What Becomes (13 page)

In the baths everything is standard, predictable, doesn't matter what pool they come to. First there's the push or the pull on heavy doors and that walk into a thump of hot air – stuns your breath – and then chlorine smell and kiddie smell and there'll be that knowledge of a space nearby, light and high with the huge tearing windows – the windows will take out at least the one wall – and all of that water trapped underneath the airiness, that pressure and weight.

Dan and the others, they'll start mucking about, getting wound up by the anticipation of effort – flailing themselves from one place to another, hither and yon – the idea of fitness, applicable force – and more mucking about.

‘Hey! Salt and vinegar!' Gobbler is shouting at Dan. Gobbler with an accent that is east of Scotland and Dan who sounds west – sounds, he supposes, like he's from Coatbridge, because he is. Gobbler is from salt and sauce land and Dan is from salt and vinegar. On occasion, they set out the subtleties of this to the others.

‘Gobbler's from the heathen side – they put salt and sauce on their chips.'

‘Jockanese bastards – everything's spuds with you. Like the bloody Micks.' Frank dodges in with this, yelling – sounds like he's near to Gobbler, out of sight behind a row of changing cubicles. ‘How long are you meant to live, anyway, on fried Mars bars and fried pizza and fried fucking pies?'

‘About till we're twenty.' Dan remembers the trip they had to Kettering – which is where Frank has settled. It's a wee, grey hoor of a place. ‘Twenty years in Kettering, that'd feel like eighty. I'd top myself.'

The lot of them of them shouting back and forth at each other, scattered in the room, while they change and are overexcited and Dan thinks of being at school and how that was: swimming days with rubbish pals – pals who weren't pals at all – and not wanting to get undressed, being scared that he'd maybe sink this time, choke, scared of standing in nothing but trunks and somebody picking him out, starting something, having a go, and then the teachers coming in to the troublemakers and saying they had to behave and this being a relief to Dan, but also shaming – he knew it wasn't right, that he should sort his own problems, but couldn't. He'd been shy then and not aware of his potential and people could miss things in children – this happens constantly, he's certain – and even if an adult might try to be helpful, they might not do it a good way. Not enough care is taken. He worries for kids quite often. He wonders how they get through. He is extremely concerned that each possible kid should get through. He considers doing voluntary work with youngsters.

Dan as a youngster, he'd got his head down and tried to be correct, quiet and correct, tucked himself out of sight inside the rules. It was two years back, three, since he'd left that stuff – such a long while. He'd not forgotten, though – how he'd been useless.

Gobbler is hammering on the lockers between him and Dan and asking, bellowing, ‘You got your kit off yet?' Gobbler who had another name in other times and places, when he was with other Gobblers, but now he is by himself and not in a regiment, so he is
the
Gobbler – he is the representative of his type. ‘
Oh, Danny Boy
. . . You having trouble?'

No one will come in and tell them they have to do anything today. They will misbehave.

‘Piss off.'

‘Your pants are removed over the feet, remember – not over the head. Poor bloody Paras, you do get confused.'

‘Fuck off.'

And they are none of them useless.

‘Are you naked yet, though, Danny? Getting hard just thinking about it.' Gobbler rattles something that sounds metallic and laughs. ‘And here's old Fez, living up to his name . . . a dapper and fragrant man. Your heady aroma, sir, reminds me of those lovely evenings back at the mess when I ran the naked bar.'

A few strangers are in here too, but they are minding their own business. Mostly. Dan catches one of them giving him a walty look, in fact, the most perfectly walty look he's met: that civilian mix of need and disgust, someone who thinks he might like being scared, but wouldn't want the whole real deal, not a bit – wants to flirt, not end up being fucked. Dan stares at him while shouting back to Gobbler, shouting hard so that spittle leaves him, so that his heartbeat wakes.

‘Bollocks!'

‘Exactly. And where there's bollocks . . .'

‘Don't start.'

