Chapter 7

The final match against Longdowns City FC arrives that Saturday night, the 27th of July. Matilda’s parents come to watch, along with Harriette, Hassaini, Simon and Symone, cheering her on for each of the ninety minutes as she puts in cross after cross after cross. But for some reason, none of them ever get put into the goal. She begins to worry, almost makes a few mistakes as she overcompensates for the finishing touches her teammates should be applying. Evangeline, their striker, never seems to be in the box to receive her passes at the right times, as if too slow all of a sudden. Elisha never runs in either, expecting Evangeline to be there instead, resulting in congested situations where every player bunches up and the ball gets beaten bloody by five legs all at once until it escapes out one side of the pack at random, and whoever is lucky enough to be standing close gets to run away with it. Eventually tired of the situation, Matilda decides to kick for goals instead of crossing to Evangeline. Kelsey, over on the left wing, does as well. By the time the final whistle blows, Matilda is bent over with her hands on her knees, gasping for breath. She feels remorsefully average about this. She checks the scoreboard again just to be sure. They’ve drawn 2-2. One goal scored by Suri, their left-side midfielder, who had come rocketing at the last-minute out of nowhere to bash a loose ball with her head, sending it over the goalkeeper’s shoulder. The second goal came from Matilda – but only just. She’d been forced to dribble into the middle of the field and loop it past two defenders, one of whom almost deflected it with a stray heel. But nonetheless Matilda’s shot had arced, lazily, and with far less power than she wanted, into the far left side of the net, where the goalkeeper simply couldn’t get anything more than a fingertip on it. Lucky, but average.

Girls from both teams, eleven shirts in violet, eleven in red, mingle amongst one another to exchange post-match congratulations. Matilda looks for her parents and friends in the small crowd behind the sidelines. She spots them waving, grinning and shouting indiscernible bites of speech at her that are lost in the ambiance. She grins and waves back at them, giggling happily between exhausted breaths. She straightens her back, hands on hips, and puffs her chest out to reclaim deep lungfuls of air. Evangeline is making her way over. Her Brazilian eyes are somewhat downcast. When she looks up, she blows air from her lips and gives Matilda a look that is all apology. ‘Hey, um. Sorry about that,’ standing her weight on one leg and wiping her neck and face with a towel. ‘I tried my best to get there, I just–’ She gestures around aimlessly. ‘I–’

‘All good,’ Matilda concedes, stretching her elbows back and shrugging. ‘We didn’t lose or nothing.’

‘You’re technically right. But I’m still pissed.’ Evangeline looks around, taking in everything within sight, and squinting under the intense white of the floodlights.

‘We’re going up a division now,’ Matilda suggests, trying to help.

Evangeline tucks her bottom lip in as if hearing a reasonable idea. ‘Maybe that’s enough of a win.’

Matilda smiles. ‘I think so too.’

‘See you in a bit, then, huh?’ smiles the Brazilian striker. She moves away to finish shaking hands with the opposition, giving Matilda’s shoulder a friendly tap on the way past.

All of five seconds later, Matilda spots April, over in the coaching booth, sitting under the shelter with her crutches. She’s smiling and clapping for her team as they begin walking off the field. She’s dressed minimally for the night’s mild weather — a training shirt and shorts, which don’t do anything to hide the curves which her hips have seemingly turned into overnight. Even from across the field, she looks paunchy. It’s all too obvious, now. If she were to run back on the pitch the way she is now, her lack of agility would threaten to leak goals down their right flank. Which makes Matilda wonder about how Evangeline wasn’t reaching the crosses she’d been punting towards her all game long. If there happens to be a hint there, or even some kind of correlation, then it’s something she knows will pester her thoughts for more than one night. Held captive by curiosity, she hesitates, then looks over her shoulder at Evangeline who is talking with Rhianna, the two players making their way off the field. Up close, her face had looked no different. Their shirts are too baggy to spot any curves in the stomach or hip areas. Matilda glances down at Evangeline’s legs instead. They look trim as ever; bronze and fine as satin. Biting her lip at a remotely-felt inner anguish, Matilda turns away and resists the urge to punish herself for coming close to what she knows is inappropriate.

