Tall Story - Candy Gourlay [6]
I stiffened. ‘What do you mean, inevitable?’
‘Oh, you know, you’re not exactly basketball-player material.’
I stared at her.
‘Mum, I made point guard. It’s not about height, it’s about skill.’
‘Mary Ann,’ Dad said urgently, but Mum ignored him.
‘I know, I know. Skill. But you’ve also got to be tall. Basketball players have to be TALL.’
‘Mary Ann!’ Dad groaned.
‘What?’ Mum looked up from the stove. ‘I’m just saying.’
‘MUM, they made me POINT GUARD!’ I banged my fists on the table, making all the plates jangle.
‘ANDI!’
Mum glared at me like I was the annoying one.
‘Andi, sweetheart, we’re so sorry you had to leave the team,’ Dad said hurriedly. ‘Mum’s just—’
‘I’m just telling the truth!’ she whirled furiously at him.
Dad ignored her outburst. ‘Mum’s just brainstorming.’
‘Yeah. Right.’ I scowled at them. ‘It’s not about height, Mum. I’m good at basketball … which you would know if you ever came to see me play.’
Mum didn’t reply, but she glowered at Dad like it was all his fault.
I walked out. Which is hard in a flat as small as ours. It was only one small step into the sitting room. At least there was a door, which I tried to slam, but it wouldn’t even close properly because Dad’s bedroom slippers were in the way. I kicked them into the kitchen and the door thudded shut. As if on cue, Mum and Dad’s voices rose in sharp argument.
They had no idea how important basketball was to me. Mum never came to any of my games. Dad came once or twice but neither of them was ever around enough to see if I was any good or totally rank. And now I had to give it up. Saint Simeon’s website mentioned football, hockey, netball … but not basketball.
The new house was just round the corner from the Northern Royal Hospital, where both Mum and Dad worked as casualty nurses. They were always working. Night shifts and twelve-hour shifts and this shift and that shift.
We weren’t just moving so we could have more room. We were moving so they could do even MORE shifts.
I felt a twinge. I couldn’t even resent that fact without a pinch of guilt. I mean, they were working all hours saving lives! I was like Lois Lane wanting a snog when Superman had to go off and save the world. It was so unfair. Why was it me who had to feel guilty all the time?
Well.
To be honest, I knew that I was the lucky one.
I was the one who got to live with them … instead of being on the other side of the world like poor Bernardo, waiting for ever and ever for the Home Office to let him come to England.
I mean, sixteen years he’s been waiting!
I feel guilty about that too.
There were photos of Bernardo on the mantelpiece.
Bernardo as a baby with spiky black hair.
Bernardo on Mum’s lap.
Bernardo with toddler me, that one year Mum took me to the Philippines.
And Bernardo at fourteen, all bad teeth, bad skin and big head, sitting in a restaurant with Mum.
He looked like any regular kid on a day out with his mother. Except of course he only got to see Mum every two years.
Which has always made me feel extra, extra guilty.
And next to the Bernardo pictures was a picture of the other Bernardo.
He was a solemn-looking man with a short haircut and Chinese eyes. Ever since I can remember, his picture has been on the mantelpiece. Which is kind of creepy, because of course Mum isn’t married to him any more.
The other Bernardo belonged to Mum’s other life, a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Well, in the Philippines anyway. He was Bernardo’s dad.
Mum and Dad’s wedding picture stood off to the right and a little to the back behind a ceramic vase.
Dad didn’t seem to mind having the picture up there. He acted like it was the most natural thing in the world for his wife’s ex-husband to take centre stage on the mantelpiece.
Yeugh.
Apparently soon after little Bernardo was born, both Mum and Bernardo Senior fell ill with dengue fever. That’s one of the diseases you can get by being bitten by a mosquito, of which there are plenty in the Philippines, so Mum says.
Mum was so ill, her sister Sofia had to look