I can’t believe I was stupid enough to get roped into participating in this gala in the first place. It’s okay for Jess. Jess lives for swimming, gets herself into every race it’s possible for her to be in, wins every one and loves it, but me, I’ve got zero interest at the best of times and sub-zero interest when I’ve had to go and miss my riding lesson just to be in a bloody breaststroke relay to make up the numbers. And pretend like I’ve been supporting Msasa House all afternoon.
Give us an M…
M!
Give us an S…
S!
Give us an A…
A!
Give us an S…
S!
Give us an A…
A!
What have you got?
MSASA!
Who are the best at work and play?
Who are the best in every way?
We are the best and we all say MSASA!
And we’re WINNING!
Yeah. Do I look like I care? Sorry if that’s the wrong answer.
Now I’ve been dragged into this heaving marquee packed wall-wall with every single mum, dad, aunt, uncle, sister, brother and associated hanger-on. Dad’s complaining he can’t hear himself think and Mum keeps changing her mind about which is the best side to get the teas while we traipse around behind her like her ducklings. We’re like a bunch of zombies with our aimless, slightly demented wandering and our greenish ghoul-like faces. Only zombies don’t breathe, and this mob is using up all the available air and generating more heat than the sun is outside. And those ginormous enamel vats of tea and coffee are probably helping stack up the temperature too, if Mrs Parker’s bright red face is anything to go by. She’s usually pretty laid back but I’d say now she’s losing the race to keep up with the demand for little beige cups. Not much tea in one of those – hardly seems worth the hassle.
“Do you want lemon or orange squash?” Mum shouts in my ear, handing one of the cups to Dad, who lifts it high above his shoulder level to prevent it being jolted. A large woman in a strappy orange sundress, with frizzy blonde hair and pinkish shoulder flesh bulging either side of the straps, knocks me forwards towards the trestle table with her hip and says “Oh sorry dear.”
I’d rather just get out of this over-crowded sauna. I’ll go find Jess, if I can worm my way out. My feet in my open sandals are looking very small amongst all these male veldskoens and female heels.
“Nothing thanks. I’m going to…”
“Going? Oh, tell you what… can you get my sunglasses out of my tartan bag and bring them to me? You know my tartan hold-all? It’s up where we were sitting – last stand on the right hand side, top row? I can’t find them in my handbag so think I left them there.”
She presents a clear plastic container of lemon squash to Rosie, who grabs it and promptly spills most of it on her own sandals because she’s not watching what she’s doing with her hands as usual.
“I’m not going to the stand,” I assure her, backing away. “Jess might be still in the House lines so I’m heading back over there. I haven’t talked with her all day because she’s in a different House to me.”
She’s not buying it. “Well you can see her after you bring me the sunglasses. Quickly now.”
My sister is wailing that her feet are wet and I no longer exist.
The red and white striped plates of sticky cakes and sweet biscuits have been decimated by the hordes and the equally stripy plastic table cover is encrusted with bright crystals of sugar and an assortment of crumbs. I snatch up the last custard cream off the nearest plate seconds ahead of a plump toddler’s sticky paw and wriggle away under the orange-dress woman’s arm.
I was right. Everyone who was in the spectator stands is now in the marquee. The stands are deserted, strewn with heaps of possessions – raincoats, hats, bags, umbrellas, binocular cases, even a few shoes – and the strings of red, yellow, green and blue bunting that are like the tendrils of some bizarre climbing plant are draped across the back of them and down both sides. Some of this has even crept up over the green canvas judges’ tent in its strategic position at the deep end. I’m surprised the tent is so small, considering it’s the nerve centre of the gala. Like the stands, it’s deserted. The table at the back of the green-glowing, dim interior is laden with the trophies – silver cups and shields, copper shields, small badges to be sewn onto blazers and a thick ream of cream coloured certificates – and the one at the front is strewn with entry lists and other assorted papers, paper-weights, whistles, stopwatches, various coloured biros and some lever arch files. Mr Westfield’s beige Peugeot station-wagon is reversed up to the side wall furthest from the stand Mum and Dad were on; against the inside of this wall is the First Aid cabinet surrounded by some coiled cables that must be part of the PA system.
Someone is behind the tent. I swear I can hear movement, a brushing, like a person walking through the longer grass. I stop, cock my head, hover immobile in the middle of a walking stride but nothing reaches my ears.
Probably hearing things. Never mind. Sunglasses, quick.
Take off again, scramble up the rows of seats to where Mum, Dad and Rosie were sitting earlier, grope around in the depths of Mum’s gaudy tartan hold-all, pull out the pink pouch and hold it aloft, congratulating myself like Jack Horner did with his plum. Straighten up, ready to jump back down again, and a sudden breeze puffs strands of my wet hair across my face. While I’m paused, peeling them away from my nose, Nathan Owen appears from behind the judges’ tent down to my right. He’s wearing a light grey T-shirt and school swimming trunks and is barefoot.
