In contrast, our own rubbish-ness was sort of humiliating, though there was one moment I did enjoy. Vi Delap did this thing that I simply COULD NOT believe. She stood straight and bent over backwards, reaching up and behind her. In less than a second she’d put her hands on the floor into a bridge, and then flicked her feet over so that she was standing up again. Billy Lee saw her and tried himself. The very loud echo, when his head connected with the wooden floor, is still one of my Top Five Sounds Of All Time.
‘Cymbeline,’ Lance said, sitting down beside me and rubbing his elbow. And his knee. And then his bum. He looked miserable, though I didn’t think it came from the gymnastics. ‘Where did you get your name from?’
‘My name?’
‘Yeah. I mean, I always thought it was normal because it’s what you’re called, isn’t it?’
‘So why don’t you think it’s normal now?’
‘Well, my dad –’
‘Wait, Lance. Is this your dad-dad you mean, or your new-dad?’
‘My new-dad. I told him you were my best friend and he thought you were a girl. When I told him you weren’t, he laughed a bit and told me he’d never heard that name before and it must be because I went to ‘that kind of school’. He didn’t tell me what ‘that kind of school’ was because my mum came in. So where did you get it from?’
‘I could ask you the same thing.’
‘I suppose,’ Lance said. ‘Though my name’s not as weird as yours. I’ve never met another Cymbeline but there’s another Lance in this school. And another kid called Lance in me and my dad’s cycling club.’
‘Your dad-dad?’
‘My dad-dad.’
‘But still, if you ask me, I can ask you. Why are you called Lance?’
‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’
‘What?’
‘It’s my dad,’ Lance explained.
‘Your dad-dad?’
‘Yeah, my dad-dad. He says I shouldn’t say. Or, if I do say, I have to say that it’s just a random name. I’m definitely not named after Lance Armstrong.’
‘Lance who?’
‘Never mind. But why are you called Cymbeline?’
‘Because of my dad,’ I said.
‘Your dead-dad?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Was he called Cymbeline?’
‘No, his own parents did not inflict that on him. His name was David.’
‘So …?’
‘Mum says he was an actor and that when she met him he was in this play by Shakespeare. Cymbeline. So they called me it.’
‘What’s the play about?’
‘No idea.’
‘You never asked your mum?’
‘Yes, and she told me. She even took me to see it.’
‘Well then.’
‘Have you seen Shakespeare? I’ve still no idea. It was impossible to understand and anyway we didn’t stay to the end.’
‘Why not?’
‘There’s this line in it. “Fear no more the heat of the sun.” It comes when there are people on the ground who are dead but you can still see them breathing. When this king dude said the line my mum just grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the theatre and took me home.’
I didn’t tell Lance that, once again, she’d cried when she’d done that. She cried all the way back. She put me to bed and the tears rolled into my hair as she clung on to me.
‘I hate my name,’ Lance said, as Marcus Breen did a forward roll into the piano.
‘Why?’
‘It’s Lance … who I can’t mention. He was a cycling hero but now he’s this super giant cheater, and I’ve got to wear his name forever.’
‘I know how you feel,’ I’d said, though now, waking up, it wasn’t my name that bothered me. That was a burden I’d always had to carry. Now there was something bigger, heavier, and I couldn’t get away from it. My dad. You’d think being dead would be the best way to leave someone alone, wouldn’t you? But my dad being dead was something even more real than if he’d been alive. It never used to feel like that, but now it did. And my mum felt it too. I could see that. My dad being dead was so big for her, a huge thing. It was so heavy that she couldn’t put it down. And so heavy that she didn’t have the strength to carry me any more, as well as it.
Uncle Bill was sitting on my bed when I woke up the next morning. He was smiling, but only with his mouth. The rest of him wasn’t smiling at all.
I blinked, amazed and delighted to see Bill, as he’s loads of fun, though at first I was worried that he’d see Mr Fluffy. At school I deny the existence of Mr Fluffy, something I have to apologise to him for later. When Lance comes round for sleepovers I hide him underneath my pillow. Lance has got a purple cat that I pretend not to see when he shoves it down his sleeping bag.
Fortunately Mr Fluffy was out of sight somewhere, probably beneath the duvet, though that didn’t make me feel any less worried. Uncle Bill’s expression was weird. And we only ever see him at weekends – so what was he doing here now?
‘Where’s Mum?’ I said.
Uncle Bill scratched his beard. It’s black, with this little clump of white below his mouth, like he’s been eating a cream cake. You keep wanting to wipe it off. It maybe explains why he keeps having different girlfriends and is never able to get one to marry him so that he can have a kid like me.
‘It’s just for a few days.’
‘What is?’ I said.
Uncle Bill sighed. ‘She’s not very well, Cym. Your mum.’
I remembered what she’d said to me yesterday. ‘Has she still got her headache?’
‘Sort of. So she’s gone away,’ Uncle Bill said.
‘What?’
‘She’s gone away, Cym.’
‘Because of a headache?’
‘Sort of. Though …’
‘She’s in a hospital?’
‘Yes. A … hospital.’
‘For people with headaches, or other things too?’
‘Mostly headaches. But it won’t be for long. A few days. Just till she’s better, okay, champ?’
I stared at Uncle Bill and then I jumped out of bed. I ran into Mum’s room, not because I didn’t believe him but because I had to see for myself. That she’d gone. She’s my mum, after all. But he was right. Mum’s room was empty. Not empty empty, as there were lots of things in it, but empty of her. So really, really empty, all of her stuff just standing there, almost looking embarrassed.
Her duvet was creased up and it reminded me of the dream I’d had. Brown water, all choppy and angry, twisting round upon itself. It made me swallow so I turned round and went back out to the landing.
Uncle Bill put his arm over my shoulder and interfered with my hair.