After changing back into their casual gear, all twenty-four girls from the first and second squads pile into their cars and ride-shares, and drive downtown to a huge, upmarket buffet to celebrate, spreading themselves across a table almost as long as their particular room is wide. Twelve along one side, twelve on the other, with head coach Kendra at the head of the table along with the assistant coaches. Even Bobbie the janitor has tagged along. Matilda is seated near the far end, wedged between Kelsey on her left, and to her right Nysha, their goalkeeper. Facing them across the table are Suri, Talina and Bethany. The combined chatter filling the air resembles the sound of a bubbling brook. Matilda almost misses the sound of her order being called out by a waiter beneath all the noise. A pile of steaming pasta almost as tall as Marge Simpson’s hair is placed before her. She twirls thick bundles of spaghetti on her fork and wraps her lips around them as the girls talk trash about the tactical choices and errors of rival teams. Bethany reckons they should have won against Longdowns City tonight. Nysha casts one of her wry European glances at Bethany, as if to remind her of when she’d almost allowed Longdowns to score near their net — twice. Suri isn’t so sure they should have won. She wants to be modest about the situation. When Kelsey takes Bethany’s side in the argument, Nysha doubles down on her stance, but the sudden arrival of their meals all at once puts an end to the approaching threat of a multi-vectored argument Matilda feels too tired to follow. Chuckling to herself, she gives her fork a rest on her plate of half-finished spaghetti and takes a sip of champagne to wash the grease from her mouth and down her throat. ‘What’s so bad about a draw, anyway?’ she asks them with a tilt of her head, raising her bubbling glass as if to offer a toast.

Bethany pouts with her bottom lip. ‘Nothing. I just think we were better than them. I hate it when results don’t show for the work.’

Matilda gives her an amused smile. Beginning to feel relaxed and content with three or four extra sips of champagne, she turns her head and gazes down the length of the table to get a look at all the different meals people chose to eat. Kendra is all the way down the far end, politely smiling and laughing with the team of girls she is so proud of having taught – some of them almost from the ground up. April sits nearby, just within earshot. Matilda notices she’s left her plate of curry half eaten, and the way she’s sitting looks like she hasn’t moved a muscle since everyone first sat down. Her hands are in her lap, and she keeps glancing down at her food, neglecting to touch it. It’s understandable. She doesn’t want to get any chubbier. Matilda’s heart deflates a little in sympathy, like a slip of air escaping from the balloon of her soul. She looks away before April can make eye contact with her, and returns to the conversation in her immediate vicinity. Nysha is leaning in suddenly, dropping her voice just beneath the volume of ambient chatter. ‘So, you guys…’ She leers up at them from under raised brows and sneaks a glance down the table to where Kendra sits before looking back at them. ‘Have you, by any chance, heard any, I dunno, rumours going around?’

‘Sis,’ snorts Bethany, ‘you’ve got the tact of an adolescent boy.’

Kelsey scrunches her face. ‘Eh, rumours? Well, my friend’s ex just dumped his third girlfriend in a row for a guy she met online two weeks ago…’

Nysha rolls her eyes. ‘Oh really. That’s wonderful. What I meant is; anything about the club?’

Matilda squints, stuck between suspicion and confusion.

Hesitant shrugs all around. A few heads slowly shake.

‘Cause I think I heard that, well, our chairman, right? That weird guy what nobody knows his name? Apparently he’s thinking about making some “changes”.’

Every pair of eyes in the blast-radius of the conversation darken with concern.

‘“Changes”,’ Nysha goes on, low-voiced and confidential, ‘as in: …if we happened to go up a division this season, then there’d be some new staff cycling in, or something like that. And, uh. I hate to break it to you ladies, but…’ Nysha sucks her lips between her teeth. ‘We just went up a division.’

A moment of stunned silence.

Slowly, Kelsey leans forward. ‘You mean…’

One by one, the girls find themselves landing on the same page. As they make eye contact with each other, they turn their heads in unison to look down the far end of the table.

