Over-arm Bowling

It was Tuesday, Rachel's favourite day. Art had passed quietly in the morning with the children sketching each other's faces in great swoops of their 2b pencils. Rachel loved art. She kept her head down and moved her hands over paper until something appeared. It was simple.
But the best of the day was yet to come. PE was after the next break.
The children began to talk as they put their folders away, scraping their chairs back and laughing. Over the noise, travelling towards her like wind, Rachel could hear the teacher's shoes squeak on the floor.
'Are you alright, Rachel?' the teacher asked. She crouched by Rachel's table. 'I know there are some problems at home'¦'
Rachel liked this teacher. Her face was round, her skin olive, her hair sleek and black. She could have sailed from the Philippines, Rachel thought, or Hawaii. But the teacher's name, Rachel knew, was French, not Hawaiian. And when the children learned Frere Jaque, their hopeless Yorkshire vowels blunting the end of each syllable, this teacher, Mrs. Redon, had a voice that lifted the words and seemed to make them glide through the song.
'Rachel, you know you're not alone.' she said. 'There are other children in the school who's parents have split up.'
Rachel sat silently, staring at the teacher, still trying to think of anything except the questions. She knew there were lots of families like that. But she also knew her own family was different.
The other children in school had step-dads and boasted about the extra presents they got at Christmas, the holidays and the constant attention.
For Rachel a step-dad wouldn't mean much, being as she'd never even see him. But a step-mum was the one thing Rachel dreaded the most. She put her books away, each one a stone in her hand.

Two months ago, the night Rachel's world changed, she sat at the top of the stairs at home, staring at the Greek-key pattern on the carpet while her mum and dad screamed at each other downstairs over the murmur of the TV. Rachel put her hands over her ears and pressed hard. Still she caught the ends of their words in her head.
'Don't think I didn't know!' her mum was shouting. 'I'm not stupid'
'No,' her dad replied. 'And you're not exactly innocent either, are you?'
Rachel's mum went quiet for a moment, as if she realised that it all stopped there.
'Sometimes I think it would be easier to pack a bag and leave.' she said.
Not long after that Rachel heard the front door slam, the brass knocker on the outside of it jolting and hitting it like a swing ball.
Rachel stayed at the top of the stairs, listening but there was no other sound, just the sigh of the sofa as her dad sat on it, stood up, checked at the window, and sat back down again.

Rounders was a good game. Rachel liked all the games they played in school, but so far rounders was her favourite. She took the big, solid bat and stood, American style. She tensed her grip on the bat and swung it slightly, a gentle but sharp practise move. It was an easy ball when it came, too easy. So easy it should have been impossible to miss. Somehow Rachel still missed it. She swung, too hard, too fiercely for the softly played ball, her bat wafting in the air. Rachel didn't look back. She dropped the bat and ran, tagging each base as she passed it. She'd wanted more than anything to hit that ball so hard, so far, that it bounced on the main road behind the field and just for a second, stopped traffic.
After school Rachel's dad took her to the park. There was a woman waiting, arms crossed, on one of the benches. Rachel's dad introduced Angela as his friend, but Rachel was almost eleven now and she was old enough to realise that this woman knew her dad in a secret way.
Angela wore a high-waist-ed dress, making it look as if she was leaving space for the baby she knew, or hoped, would start growing there. Sometimes when Angela moved and the breeze caught her dress, Rachel thought she saw the slight swell of her stomach. It had to be a plan, Rachel thought. She was capturing Rachel's dad and making it impossible for him to get away. She wanted to grow her own, new family, and push Rachel out. It was obvious.
Rachel watched them from the see-saw. Angela was grazing the soles of her plain black court shoes on the gravel next to the grass and she was muttering and laughing with Rachel's dad as if theirs was a private language. Rachel couldn't stand it. She ran over and barged her way between them. She fidgeted her bottom onto the seat of a swing, quickly tucking her legs under and then shoving them forward to take her higher, the chains rattling and buckling. She watched Angela and her dad sit down on the grassy hill. Rachel kept glancing over her shoulder. She saw them, their arms around each other, kissing. It was disgusting.
They seemed to be doing this kind of thing all the time. Day after day Rachel had to watch her dad gaze at Angela with that soppy look on his face. And it came as no real surprise when, one day, her dad said Angela was moving in with them.
Step-mum. The word felt like shards of steel in Rachel's mouth. She couldn't say it. Could hardly even think it. Angela might become her step-mum. Rachel didn't want any other woman living in their house, step-mum or not, and especially not this one who Rachel had only just met. What would her real mum think? This woman was trying to squeeze her mum out. She was going to put her things around the house and move her body in every room as if she owned it. As if she belonged here. Well, she didn't. And neither did her things.

