She doesn’t look that old. Her silver hair is swept up into a no-nonsense bun and she’s wearing a leopard print cardigan. It’s paired with muddy walking boots, but she looks cool. Nan always looks cool.
After ten minutes of looking at the boot of the car, which is already filled with our weekly shop, and trying to perform some sort of Tetris-type miracle, we end up with a bag wedged on my lap in the backseat of the car as we make our way from the station to my Nan’s bungalow. I pepper Sam with questions about his summer so far, his training, the trip out here. Nan raises her eyebrows at me in the rearview mirror.
“Kath’s made a timetable,” she tells Sam.
“She does love a timetable.” Sam smirks. “Did she use highlighters? And does it somehow fit with the five and ten year plan to study medicine?”
“Did she use highlighters? Of course she used highlighters; this is my granddaughter we’re talking about. If it’s happening, it’s fully organised, and colour-coded.”
I scowl at the pair of them as they laugh. Being ganged up on wasnoton the timetable.
“I knew it,” Sam crows. He twists to face me in the back of the car. “What’s on the agenda, oh fearless leader?”
“If you laugh at the highlighters, I’m not sure you deserve the plan,” I tell him and he puts his hands up in surrender.
“You know I love highlighters too, Kath.” He smiles. “I’ve been converted. Or did the set I got you for your last birthday not prove my devotion?”
Mollified, I start to list our activities. The plans I’ve made for the beach, the trip to go bowling, the black and white film we can go watch in the cinema in the centre of town which shows old films every Tuesday afternoon.
***
The next morning when the alarm goes off at 6 a.m., I have our bags for the pool already packed and by the front door. I’ve been up for the better part of an hour. Tom groans and rolls onto his front, pulling the pillow over his head as I step over my bed on the floor and poke Sam to get up. The three of us are sharing the spare room, Tom and Sam in the beds, and me on the air mattress squeezed into the corner.
“Ready, Champ?” I whisper to Sam. He slowly climbs out of bed, looking surprisingly awake. Though I guess this is a lie-in for him.
“Champ?” he says bemused as I push him into the corridor.
“Yep. Swimming champion. I’m not going to be a detriment to your training. I’ve made us breakfast; the bikes are by the door. I’m ready to go. Let’s do this.”
“You have far too much energy for this time of the morning during your summer holidays,” Sam says, as I slide the bowl of porridge I’ve made towards him and start chopping a banana.
“I’ve made your usual pre-training breakfast,” I inform him. “I even got your mum to send me notes. And I’m going to swim with you.” He raises a brow but digs into his food without protest, letting out a grunt that could be construed for thanks.
“You don’t have to do that,” he mumbles around the first mouthful. “I doubt you’ll love swimming for two hours.”
“I might not do the whole two hours.” I wince. “But I’ll start. And anyway, I enjoy swimming with the school team; this will make me better for next year.”
“You’re actually pretty good already.”
I shrug. I’m OK at swimming, in the way that I can do most sports to a reasonable standard having grown up with an athletic older brother and outdoorsy family. But it was almost comical when we had our first lesson at school and we all realised how good Sam was. He absolutely crushed all of us like we were toddlers. He’s always played it down, despite the headmaster constantly bringing up the competitions he wins in assembly. But knowing someone was good and watching them beat you by over a length without looking like they’re even trying are two very different things. Sam doesn’t train with our school team in the summer, but he gets to join the races. He’s basically the only reason we ever win anything, smashing his individual events and salvaging our times in the relays. Almost every trophy in the school cabinet is because of him.
An hour and a bit later Sam is halfway through his training plan, and I’m sitting beside the pool reading my book. I managed forty minutes of swimming before deciding I was done. Sam cuts through the water so effortlessly; it’s mesmerising to watch. He looks less like a thirteen-year-old boy and more like a practised professional. It probably helps that he’s a couple of inches taller than everyone in the year, and he’s always seemed more mature. I think that all the training and competitions have made him grow up faster.
I love his drive. Being around it makes me want to be better too—not at swimming, but in my own way. It makes me push harder, stay focussed.
My friends tease me about how much I study, or roll their eyes when I bring up pre-reading or revision schedules. But I like school, I like learningand I need to get good grades if I want to study medicine. Most of them get it, but every now and then a comment slips through, some offhand joke about me being too intense, and it stings. Like maybe I’m not fun enough. Like I’m too wrapped up in my plans to let loose.
But then there’s Sam. He never makes me feel like I need to be anything different. With him, being ambitious isn’t a flaw. I watch him for a moment longer before turning the page onto the next chapter.
***
By day five of the trip, Tom and Sam are firm friends, bonded by having to step over each other’s clothes every five minutes and a few too many rounds of competitive board games. Tom even managed to persuade Sam to watch a history documentary with him and now they have weird jokes that I don’t get. All of us have pink sun-kissed noses and are currently sitting on the beach just west of Sidmouth. As per the colour-coded schedule, we hiked over the cliffs with rucksacks full of food earlier in the morning.
“Isn’t it beautiful here?” I smooth out the picnic blanket and lay back. The sun’s glinting off the sea, but there’s enough of a breeze to stop me from fully overheating.
“Kath’s obsessed with the sea,” Tom says. “Even though she hates the sand.”
“I don’t hate the sand,” I counter. “It just gets everywhere. So I wouldn’t choose to be on the sand all the time. But I love the water. Summer or winter, the sea is amazing.”
