Strapping Up

The roll of zinc oxide tape had fallen out of Aoife's bag in the car park and now half of it was gone, mummified around a vague shape beneath the mixer. She swore quietly.

"Here." Maedhbh, already strapped-up on the bench opposite, tore a fresh roll out of her own bag and flicked it at her. It hit Aoife's chest and she caught it against her knee.

"Thanks."

"Don't be using it all, now. I've two of them."

"I'll replace it tomorrow."

"You'll replace it with a better brand. The one you buy is crap."

"The one I buy is exactly the same thing, it's just not got an American flag on the tube."

"Debatable."

The dressing-room was slowly filling. Eighteen girls, a smell of arnica and deodorant and cold grass, the click of stud-tightening from the far bench. Outside, someone was kicking a ball against the shutters, which was an under-12s move and therefore someone's little sister's fault.

Aoife started strapping her left ankle and didn't look up for a bit.

Maedhbh said, conversational, "You alright?"

"Fine."

"You haven't said a word since you came in."

"Yes I have."

"Said 'hi' to Síle and 'how's the knee, Kate' to Kate. That was two words and two words. I've been counting."

"That's creepy."

"I know."

They sat in silence. Aoife finished her left ankle and started on her right.

Maedhbh said, slightly slower, "I'm going to the thing on Saturday, if you're still going."

"The thing."

"The awards night. The club do."

"Oh." Aoife ripped the tape with her teeth. "Yeah. I said I would."

"Who are you bringing?"

Aoife kept her eyes on her ankle.

"Probably nobody."

"Mm."

"Yourself?"

"Me neither."

A brief pause, in which the noise of the room rose and fell.

Maedhbh said, at a volume calibrated to reach Aoife's ears and no further, "We could just go together."

Aoife's hands stopped moving.

She did not look up immediately. She thought about every version of this conversation she had rehearsed in her car on the way home from training all April. She thought about how her mother would take the news, which was: not badly. She thought about her grandmother, which was: probably not well, but not surprising, because her grandmother had been suspicious of her since she had refused to learn a Polka at the age of eight.

She thought mostly about the fact that she had been, for three months, convinced Maedhbh was straight.

"Together," Aoife said, quietly. "As in."

"As in, I fancy you, Aoife Ní Dhomhnaill, and you're a very bad actor and everybody on the panel except you knows I fancy you, and at some point either we go together to the club dinner or I stop sleeping because of this."

"Right."

"Yep."

"Right." Aoife realised she was still holding the end of the roll of tape. She tore it off with more effort than it needed. "Right."

"You don't have to say yes," Maedhbh said. "It's the club dinner. I'd honestly rather go with you. It's that or my mother, and she makes me dance."

"Maedhbh."

"Yeah."

"Yeah."

Maedhbh blinked. "Yeah what."

"Yeah. I'll go."

Maedhbh's whole face changed. She had a particular face for joy — Aoife had seen it exactly twice, once after the semi-final win last year, and once at the club barbecue when somebody had put cheese on her burger after she had specifically said no cheese. It was the same face.

"Grand," Maedhbh said, trying not to grin. "Good. Well done us."

"Shut up."

"Will you tell the lads in here, or will I?"

Aoife stared at her. "Absolutely neither of us. That dinner is nine days away. I am not spending nine days in this dressing-room with eighteen people asking me about a dinner."

"Okay. Discreet it is."

"Thank you."

"We can hold hands on the dance floor though, right?"

"Maedhbh, if you make me dance at all I will throw a mixer at you."

"Deal."

Síle came in from the corridor then, pink-eared, said, "Are yis on or what?" and disappeared again. Somebody behind them was asking where her second sock was. The girls on the end bench started an argument about whether the warm-up was going to be in jerseys or in training tops, on the basis of nothing.

"Right," Maedhbh said, and stood. She dusted tape-fuzz off her shorts. "I'll see you out there."

"Yeah."

She turned to go, then turned back. Quieter: "It's just a dinner, alright? Nothing's changing tonight. You go in, you play your usual terrible first-half and your usual very-good second half, and we don't say another word about it until we're in the car on the way home."

"Deal."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Maedhbh's face did the joy thing again, briefly, and then she jogged out. Aoife sat for another fifteen seconds on the bench, staring at her own left ankle, which was perfectly strapped and very slightly tingling.

Then she went out and played her usual terrible first half.

← Back to the library