Cracks by Sheila Kohler

Author:Sheila Kohler [Kohler, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-59051-393-4
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2011-04-19T00:00:00+00:00

The team’s losses

MISS G WAS increasingly distracted as the long summer term wore on. She did not listen when we talked but gazed across the gray grass and the flowers strangled in the soil. She did not respond to us. She no longer talked about the truth or the wonderful things we could accomplish.

When she did speak, she fell silent suddenly and gazed toward the pool in the fading evening light. She had lost the direction of her thought. We waited for her to continue, but she scratched the back of her head and said, “What’s the point? Go on, go and swim, girls, go along.”

As we swam slowly up and down the pool, or even lay on our backs and stared at the red sky, she stood beside the pool in her swimming costume, her whistle hanging silently between her dry, chapped lips. She did not run up and down beside the pool as she used to do when we swam in the evening; she did not call our names. Sometimes she even forgot our names, calling Lindt, Radfield, and Kohler, Donovan. She never again called us to swim with her at midnight, despite the increasing December heat.

We all stared up at her in the long shadows of the evening light. We hardly recognized her. She had lost weight; deep, dark circles formed under her eyes; her breath smelled sour. She looked older, though we noticed she made an attempt to cover it up. She had taken to wearing makeup. She applied mascara to her eyelashes but would forget it was there and rub her eyes, causing it to run down her cheeks. She even colored her wide lips with a ghastly, dark rouge that gave her a hard air. She had dry patches on her skin and sores around her mouth. She scratched constantly. Her old skin ailment was acting up in the dry heat. We were afraid she would fall ill, or, worse, leave us. Sometimes she even even spoke of giving up teaching. “For the amount of money they pay us to do this, it isn’t worth it,” she said; no one appreciated her efforts. No one was grateful. No one cared. What was the point?

We no longer won any prizes. Di no longer flashed her shiny, pink gums and her strong, white teeth in the sun, her arms full of trophies. Instead, her arms hung limply by her sides, her empty hands clutching at the air. Our team came last or next to last. Kingsmead beat us. St. Andrews beat us. Even the convent schools beat us. We slunk back to the bus in the shadows, ashamed. We sat silently and gazed out the windows. We sang no triumphant songs. We scowled at Fiamma, who sat in silence beside Ann on the bus or walked past us with her head tilted and her distant air.

Staring up at Miss G as she stood vacantly by the side of the pool in the evening light, we could

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