The hockey trials are a mess of endeavor and adrenaline as I do my best to keep pace with Stephanie Burke, her long, easy stride and smug metal grin. Stephanie’s an A player but I make the Senior D, not bad for a beginner in a school that has teams all the way down to H. The details are posted on the notice board in the sports center and I’m running my finger down the list of Saturday morning’s matches when Melissa sidles up to me.
“Please tell me the school vacuum hasn’t sucked you in.”
“What do you mean?”
“It comes for everyone. First it’s swimming, then hockey, choir, debating. And if you’re no good at any of that, there’s always”—she sticks two fingers in her mouth—“charity work.”
“Well, at least I’ve dodged that,” I say, and she squints at the lists, looking for my name.
“Um … congratulations?” she says before turning to me, eyebrows raised. “Lou, are you seriously going to be playing hockey on Saturday morning?”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
It’s in Clonskeagh and I’ve no news yet on how I’m going to get there.
“You know Rockdale is on Friday night?”
Of course I do. There’s been talk of little else all week, but it’s not really my scene, slow sets and rugby players. Shauna is still undecided and I’m not sure I want the hassle of it if she isn’t going to be there.
“Oh, yeah. Are you going?”
“Of course. It’s on at half eight so that means the party starts in my house at seven.”
I’m trying to think of an excuse when Shauna and Aisling come through the door speaking in whispers, their short purple skirts and polo shirts touching with their closeness. I smile instinctively at Shauna and I could swear her face lights up too.
“Drinkies at mine before Rockdale tomorrow,” says Melissa. “See you around seven?”
“Sorry,” says Shauna. “We have an early start on Saturday. The Leinsters are next month and training’s going to be insane until then.”
“You’re not coming at all?”
Melissa does her best to harden her eyes, but I see the disappointment hidden in them. I know that feeling well, the resentment and guilt of losing your best friend to success.
“We might come to Rockdale for a couple of hours, but no way will we be getting pissed.”
She looks at Aisling, who nods in agreement.
“OK,” says Melissa. “Suit yourself.”
She grabs hold of my arm and directs me into the hall.
“We’ll just have to drink twice as much to make up for your uselessness, yeah, Lou?”
I must roll my eyes or grit my teeth because Shauna grins and I smile back as Melissa drags me away.
PE IS VOLLEYBALL WITH MISS Aherne, a short, sinewy woman with cropped hair and boundless enthusiasm—her first mistake. Her second is being barely older than us, a sure sign she must be clueless. She’s well able for the backchat from the usual suspects but the sexual innuendo is harder to tackle.
The class is set up on two adjacent courts and I’m at the net with Stephanie looming over me from the other side. Miss Aherne is behind me, her arms around Mary Connolly as she helps her with her serve.
“Lezzer,” coughs Stephanie into her hand, and a couple of the girls around her snigger their support.
Behind them, Shauna shakes her head and I stare at Stephanie, hands on hips.
“Have you got something to say?” says Stephanie to me.
“Yeah, grow up.”
Stephanie takes a step closer to the net and peers down at me.
“Maybe you’re OK with being felt up by a perv, but it’s not my scene,” she whispers.
“If you’re so concerned, why don’t you make a complaint? I’m sure Sister Shannon would be horrified to learn one of her teachers is sexually abusing the students.”
Stephanie returns only a withering look.
“OK, OK, girls,” shouts Miss Aherne as she claps her hands and jogs in between the two courts. “We’re going to play up to ten points and then we’ll swap teams. Are you ready?”
I sure am, ready to spike the arrogant grin on the other side of the net. I look back at Mary as she serves and I stay low as the ball soars over my head. It’s bumped mid-court and then set by Shauna and I keep my eye on it as it falls to Stephanie.
I wish I could say I see it coming but I don’t stand a chance. It’s so beautifully choreographed, such strength and agility in the twist and turn of Stephanie’s body as her legs propel her into the air and her arm rounds the ball with all the power of her muscular shoulders. I’m still marveling at the follow-through when the ball smashes into the side of my face and I give in to it, limbs folding, the ground coming at me, cold against my skin.
“Lou, Lou, can you hear me?”
Miss Aherne’s voice is distant and I’m in no hurry to move toward it.
“Shit, Carol, go and get Matron. Run.”
“But I have a note for running, my doctor says…”
“Jesus, fuck’n … Shauna, please, as fast as you can.”
Miss Aherne smells of fresh grass and ginger, her hands soft against my face. She rolls my head gently until light starts to filter through the gray fuzz and she’s closer, her voice thin and raspy.
“Lou, can you hear me?”
I flick open my eyes and she’s so close I see the pores on her nose and the flare of her nostrils as she sighs with relief.
“Oh, thank god. Are you all right, Lou? Are you feeling dizzy?”
“No.”
I’m feeling calm, serene almost, but there are too many faces above me. One of them is Stephanie’s and, even though she looks concerned, I don’t want any more attention from her. I try to get up but it’s only in motion that I feel the rolling pain in the side of my head, and I put my hand to it.
“Does it hurt, your head?” asks Miss Aherne.
“A bit.”