I freeze for the second time in just about as many minutes and blink a couple of times like I need to make sure this is real. He hasn’t seen me; his eyes are down, surreptitious, glancing right, then left, then right again as if he’s about to cross a road. Then he shakes his head fractionally like he’s having a conversation with himself and doesn’t know the answer to a question he’s asked. Then he walks away. Casual.
So now the brushing through grass sounds make sense. And the shock of seeing him appear there is nothing compared with the jolt from my first split second stab at guessing why he was there. It’s obvious. He’s stolen something from the tent.
Why else would he be lurking around when everyone’s gone to tea? Why else would he be checking no-one had seen him? Gill’s cousin is a thief. All the rumours are fact. He’s not only strange – he’s also criminal.
Halfway down the long side of the pool, after he’s passed in front of me, he hesitates and twists his head to the right towards the tent, then all the way back to his left and to the stand on which I’ve been turned to stone. Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t, I beg someone, but he does, and here I am in full view.
All my blood has drained down to my legs so my head goes light and wafty, but him – he gives no sign of alarm or even recognition. I’m left with his retreating form, forcing myself to breathe again, blinking against the glare of the sparkling, clear pool water. The summer sun is reflected across it and broken up into thousands of golden splinters by the wavelets and ripples and the little white circular polystyrene floats are bobbing on their cords like beads on a necklace. As soon as he’s disappeared from view in the crowds round the tea tent, I bolt, leaping down each level like a mountain goat.
When I hand the sunglasses over, Mum squints down at me with doubt in her face.
“Yes? What were you going to say?”
Yes, I’d opened my mouth and taken a breath. Yes, I was about to tell her what I just saw. But…
I get a cup of lemon squash thrust into my hand after all, Rosie’s insisting loudly that she wants to go to the toilet and Dad’s groaning, “Oh for God’s sake, Rosie, why couldn’t you say so earlier? We’ve only got five minutes or so now and we need to get back to our seats again. Tessa, go with her.”
Tessa, the Errand Girl. I wish I’d stuck with my plan and refused to get Mum’s stupid sunglasses. She’ll be back on the stand in a few minutes and surely she could’ve done without the glasses until then? I should’ve told her that.
*
It might look like a thick, smooth, green carpet, but kikuyu’s pretty prickly stuff, especially when you’ve been sitting on it for as long as this. The undersides of my thighs and ankles are dented with little red marks and I’m getting the wriggles. How much longer? The only thing that seems to be happening over in the judges’ tent is a whole lot of conversation.
No, wait, here we go – Mr Westfield’s on his feet, straightening the edge of his safari suit jacket, fiddling with the microphone.
He makes a few odd strangled noises that fill the air over our heads. He should’ve cleared his throat before he took up the mic, but it’s sure had the effect of seizing everyone’s attention and causing the swell of human sound to wane into a complete hush. Knowing him, that’s probably what he wanted to achieve.
Now he has all eyes fixed on him, he booms at us across the pool. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Ahem, ahem, excuse me, sorry, I seem to have a frog in my throat.”
He waits for the tittering and a thin burst of clapping to subside, then goes on, blah, blah, we’ve come to the end of the 1970 swimming gala, thank you all for coming, blah, blah, well done all you competitors for making our afternoon so enjoyable, blah, blah, this brings us to the prize giving ceremony, the climax of this event, hasn’t everyone done very well, blah, blah. He nods with satisfaction at the applause and cheering and I think get on with it.
Oh he does. This year, he’s very proud to unveil a new trophy, to be given to the captain of the House that’s displayed the most exuberant House spirit during this afternoon’s proceedings. So where is it, we’re wondering? No. it’s not on display here, so sorry to disappoint you all. He’ll fetch it from his office so that its unveiling can be the more dramatic. It’s been named after blah, blah. How much longer?
This time the noisy applause is sustained for a couple of minutes and behind me Katie Turpin whispers, “Awful. Do you remember?”
“What?”
“Mike Bester? Got killed in a hit and run? Surely you do? D’you reckon we won the House spirit? Did he say he’s got a frog in his throat?”
Mr Westfield’s voice sounds as gravelly as mine feels after all that bellowing I did earlier. Oh, the trophy. I can’t say I knew Mike Bester – he was in Standard Five – but Gill did and his sister Leah rides at Turnpike, so I’m happy he’ll be remembered in this way, but I’m not eaten up with curiosity about who’s won the thing. I just want to go home. Poor Jess won’t be best pleased with Baobab being last. She’s been a star performer, but all her team-mates, unfortunately, have been rubbish. The way she won the girls’ crawl relay for them was phenomenal, but it wasn’t enough.
