Gladiators.’
He took another bite of sandwich. ‘Cee-Cee told me you nearly drowned, that’s why you hate me swimming.’
‘I don’t hate you swimming. And I couldn’t drown if I tried.’ Opening the box, I let Joey remove the first object, unwrapping the thick blue velvet.
‘A medal?’ He glanced up at me, eyes lighting up. ‘What’s it from?’ Peering closer he read the wording. ‘“FINA World Swimming championships”. What? Is this agold medal? Where did you get it from?’
‘I won it.’
Joey’s eyebrows shot up into his fluffy blond hairline. He jerked his head to look at me, then back at the medal. Back up, then down again. ‘No way!’
Reaching into the box, I passed him a newspaper clipping: Piper pips competition to bring home the gold!
Joey scanned it greedily. He looked back at the medal, up at me, his grin a perfect mirror image of the one on the face of girl in the photograph, although her hair was chestnut.
‘You won the world championships for 400-metre freestyle? InMoscow?’
‘And a silver in the medley.’