GALLEY BEGGAR PRESS SHORT STORY PRIZE 2023/24

A. ARBOR

‘i was a girl runner’

i am 19 years old and mummy still has that sun-faded photo of me in the silver frame on her mantelpiece.

She tells me it’s me. Who is to say really? It is a photo of a little girl.

That girl is no older than, what, three? Curly blonde hair – more a shape than a style. Shapes. A detonation of ringlets – out in all directions, half-dry and yellow-springy, half-wet and brown-dangling.

You can see that little girl’s eyes – semi-closed, semi-stinging like sun cream and chlorine – flooded by the white sky.

Beneath her eyes is the biggest fuck-off smile you’ve ever seen. All those little white teeth, each standing a little apart from its neighbour. A smile so bright, so big, that it’s the boss not only of that little girl’s face, but of everyone else around hers too.

That little girl has no clothes on.

She is standing barefoot on slick grey paving slabs, in front of a dozen fountain jets, firing tall behind her. If you look up close, you can see parts of other kids still in there amongst the spray, sprinting, darting limbs, blurs in all directions. But that little girl’s splash time is done, called out from the spouts, on her way out towards a winking camera.

It is time to go home – fun over, time to dry off – but she’s still stuffed full with happiness. It radiates out of her, glinting like the sun-struck dew drops dappled on her skin. That little girl wants to show off for the camera, for those behind the camera.

That little girl grabs her belly, a little round hillock, and plays with it. Like it is plasticine or pizza dough. Like it is nothing to be ashamed of. She jiggles that soft round belly up and down. She squeezes it in and out. Her little hands are so comfortable with everything that she is, in every way – all of her trunk and her limbs and her face and her belly button and her chubby elbow folds and her mind and her toes and her laugh– because they are all just the same thing to her. All on the same side. All full of joy.

Holy fuck i wish i could meet that little girl.

And if somehow she really is me, then i wish so much that i remembered being her.

—-

i am 12 years old and running fast feels so so good. But destroying people feels better.

Running fast – the green wind in my hair and the red track passing under my spikes – that feels like flying.

But destroying other people – their limbs turning into breeze blocks as i appear on their shoulder, hover for a moment, just long enough for them to feel all their fear of me, then for me to soar past them – that feels like fireworks.

i always did have that killer instinct.

Even when the other girls were bigger, stronger, faster than me i had the knack of using their power against them. An innate ability to leach it all – their muscular strength, sure, their nervous energy even more – and to punch it back in their faces until they begged me to stop.

Until they were collapsed on the floor at the finish line and i had my fists reached up in the golden sky beyond.

—-

i am 10 years old and Mr. Greaves is explaining to me, yet again, why there are two prizes.

There’s a prize for the first finisher, Maisie. And a prize for the first girl.

But I don’t need two medals, i solemnly reply.

Mr. Greaves laughs. That horrible grown-up laugh that says you don’t get to laugh along. That you are a child. That you will never understand.

Mr. Greaves is not laughing three hours later when Sports Day is over.

Johnny Crabb is behind him, crying fast, in his vest and short shorts. Fat wet tears that make his shoulders shake. And Mr. Greaves is asking of me, in a mirthless voice, if i would be so kind as to give Johnny one of my medals.

But remember, Mr Greaves, remember. You said it’s one prize for the first finisher: me. And one prize for the first girl: me.

—-

i am 16 years old, flipping through my first contract with a prestigious shoe manufacturer.

An American company, one of the big ones, but we’re sat in an office that smells of rich tea biscuits. An office attached to a warehouse on an industrial estate, two turns off a concrete roundabout somewhere in the midlands.

Dave the company rep is British, used to be a decent club runner he says, mainly marathons he says. It’s obvious that he’s not used to anyone trying to negotiate with him. Not 16 year old girls at any rate. Not when there are boxes of free shoes going spare.

Come pick out some spikes, Dave keeps saying. Just got a new batch in. They smell incredible. Take a bunch of tracksuits. Do you wear caps? Do you want to wear a cap?

i’ve read the contract twice now and i am not happy with it. Especially not with clauses 13 and 17.4 and 26.2. Why do i need prior authorisation from them for every single race i want to enter? Why can they choose to drop me if i don’t keep gouging my PB every year? Why should i accept a bonus of only £5,000 when i win an Olympic gold medal in their shoes? What’s that worth to them in marketing dollars?

It’s not that big a deal, Dave says. If you’re as successful as we expect you to be, then obviously they’ll – we’ll renegotiate it.

Dave keeps looking at daddy, standing over my shoulder. Dave keeps twitching eyebrows at him.

Nowt to do with me, says daddy. She knows what she wants.

