And then she goes to sleep
Without saying
goodnight,
Without turning off the light,
Without checking I’m all right.
Sleepover
We devour too many liquorice laces,
Too many cans of Coke
And buckets of popcorn,
So when we try to sleep
It’s impossible;
We keep thinking of funny things
To tell each other
And secrets to share,
Stories we forgot were important
Until we turned out the lights.
When I admit the reason Dalilah cannot
Sleep over at my house,
When I tell her there would be
Three people
In one bed
If she stayed,
She says, ‘I used to sleep with Grandma
When I was little. It wasn’t so bad.’
She does not feel sorry
Or come closer to comfort me:
Instead
She tells her own secrets
And they are just as strange
As mine.
And I do not feel sorry either.
When the birds start fidgeting,
When the darkness has lifted,
We are still awake
And cannot imagine sleeping
With so much on our minds.
So we go downstairs for breakfast.
Cooking Stones
Ms Morrow says I’m the
Best swimmer in Year Eight,
Maybe in Coventry.
She wants me to come with
The team to a swim-meet
In London
In two weeks,
To race
Against girls who
Could beat me.
Schools from across the country
Are competing.
Ms Morrow gives me a blank permission slip
To take home.
Mama shakes her head:
No. Absolutely. No.
She doesn’t give a reason.
She doesn’t have to.
The reason is clear:
I don’t deserve it.
Kanoro says:
‘Patience can cook a stone.’
I know he means I need to give Mama time.
I know he means she’ll stop blaming me
When she’s feeling well again.
I know he means other things too.
But I am thirteen and
Mama’s forty-two,
So she should know better.
Isn’t that what they say?
She should know better.
Good News
Kanoro received special papers,
So he’s going to work in London
At a place called St Bart’s,
As an actual doctor
For children.
When he tells Mama and me
He is so excited
He knocks over a lamp and
Rubs out the light.
Mama doesn’t care about the lamp:
For the first time in a month
She laughs
and runs to hug Kanoro.
My feelings are untidy:
I am happy
to see Mama this way,
I am sad
Kanoro must leave,
And I am confused:
I don’t know why they are both
So thrilled
When Kanoro’s news
Means he will leave us.
Vacant
I tell him
not to warn me.
I do not want
to say goodbye.
I am used to lost
Goodbyes.
And so,
One day,
When I get home,
His door is open,
His bed is stripped,
His books are gone,
His room is empty.
And I change my mind:
I want to say goodbye
After all.
Rebellion
William says I should go to London
Anyway.
He doesn’t always do what
He’s told.
‘No one does,’ he tells me,
Kissing me,
Showing me.
We walk past my bus stop
And I don’t go straight home
To Mama.
‘I’ve lied too much already,’
I say.
And he says,
‘Then what’s one more?’
And this is true.
What harm can it do,
To lie
Just once more?
Betrayal
When I go to Tata’s house,
To ask him to sign the slip –
He’s my parent too
After all –
He isn’t there;
It’s just Melanie and the child.
So I plead with her to sign.
And she does,
With a blunt pencil
From Briony’s toy box.
Then she takes a
Colouring book,
And on the back
Copies down the date.
‘I’ll tell your father,’
she says.
Every day after school
I train for the competition;
Every day I am cleansed
By this daily baptism.
Every day I am swallowed and saved.
Mama doesn’t care
Where I am any more.
She’s happy to have lost me
To the water.
Lies in the Dark
Mama is asleep when I
Tiptoe out
Of our room
With my kit in one hand
My permission slip in the other.
I packed my bag last night,
And hid it under the kitchen sink.
I leave a note, so she won’t worry,
A lie scratched out in the dark
About an open house at the school.
From the bus stop
I can see our window,
And I wish Mama would appear
And wave goodbye.
Goodbye and good luck.
She doesn’t, of course.
Mama’s groaning in her sleep,
Groaning and dreaming of
Tata and Kasienka
Plotting against her.
To London
Some rules are universal:
The back of the bus is reserved for the popular.
So I’m at the front behind Ms Morrow.
And William is somewhere in the middle
With the other older boys,
Huddled around a phone watching YouTube.
The back is where Clair sits,
Surrounded by a horde of wild approval.
They actually applaud when she boards the bus,
A smattering of claps and hoots
Like echoes in a jungle.
She smiles shyly, fakes embarrassment,
And looks past me for once.
Ms Morrow turns around and says, ‘Excited?’
I pretend not to have heard
And take a book from my bag
Because I have already told
My last lie.
Fear
The echoes – the shouts and splashes,
Carry through to the changing room
Where I am pulling on my
Nearly-not-there costume.
The girls in my race are taller
And leaner, with polished toenails and shaved legs
And I am not sure I will be able to get myself
out of the changing room
And into the pool at all
If everyone’s looking.
Clair appears from a cubicle
in her own costume,
More womanly
Than all the rest –
Her breas
ts round,
Her nipples quiet –
And she wishes me luck
By tousling my short hair.
Now I know there’s only one way
To get Revenge.
Starting Blocks
The cheering and chants
From the throbbing crowd
Fade to nothing
When I’m on the
Block.
I only hear an underwater din,
A ringing-babbling-vacuum,
And a kind of coaxing
Coming from the water.
In the bright light the people look
Like ghosts, and then I see one – Tata –
Standing up in the crowd,
Quiet and stern, as focused as I am.