Kendra McIvor. Their long-serving head coach is leaning with one elbow on the table, listening to Mira and Jane from the second team sharing words lost among the rumble of ambiance. Matilda lets her stare linger for a moment longer. Analysis proceeds to play out, almost as if it were happening for her. Every implication seems written into Kendra’s face. All she has to do is look at her with the promise of a problem in mind, for the problem itself to unfold before her mind’s eye. Matilda swears she can see lines of concealed regret in that wizened gaze. It’s easy to confuse Kendra’s contemplative-eyes with her gloomy-eyes, and it can be hard to discern the thoughts behind her expression, but Matilda is someone who can perceive the signs. And something is different, this time… The way Kenda is so oddly attentive – perhaps too overtly – in the way she sits before the girls talking to her. As if she isn’t really listening, but is doing her best to appear as such, because she knows this is her last chance to really listen. She is a painting of a mother seeing her child, as who they really are, for what might be the last time.

Suri is the first one to destroy the collective silence of their dawning realisations. ‘I mean,’ Suri says in a cautious and uncertain voice, ‘…Does anyone actually know this for sure?’

The girls all swap blank glances with one another. No one can say anything for sure. When they all turn to Nysha with dubious stares, hoping for it all to be a ruse, the goalkeeper casts her eyes to the side. ‘Look,’ giving a one-shouldered shrug, ‘I’m just saying, is all. The rumour’s going around. That’s all. But anyway, is it really that unlikely?’

‘Where did you hear this?’ Matilda asks.

Talina squishes her lip in her fingers. ‘Shit. Now you’ve got me scared.’

‘Uh, why?’ Bethany frowns, full of bravado – she won’t believe anything until it happens.

Talina comes out with a bit of sass. ‘Because, if you haven’t forgotten, we’ve been way below League One as long as this club has been around, and League One is called “League One” because the teams who play it are better than the teams in, in case you forgot: State League Two?’

‘Yeah? So?’

Talina rolls her eyes, granting a small chuckle at her teammate’s egoic arrogance.

‘I’m not too worried,’ Matilda puts in, hoping to offer some much needed calm and cool.

Drawing the gaze of Talina. ‘Says you.’

‘Says you,’ Matilda gives back, ‘who’s already won awards. Why are you worried?’

‘Nooo. I’m trying to…’ Talina flounders with her hands, searching for speakable reasons. ‘League One means we have to be professionals now. At least semi? There’s gonna be a lot — and I mean a LOT — of pressure. Until now, we’ve cared for and loved this sport. Now it goes beyond that. Mistakes mean more. Can’t just laugh about it. People are waiting for more. They’ll expect more. We’re going to the next level. Does that mean anything to you guys? Yes? No? Anyone?’

Matilda frowns down at her plate of food, probing it with her fork. Hunger pokes back at her stomach, as if in retaliation. Maybe she could stuff this whole meal into her belly after all.

She has to admit, Talina might have a point that isn’t just trivial, or merely shot at them like a loose bolt from a place of fear. A thought strikes her. She glances over at April, who still hasn’t touched her food. Last week, when she expressed her worries in the change rooms about moving up a division, Matilda never considered it might come true like this. But now here they are. And now that April’s second fear has crept up on her, making itself a home around her not-so-long-ago narrow waist, thickening its dimensions until it spills impolitely over her sides, and out into the softened valley of her touching thighs… well…

Silently, Matilda says a little agnostic prayer, asking any god who might be passing through the aether by chance right now, that next the season treats April better than this one. But all that depends, you see – if these new rumours turn out to be true. Whoever comes in to coach the girls will make or break the entire edifice. Everything is at stake. Plus, if they’re going to be serious about professionalism, and a new age of rule-with-an-iron-fist looms over their every choice and action, then April will end up feeling worse about herself than she already does. And that is no way to be. A flash of pre-emptive anger licks Matilda’s heart like the tongue of a flame.

Whichever way this tree blows down, getting back to training will shed the softness from April’s cheeks, and before she knows it, she’ll be back to normal in no time. Matilda knows the brilliant player April can be when she’s physically able. When they march into the battle, they will need her. The team will suffer without her presence.

. . .