We drive away from the warehouse, the industrial estate, the somewhere in the midlands with a car boot just as empty as before. There are no boxes of spikes, no tracksuits, not even a cap.

There is no pro contract. No endorsement. i look out the window and start to cry and daddy puts the radio on but it’s just people talking. Let’s get you back to your mother, he says.

Six weeks later, at the national champs, i finish 13th in the 5,000m wearing scuffed-up spikes that i bought myself eight months ago.

i am royally pissed off.

Should have been top 10 at least, probs top 8.

i got nudged on the second-to-last lap by that bitch with sharp elbows and it totally knocked me off my stride.

i sit on the warm track, yank my spikes from my heels, throw them down hard against the red rubber. fuck fuck fuck. Grown women who finished ahead of me tap me on the shoulder, or whisper well done in my ear. i pay no attention to any of those insincere slags.

Later, back in the hotel room i’m sharing with mummy, my phone starts ringing. It’s Dave’s number and i don’t want to speak to him but she tells me that it’s rude not to.

Hello…

An American accent fires back.

Maisie, hey, this is Lester. I’m sat here with David at UK HQ and we just watched the champs. You placed 13th in the country at 16? Say what? Incredible. Just incredible. But I have a question to ask you: are you satisfied?

I answer without thinking.

Fuck no.

You hear that David? She said ‘fuck no’. Maisie, here’s another question: where would you have finished if that bitch hadn’t elbowed you on the bend?

i dunno. Top ten i think.

Bullshit! Top six for sure. David’s shown me vids. I’ve seen your kick kid.

Mummy’s looking at me.

She’s not happy about me swearing.

i walk over to the hotel window that can’t be opened. i can see an empty car park down below, just a grid of white lines and a grey sky up above.

David told me you didn’t like our contract offer. Good for you Maisie. Never accept a first offer. But I’d like to offer you something more substantial to become one of our athletes. Long-term. Deeper. It’ll be a lot more investment from us, but it’ll need a lot more commitment from you. What do you say – wanna talk?

—-

i am 18 years old, in Zurich, in someone else’s bed.

My first time back in Europe for months. i should have spent this evening with mummy and daddy but their flight was cancelled last minute. Can’t imagine they had much fun in the airport together.

i finished 15th.

Doesn’t sound great. But it’s my first senior international meet in a line-up stacked with Kenyans.

Up in the stands, Coach mouths that i’m a retard, mimes that i went out too quick, shouts down that i could have finished a couple places better if i’d not tried to stick with the frontrunners so long. I’m just short of a PB, but he tells me i’ll be embarrassed when i see the lap splits as it could have been so much better. Lester sends me a message that says good work kid.

On the bus away from the stadium, i get chatted up by this goofy Portuguese long jumper. You’re finished now? You come for a drink, he says. With me? Can’t, parents are waiting for me, i lie. Bring them along too, he says laughing. I roll my eyes and go back to swatting away notifications on my phone.

When the bus limps to its final stop, Luis and I are the only two athletes getting off at the same shitty hotel on the far side of the lake. i’m cramping up a little. Luis helps me off with my bags so it seems rude not to let him buy me a drink at the hotel bar.

Luis drinks vodka. Neat. i have a Diet Coke, which he finds hilarious. The first fizzy drink i’ve had in a year and it tastes so fucking good i’m giddy.

—-

i am not quite 17 years old when i arrive at training camp – the best and worst condition of my new contract negotiated with Lester.

The first time i have been to the States. The first time i have lived away from home. The first time i have had a job. And the job is: athlete.

When i arrive, they walk me through the camp – no, The Campus, because everyone here calls it The Campus – and everyone insists on shaking my hand and smiling. Smiles that do not end until i look away. Athletes, coaches, cooks, cleaners, chaperones.

i know how it works. Everyone is sizing me up. Teammate. Rival. Investment. Flop. In an environment as competitive as The Campus, it pays to get the measure of someone early.

And then they literally size me up.

We need to get you kitted out, says someone who is not Lester but sounds exactly the same.

They usher me into a cold blue room to strip off. The doc – is he a doc? – measures my height, measures the length of both my legs, the length/width of both feet, the curvature of my arches, the circumference of my waist and hips, takes my resting heart rate, takes two separate blood samples, gives me a beaker to fill with urine “in my own time”, and applies cold steel callipers to my thighs, to my belly which does not exist, and to a spot just below my right nipple which stings like a bitch. The callipers have a digital screen on them, upon which strings of numbers pop up, and the doc shakes his head.

When i go to my room that night, try to settle down in my new bedroom which smells like a hospital, i am unable to sleep, mind and body scattered across two continents.