And then I spot William too,
Holding up a sign with my name on it.
There isn’t time to check whether they’re real
Or phantoms in my mind.
There isn’t time to check for Mama.
We’re on our marks.
Ready.
Set.
Go.
Home
Water is another world:
A land with its own language
Which I speak fluently.
It’s alien and dangerous.
I can’t even breathe down here.
Treading water
Works only if I relax;
If I fight,
I sink.
I have to trust myself,
Trust the territory and
My own body,
The power of each limb.
It’s the silence I want.
And the weight of the water
Over me –
Around me –
The safe silence of submergence.
At the pool’s edge I might be ugly,
But when I speak strokes
I am beautiful.
Gold
Tata hugs me when I finish
Even though I am wet
And he’s wearing a suit.
‘My Olympian,’ he says,
And looks so proud
I couldn’t care less
Who sees me crying.
Metamorphosis
Clair tears open my cubicle door
Without knocking,
But I am already fully dressed.
‘You think you’re something,’
She barks.
There are two girls behind her
But they are far enough away
For me to know they won’t interfere.
I step close to Clair and whisper,
In a language I think she’ll understand,
‘Why don’t you just piss off.’
The girls behind her giggle and
Clair gapes, about to retaliate,
When suddenly she sees my joy,
My win,
And her power dissolves.
The two girls cough and step away
And Clair is left
To face me unsupported
Which she cannot do.
‘Whatever,’ she says and
Turns, runs, shouts –
‘Wait for me!’
Forgiveness
Mama does not know how to say sorry,
But now Kanoro has gone
She is lonelier than me,
And much quieter,
So quiet I sometimes check she
Hasn’t died of heartache.
With Kanoro gone
And Tata gone
Maybe Mama is unhappier
Than I can understand.
When she sees the trophy,
A golden swimmer
Diving from a marble platform
Into space, she says,
‘It wasn’t your fault, Kasienka,’
And that’s as much as she can admit,
Or as happy as she can be for me.
And for now, that’s OK.
Reunion
I am sitting on the
Front steps of our
Building, chewing on a
Peperami, waiting for William,
When Kanoro arrives
Without warning.
I jump to greet him
And he takes me
Into his arms without embarrassment.
‘Where’s the birthday girl?’ he asks.
Mama was standing at our window
Watching me and is down the stairs
Mama runs to Kanoro.
They look stupid together:
Mama is bright-white.
Kanoro is too-black against her.
And yet, the picture is pretty good.
Treat
Kanoro takes Mama to dinner.
She wears a yellow dress
And shoes so high
She wobbles when she walks.
Mama wore that dress once before,
In Gdańsk,
When Tata took her to the theatre
And they came home
Holding hands.
But Mama and Kanoro
Are not hand holding
When they get back from dinner
At all.
They are holding their tummies
Because they ate too many
Tacos
And then they are holding their sides
Laughing.
Kanoro sleeps on the couch
And in the morning,
After tea and toast,
He honks his horn,
Waves from the window of his
New car and disappears
On to the ring road.
I watch Mama closely,
Afraid she will rearrange herself
Into grief.
‘People usually come back, Mama,’
I say, and she nods
As she folds the sheer yellow dress and
Lays it neatly in a drawer.
‘I think I need a haircut,’ she says.
Resurrection
Mama is alive again,
A little bit alive.
She isn’t singing.
But now and then she
Hums
Without meaning to.
Side by Side
Clair still stands in the centre
Surrounded by a thick circle of girls.
I can feel their desperation,
The thirst for admission.
It is a dance for popularity,
Swapping places every day,
Knowing that tomorrow
Any one of them could be
out.
Maybe it’s lonely for Clair
There
In the centre
Directing the dance.
She ignores me again,
Which is better than being bullied.
Dalilah and I stand together
Side by side.
There is no one in the centre,
We’re just looking out
In the same direction
Not desperately at one another
Fearing betrayal.
Epilogue
Butterfly
Now that I can front crawl,
Back crawl,
Breaststroke,
I am breaking out.
Ms Morrow is teaching me
The butterfly.
When I am in the water
My body moves like a wave:
There is a violence to it
And a beauty.
I lie on my breast,
My arms outstretched
My legs extended back –
Waiting to kick.
And I pull,
Push,
Recover.
This is how the Butterfly works.
I have to hollow out spaces
For breathing,
And if I miss them
I can’t swim.
But I do.
I know when to come up for air
When to keep my head down.
At practice,
On the starting block
I am not frightened at all:
I am standing on my own,
And it
Never felt so good.
Acknowledgements
This book might never have found the light were it not for several special people: my agent, the wonderful Julia Churchill, who worked tirelessly to read, edit and champion the project; everyone at Bloomsbury, especially my editor, Ele Fountain, for her hard work, insight and sensitivity; the Edward Albee Foundation (its founder and fellows), which gave me the space and time to complete this novel; my friends and early readers, Erin Whitcraft and Jill Wehler; the Hudson School, notably its principal and founder, Suellen Newman, who has always been a remarkable source of support and inspiration; Marta Gut for her invaluable cultural advice on Poland.
Many books influenced my writing, and it would be impractical to mention them all, but I would like to highlight Odd Girl Out by Rachel Simmons, which informed so much of my understanding about girls and bullying.
I am especially grateful to Mum, Dad, Jimmy and Andreas for their love and support.