Chapter 15
Annie
Ibiza is bliss!!! Dancing all evening!!! Tanning by day!!! You’d love it!!!
Catherine
Sounds wonderful!
Annie
Wish you were here!!!
Catherine
Definitely!
Annie
Back tomorrow!!! I’ll be round for dinner! Need something that isn’t tapas!
By Thursday, the day of the Seafarers’ next practice, Kitty’s body had recovered just enough, so she was able to move without wincing, stretch without crumpling in pain and cross her legs without whimpering.
Tara was already stretching at the side of the pitch when Shazza and Kitty hobbled out of the changing room and onto the pitch. Tom and Rory were making their way out of the men’s changing room towards Tara. Rory was wearing a Celine Dion T-shirt over his regulation Seafarers’ top.
‘You’re lucky,’ said Shazza to Kitty. ‘You’ve got the legs for shorts. And as you know, I’m not a leg fascist. The knobblier and the blotchier, the better… but yours are in a league above us mere mortals.’
‘Really?’ It had been a long time since Kitty’s legs had been on display in public, and she had felt self-conscious about exposing them to the world.
‘If I were to have anyone’s legs,’ said Shazza, ‘I would choose yours. And your ears.’
Kitty laughed. ‘My ears?’
Shazza nodded. ‘Mine were once described as “characterful”,’ she said. ‘Which I think means they are lopsided and one sticks out more than the other…’
‘I have never noticed.’
‘Well, proves how much time you’ve spent looking at me then,’ said Shazza. ‘I feel quite insulted.’
Kitty laughed again, just as Tara was making her way towards them, followed by Tom and Rory.
‘Come on!’ Tara shouted. ‘What are you two doing just hanging about? It’s not school, you know… jog on the spot, knees up, quick!’
Tom and Rory looked a little apologetically over at Shazza and Kitty, as though they were taking some of the blame for this truly awful predicament Kitty and Shazza had ended up in.
‘Remind me again why we are here?’ Kitty asked Shazza, out of the corner of her mouth, as they jogged up and down, knees up as high as possible. ‘It’s like some kind of punishment,’ Kitty panted. ‘Torture.’
Tara’s phone rang and she went to answer it. ‘Keep going!’ she ordered.
‘We wanted to get out of our comfort zones, remember?’ said Shazza, breathlessly. ‘Remember, meet in the middle? You lighten up, me lighten down?’
‘I preferred us before,’ gasped Kitty. ‘I think we should go back to our old selves…’
‘I agree,’ said Shazza. ‘I was wrong!’
‘What are you two saying?’ asked Tom, jogging closer towards them. ‘Don’t tell me you’re thinking of giving up?’
‘We have to,’ wheezed Shazza. ‘Otherwise, we might not make it out alive…’
‘If you’re going,’ he said, ‘I’m going. Even if Aunt Edith will kill me…’
‘COME ON!’ Tara shouted again, slipping her phone into her back pocket. ‘KNEES UP! HIGHER! MORE ENERGY!’
Beside them, Rory was impressively bouncing up and down, his knees like pistons. It was like the birth of steam, thought Kitty. The Flying Irishman.
‘That’s it, Rory,’ said Tara. ‘Everyone, look at Rory. That’s what it should be like…’
Still flying up and down, Rory managed to shrug awkwardly at them, to show that he was a reluctant teacher’s pet.
Eventually, after sit-ups, a two-minute plank and forty star jumps, they began their kick around.
‘Right,’ said Tara. ‘The aim is to kick the ball to the next person and then they kick it on. First, Tom, then Rory, Kitty, Shazza, and back to me… everyone spread out.’
They did so, Kitty feeling so far away from everyone that she had to squint to see Shazza. Tara blew her whistle as she kicked the ball towards Tom, who deftly managed to kick the ball towards Rory, who then manoeuvred it around and jimmied it towards Kitty. She knew all she had to do was run faster than the speeding ball, get in front of it and stop it with her foot. Then she would just boot it to Shazza, the way she’d seen it done over the years, in the all-too-brief glances she’d had. But as Kitty took off in pursuit, the ball was skimming along the grass at the speed of a bullet, travelling over the painted white line, towards the stands, where it hit the hoarding. In an instant, the ball ricocheted back and flew into the air, and whacked Kitty in the face. The sound echoed around the pitch, and somewhere she heard Tom’s ‘Oooh!’ and Shazza gave a yell and then all she knew she was on the ground, opening her eyes, and Tara was giving her a shake. ‘Kitty? Kitty?’