“You got a fair whack of the ball. Are you sure you’re not feeling faint or confused?”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Good. Matron’s on her way and I’m going to send you to the infirmary, just to be safe.”
Shauna arrives back with Matron, a cheery woman from Manchester with pale skin and red lipstick. Her blue uniform is tight across her chest, as if it can barely contain her compassion.
“Shauna, can you stay with Lou and make sure she’s OK?” says Miss Aherne.
Matron leads me to the bench that runs along the wall and Shauna sits beside me, the bare skin of her thigh smooth and warm against mine. I feel the rhythm of her breath on my cheek as Matron crouches in front of me, checks my eyes and moves a stubby finger in an arc in front of my face.
“I think you’ll live, Lou,” she says, “but I want to keep an eye on you in the infirmary until lunchtime, OK?”
“OK.”
I stand up a little too quickly and I stumble sideways. Shauna puts her arm around my waist and I let her hold me for several seconds.
“Are you all right?” she says, her hand still firm against my hip.
“Yeah, thanks,” I say, and she links her arm through mine.
As we walk away, someone wolf whistles, and it’s probably Stephanie but I don’t care.
MY HEAD IS FINE BY hockey practice on Friday afternoon but I still haven’t heard from Mr. McQueen about a lift to my match. Afterward, I seek him out at the swimming pool, a place I’ve managed to avoid so far. Even the thought of it triggers that engine in me, the low hum of anxiety and inertia. It’s not just the memory of water that fills me with dread, it’s the whole stifling environment—the air thick with chlorine, the ghostly echo of shifting sounds.
My heart pounds as I tread carefully through the stands, and he’s there, the squeak of rubber soles piercing the air as he sets up for evening training. He gives no indication he’s seen me, his back turned as he pulls the lane ropes into place. I hold fast to the wall between us and breathe, trying not to remember.
I was just nine when it happened. A natural-born water baby, Mam says, never out of the pool. It was our first time at Mosney holiday camp and I’d only ever swum in the sea before that, the paralyzing chill of Sandycove or Killiney beach. So I’m sure I loved it, long afternoons in the indoor pool, playing with a constant supply of kids as Mam sat at the window of the bar next to it, making friends of her own.
None of them were there when she needed them. When the night and the drink had taken her away from herself. I’d been watching her in the bar long after she’d sent me to bed, waiting for the droop of an eyelid or a slump of the head, a sign it was time to help her back to the chalet. I thought she was at the toilet when I saw her, barely conscious, teetering around the darkened pool enclosure in her shiny jumpsuit and knee-high boots. She didn’t hear when I banged on the glass, when I screamed her name as she lurched forward and flopped into the water.
What I remember most is the unreality of it, when she didn’t resurface, when the people around me just stood and stared through the window as if they were watching a film. But they were half-cut themselves and I knew not to reason with booze. I ran out by the toilets, down the stairs and along the corridor, rattling one door after another until I found her point of entry and threw myself into the pool after her.
Under water, time slid to a sluggish pulse, flickered in shapes and shadows in the murky silence. Each second screamed its departure, sucking oxygen with it as it disappeared out of reach. The chlorine burned my eyes and tore at my eardrum as I prowled the pool floor for movement, grasping at the darkness. My diaphragm stuttered, its rhythm broken, and all I could think was, I must breathe for her until she can do it on her own.
I think I expected to see a struggle, some sign she was fighting for life. But all I found was the leaden shape of her, water billowing through the legs of her jumpsuit, boots weighted to the ground. Her torso was twisted away from me and I tugged at her arm, my shouts bubbling upward as her head lolled toward me, her soundless mouth open and her eyes glazed and vacant.
That’s the image that never leaves me, the one that ripples through my head as Mr. McQueen fixes the lane rope to the wall. Not the later scenes, how I somehow hooked my arms under hers and dragged her to the surface, the teenage hostess who pulled her out of the water and pumped her chest, the moment she spluttered back to life. What lingers is the feeling of coming face-to-face with a life so loosely tethered to a body and knowing that you hold the final thread.
“Lou, what can I do for you?”
As Mr. McQueen walks toward me, I wonder if he’s forgotten, if I’m going to have to beg for help.
“I have a hockey match in the morning.”
“Oh, you made a team. Well done you.”
He looks back to the pool, as if I’m a distraction.
“It’s just, you said you’d ask some of the other parents for a lift for me.”
“OK,” he says, as if I might be making it up. “You’re stuck for a lift?”
I wish I’d never mentioned it now and I need to get out of this putrid air that’s sticking in my throat.
“It’s OK, it doesn’t matter.”
“Let me think,” he says. “Yes, you’re right, I did say something. I’m sorry, I’ve just been so busy this week with the fundraising campaign. I’m sure you’ve heard about it.”
I couldn’t avoid it. He’s been in all the papers, trying to raise money for Ireland’s first fifty-meter Olympic-standard pool, to be built at Highfield.
“Where is your match?” he asks.
“St. Catherine’s in Clonskeagh.”
“I’ll pick you up at twenty past ten,” he says.
I suppress a shiver as I hold his gaze. I never mentioned the match was at eleven.