‘There's the mighty Gobbler javelin of Spam. You know when I get hard now –'

Everyone joining in here, because they know the words, ‘
It looks like I've got two dicks.
'

Gobbler's left leg gone from above the knee – which is called a transfemoral amputation – this allowing him to repeatedly assert a lie that keeps him merry, or relatively so.

There are six of them today: Gobbler, Petey, Fezman, Jason, Frank and Dan. That's two transfemoral – one with a transtibial to match – an elbow disarticulation, a transradial, a double wrist disarticulation – Frank's been hopeless at knitting ever since – and then there's Dan: he's a right foot disarticulation and a right arm transhumeral – roughly halfway between the elbow and the shoulder – the elbow which is not there any more and the shoulder which is – the elbow which Dan still feels – the elbow which is frequently wet: warm and wet, like it was when he last saw it. This is another variety of repeatedly asserted lie.

‘Here we go, then. Where'd you get the trunks from, Fezman?' This from Jason who's hidden by the lockers nearest the exit.

‘Girlfriend.'

‘Got the
DILAC
trunks from his girlfriend, everyone.' When they move out for the main event, Jason will be on one side of Petey and Fezman will be on the other. They will cradle him, but won't talk about it. They will look mainly straight ahead. They will halt when they get to the footbath and threaten to dip in Petey's arse. This will make them laugh.

‘He doesn't have a bloody girlfriend.' Gobbler again – a man who's fond of the chat, who probably was the same before.

Jason answers him from the footbath, ‘Ah, but he's definitely got the trunks.'

‘Got it the wrong way round again, Fez, you minging big window-licker. You want to have the girlfriend and fuck the trunks.'

‘No. I want to fuck the
girlfriend
and
have
the trunks.'

They're all giggling, Dan can hear from every side, pissing themselves over nothing, letting themselves get daft, because that's what they want.

Gobbler's all set now for his own trip to the poolside. So, ‘Come and get it then, you big Marys.'

Gobbler calls for him exactly as Dan drops his locker key, has to reach it back up, pin it to his trunks without stabbing anything precious. He removes his foot before swimming. In the thickness of the water he can feel he doesn't know it isn't there, but meanwhile he grabs on to the lockers to make his way, works himself round the houses in hops and sways like he does at home.

The other two are waiting by the time he reaches them.

Then Dan and Frank and Gobbler huddle up and start to stumble themselves along – four feet between them out of the possible six.

‘Mind where you put your hand, ducky. None of that 3 Para Mortar Platoon stuff here.' Gobbler sways them too close to a wall and then back.

Dan isn't much of a talker except out on the Gatherings. ‘Make your bloody mind up, Gobbler.' The rest of the time he'll maybe ask for his stop on a bus, or say something mumbly and stupid to Doris at the chipper, because she wants him to be guilty and he agrees. Probably in her mind she has the truth that there's a set amount of death and what missed Dan found someone else. She misunderstands the working of that truth, but he won't help her to figure it out. It's none of her business. ‘Are you scared that
we're
gay, or are you just worried about yourself?' And Dan maybe does eat more chips than he should. ‘Because we've always thought
you
were a fudge packer.' He could give them a by and not have to meet her again. ‘Didn't want to say so in case you got upset.' Except she needs him to be there, he can feel that. ‘You'll just end up crying and then your mascara'll run.' He needs it, too.

Frank listens and smiles down at a skinny coffin-dodger who's folding his kecks on the bench nearest to them and trying to act invisible. Frank enunciates very clearly past Gobbler's ear, ‘I can give you a special handjob, help you decide – clear all your pipework.' He waggles his free stump and winks. ‘Just bend over and kiss Danny's ring.'

They stagger on, holding tight, and under other circumstances it might simply be that they're drunk already and out somewhere late at night – it might be there's years not happened yet and they've some other reason for being mates.

Hospital – great place to meet folk, get new mates.

Get proper pals.

Once they're out at the pool, Dan breathes in warm and wet and is harmed by the sharp light and the din from the kids, hard noises.

A school party's here, maybe a couple – lots of primary-age heads and bodies – the water's splitting and heaving with them – all polystyrene floats and nervous piss.