My phone is out of battery and my charger won’t fit the strange holes in the wall.

i turn off my room lights, lie there in the dark, hop up, put them back on, then straight back off, open the window, then all back on again. There is no TV here, no books or magazines, no view from the window, which faces a concrete wall, painted white.

Finally, body still alert, brain grinding to a halt like a muscle flooded with lactic acid, i open up the single drawer in a squat bedside chest and peer inside. My drawer. There are two items languishing there in a shallow white melamine grave, both of which come as a surprise.

The first, a Condensed King James Bible, bound in crimson leather; the second, a laminated sheet of paper with my name on top listing every possible measurement of my body you could imagine, and plenty you could not.

When i wake up the next morning – thud thud thud against my new bedroom door – the Bible is on the floor and the laminated sheet is stuck fast under my cheek like a pillow.

—-

i am 14 years old and i take the bus to school every day even though school is that thing i do to kill time before i train at the track until sundown.

We wear charcoal blazers, hitch our pleated skirts up above our waists at the bus stop – showing off pale knees and the lowest half-inch of our thighs – knowing full well they’ll be back down again when we pass through the school gates.

i try hard to stay connected to these other girls but they are drifting away from me, like relay batons fumbled to the floor when sprinters fuck up a changeover.

i spend my weekends travelling the country for meets and assessments. i have my own personalised training plan. i have a consultant dietician. i have a liaison at the national centre for excellence. i have goals.

i do not share their visceral dislike of the Year 10 boys, a topic which must be dissected at great length every morning before the bus, on the bus, after the bus. i do not share their anxiety about mock GCSEs. i do not share their obsessive interest in whether our Geography teachers are having a sordid affair and, if so, where on the school grounds they are doing it.

School is not the real world. School does not define who you are. School is, when all is said and done, just a distraction.

i watch them climb the stairs to the upper deck of the bus, following their shrieks and the pale undersides of their legs. All that i can think of them is under-developed hamstrings, carrying too much weight, uneven gait.

i let their conversations wash over me as i stare out the window. Every day, at the final set of lights before we get to school, i see two grey kittens, perched on the narrow white sill of a first- floor flat sash window.

—-

i am 20 years old and 123 pounds, three months away from my first Olympics.

The Olympics is – as the media back home repeat so often it is already sounding old – the moment to show my talent to the world. But at The Campus it is just another fortnight on the wall planner.

There is always a moment where you catch yourself. Holding your breath. Trying to keep your jaw stable. Not crying. But the moment before crying – the moment when you realise you’ll be unable to prevent yourself from crying – which is infinitely worse.

Too fat, says Coach.

He doesn’t shout this time. Which makes it worse. But he does not need to shout. The cold of the scales against the soles of my feet, the pinch of the steel callipers, these things are already ringing in my ears. Have been ringing for weeks.

It’s simple, they tell me. The less you weigh, the faster you run. You cannot argue with their logic.

We are not here to be average, they say. We’re not here to be good. We are not even here to be great. We are here to dominate. We want to lead the world. We want to crush it. How can you crush the world when you are 123 pounds and far far far too fat.

I eat nothing but the food they give me and still I do not lose weight. I do nothing but follow the training program they give me and still I do not lose weight. I am disgusted by my body’s inertia, its inability to move in the way I need it to most.

You need to be ready. More than ready. Beyond ready. i will be Coach.

Do NOT fucking let me down.

—-

i am 14 years old and i take the bus to school every day looking for those two grey kittens who like to sit on the narrow sill of the sash window.

Every single day they are up there, watching the world outside. Playing. Cuffing each other around the ears.

And then one day they are not.

—-

i am 10 years old and Johnny Crabb is 10 yards ahead of me on the grass school track.

i am watching him closely.

i can see his shoulders are tightening up, that his strides are cramping shorter just as mine are growing longer.

As we slant round the bend, those 10 yards between us quickly become 8 become 6 become 5 become 4 become…

i can hear Johnny Crabb breathing now. Short, shallow.

i can see Johnny Crabb’s head dipping to the inside.

i can hear mummy and daddy shouting on the side of the grass track. i can hear my friends screaming too.

Go Maisie! Go Maisie! Go Maisie!

I am flying.

—-

i am 18 years old, in Zurich, my clothes on the floor of Luis’s room.

It’s not quite the first time i’ve had sex, but i’m lying flat on my back and i want to feel something.

Luis moves over and around my body precisely, efficiently. A bit like having a massage, i think to myself, just not as relaxing. His hands, like the rest of his body, are cold, firm, determined.

