laughed. ‘Believe me, I’m not going to mess with you while you’re in this mood. That’s great, keep going. Find the rhythm.’
It felt like each punch had meaning. Pete was right. What I’d been doing at home was just battering myself. This felt like it was working something out of me. Every time I punched, a tiny puff of poison flew away. I felt exhausted, but electric all over.
‘OK, that’s enough for today,’ Pete laughed, holding the bag steady and starting to unlace my gloves. I was still bouncing on the balls of my feet, sweat sliding off me in rivers.
I folded up the hand wraps and put them back on the fridge. ‘Can we do this again?’
He scratched his stubble. ‘Neil Rittman’s paying me a lot of money to train you in running the four hundred metres, Ella. It’s not going to look great at Area Trials if you’re first out the starting blocks with an upper cut and a straight right left, is it?’
‘I know but just one more session doing this? Please? We don’t have to tell anyone. We can run for half the session and box for the other half or something. Can we? Please?’
‘Tell you what,’ he said, fumbling in his pocket. He pulled out a small set of keys, unhooked one attached to a Brynstan Academy fob and gave it to me. ‘How about we keep our training sessions to running, but any time you feel like punching the crap out of that pillar, you come here and use the bag and gloves. No more dry wall sessions on those fists.’
‘OK,’ I said, holding the key like it was a precious artefact. ‘Thanks.’
‘And you jog all the way here and all the way back, right?’
‘Right.’
He looked at me for a long time, then rubbed the outside of my arm. ‘And if you do want to talk, my door’s always open.’
I held up the key and smiled. ‘I won’t. But thanks.’
‘So, hang on, where does the missing cat come into it?’
The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat
Oh yeah, well it was the morning Max picked me up from training at Pete’s house, which he never ever did. He was leaning on his Audi across the road from Pete’s cottage when I emerged from the garage, fists shaking, sweat trickling down my forehead.
‘What are you doing here?’ I said, with an edge to my voice I hadn’t meant.
‘Oh that’s nice,’ he laughed. ‘I thought I’d pick you up, save you the jog back.’
‘I like the jog back.’
‘All right, I’ll go then, shall I?’
‘No,’ I said, wiping over my face again with my damp towel. ‘Sorry. Thank you.’ He was expecting a kiss, so I kissed him. Then I felt bad cos when he hugged me in to his chest, he rubbed my back like he did when we were kids and I was crying. I went round to open the passenger door.
Max got in too. ‘Sweated up a storm today,’ he commented. I didn’t answer. He didn’t switch the engine on either. He was just looking at me.
‘What are you waiting for?’
‘How was it?’ he asked. He wasn’t looking at my face, though. He was looking at my hands, red-tinged and shaking.
‘It’s just adrenaline. I only did a quick warm down today.’
He was looking at me funny, the way he did sometimes when he didn’t get something.
‘Pied Piper on form today, was he?’ He started up the engine.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You know. Did he push you all the way?’
The car started off down Church Lane. ‘You don’t like Pete, do you?’
‘No,’ he said.
‘Why not?’
‘Uh, cos I’ve met him? And cos he’s a dick?’ he said, stopping at the lights.
‘He’s not a dick.’
‘He’s posh.’
‘So are you when you’re not trying to sound like your dad.’
‘I am not!’
‘You so are, Max.’
‘Am not.’
‘So are.’
He stopped talking for at least a mile. Only when we came to the hospital roundabout just down the slope from my road did he open his mouth again.
‘There’s nothing wrong with my cock, is there?’
‘Where did that come from?’ I said, washed hot and cold with embarrassment.
‘I was just thinking about last night at Greenland. You would tell me if that was the problem, wouldn’t you? With us, I mean.’
I couldn’t help laughing, and the ice between us broke and melted away. He’d obviously been stewing on this all night.
‘The only thing wrong with you is you picked the wrong girlfriend.’
‘Never.’
I clicked off my seat belt and leaned across to kiss him back. ‘Thank you for picking me up. And for last night.’ I kissed him again. ‘And my card.’ And again. ‘And my necklace.’
He started doing Round and Round the Garden… on my neck with his fingertip and I cringed, remembering I wasn’t wearing it. ‘That tickles.’
‘Where is it?’ he said, looking at my neck where a pool of sweat had collected.
‘Where’s what?’
‘Your teddy necklace?’
‘Oh I can’t wear it for training cos it keeps hitting me in the face,’ I gabbled.’ I couldn’t actually remember taking it off.
‘What are you doing later? Do you wanna go into town or something? Or we could, I don’t know… Oh. You’ve got a visitor.’
I followed his eye line along the garden path towards our bungalow, where a figure sat crumpled in my doorway.
‘It’s Corey!’ I yanked open the car door and slammed it behind me, running up the path. ‘Corey? Are you OK?’
‘Ella?’ said Corey, un-crumpling. He was all bleary-eyed, and he had a noticeable scab on his eyebrow and a yellowing bruise on his chin. Old wounds.
‘What