Angela moved in five car loads of clothes, kitchen equipment, her own pictures that she hung carefully on the walls, and a Moses basket. And it was as if Rachel's mum had never even existed. Upstairs especially, in the quiet bedroom, her absence had been brutally shoved aside. Rachel stood in the bathroom doorway and gazed past the landing at the tidy room. The light from the bedroom window was warm on the bed. Clean sheets always pulled tightly up to the pillows. No dirty washing on show. No socks or tails of shirts caught in the edges of drawers. It was completely different now. Nothing like it had been before, when Rachel's mum was still here.
Rachel took a few steps froward. The sun hit her eyes and she felt for the door frame. She moved inside the room and saw the light through miniature bottles of perfume and bath oils on the dressing table, striking yellow and lilac onto the wooden dresser, air bubbles making droplets like grease on water. It was quiet. Calm. Beautiful even. She grabbed three little bottles and shoved them into her pockets then ran downstairs.

They told her at the park one day. Angela was pregnant. Rachel sighed and rolled her eyes in a way she knew made her look sulky, but she couldn't help it. Did they really think she didn't know?
Rachel's dad brought a cricket bat and two old tennis balls. He used his coat as a marker for Rachel to run to when she hit the ball. Three sticks rammed into the mud were wickets. Cricket was a good game. Rachel liked cricket. It was a peaceful game. Of course, Rachel and her dad couldn't play it properly, they weren't a full sized team, but Rachel liked that, it was something that belonged to the two of them. Something they did. Only now, they had an audience.
'We're so pleased.' Angela said. 'Everything seems to be fine this time because, you know, we've already had two miscarriages.'
She leaned back on the grass. Her legs looked thicker in the trousers she was wearing. Grass stains were smeared on her knees and on one of her thighs. Had she been sitting and kissing with Rachel's dad again, when Rachel wasn't looking? Is that why they sent Rachel to find sticks? Did pregnant women do things like that?
Rachel turned away and watched her dad bouncing the softball on a spongy bit of grass. She thought maybe she knew what a miscarriage was, could gather by the words used and the solemn faces pulled, so she didn't ask any questions. She got up and held the cricket bat ready while her dad made a big play of underarm bowling. Rachel thought, if she was a boy he'd bowl over-arm. He'd give it all he'd got. He wouldn't pussyfoot about like this. He'd give it to her straight.




*

'Miss?'
Mrs Redon raised her exotic eyebrows in Rachel's direction.
'What's a miscarriage?'
'This isn't the time or the place for a question like that, Rachel, but'¦'
''¦My dad's friend's pregnant and she's already had two miscarriages. What does that mean?'
A sprinkling of giggles flew round the room. Rachel had had plenty of time to think about this question. What did it mean? What did it all mean?
Mrs. Redon sighed, held the chalk in her hand like an example. 'See me after class.' she said.
Rachel stayed in her chair while the other children spilled from the classroom when the lesson was over. Mrs. Redon came and sat beside her.
'Rachel, I know you've had a difficult time, with your mum leaving like that.' she said. 'Has she contacted you at all? Does your dad know where she is yet?'
Rachel shook her head. 'What's a miscarriage?' she said.
'It's what happens when someone loses a baby.'
'Loses?'
'Yes, you know, when'¦'
Rachel fiddled with the edge of her cardigan. Is there a name for losing a mother? She wondered. There should be. But perhaps it's so unusual there's no need to think of one. Rachel's mother had been lost. Literally. Nobody seemed to have any idea where she was, or if they did they weren't letting on.
''¦the baby dies.' Mrs. Redon went on. 'But it isn't really a baby yet. It's very common and people usually go on to have babies after.'
Rachel could hear Mrs. Redon's words, another French lullaby. She thought she understood what this meant, but she didn't really understand any of it. How long had Angela known Rachel's dad? Two miscarriages? It must have been longer than she'd thought. Why didn't this baby die? Then Rachel and her dad could go back to normal. Who decides such things? Whoever did, they had it all wrong.