And the boys’ free style relay? That should’ve gone completely unnoticed by me like ninety percent of races today. He must’ve been press-ganged into this participation thing as well. He was last to go for Munondo, so Mr Carr must’ve known he was good. I did wonder if he even knew he was supposed to get in the pool and swim when he was standing like a statue at the back of the Munondo line while all the other boys went crazy, cheering, yelling, jumping up and down. He’s got strong arms. When he finished his two lengths he lifted himself up out of the water so high he could put his foot on the edge tiles, and that was from the deep end so he didn’t even have the bottom of the pool to push off. I can only get my knee onto the edge and then I have to climb the rest of me out like some sort of clumsy beetle.
They tried to gather round him after he won the race but he blanked them, and they melted apart so he could walk away. He’s strange all right.
Is he a thief though? I don’t see how. He was only wearing a T-shirt and swimming trunks when I saw him by the tent – it’s not like he was dressed in a striped shirt and a mask and carrying a bag marked ‘Swag’ like all the best burglars in cartoons. And none of the staff in the judges’ tent are tearing the place apart hunting for lost trophies and no-one’s called the police. I raise myself on my hands a little and stretch my neck as much as it will go, scanning the ranks of children to my left, but the Standard Threes are too far across, and there are too many bodies in between for me to be able to view all of them. I can’t find him amongst the ones I can see.
To Katie, I say, “Yes, I remember it. Don’t know if we won. Wait and find out. No, of course he doesn’t have a real frog in his throat.”
Mr Hartman-Davies now has the mic and Mr Westfield is climbing into his car, I guess to go and fetch this House Spirit cup. There’s an expectant kind of buzz but I’ll bet nothing’s going to happen for a while yet. More waiting. Katie behind me is twisted round in conversation with Karen and there’s no point trying to talk to Mary-Anne in front ’cause she only ever gives one word answers with a face like a frightened rabbit, so I unfold my legs and stretch them out to one side of her to get grass dents on some other parts of them while I examine and massage the dents I already have.
Mr Westfield’s engine fires up and there’s a distant clunk as he puts the car into gear, then the attention I’m giving to the wiry grass and my legs is cut short.
A sharp rise in the pitch of the buzz, not around me, but from the direction of the pool, reaches a crescendo that’s a cross between a collective gasp and a wail, punctuated with words like “Woah!”, “Oooh!”, “Loooook!” and “Stop! Stop!”
Around me, kids are scrabbling to their feet, and if I’m to have any chance of finding out what’s going on I’ve got to join in – just in time to see the front table in the judges’ tent jerk to the right once, twice and then begin to move towards the side flap, like it’s following Mr Westfield’s car.
Pandemonium. Spectators jumping, hollering, pointing, Mrs Anderson screaming and stumbling backwards, upsetting some of the prizes on the rear table, all the forms and files scattering and sliding off the front trestle and Mr Hartman-Davies shouting “Bloody Hell!” across all of our heads.
In spite of all this, Mr Westfield starts to accelerate, at which point the trestle table erupts through the canvas flap with a crash. One of the guy ropes is wrenched from the ground by the impact and that side of the tent sags. Then his face, open mouthed, turns towards us and he stands on the brake pedal. There’s a twanging vibration and the mystery of the escaping table is revealed. A thin, light cord, identical to those dividing the pool into lanes, has been wound around both trestle legs nearest to the side of the tent and then tied to the rear bumper of the vehicle.
It’s like watching a cartoon. Mr Westfield leaps out of his stalled car and capers around on the spot while Mr Hartman-Davies, with commendable presence of mind, tries to prevent the whole tent from collapsing by holding up the roof pole. There’s applause, cheering, whistling, hooting. The whole school is on its feet, straining on tiptoe so as not to miss out on any of the action and I’m gasping for breath and wiping tears from my eyes. Then the sight of Mrs Anderson emerging from the remains of the tent triggers off the memory and cuts my hysterics like a switch extinguishes a light.
So where is he? Joining in this hilarity, or hiding somewhere? I’m drawn to try again, searching across all the bodies and faces as I did before. There’s a shift and a surge of the bodies forwards, a gap opens and he finds me. He pulls my eyes across to meet with his like he’s a magnet and I’m a paper clip. He’s standing with his left arm folded across his chest, the forelock of dark hair concealing his eyes, and he’s tapping the fingers of his right hand absently against his cheek just like Gill does. With all attention focussed on the drama at the tent, I’m alone in a bubble. With him. His face is utterly devoid of any expression.
I swallow, lick my lips, but he won’t release me. He shakes his head twice, with exaggerated slowness, mouths some words at me. Lip reading them isn’t hard. He’s saying, “Not me.”
Then his eyes are gone and I’m free to turn back to the scene of the crime.
Not me. Not him. He didn’t do it.
Some semblance of order is restored. Mr Westfield fetches his precious trophy and the prize-giving ceremony is a complete flop. Applause is thin, barely rising above the chatter and laughter and hubbub and some prize-winners have to be called several times. The House Spirit trophy, awarded to Baobab House, does receive a few whistles if only in recognition of the fact that it’s the root of all the fun.
I have a kind of premonition that this spells trouble for us on Monday.