I knew that the only way for Joey to have any peace, let alone sleep, was to arrange a meeting. I texted Sean and asked him to be in the Cup and Saucer at five-thirty the next day. Not an ideal choice of venue, it being one where there would be other human beings, some of whom might even know Joey or me, but it was the only place in the village where we could have a drink that wasn’t a pub, and it would feel weird taking my son to a pub to meet his dad for the first time, on a school night. While able to feel some gratitude that this whole thing had happened once I had been able to go anywhere, I wasn’t ready to think about catching a bus, or getting a taxi, to somewhere new.
Eventually, I pulled rank and called it a night, bundling Joey up the stairs. ‘Come on, let’s at least pretend to try and get some sleep. And I think it would be wise to skip your early training tomorrow.’
‘What? I seem to remember you going on about how if I was going to be serious about swimming, I couldn’t skip training because I was tired, or had a bad day, or had other stuff going on. “You have to get up and show up and give it all you’ve got, no matter what.”’
‘Hmmm. Well. You’re not in the Gladiators yet.’ I opened his bedroom door, winced at the mess, and gestured for him to go in.
‘No, and I never will be if I decide to lie-in every time some little thing happens like my dad turning out to be the village stalker. What would Nathan say?’
‘Coach Gallagher would say that you should trust your mother when she tells you that if you want to make the distance as a swimmer, you need to make some occasional allowances.’
‘I do trust you. But I’m also not you.’ He flopped onto the duvet, flinging one arm over his face, no doubt to block out all sight and sound of his annoying mother.
‘I’ll let Nathan know that you might not be there. He’ll understand. Good night.’ I quickly backed out, pulling the door shut behind me.
‘He’ll understand that at the first sign of pressure I need my mum to step in and start taking over like I’m some little kid!’ he yelled through the wood. ‘Stop fussing, I’m not tired! You’re so irritating!’
‘I love you, Joey!’ I sang back, as irritating as ever. ‘Try to get some sleep.’
34
Stop Being a Loser Programme
Day Seventy-Six
‘I wasn’t sure you’d be here,’ Nathan said when I arrived in time for the warm-up the following day. ‘Thought it might be a sleepless night.’
‘It was, so I decided to come and run before I started using up my nervous energy smashing plates or throwing stones at cars.’
‘How’s Joey?’
I leant against the leisure centre wall and began stretching out my leg muscles. ‘As you’d expect. A dozen different emotions all bubbling together inside the brain of a half-child, half-man.’ I swapped to the other leg. ‘Insists he’s coming to training though.’
Nathan nodded. ‘I can see why. It’s as good as running to get rid of some of that nervous energy, shut down the manic thoughts for a while.’
‘That’s true.’
Nathan twisted round in the shadows and bent his head closer to mine so that the other Larks couldn’t hear him softly say, ‘And by the way, I forgive you for standing me up last night. It had only taken about an hour to find a decent pair of shoes, on top of the time it took to figure out how to iron a shirt.’
I dropped my foot from the thigh stretch I’d been doing. ‘I completely forgot!’
Nathan smiled. ‘Like I said, I forgive you. And I also understand if you need to put the Programme on hold, given the extenuating circumstances.’
‘Err – hang on, buddy. I went inside the pool last night. You ironed a shirt. Screw extenuating circumstances, you owe me a sweaty, awkward, challenging evening.’
‘My, my,’ Bronwyn exclaimed, as she strolled past. ‘Can I come?’
‘It’s not what you think!’ I called after her, following a frozen moment of horrified silence.
‘Oh, Amy, you haveno ideawhat I’m thinking.’ Bronwyn looked me up and down in the amber glow of the car park lighting. ‘Then again, maybe you do!’
‘Bronwyn, you know the policy on my relationships with club members,’ Nathan hissed.
‘Yes, but policies were made to be broken, isn’t that right?’ she drawled, somehow making it sound a million times more suggestive than any sentence containing the word ‘policies’ should be.
Nathan looked about ready to combust, pulling at his hat with agitation. ‘No! I’m helping Amy with some private coaching.’
‘I bet you are!’