Dan is aware they could prove to have an overwhelming nature, could defeat him, and he never does handle this bit too well. The panic is up and in him before he can jump and be ears full of water, wrapped by it and washed and free. He concentrates on being glad of Frank and Gobbler: the carrying, discomfort, distraction.

And he knows that once he's swimming he'll be fine. These days he goes on his back and is quite accomplished, purposeful, almost steers in the directions he intends.

‘Nearly there, then.'

‘Well, I had actually guessed that, you mong – cos of the fucking pool being right fucking here.' Gobbler shifts his weight and they stagger to the edge faster than intended.

Dan makes a point of exhaling and starting to grin. He is about to improve himself. He has grasped the theory, read the leaflets – people like him need a way to ignore their reminders, the signs of wounding which are their obvious and inconvenient new shape. His body is not an aid to mental rehabilitation. So he swims, makes everything glide and be jolly. This means he'll improve faster. But never as fast as he would without his injuries. That's a medical fact – if he still had his foot and the rest of his arm, he'd be finding life much better than he is.

He frowns, brings his thinking forward, peers ahead of his skin and his skull to the spot where Pete is already bobbing, hand at rest on the side and frowning up at a woman who is pacing and speaking to Fezman and Jason. They are both still dry and standing on the tiles, Fezman in these mad, knee-length trunks like he's going to play football in the 1920s but with Day-Glo palm trees and dolphins and surf on them. You can tell he fancies himself in them and they're new. They maybe are from a girlfriend.

The speaking woman is round-shouldered and wears a blouse and a long skirt so tight it almost stops her walking, only this isn't good because she has no arse, no pleasantness to see. When she angles herself and faces Dan, he ends up looking right at the curve of her little belly and her little mound and he doesn't want to. They make him sad. Everything about her is sad – browny grey and bloody depressing – hair, clothes, shoes that she clips and quarter-steps along in – and Dan can tell she's a teacher, because she's got that fakecheerful thing about her mouth and darty little eyes that are tired and want to find mistakes. Every now and then, her lips thin together and it gets obvious that her job has gone badly for her, and probably also her life. And here she is taking her class for swimming lessons on a Tuesday afternoon – for safety and fitness and possibly something else that she can't quite control. Dan is of the opinion that she should not have any kind of care over children.

‘Excuse me.' The teacher doesn't speak to Dan, although she has left the others and drawn really near to him. She's maybe only in her forties, but he notices she smells of old lady.

‘Excuse me.' She focuses on Gobbler. ‘I realise you've been here, that you come here quite often . . .' She swallows and angles her head away, starts seriously watching the children – you'd think they were going to catch on fire, or something – not that she'd be any use to save them. ‘And I've explained you to them, but now –'

‘What d'you say, love?' Gobbler interrupts her and his arm around Dan flexes. ‘You've explained . . . ?'

‘Yes, I could explain
you
to them.'

Gobbler's arm getting ready for something, thoughts roaring about inside it, Dan can hear them.

‘Don't know what you mean though, love. How you'd explain me. What you'd be explaining.' Gobbler is nearly giggling which the woman shouldn't think is him being friendly, because Dan knows he's not. ‘Is that like I need translating? Like I'm a foreign language, because that's not it – British me, British to the core.'

Dan wanting to clear off out of it, avoid, and also wanting to do what he must, what he does – he goes along with the lads: Fezman, Frank, Jason, even Petey in the water, they close up alongside Gobbler, make a curvy sort of line, and they watch the woman regret herself, but still think she's in the right. ‘It's the children – I know you can't help it – but they get upset.'

Dan's voice out of him before he realises, ‘They don't look upset.'

‘One of the girls was crying.'

‘They look fine. Splashing away and happy. I mean, they do. I wouldn't say it, if they weren't.'

She tries going at Gobbler again which is unwise and Dan wonders how she managed to qualify, even get to be a teacher, when she is this thick and this shit at understanding a situation. ‘I told them you were as God made you.'

‘What?'