Chapter 6

Finals approach. The girls have knocked out most of the other teams on the table. All that’s left are Longdowns City and Surreylake Roar. By now, Matilda is fitter, more agile and quicker than she’s ever been in her life. She’s never trained harder, never tried harder, never been more insidiously focussed. Her play is incredible, and her first touch meets the incoming ball as if it was a cushion. She runs the ball through defenders like they are butter, passes only when she needs to, but always intelligently, with a smart eye for an incisive pass. Her crosses find their targets almost every time. She dribbles around players, makes them commit the wrong way, wins her 1 v 2’s, positions herself like a tactician, and even manages to claim two successful bicycle kick goals with her name practically written on them. Word comes creeping along that League 1 clubs are asking about her. Rumours? Lies? Truth? Who knows. She decides to wait and see. There’s no point planning upon anything that isn’t certain.

In the meantime, April has been sitting on the sidelines, watching, supporting her team, on her face an elongated shadow of disappointment that she tries in vain to hide. She is tearful whether in victory or defeat. One week ahead of their last match against Surreylake FC, Matilda ends up chatting with her in the change rooms while the team is putting on their training gear. Matilda’s been indulging in a drop of gossip about a former mutual friend of theirs who’d slipped off the radar a while back, then reappeared out of nowhere having committed multiple shoplifting felonies involving inexplicably random items.

Then out of nowhere, April steers the direction of conversation in a hard-left turn. ‘Do you ever dream of being in the National League?’ she asks Matilda from where she sits on the bench with her leg still in a brace, absently thumbing through social media feeds on her phone.

Matilda pauses to think, lifting her foot up onto the violet-painted bench to tie her laces. ‘You know what?’ she says. ‘That’s a good question.’ She looks back down at her boot and re-ties her laces for the third time over. ‘I don’t really know. Maybe. It could be too much. It’s a lot of duty to cover.’

‘You’re good enough…’

Was that upwards-inflected curl in April’s voice envy? Or was it humility? Hard to tell with her face turned down towards the phone screen.

Cheeks blushing at the compliment, Matilda says, ‘Why do you ask?’

April looks up at the wall, blowing a golden curl from her eyes. Only now does Matilda notice along the length of April’s jawline a subtle absence of definition. The softness of her chin should have disappeared when she raised her head, but it hasn’t - not entirely. Matilda can still see it. Now that she thinks about it, April’s “French maid” face does appear kind of different, in an unusual way. If it isn’t the lighting casting soft shadows, then it’s the petite angles of her face looking smoother, gentler now, each edge a little softer than usual.

‘Well I don’t mean to get all gushy or anything,’ April says, ‘it’s just, since my injury, I’ve had to think about it a lot. I guess I used to dream about the National League, in the back of my mind. But now it’s so on-the-line that I have to think about it at the front of my mind now. Which sucks.’

Matilda sits against a locker, facing April, watching her hooded eyes. ‘But you’re healing, though,’ she suggests. ‘And you don’t have any long-term damage, right? So… it might not be under threat as much as you think?’

April shrugs. ‘Hmm. It’s not that I’m unfit or nothing, just– uh, well, it’s funny actually. I mean, I’m not “damaged”. Just…’ She looks back down and chews the inside of her lip, fidgeting with the sides of her phone. Something’s got her all bound up like knotted string.

‘Then what’s to stop you if you wanted to? You’re so talented, April.’

April’s cheeks flush. ‘Stopping me? Weight, I guess,’ she blurts. She twists her cheeks ruefully and stares away at the wall. ‘I’m getting really fat.’

Matilda’s heart slams against its cage, for reasons unclear. ‘No you’re not,’ she says. But her voice sounds hollow in her own ears.

‘I am.’ April corrects her, forcing a metallic smile. ‘Thanks for the encouragement, but… I am. I mean I wasn’t. Not before this thing happened,’ nodding down at her leg.

‘What? Really? Well I can’t tell. How can you possibly think that you’re getting fat?’ she demands, half wanting to make her teammate feel better, half wanting to hear some sort of description about why — but God, Jesus, Holy Lord, why in the name of any god in existence would she want to hear a description of how April came to the conclusion that she’s fat? Why must she want to hear more? It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t concern her.

‘Well,’ says April, answering Matilda’s strange unconscious wish, ‘for starters, I haven’t been able to move for months. I can’t even move faster than a limp. Mmm. So yeah… Plus, I definitely was not a hundred and sixty on the scale four months ago, was I? Also plus: I can feel it. Right in here. This thing. It’s like it’s all fuckin’ gut.’ Hunched over, April gives her belly a neglectful pat, sneering. ‘It’s never been squishy before. God fucking damn it, I feels so gross.’

Matilda’s lungs harden for some reason. ‘Okay? So?’ trying to be diplomatic. But panic tickles her diaphragm. Her cheeks feel hot as she frowns. ‘Even if you are, or were, which you’re not – fat, that is – why would any of that stop you from reaching the National League?’

A shrug. ‘Guess I’m just worried it could stick around. You hear family mums complaining about it all the time.’

‘What? No! You can lose it later! When you get back to training, you’ll be fine in no time. I promise.’

‘Maybe.’ April sneers at the floor. ‘If it doesn’t go that way, then that’s it. And this might not work out, either! I can’t train again for another two months! What if I blimp the fuck up by then? You can’t do the running with fifteen pounds on you. You just can’t. I’d never get to the Nationals, then. I’d basically be stuck here, forever, or in an even lower division… I’m not saying I don’t want to be here. It’s just– I–’

‘April,’ Matilda cuts in. ‘April. Listen here. That’s not going to happen.’ She leans towards her teammate. ‘Trust me.’