Shazza was holding her hand, and up above were the worried faces of Tom and Rory.
‘I’m all right,’ Kitty said. ‘I’m fine…’ She wasn’t though. She was humiliated, mortified, and appalled at what had happened. Her face was stinging as though she’d done a chemical peel bought off the internet.
‘Kitty! Kitty!’ Oh God. That sounded like her father. ‘Kitty!’
Groaning, she closed her eyes and when she flickered them open again, there he was, looking down at her.
‘I saw everything,’ he said, his face a mixture of concern but also amazement and was that amusement? ‘It was like you were hit by a cannonball,’ he went on, ‘lifted you right off your feet. Jaysus. Your face. You look like you’ve done a round with Tyson Fury…’
‘Thank you, Dad,’ she said. ‘Helpful.’
‘Why didn’t you just move out of the way?’ he said. ‘Or, better yet, hooch it back?’
‘I wanted to know what it would be like to be hit in the face,’ she replied. ‘Have to experience everything in life, don’t you?’
Tom was kneeling beside her, his fingers on either side of her temples, looking into her eyes. ‘How are you feeling, Kitty? Can you see normally? Is anything blurry?’
Tom was in sharp focus, his eyes fabulously blue, his fingers felt warm and soft. ‘I’m grand,’ she said. ‘Fine.’ She wished she was concussed because she wouldn’t have been able to register the embarrassment. But Tom didn’t look as though he was laughing at her, he seemed genuinely concerned. Gently, he pulled her up by one arm, while Billy pulled the other.
‘You need to know where the ball is coming from and visualise its trajectory and then…’ Billy was saying.
‘Thank you, Dad,’ Kitty intervened. ‘But I just need to get changed… you can give me your top tips later…’
‘I’ll give you a call,’ he said, as Shazza helped her back to the changing room, leaving him and Tom and Rory behind. ‘I’ve got lots of top tips… I could even…’ Billy’s voice carried over the air, but Kitty didn’t hear any more as her ears were beginning to throb along with everything else, as though a Garda siren had exploded in her brain. The humiliation was worse. To be smacked in the face in front of all those people… in front of her dad. And in front of Rory and Tom as well. For a moment, through the ringing in the ears, the pounding heart and the dizziness, she wondered why she cared about what Rory and Tom thought. At least, she told herself, Dave hadn’t seen her or he’d never return.
Back in the changing room, Shazza insisted on wetting a towel and, after making Kitty lie on the bench on her back, laid it on Kitty’s face.
‘I can’t do it, Shazza,’ said Kitty, through the towel. ‘I want to go back to the old me.’
Shazza lifted the towel from Kitty’s mouth. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, I want to go back to my old life, the old Kitty…’
Shazza replaced the towel. ‘But was the old Kitty happy? Was the life of the old Kitty working? Did she have everything she needed and wanted?’
Kitty remained silent under the wet towel.
‘To effect change, one has to completely change direction,’ went on Shazza, as though she was giving an inspirational talk. ‘You have to be brave. You have to strike out on new paths, different pastures… novel ventures… didn’t we agree?’ Shazza didn’t wait for Kitty to answer. ‘We have to keep going. I was nearly enjoying myself out there, once we’d stopped jumping up and down. A ball in the face is nothing if it means your life is changing.’
Kitty lay, her face throbbing, under the wet towel, water runnelling down the side of her face and neck, creating rock pools in her ears. Right, she thought, I will pretend to Shazza I am willing to change, but really, this is just a holding position until my old life resumes. And then she could go back to the old Kitty, where life was comfortable and she didn’t get hit in the face with footballs. Hurry up, Dave, she willed. I can’t do this for much longer.