He is whispering to me, over and over, straight into my ear, You are so beautiful, so beautiful, and then, when he is inside me, You are such a little slut.

i do not recognise either of these things as me.

It is over soon enough. i lay there next to him, trying to remember my room number, considering whether it is too late for an ice bath, trying desperately to remember whether my room even has a bath in it, before i realise Luis is speaking to me again.

You have the time? Another rep, he asks, because this is how we as athletes must speak about our bodies. But you go top this time. You have the stamina, not me.

And these are the last words of his that i ever hear – no more so beautiful, no more such a slut – because soon enough it feels like i am flying again.

—-

i am 21 years old, 127 pounds, there was no Olympics last season. There were no medals.

To me, to the media, to the rest of the world that was paying attention, this is because i suffered a Grade 2 hamstring tear in training the week before qualifiers. But for Coach it was because i was too fat.

It was simple, they told me. The less you weigh, the faster you run. You could not argue with their logic.

The only problem was that the less that i weighed, the weaker i became. Which is a different kind of logic i suppose.

i am healthy again now. Too fat of course, but healthy. When i look in the mirror those extra pounds look, to me, like muscle. i look like an athlete. There’s the rhombus of a calf which i watch popping in the mirror as i flex and stretch. The ripples on my stomach which feel like armour plating. Even the gentle rainbow of a bicep which helps propel me towards a finish line.

But i am still too fat for Coach and his acolytes.

There are diet pills now to go with the diet plan. Just the right side of legal. Diuretics, one of the other girls whispers to me in the corridor one day. It makes no sense. i’ve spent my entire running career trying to stay hydrated and now they want to dry me out like an apricot.

i am 21 years old, losing weight again. i haven’t had my period in so long that i can’t remember what it felt like.

—-

i am 15 years old, officially the fastest girl in the country in my age group.

They hold a special assembly just for me. My parents are invited in to watch me pick up a certificate in front of the whole school. They stand next to each other at the back of the hall and, if I don’t look too carefully, it looks like they are holding hands.

i want to be as proud of myself as they are of me. But i haven’t achieved anything yet, not really, and the other girls are starting to resent me for this different lens shone upon me even though i never asked for it.

The only one who really talks to me now is Nashra. She knows nothing about athletics, but she thinks it’s cool that i like running because she likes cricket and no one cares for that much either.

At the end of assembly, daddy offers to take me for a pizza, or an ice cream, and mummy glares at him. She’s not a child any more Geoff.

i tell them Nashra has invited me back to her place, which is not entirely untrue, and they walk off to their separate cars a little crestfallen, mummy rolling up my cardboard certificate in her hands.

Nashra, I whisper, you know how you’re always saying I should come back to yours one day…

—-

i am 22 years old and 116 pounds and i am maybe getting back to my best form again. The Campus is full of new athletes for the autumn, slight young things with their barely-concealed acne and enthusiasm. They don’t know how to train right and Coach is furious with them round the clock. They have no stamina it seems, are unable to keep up with me in training. When i see them at the weekends, they are eating popcorn, or wet slices of mango, forbidden things which will only slow them down.

On track, i am not yet flying again, there are no fireworks still, but i am no longer drowning.

In the night, i feel the ghosts of muscle tears past, throbbing up and down my body. i think it wants to remind me of its existence.

i feel the hamstring tear which killed my Olympics, balled up like a fist at the back of my right leg, pulsing like a siren.

i feel the high ankle sprain which kept me out of the indoor season three years ago, vibrations of phantom pain which jolt me back into the room.

i feel the thousand sharp pinches of steel callipers, my body clenched again and again, in all of those same places, as if to test if it has any substance at all.

And i am scared because all this throbbing is the only thing which makes me feel i’m even alive.

—-

i am 15 years old and Nashra is introducing me to Wasim and Waqar, whom I feel sure I have met before.

Nashra lives in this flat above a kebab shop, just round the corner from our school, but she is quick to point out the kebab shop has nothing to do with her family.

I can’t believe I’ve never even been here before, I laugh. It’s so close to school! Too close, laughs Nashra.

How are you late every day? Don’t even go there, Maisie!

Kneeling on the kitchen lino, Nashra opens up two tins – one chicken, one tuna – and takes great care in splitting their brown and silver flakes evenly across two bowls. Wasim and Waqar slink between our legs and they let us stroke their tails and the curves of their spines as they nibble and dab their tongues into the bowls.

I stand up and look out the window. A bus passes by. My bus.

Wait, I say. I know this flat. Your cats. They were kittens. They used to sit up on the windowsill right here. Why did they stop??

Nashra laughs at me.

Why? Because they’re not kittens anymore, silly.

—-

i am 23 years old and i am ready for retirement.