For a moment, she considers spilling the beans about her own little weight fluctuations from last year. But she hasn’t got the confidence in her for that sort of feat of leadership. It’s all still too confusing to think about. ‘Look. You’re being paranoid,’ she says instead. ‘This happens to plenty of people. And everyone gets back to training. And they lose it. Think about it. It’s completely normal. It will be like every other injury in the history of sport.’

April takes a deep breath and sighs, acceptance slowly working its way into her eyes. ‘Yeah.’ She smiles a thin line with her mouth. ‘Thanks. I mean I really hope so. It’s the only true love I’ve got, I think – football that is. My soul would be so bored without it.’

‘Same here, April. Same’

April smiles, then looks back down, a crease of double chin hinting at the form it could develop.

With a cheek-wide grin, Matilda stands up from the bench and begins bouncing on her heels to get her blood circulating, her ponytail swishing side to side. They exchange an affirmative nod. When the team lines up ten minutes later to enter the pitch, she’s still bouncing on her heels, amped and determined.

. . .

They go ahead to win against Surreylake by 2 goals to 1. One goal came from Evangeline, their striker, and one from Elisha, their attacking mid, both goals assisted by a cross and a through-ball respectively from Matilda. When the final whistle blows, they stab their hands in the air with ecstatic, sweating ferocity. Cheers from the sidelines and shouts from the teammates as they run in towards each other, eleven bodies seeming to crash into a writhing heap of jumping limbs,
hugging in the middle of the pitch, while the opposition team drag their feet in stunned semi-circles with their hands on the hips, trying to catch whopping lungfuls of breath they’d spent in vain. With second-place spot guaranteed, the Purple Vale Strikers are now officially bound for promotion into the State League 1. With second and first place guaranteed promotion, their final match of the season, against Longdowns City, will be about sustaining their pride.

The celebrations are magnificent. Purple is the colour of the night. Laughter and smiles linger long after they brush purple confetti from their shoulders and pull it out of their hair like snow. They allow themselves to indulge in a night of drinking at the bar, with most of the girls splitting to spend the night out in town, and some getting so drunk they practically disappear until the following morning – Matilda being one of them. She wakes up in the back of a house she’s never been to with four teammates sprawled across various sofas and blankets, plus someone she doesn’t recognise, and a collection of fast food rubbish littering the ground from the far end of the room to beside her head. She even feels a stickiness to her fingers as she rubs her booming temples, and when she sits up on the mattress, she does so against the discomfort of a belly full of something or other.

But it’s back to training throughout the week, and with a cold militarism that comes with duty. In the gym, their centre-back defenders, Caitlin and Mandy, hit the weights, building up strength in anticipation of having to out-muscle Longdowns City’s forwards, who are some of the strongest and fastest attackers in town. Poor old April comes along as well, just to be around her team and to provide morale, towing her encased leg along with her. She joins in by keeping her leg up and burning what she thinks are excess calories on various upper body-strength machines. Despite the dark patches of sweat across her training top, she seems to keep surrendering to forfeit before reaching her actual limits. Matilda can’t help but watch from a distance, noticing the way April’s gaze is always cast down to the floor. It’s abnormal. April’s eyes have always reached straight out before her like reaching hands with a hawk-eyed determination in her face. Today, she is screwing up that face with over-exertion as she completes a single rep on the lateral pull-down machine. Only then does Matilda notice it. Her neck feels cold all of a sudden.

April has a muffin top. Right there, sticking out from her midsection behind an badly-fitting blue tank top. Matilda’s eyes nearly boggle out of her head. What? Where? How? Since when was April’s midsection that soft?

Its appearance is entrancing. Her belly rolls out into her lap with such an impressive outpour of roundness that it seems at odds with the rest of her physique. The first emotion to fill Matilda’s body is wide-eyed awe. Then embarrassment arrives in her chest like a burst pipe, flooding up into her neck. Why is she staring? Her cheeks burn with a blush deeper than if she’d been complimented by a cute boy on the street. Only that boy is her mind, and the compliment he’s delivered has been in appreciation of April’s swollen little spilling paunch. Then guilt comes to say hello. Until now, Matilda hasn’t believed in April’s anxiety about weight. Now here she is, staring across the room at her teammate whose waist is visibly thicker than it should be. Perhaps she should have believed April when she first expressed her worry.

Matilda watches for a moment longer. Then another moment. She thought she’d have stopped by now. But she can’t stop.

Letting out a frustrated grunt, April lets go of the crossbar all of a sudden, the metal bar slamming up into the framework with an angry rattle of metal. She slumps on the seat, her beginner’s paunch squashing into itself. It beams at Matilda’s sight like headlights; an oval-shaped roll that stretches round from one hip to the other. A lock of gold curls fall over April’s eye. Dejected, she blows at it. Then she sighs and struggles up from the bench, lifting her bad leg up and over, then grabs the side of the machine and pulls herself up. Standing straight, her muffin top hides itself away a little, but its remaining roundness bounces inside her top as she limps heavily away on her encased leg.

Pangs of sympathy strike through Matilda’s heart. April must feel like dying, looking like that. Would it lead her to fall into even more stress-eating? She wants to ask, in a preventative sense… but it isn’t the best idea. Not now. If April wants to talk about it, she can be the one who decides. Matilda won’t force anything.

You can get fat for the weirdest reasons, Jen had said. Maybe April has.

At least Matilda knows she herself never will.

. . .