A few weeks later Mrs. Redon was explaining to the class how wonderful it will be when they all move up to senior school. She lapsed into a dense French accent as she described a variety of new things the children would get the chance to do.
'You'll do pottery, textiles, woodwork, metalwork, and of course the facilities are magnafique!'
The class gazed at Mrs. Redon. She'd given them each a plastic folder with all the key French words they were supposed to memorise elegantly swirled on pieces of A4 paper. A map to her lessons. A language compass.
Rachel still had her hand flat on her folder on the table, but she stared at Mrs. Redon while she spoke out their futures.
'In Senior school you will play tennis.' she said.
Tennis. Rachel had only seen this on TV. A square court. A net strung across the centre, taught, but porous like a dream-catcher. Players in whites. Rackets like banjos. They would bounce the little green ball on the ground. Test it. Then stretch their arms high. One hand holding the ball. One holding the racket. They seemed to have complete control over the game. Not dependent on a kind ball from a bowler. It was in their own hands. Their victory or their defeat. No-one else to rely on. Team games are over-rated, Rachel had decided. People always let you down. Tennis was the best game. And the first serve, when it came to you over the net, was always high in the air. No-one ever did that under-arm.



After school Rachel stood by the swings in the park with Angela.
'I'll push you if you like.' Angela said.
'Don't need pushing. I can do it myself.'
'Ok.'
Angela moved away slightly. Her body was becoming cumbersome. Bulbous. Rachel wondered how she managed to function like this. Angela picked up a handful of stones and wandered over to the little duck pond behind them. Rachel stood up on the swing, her head and shoulders twisting round to watch Angela. If her dad was here he'd tell her to get down, sit on the swing properly, it's not for climbing on, but he wasn't there. Rachel had been instructed to go to the park with Angela alone for the first time. Her dad was at work and, he said, this is the way it would be from now on so she might as well get used to it.
Rachel was still watching Angela. She was taking each stone and trying to skim it on the little pond. Rachel wanted to get down and show her how it should be done. She was doing it all wrong. No wonder the stones were just sinking, landing with a pathetic plop and disappearing. Rachel sat on the swing the wrong way round so she was facing Angela's turned back. Even from the back she looked massive these days. It struck Rachel, with some shock, that Angela would probably have the baby soon. Then what would happen?
Angela turned her head slightly, checked what Rachel was doing, then tried again with another stone.
'You're doing that wrong.' Rachel said.
'Oh? You come and do it then, if you think you can do better.'
'Of course I can do better.'
'Come on then.'
Angela held her palm with the swarm of stones still in it. Rachel stood up and got off the swing. This was a trick. She didn't like the way Angela had just told her to come on.
She moved a little closer to Angela. 'You're not my mother.' she said.
Angela seemed to make no reaction at all. Didn't look up. Just said. 'No, and I'm glad I'm not.'
It wasn't the words she used exactly. There was a sincerity laid in each syllable that Rachel didn't think she'd ever heard from an adult before. Now she looked at her, Angela probably wasn't so much older than herself, not really.
'I've misplaced those lovely little bottles of bath oil from my dresser.' Angela was saying. 'You don't know where they are, do you?'
Rachel froze. Obviously Angela knew it was her who took them. Of course she knew.
'No. Why, did you really like them?' Rachel asked.
Angela shrugged. 'Not particularly. They're only things, aren't they? I just thought you might know. But if you say not, that's good enough for me. I must have thrown them out by mistake, eh?'
She gave Rachel a strange look. The kind of look Mrs. Redon gives when she's asking a really easy question in French, but she knows your French isn't good enough yet and she knows you'll be unsure about the answer. Rachel took a couple of stones from Angela's hand. She still tried not to touch her skin, but she stood beside her and did her best to instruct her in the art of skimming stones. It turned out Angela didn't have it that far wrong. It was all in the wrist action, Rachel told her. And the arm, of course, don't forget to get the arm right. Elbow pulled behind the body, as if scratching the shoulder, then throw the stone quickly, swiftly and ever so, ever so slightly over-arm.

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