“Hmm.”
“What were you talking to Sam about?”
It was a good job I wasn’t washing a glass, because I was sure I’d have crushed it as my hand fisted so tightly.
“Your swimming,” I said, trying to sound unaffected by his question.
“But you were shouting at him.”
I took a deep breath and looked over my shoulder. “I wasn’t,” I lied.
“Yeah Mummy, you were.” Frankie wasn’t looking at me, but scrolling through the music on his player. “You had your shouty face.”
“I was asking him not to push you too hard, that’s all.”
“What do you mean?”
I moved over to sit with him and rested my forearms on the table in front of me.
“It means,” I started. “That I don’t want him trying to make you do things in the pool that you’re not ready to do. I think you should stick to becoming a stronger swimmer, not learning a whole load of new strokes.”
It wasn’t a total lie, I wanted Frankie to enjoy swimming club, not think of it as an extension of school.
“But I’m good, Mum,” he said, his brow furrowed as he stared at me. He didn’t understand why I’d hold him back, but he was also daring me to contradict his conclusion that he was a very gifted swimmer.
I couldn’t help but laugh, eliciting a sigh from Frankie.
“I am,” he stated.
“I know,” I replied, nodding my head and grinning at him.
God, he had enough confidence to sink a battle ship and he definitely didn’t get that from me.
“So why can’t Sam show me extra things to try?”
“Well, he can, but I don’t want him to make you try too many things, I want you to have fun as well.”
“I do. Today was much better than when Danny teaches us, last year he just got us to swim up and down. Sam played games with us that taught us the strokes.”
His little face was full of consternation and I knew he had already had a fascination with the man who was his father. I knew then that I had to find a different swimming club for him, because I couldn’t stand the thought of his heart being broken if he found out who his father was and that he wasn’t interested in him.
Samuel
the past
I looked over at Elijah and groaned, he looked grey and as though he was about to puke – again. He’d been on a permanent bender since Amy, his wife, had fucked off and left him almost three weeks earlier. According to her, she caught him in bed with Lauren Proctor at Alex’s party. Elijah couldn’t remember anything, except at one point seeing some hazy figure that he couldn’t focus on, writhing on top of him and wondering if it was Amy before passing out again. It was only when Luke, his mate, threw cold water on him and told him that Amy had apparently rushed out of the house in tears, and that Eli needed to get up, that he realised something was wrong. He’d finally got hold of Rachel, Amy’s friend, who chewed his balls off over what he’d supposedly done.
Eli had rushed to Rachel’s house, but Amy wouldn’t see him and Rachel had slammed the door in his face. When I got to Eli at one in the morning, after a frantic call from him, he was huddled in Rachel’s doorway, even though I’d told him to stay at our apartment, and was insisting he was staying there until Amy came out. I managed to persuade him to go home, but he was back there at six the next morning waiting it out. Amy however, still refused to go to the door. After four hours of Elijah constantly banging on the door or calling her and Rachel’s mobiles, Amy finally spoke to him, but no matter what he said, she didn’t believe that he hadn’t realised it wasn’t her on top of him. Eli had gotten angry and so had she, both of them screaming at each other, until finally she’d shut the door on him. I’d tried to get Amy to see reason, we all had, as she’d known how paralytic he’d been. He could barely stand up, but she wouldn’t listen. Now she’d left town and no one was telling Elijah where she’d gone. It was all a big fuck up, because they were obviously too damn immature to be married in the first place.
“They have to fucking tell me,” he slurred, pointing at me with the neck of a beer bottle. “She’s my fucking wife. I have a right to know.”
Without waiting for me to answer, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and started to text what I guessed was probably the fiftieth text that day to her.
“She has to come back. And why the fuck wouldn’t she believe me.”
I shook my head and sighed. “I have no idea, bro. Now how about you get upstairs and sleep some of the alcohol off. You need to go to work tomorrow, otherwise you’re gonna get the push.”
Elijah shrugged. “Don’t fucking care.”
